The Wandering Jew — Complete
"Gentlemen, here is the punch," said a waiter, opening the door. At
sight of the flaming beverage, which was to reanimate their enfeebled
spirits, the room rang with the loudest applause.
The sun had just set. The room was large, being capable of dining a
hundred guests; and the windows were few, narrow, and half veiled by red
cotton curtains. Though it was not yet night, some portions of this vast
saloon were almost entirely dark. Two waiters brought the monster-punch,
in an immense brass kettle, brilliant as gold, suspended from an iron
bar, and crowned with flames of changing color. The burning beverage was
then placed upon the table, to the great joy of the guests, who began to
forget their past alarms.
"Now," said Jacques to Morok, in a taunting tone, "while the punch is
burning, we will have our duel. The company shall judge." Then, pointing
to the two bottles of brandy, which the waiter had brought, Jacques
added: "Choose your weapon!"
"Do you choose," answered Morok.
"Well! here's your bottle--and here's your glass. Ninny Moulin shall be
umpire."
"I do not refuse to be judge of the field," answered the religious
writer, "only I must warn you, comrade, that you are playing a desperate
game, and that just now, as one of these gentlemen has said, the neck
of a bottle of brandy in one's mouth, is perhaps more dangerous than the
barrel of a loaded pistol."
"Give the word, old fellow!" said Jacques, interrupting Ninny Moulin,
"or I will give it myself."
"Since you will have it so--so be it!"
"The first who gives in is conquered," said Jacques.
"Agreed!" answered Morok.
"Come, gentlemen, attention! we must follow every movement," resumed
Ninny Moulin. "Let us first see if the bottles are of the same
size--equality of weapons being the foremost condition."
During these preparations, profound silence reigned in the room. The
courage of the majority of those present, animated for a moment by the
arrival of the punch, was soon again depressed by gloomy thoughts,
as they vaguely foresaw the danger of the contest between Morok and
Jacques. This impression joined to the sad thoughts occasioned by the
incident of the coffin, darkened by degrees many a countenance. Some
of the guests, indeed, continued to make a show of rejoicing, but their
gayety appeared forced. Under certain circumstances, the smallest things
will have the most powerful effect. We have said that, after sunset,
a portion of this large room was plunged in obscurity; therefore, the
guests who sat in the remote corners of the apartment, had no other
light than the reflection of the flaming punch. Now it is well known,
that the flame of burning spirit throws a livid, bluish tint over the
countenance; it was therefore a strange, almost frightful spectacle, to
see a number of the guests, who happened to be at a distance from the
windows, in this ghastly and fantastic light.
The painter, more struck than all the rest by this effect of color,
exclaimed: "Look! at this end of the table, we might fancy ourselves
feasting with cholera-patients, we are such fine blues and greens."
This jest was not much relished. Fortunately, the loud voice of Ninny
Moulin demanded attention, and for a moment turned the thoughts of the
company.
"The lists are open," cried the religious writer, really more frightened
than he chose to appear. "Are you ready, brave champions?" he added.
"We are ready," said Morok and Jacques.
"Present! fire!" cried Ninny Moulin, clapping his hands. And the two
drinkers each emptied a tumbler full of brandy at a draught.
Morok did not even knit his brow; his marble face remained impassible;
with a steady hand he replaced his glass upon the table. But Jacques, as
he put down his glass, could not conceal a slight convulsive trembling,
caused by internal suffering.
"Bravely done!" cried Ninny Moulin. "The quarter of a bottle of brandy
at a draught--it is glorious! No one else here would be capable of such
prowess. And now, worthy champions, if you believe me, you will stop
where you are."
"Give the word!" answered Jacques, intrepidly. And, with feverish and
shaking hand, he seized the bottle; then suddenly, instead of filling
his glass, he said to Morok: "Bah! we want no glasses. It is braver to
drink from the bottle. I dare you to it!"
Morok's only answer was to shrug his shoulders, and raise the neck
of the bottle to his lips. Jacques hastened to imitate him. The thin,
yellowish, transparent glass gave a perfect view of the progressive
diminution of the liquor. The stony countenance of Morok, and the pale
thin face of Jacques, on which already stood large drops of cold sweat,
were now, as well as the features of the other guests, illuminated
by the bluish light of the punch; every eye was fixed upon Morok and
Jacques, with that barbarous curiosity which cruel spectacles seem
involuntarily to inspire.
Jacques continued to drink, holding the bottle in his left hand;
suddenly, he closed and tightened the fingers of his right hand with
a convulsive movement; his hair clung to his icy forehead, and his
countenance revealed an agony of pain. Yet he continued to drink; only,
without removing his lips from the neck of the bottle, he lowered it for
an instant, as if to recover breath. Just then, Jacques met the sardonic
look of Morok, who continued to drink with his accustomed impassibility.
Thinking that he saw the expression of insulting triumph in Morok's
glance, Jacques raised his elbow abruptly, and drank with avidity a few
drops more. But his strength was exhausted. A quenchless fire devoured
his vitals. His sufferings were too intense, and he could no longer bear
up against them. His head fell backwards, his jaws closed convulsively,
he crushed the neck of the bottle between his teeth, his neck grew
rigid, his limbs writhed with spasmodic action, and he became almost
senseless.
