The Wandering Jew — Complete
every moment to grin as in mockery of death; from beneath his powdered
peruke, surmounted by a pyramidical cotton night-cap, appeared his neck
and arm, dyed of a bright green color; his lean hand, which shook almost
always with a feverish trembling (not feigned, but natural), rested upon
a crutch-handled cane; finally, as was becoming in a pantaloon, he wore
red stockings, with buckles at the knees, and high slippers of black
beaver. This grotesque representative of the cholera was Sleepinbuff.
Notwithstanding a slow and dangerous fever, caused by the excessive use
of brandy, and by constant debauchery, that was silently undermining his
constitution, Jacques Rennepont had been induced by Morok to join the
masquerade. The brute-tamer himself, dressed as the King of Diamonds,
represented PLAY. His forehead was adorned with a diadem of gilded
paper, his face was pale and impassible, and as his long, yellow beard
fell down the front of his parti-colored robe, Morok looked exactly
the character he personated. From time to time, with an air of grave
mockery, he shook close to the eyes of Goodman Cholera a large bag full
of sounding counters, and on this bag were painted all sorts of playing
cards. A certain stiffness in the right arm showed that the lion-tamer
had not yet quite recovered from the effects of the wound which the
panther had inflicted before being stabbed by Djalma.
PLEASURE, who also represented Laughter, classically shook her rattle,
with its sonorous gilded bells, close to the ears of Goodman Cholera.
She was a quick, lively young girl, and her fine black hair was crowned
with a scarlet cap of liberty. For Sleepinbuff's sake, she had taken the
place of the poor Bacchanal queen, who would not have failed to attend
on such an occasion--she, who had been so valiant and gay, when she
bore her part in a less philosophical, but not less amusing masquerade.
Another pretty creature, Modeste Bornichoux, who served as a model to
a painter of renown (one of the cavaliers of the procession), was
eminently successful in her representation of LOVE. He could not have
had a more charming face, and more graceful form. Clad in a light blue
spangled tunic, with a blue and silver band across her chestnut hair,
and little transparent wings affixed to her white shoulders, she
placed one forefinger upon the other, and pointed with the prettiest
impertinence at Goodman Cholera. Around the principal group, other
maskers, more or less grotesque in appearance, waved each a banner, an
which were inscriptions of a very anacreontic character, considering the
circumstances:
"Down with the Cholera!" "Short and sweet!" "Laugh away, laugh always!"
"We'll collar the Cholera!" "Love forever!" "Wine forever!" "Come if you
dare, old terror!"
There was really such audacious gayety in this masquerade, that the
greater number of the spectators, at the moment when it crossed the
square, in the direction of the eating-house, where dinner was waiting,
applauded it loudly and repeatedly. This sort of admiration, which
courage, however mad and blind, almost always inspires, appeared to
others (a small number, it must be confessed) a kind of defiance to the
wrath of heaven; and these received the procession with angry murmurs.
This extraordinary spectacle, and the different impressions it
produced, were too remote from all customary facts to admit of a just
appreciation. We hardly know if this daring bravado was deserving of
praise or blame.
Besides, the appearance of those plagues, which from age to age decimate
the population of whole countries, has almost always been accompanied by
a sort of mental excitement, which none of those who have been spared
by the contagion can hope to escape. It is a strange fever of the mind,
which sometimes rouses the most stupid prejudices and the most ferocious
passions, and sometimes inspires, on the contrary, the most magnificent
devotion, the most courageous actions--with some, driving the fear
of death to a point of the wildest terror--with others, exciting the
contempt of life to express itself in the most audacious bravadoes.
Caring little for the praise or blame it might deserve, the masquerade
arrived before the eating-house, and made its entry in the midst of
universal acclamations. Everything seemed to combine to give full effect
to this strange scene, by the opposition of the most singular contrasts.
Thus the tavern, in which was to be held this extraordinary feast, being
situated at no great distance from the antique cathedral, and the gloomy
hospital, the religious anthems of the ancient temple, the cries of the
dying, and the bacchanalian songs of the banqueteers, must needs mingle,
and by turns drown one another. The maskers now got down from their
chariot, and from their horses, and went to take their places at the
repast, which was waiting for them. The actors in the masquerade are
at table in the great room of the tavern. They are joyous, noisy, even
riotous. Yet their gayety has a strange tone, peculiar to itself.
Sometimes, the most resolute involuntarily remember that their life is
at stake in this mad and audacious game with destiny. That fatal thought
is rapid as the icy fever-shudder, which chills you in an instant;
therefore, from time to time, an abrupt silence, lasting indeed only for
a second, betrays these passing emotions which are almost immediately
effaced by new bursts of joyful acclamation, for each one says to
himself: "No weakness! my chum and my girl are looking at me!"
And all laugh, and knock glasses together, and challenge the next man,
and drink out of the glass of the nearest woman. Jacques had taken off
the mask and peruke of Goodman Cholera. His thin, leaden features, his
deadly paleness, the lurid brilliancy of his hollow eyes, showed
the incessant progress of the slow malady which was consuming this
unfortunate man, brought by excesses to the last extremity of weakness.
Though he felt the slow fire devouring his entrails, he concealed his
pain beneath a forced and nervous smile.
