The sweet miracle

PQ
9261

E17S93E

THE SWEET
MIRACLE

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

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THE SWEET
MIRACLE

THE SWEET

MIRACLE

by/eca de queiroz

DONE INTO ENGLISH BY

EDGAR PRESTAGE

OF THE LISBON ROYAL
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
TRANSLATOR OF "THE
LETTERS OF A PORTU-
GUESE NUN" M M ja

LONDON *- DAVID NUTT

AT THE SIGN OF THE PHCENIX js 1904

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I

I

TO MY MOTHER

^/7S?3t

2203451

Et circuibat Jesus omiies civitates et
castella, docens in synagogis eorr.m et
praedicans evangelium regni et curans
omnem languorem et omnem infirmitatem.

Evangelium secundum Matthacum,
caput IX.

PREFATORY NOTE

EcA DE QuEiROZ (bom t846^
died 1900) ivds undoubtedly
PortugaVs greatest prose-Hvriter
of the last half of the nineteenth
century* He is knoivn to us
mainly by that splendid romance ^
COUSIN BASIL, but the corres-
pondence OFFRADIQUE MENDES
reveals a versatility of talent in
this humourist and critic of life
"which even the greatest novel-
ists have lacked^ and the city
AND THE MOUNTAINS contains
pages of landscape painting
'which are already classical*

PREFATORY NOTE

The prose-poem here translated
shows that his journey through
Palestine had penetrated the
Master of Realism ivith the
spirit of the East, and calls to
mind another book of his, the
RELIC, <which seems to echo the
genius of Flaubert, Other short
stories of Eca de Queiroz will
follo^u, if the reception of the
present one be favourable*

THE SWEET MIRACLE

IN those days Jesus had not yet
departed from Galilee and the
fair luminous margins of the Lake
of Tiberias; but the news of his
miracles had already penetrated
as far as Enganim, a rich city of
strong battlements set among vine-
yards and olive-groves in the
Country of Issachar.

One afternoon there passed
down the fresh valley a man of
burning, dazzled eyes, who an-
nounced that a new Prophet, a
handsome Rabbi, was traversing
the plains and villages of Galilee,
foretelling the coming of the King-
dom of God, and curing all human

THE SWEET MIRACLE

ills. And while he sat and rested be-
side the Fountain of the Orchards,
he went on to tell how this Rabbi
had healed the slave of a Roman
Decurion of leprosy on the Mag-
dala Road, merely by spreading
over him the shadow of his hands ;
and how, another morning, he had
crossed by boat to the Country of
the Gerasenes where the balsam-
harvest was commencing, and had
raised to life the daughter of
Jairus, a man of consideration and
learning who expounded the Sacred
Books in the Synagogue. And
when the husbandmen and shep-
herds round about, and the dark
women with water-pots on their
shoulders, inquired of him in their
wonderment if this was in truth
the Messias of Judah, and whether
the sword of fire shone before him,

THE SWEET MIRACLE

and if the shadows of Gog and
Magog, like the shadows of twin
towers, walked on either side of
him — the man, without even a
draught of that thrice-cold water
of which Joshua had drunk, took
up his staff, shook his hair, and
made his way pensively beneath
the aqueduct, and straightway dis-
appeared from sight in the mass
of flov/ering almond trees. But a
hope, delightful as the dew in the
month when the grasshopper sings,
refreshed these simple souls, and
now, through all the Plain that
stretches its verdure to Ascalon,
the plough seemed easier to bury
in the soil, and the stone of the
winepress lighter to move ; the
children, even while they plucked
bunches of anemones, watched, as
they went, for a light to rise past
^3

THE S^EET MIRACLE
the turn of the wall, or under the
sycamore, while the aged from
their stone seats at the city gate
ran their fingers through the
threads of their beards, and no
longer unfolded the old sayings
with such wise certainty as of yore.
Now there lived then in Enga-
nim an old man, named Obed, of
a priestly family of Samaria, who
had offered sacrifices on the altars
of Mount Ebal, and was possessed
of well-nourished flocks and richly
bearing vineyards, and a heart as
full of pride as his cellar was full
of wheat. But a dry burnt wind,
that wind of desolation, which, at
the Lord's command, blows from
the savage lands of Assur, had
slain the fattest beasts of his flocks,
and, on the slopes where his vines
twined round the elms and
14

THE SWEET MIRACLE

stretched themselves on the grace-
ful frames, it had left nought
round the bare trees and pillars
save broken twigs, shrunken stalks,
and leaves eaten by curly blight.
And Obed squatted at the thres-
hold of his gate with the end of
his cloak over his face, fingered
the dust, lamented his old age, and
ruminated complaints against a
cruel God.

