“Isaac,” the Bishop said in a voice that suggested the coolness of high hills, “relate publicly what you have told us in private: the story of your quarrel with our Lord Jesus.”

Isaac bowed. His cavernous voice seemed to rise from a tomb.

His story was a travesty of mine. He was the son of a shoemaker who, having joined the Roman army, was singled out by Pilate for promotion. At the trial of Jesus he mocked and shouted with the rest: “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

Isaac sighed deeply, as if in great contrition. He followed the sorry procession to the Place of Skulls. On the way, as Jesus fell, the cross having become too heavy, Isaac shouted angrily: “Go to your doom! Hurry!” Jesus looked at him. No mortal had such eyes. They were like two burning spears.

Isaac covered his face with his hands. The audience was breathless. His arms dropped slowly to his side. Jesus hurled his curse: “I shall hurry but thou must tarry until I return.”

The audience sighed. I shivered. The impostor had resuscitated my tragic experience. I saw the eyes of Jesus. I heard his voice. The storm of my own emotion howled about me.

Isaac continued. Ever since, he had wandered from one end of the earth to the other, praying for the return of Jesus. Every seventy years, he fell into a trance out of which he awoke as a man of thirty—his age at the time of the crucifixion.

The Bishop asked him his present age, based on his last transformation. He was only forty, but he looked much older. Alas, the burden of his guilt!

The judges asked him questions about his experiences, about his health, the manner of earning a livelihood, to all of which he answered very plausibly. They spoke in a dozen languages to him. He understood each. The Bishop seemed convinced.

The young professor wished to know if he had made any friends, and how it felt to see them die while he continued to live. Isaac wiped his eyes and sighed deeply. The older professor continued to be skeptical. He cross-examined him again and again. But Isaac had rehearsed his part perfectly.

I felt indignant. I was maligned! Was this the man who fought Jesus? Was this whimpering, melancholy actor the symbol of my race? Had he enacted his part proudly; had he hurled back an anathema,—I would have restrained my tongue. What other nation, scattered and hounded, had resisted annihilation? Greece, Rome, Egypt—all had disappeared from the map. The Jew might needs pretend humility in his daily life. But when brought to court against his Enemy…!

The trial was nearing its end.

I stood up with a jerk. “Is it permissible, Your Reverence,” I asked the Bishop, “to put a question to the Jew?”

“Yes.”

“Isaac,” I said, “what was your father’s name?”

Isaac looked at me. The suddenness of my question disconcerted him. He shivered a little and remained perplexed.

“Well, have you forgotten it?” I asked.

“Abraham,” he answered. “I had not forgotten it; only the memory upset me.”

“It’s a lie! Your father’s name was Joseph.”

“Joseph! True, true! I was thinking of my brother.”

“The Wandering Jew was an only son!”

The Hall changed into a hive of bees, buzzing noisily. The Bishop stood up. The two professors bent over the pulpit.

“And your mother’s name—have you forgotten that also?”

“It is so long ago, sir,” he whimpered.

“Your mother’s name!” I insisted.

“Esther,” he answered.

“It’s a lie! Her name was Ruth, as any one can find out by consulting the secret history of Pilate in the library of the Vatican, as I did. You have read diligently the confessions of the Wandering Jew to the Armenian Bishop. You have listened to the rumors and gossip, but over these trifles you trip!

“Ahasuerus never cringed as you do. That is fable. He was proud and dignified. Nor did he pretend poverty. He was wealthier than kings. You are a fraud, seeking sympathy, notoriety, and a purse.”

“Impostor! Fraud!” rang through the hall.

“Besides, was it necessary to stuff your back with a cushion?”

Several people rushed up to Isaac and tapped his back. I had guessed rightly.

Isaac knelt before the judges and begged forgiveness.

“Jesus may pardon you when you tremble before him at the Last Judgment. We, however, cannot forgive the insult to ourselves and the mockery to our Lord,” the Bishop said, and turning to an attendant, he ordered, “Take him out and await our decision.”

Isaac, beaten and spat upon by the audience, was dragged out.

My familiarity with the story of the Wandering Jew aroused suspicion. The Oxford professors attempted to entrap me in divers discussions. It tested my ingenuity to escape from the meshes of their cross-examination. I was not in a mood to play with danger, and shook the dust of Oxford off my heels leaving behind me a pair of boots.

LXX: QUEEN ELIZABETH PASSES—DUST TO DUST—I DISCOVER MYSELF IN A BOOK

AFTER our departure from Oxford we spent a generation or two in Ireland. Under the name of Baron de Martini I bought an estate, where life flowed on as a small river hidden between two valleys.

One day a rock was hurled into the quiet waters. An heir of the man from whom I had bought my estate discovered a flaw in the title.

I determined to go to London to seek justice at the fountain head.

London fluttered like a young bride. Flags, music, confetti, laughter, and colors—a hundred nuances of red, green, blue, yellow—as if a rainbow had been crumbled and scattered by some absent-minded divinity, or one awaiting nervously the verdict of a goddess he courted.

London expected the Virgin Queen.

“Kotikokura, we are fortunate. We have arrived on time. It is a good omen. We shall win our case.”

Trumpets announced the arrival of Queen Elizabeth. Soldiers urged and pushed the crowds to the two sides of the streets, making room for the procession. A regiment of cavalry preceded the landau all gilded and dazzling like a setting sun, drawn by six milk-white steeds, arrogant, as if the applause and the hurrahs were intended for them.

The Queen sat erect as a statue, a coronet upon her head and masses of jewels upon her chest and arms. In her right hand, she held a scepter, in her left a large fan of peacock feathers. It was not possible to tell whether she was thin or stout, for her dress, hoop-like and stiff from the whalebones, occupied nearly the entire carriage, which moved very slowly to allow the people to gaze upon their monarch. From time to time, she nodded slightly to one side or the other.

The people shouted: “Long live the Queen! Long live the Queen!” Many in the front lines knelt; others threw flowers and confetti on the horses or against the wheels, careful not to strike the august occupant.

For a fraction of a second, her eyes met mine. The procession seemed to whirl about me. I closed my eyes tightly as if to lock within them the impression they had received. When I opened them again, the landau had already passed by, leaving behind it a small hillock of dust.

“Did you see her eyes, Kotikokura?” I asked nervously.

Kotikokura shook his head. He had noticed her fan, the largest he had ever seen.

“They resemble Salome’s, Kotikokura!”

He shrugged his shoulders.

The royal carriage was followed by less magnificent ones, occupied by officers of the army and navy and ladies of the highest nobility. The people exclaimed from time to time the names of an occupant, and waved their hats.

I was too perturbed to be interested. Hatred and love, pleasure and disgust, mingled within me, making curious patterns.

“Her hair,—did you notice, Kotikokura?—also resembled Salome’s, but it was faded, despite the sheen of the oil, and tended to grayness.”

Kotikokura watched the people throw flowers and ribbons and hats into the air.