To the left of Jacques was Morok, whose fatal influence was ever on the
increase, and to his right the girl disguised as PLEASURE. She was named
Mariette. By her side sat Ninny Moulin, in all his majestic bulk, who
often pretended to be looking for his napkin under the table, in order
to have the opportunity of pressing the knees of his other neighbor,
Modeste, the representative of LOVE. Most of the guests were grouped
according to their several tastes, each tender pair together, and the
bachelors where they could. They had reached the second course, and the
excellence of the wine, the good cheer, the gay speeches, and even the
singularity of the occasion, had raised their spirits to a high degree
of excitement, as may be gathered from the extraordinary incidents of
the following scene.
(39) We read in the Constitutionnel, Saturday March 31st, 1832: "The
Parisians readily conform to that part of the official instructions
with regard to the cholera, which prescribes, as a preservation from the
disease, not to be afraid, to amuse one's self, etc. The pleasures of
Mid-Lent have been as brilliant and as mad as those of the carnival
itself. For a long time past there had not been so many balls at this
period of the year. Even the cholera has been made the subject of an
itinerant caricature."
CHAPTER XX. THE DEFIANCE.
Two or three times, without being remarked by the guests, one of the
waiters had come to whisper to his fellows, and point with expressive
gesture to the ceiling. But his comrades had taken small account of his
observations or fears, not wishing, doubtless, to disturb the guests,
whose mad gayety seemed ever on the increase.
"Who can doubt now of the superiority of our manner of treating this
impertinent Cholera? Has he dared even to touch our sacred battalion?"
said a magnificent mountebank-Turk, one of the standard-bearers of the
masquerade.
"Here is all the mystery," answered another. "It is very simple. Only
laugh in the face of the plague, and it will run away from you."
"And right enough too, for very stupid work it does," added a pretty
little Columbine, emptying her glass.
"You are right, my darling; it is intolerably stupid work," answered
the Clown belonging to the Columbine; "here you are very quiet, enjoying
life, and all on a sudden you die with an atrocious grimace. Well! what
then? Clever, isn't it? I ask you, what does it prove?"
"It proves," replied an illustrious painter of the romantic school,
disguised like a Roman out of one of David's pictures, "it proves that
the Cholera is a wretched colorist, for he has nothing but a dirty
green on his pallet. Evidently he is a pupil of Jacobus, that king of
classical painters, who are another species of plagues."
"And yet, master," added respectfully a pupil of the great painter, "I
have seen some cholera patients whose convulsions were rather fine, and
their dying looks first-rate!"
"Gentlemen," cried a sculptor of no less celebrity, "the question
lies in a nutshell. The Cholera is a detestable colorist, but a good
draughtsman. He shows you the skeleton in no time. By heaven! how he
strips off the flesh!--Michael Angelo would be nothing to him."
"True," cried they all, with one voice; "the Cholera is a bad colorist,
but a good draughtsman."
"Moreover, gentlemen," added Ninny Moulin, with comic gravity, "this
plague brings with it a providential lesson, as the great Bossuet would
have said."
"The lesson! the lesson!"
"Yes, gentlemen; I seem to hear a voice from above, proclaiming: 'Drink
of the best, empty your purse, and kiss your neighbor's wife; for your
hours are perhaps numbered, unhappy wretch!'"
So saying, the orthodox Silenus took advantage of a momentary absence
of mind on the part of Modeste, his neighbor, to imprint on the blooming
cheek of LOVE a long, loud kiss. The example was contagious, and a storm
of kisses was mingled with bursts of laughter.
"Ha! blood and thunder!" cried the great painter as he gayly threatened
Ninny Moulin; "you are very lucky that to-morrow will perhaps be the end
of the world, or else I should pick a quarrel with you for having kissed
my lovely LOVE."
"Which proves to you, O Rubens! O Raphael! the thousand advantages of
the Cholera, whom I declare to be essentially sociable and caressing."
"And philanthropic," said one of the guests; "thanks to him, creditors
take care of the health of their debtors. This morning a usurer, who
feels a particular interest in my existence, brought me all sorts of
anti-choleraic drugs, and begged me to make use of them."
"And I!" said the pupil of the great painter. "My tailor wished to force
me to wear a flannel band next to the skin, because I owe him a thousand
crowns. But I answered 'Oh, tailor, give me a receipt in full, and I
will wrap myself up in flannel, to preserve you my custom!'"
"O Cholera, I drink to thee!" said Ninny Moulin, by way of grotesque
invocation. "You are not Despair; on the contrary, you are the emblem
of Hope--yes, of hope. How many husbands, how many wives, longed for
a number (alas! too uncertain chance) in the lottery of widowhood! You
appear, and their hearts are gladdened. Thanks to you, benevolent pest!
their chances of liberty are increased a hundredfold."
"And how grateful heirs ought to be! A cold--a heat--a trifle--and
there, in an hour, some old uncle becomes a revered benefactor!"
"And those who are always looking out for other people's places--what an
ally they must find in the Cholera!"
"And how true it will make many vows of constancy!" said Modeste,
sentimentally. "How many villains have sworn to a poor, weak woman, to
love her all their lives, who never meant (the wretches!) to keep their
word so well!"