Now as soon as he heard tell of
the new Rabbi of Galilee, who fed
the multitudes, scared demons, and
repaired all misfortunes, Obed,
who was a man of books, and had
travelled in Phenicia, conceived in
his mind that Jesus must be one of
those soothsayers, well-known in
Palestine, like Apollonius, or Rab-
bi Ben-Dossa, or Simon the Subtle.
These men, even when the nights
15

THE SWEET MIRACLE

are dark, hold converse with the
stars, whose secrets to them are
ever clear and simple; with a
wand they drive the gadflies, born
in the mud of Egypt, from the
standing corn, and grasping in
their fingers the shadows of trees,
they draw them like kindly screens
over the threshing-floors at the
hour of rest. Of a surety Jesus of
Galilee, a younger man with newer
charms, would, in return for a
liberal largess, bring the mortality
among his flocks to an end, and
make his vineyards green once
more. Thereupon Obed com-
manded his servants to set forth
and search through all Galilee for
the new Rabbi, and bring him, with
promises of money or goods, to En-
ganim.in the Country of Issachar.
His slaves tightened their leather

THE SWEET MIRACLE

belts and swung out by the road of
the caravans that coasts the lake
and stretches as far as Damascus.
One afternoon, over against the
West, red as a fully ripe pome-
granate, they caught sight of the
fine snows of Mount Hermon.
Next, amid the freshness of a soft
morning, the Lake of Tiberias shone
before them, transparent, cloaked
in silence, more blue than the
heavens, with its margins of
flowery meadows, dense orchards,
porphyry rocks, and white terraces
amid the palm groves, under the
flight of the doves. A fisherman,
who was engaged in lazily untying
his boat from a grassy point shaded
by oleanders, listened with a smile
to the slaves. The Rabbi of
Nazareth? Oh! since the month of
Ijar, the Rabbi with his disciples
17 c

THE SWEET MIRACLE

had descended to the sideswhither
the Jordan bears its -waters. The
slaves set out at a run along the
margin of the stream until they
came in front of the ford where it
rests, stretching out in a great pool,
and for a moment slumbers, mo-
tionless and green, beneath the
tamarinds' shade. A man of the
tribe of the Essenes, clothed from
head to foot in white linen, was
slowly gathering health-giving
herbs by the water side with a
white lambkin in his arms. The
slaves humbly saluted him, for the
people love those men of honest,
pure hearts, as white as the ves-
tures they wash morning by morn-
ing in the purified tanks. And did
he know of the passing of the new
Rabbi of Galilee who, like the
Essenes, taught sweetness and
ii>

THE SWEET MIRACLE

cured men and cattle ? The Es-
sene murmured that the Rabbi had
crossed the Oasis of Engaddi,
and had passed further beyond.
But where " beyond ? " With a
bunch of purple flowers he had
plucked, the Essene pointed to the
country over Jordan, the plain of
Moab. The slaves forded the
river and sought Jesus in vain,
toiling breathlessly up the rough
tracks to the cliffs where the sinis-
ter Citadel of Makaur raises its
head. At Jacob's Well they met a
great caravan at rest that was
carrying into Egypt myrrh, spices,
and balm of Gilead, and the camel
drivers, as they drew out the water
in their leather buckets, told the
slaves of Obed how in Gadara, at
the new moon, a wonderful Rabbi,
greater than David or Isaiah, had
19