"Jacques, my good fellow! it is nothing," cried Morok, whose ferocious
glance now sparkled with diabolical joy. Then, replacing his bottle
on the table, he rose to go to the aid of Ninny Moulin, who was vainly
endeavoring to hold Sleepinbuff.
This sudden attack had none of the symptoms of cholera. Yet terror
seized upon all present; one of the women was taken with hysterics, and
another uttered piercing cries and fainted away. Ninny Moulin, leaving
Jacques in the hands of Morok, ran towards the door to seek for
help,--when that door was suddenly opened, and the religious writer drew
back in alarm, at the sight of the unexpected personage who appeared on
the threshold.
CHAPTER XXII. MEMORIES.
The person before whom Ninny Moulin stopped in such extreme astonishment
was the Bacchanal Queen.
Pale and wan, with, hair in disorder, hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and
clothed almost in rags, this brilliant and joyous heroine of so many mad
orgies was now only the shadow of her former self. Misery and grief were
impressed on that countenance, once so charming. Hardly had she entered
the room, when Cephyse paused; her mournful and unquiet gaze strove
to penetrate the half-obscurity of the apartment, in search of him she
longed to see. Suddenly the girl started, and uttered a loud scream.
She had just perceived, at the other side of a long table, by the bluish
light of the punch, Jacques struggling with Morok and one of the guests,
who were hardly able to restrain his convulsive movements.
At this sight Cephyse, in her first alarm, carried away by her
affection, did what she had so often done in the intoxication of joy and
pleasure. Light and agile, instead of losing precious time in making a
long circuit, she sprang at once upon the table, passed nimbly through
the array of plates and bottles, and with one spring was by the side of
the sufferer.
"Jacques!" she exclaimed, without yet remarking the lion-tamer, and
throwing herself on the neck of her lover. "Jacques! it is I--Cephyse!"
That well-known voice, that heart-piercing cry, which came from the
bottom of the soul, seemed not unheard by Sleepinbuff. He turned his
head mechanically towards the Bacchanal Queen, without opening his eyes,
and heaved a deep sigh; his stiffened limbs relaxed, a slight trembling
succeeded to the convulsions, and in a few seconds his heavy eyelids
were raised with an effort, so as to uncover his dull and wandering
gaze. Mute with astonishment, the spectators of this scene felt an
uneasy curiosity. Cephyse, kneeling beside her lover, bathed his hands
in her tears, covered them with kisses, and exclaimed, in a voice broken
by sobs, "It is I--Cephyse--I have found you again--it was not my fault
that I abandoned you! Forgive me, forgive--"
"Wretched woman!" cried Morok, irritated at this meeting, which might,
perhaps, be fatal to his projects; "do you wish to kill him? In his
present state, this agitation is death. Begone!" So saying, he seized
Cephyse suddenly by the arm, just as Jacques, waking, as it were, from a
painful dream, began to distinguish what was passing around him.
"You! It is you!" cried the Bacchanal Queen, in amazement, as she
recognized Morok, "who separated me from Jacques!"
She paused; for the dim eye of the victim, as it rested upon her, grew
suddenly bright.
"Cephyse!" murmured Jacques; "is it you?"
"Yes, it is I," answered she, in a voice of deep emotion; "who have
come--I will tell you--"
She was unable to continue, and, as she clasped her hands together,
her pale, agitated, tearful countenance expressed her astonishment and
despair at the mortal change which had taken place in the features
of Jacques. He understood the cause of her surprise, and as he
contemplated, in his turn, the suffering and emaciated countenance of
Cephyse, he said to her, "Poor girl! you also have had to bear much
grief, much misery--I should hardly have known you."
"Yes," replied Cephyse, "much grief--much misery--and worse than
misery," she added, trembling, whilst a deep blush overspread her pale
features.
"Worse than misery?" said Jacques, astonished.
"But it is you who have suffered," hastily resumed Cephyse, without
answering her lover.
"Just now, I was going to make an end of it--your voice has recalled me
for an instant--but I feel something here," and he laid his hand upon
his breast, "which never gives quarter. It is all the same now--I have
seen you--I shall die happy."
"You shall not die, Jacques; I am here--"
"Listen to one, my girl. If I had a bushel of live coal in my stomach,
it could hardly burn me more. For more than a month, I have been
consuming my body by a slow fire. This gentleman," he added, glancing at
Morok, "this dear friend, always undertook to feed the flame. I do not
regret life; I have lost the habit of work, and taken to drink and riot;
I should have finished by becoming a thorough blackguard: I preferred
that my friend here should amuse himself with lighting a furnace in my
inside. Since what I drank just now, I am certain that it fumes like
yonder punch."
"You are both foolish and ungrateful," said Morok, shrugging his
shoulders; "you held out your glass, and I filled it--and, faith, we
shall drink long and often together yet."
For some moments, Cephyse had not withdrawn her eyes from Morok. "I tell
you, that you have long blown the fire, in which I have burnt my skin,"
resumed Jacques, addressing Morok in a feeble voice, "so that they may
not think I die of cholera. It would look as if I had been frightened
by the part I played. I do not therefore reproach you, my affectionate
friend," added he, with a sardonic smile; "you dug my grave gayly--and
sometimes, when, seeing the great dark hole, into which I was about to
fall, I drew back a step--but you, my excellent friend, still pushed
me forward, saying, 'Go on, my boy, go on!'--and I went on--and here I
am--"