THE S\C^EET MIRACLE

torn seven devils from the breast
of a weaver- woman, and how at
his voice a man, whose head had
been cut off by the robber Barab-
bas, had risen from the tomb, and
gone back to his garden. The
slaves, still hopeful, straightway
mounted in haste by the Pilgrim's
"Way to Gadara, that city of lofty
towers, and further on still to the
Springs of Amalha. But that very
morning, followed by a crowd
singing and waving branches of
mimosa, Jesus had embarked on
the lake in a fishing smack, and
made his way under sail towards
Magdala. And the slaves of Obed,
disheartened, passed the ford
again by the Bridge of the
Daughters of Jacob. One day, as
they trod the country of Roman
Judea, their sandals torn with the

THE S^)O^EET MIRACLE

long ways, they crossed a sombre
Pharisee, mounted on a mule, who
was returning to Ephraim. "With
devout reverence they stopped the
man of the Law, Had he met,
perchance, this new Prophet of
Galilee who, like a God walking
the earth, sowed miracles as he
went? The hooked face of the
Pharisee darkened in every fur-
row, and his wrath resounded like
a proud drum. " Oh ! pagan
slaves and blasphemers! "Where
have ye heard of prophets or
miracles out of Jerusalem ? Only
Jehovah in His Temple is mighty.
Ignorant men and impostors come
out of Galilee!"

And as the slaves recoiled be-
fore his raised fist wrapped round
with sacred couplets, the furious
doctor leapt from his mule and

THE S\(/'EET MIRACLE

with stones from the road pelted
the slaves of Obed, howling
Racca ! Racca ! and all the ritual
curses. The slaves fled to En-
ganim, and great was the sorrow of
Obed because his flockswere dying
and his vineyards were scorched,
and all the time, radiant like the
dawn behind the mountains, the
fame of Jesus of Galilee, consoling
and full of Divine promises, grew
and increased.

At that time a Roman Centurion,
named Publius Septimus, had com-
mand of the fort which dominates
the valley of Cesarea as far as the
city and the sea. A rough man
and a veteran of Tiberius' cam-
paign against the Parthians, Pub-
lius had grown rich with prizes
and plunder during the revolt of
Samaria. He owned mines in

22

THE S^X^EET MIRACLE

Attica, and enjoyed, as a supreme
favour of the Gods, the friendship
of Flaccus, the Imperial Legate in
Syria. But a sorrow gnawed his
boundless prosperity, even as a
worm gnaws a very succulent fruit.
His only daughter, dearer to him
than life and fortune, was pining
away with a slow subtle malady
which escaped even the wisdom
of the doctors and magicians whom
he sent to consult at Tyre and
Sidon. White and sad like the
moon in a cemetery, uncomplain-
ing, with pallid smiles for her
father, she grew weaker and more
frail as she sat on the high es-
planade of the fort under an awn-
ing, and stretched her sad dark
eyes with longing regret over the
blue of the Tyrian Sea by which
she had sailed from Italy in a rich
23

THE S^O^EET MIRACLE

galley. Now and then, at her side,
a legionary between the battle-
ments aimed an arrow carelessly
aloft and pierced a great eagle as
it flew with serene wing in the
rutilant sky. The daughter of
Septimus followed the bird for a
moment as it turned over and over
until it crashed dead on the rocks,
then with a sigh, sadder and more
pale, began once more to gaze at
the sea. Now Septimus, having
heard the merchants of Chorazim
tell of this wonderful Rabbi whose
power over the Spirits was such
that he cured the dark troubles of
the soul, despatched three decuria
of soldiers with orders to search
for him through Galilee and in
all the cities of Decapolis as far
as the coast and up to Ascalon.
The soldiers put up their shields
24

THE SAX^EET MIRACLE
in the canvas ba^s, fixed boughs
of the olive tree in their helmets,
and hurriedly departed, their iron-
shod sandals resounding on the
basalt slabs of the Roman road
which cuts the whole Tetrarchate
of Herod from Cesarea to the Lake.
At night their arms shone out
on the tops of the hills amid the
waving flames of the torches they
bore aloft. By day they invaded
the homesteads, searched through
the thickest apple orchards, and
drove the points of their lances
into the haystacks, and the fright-
ened women, to appease them,
hastened in with cakes of honey,
new figs, and bowls full of wine,
which they drank at one draught
as they sat in the shade of the
sycamores. In this way they
traversed Lower Galilee— but of

THE S^)(;^EET MIRACLE

the Rabbi all they found was
his bright track in the hearts of
the people. "Wearied with futile
marching, and suspecting that the
Jewswere concealing their wonder-
worker lest the Romans should
avail themselves of his superior
magic, they let loose a tumult of
anger as they passed through the
pious subject-land. At the en-
trance to bridges they stopped
the Pilgrims, shouting the name of
the Rabbi, tearing the veils from
the virgins' faces, and, at the hour
when pitchers are filled at the
cisterns, they invaded the narrow
streets of towns, penetrated into
the Synagogues and beat sacrile-
giously with their sword hilts on
the Thebahs — the holy Arks of
cedar which enclosed the Sacred
Books. In the environs of Hebron

2G

THE S^X^EET MIRACLE

they dragged the Hermits by the
beard from their caves to draw
from them the name of the desert
or palm grove where the Rabbi
was hid, and two Phoenician mer-
chants who were coming from
Joppa with a cargo of malobatrum,
and who had never heard" the
name of Jesus, paid one hundred
drachmas for this crime to each
Decurion. And now the peasan-
try, and even the wild shepherds
of Idumea who bring in the white
beasts for the Temple, fled in ter-
ror to the mountains as soon as
they saw the arms of the violent
band glittering at some turn of
the road ; while from the edge of
the terraces the old women shook
the ends of their dishevelled hair
like bags, and flung ill-luck at
them, invoking the vengeance of

THE S^XrEET MIRACLE

Elias. In this tumult they wan-
dered as far as Ascalon, but failed
to find Jesus, and returning along
the coast they buried their sandals
in the burning sands. One morn-
ing near Cesarea, as they were
marching in a valley, they caught
sight of a dark green grove of
laurels on a hill, among which the
elegant bright portico of a temple
shone white in its retirement. An
old man of long white beard,
crowned with laurel leaves, clothed
in a saffron tunic and holding a shor t
three-stringed lyre, was gravely
awaiting the rising of the sun on
the marble steps. Down below, the
soldiers waved a branch of olive
and shouted to the priest. Did he
know a new Prophet who had
arisen in Galilee and who was so
clever in miracles that he raised

2.S

THE S^)/EET MIRACLE

the dead to life, and changed
water into wine ? Quietly extend-
ing his arms, the serene old man
cried out over the dewy verdure
of the valley — "Ye Romans, believe
ye that prophets appear working
miracles in Galilee or Judea?
How can [a barbarian alter the
order established by Zeus ? Magi-
cians and soothsayers are pedlars
who murmur empty words to
snatch an alms from simple folk.
"Without the permission of the
Immortals, not a withered branch
can fall from the tree, not a dry
leaf be shaken. There are no
prophets, no miracles. . . . The
Delphic Apollo alone knoweth the
secret of things ! "

Slowly then, with heads cast
down as after a defeat, the soldiers
returned to the fortress of Cesarea,
29

THE SWEET MIRACLE

and great was the despair of
Septimus because his daughter
was dying, and no complaint did
she utter, but gazed as she lay
there at the Tyrian Sea, and all
the while the fame of Jesus, the
healer of lingering maladies, grew
ever fresher and more consoling,
like the afternoon breeze that
blows from Hermon and revives
and lifts the drooping lilies in the
gardens.

Now between Enganim and
Cesarea, in a wretched hut sunk
in the cleft of a hillock, there
lived at this time a widow, the
most miserable of all the women
in Israel. Her only son, a little boy
crippled in every part, had passed
from the lean breasts at which
she had suckled him to the rags of
a rotting mattress, where he had
30

THE S>i)7EET MIRACLE

lain starving and groaning now
seven years. And her, too, sick-
ness had shrivelled within her
never-changed rags until she was
darker and more contorted than
an uprooted vine. And, over the
twain, misery had grown thick as
the mould over broken potsherds
lost in a desert. Even the oil in
their red clay lamp had long since
dried up, and neither seed nor
crust was left in the painted chest.
In the summer, their goat had
died for lack of pasture ; next, the
fig-tree in the garden ceased to
bear. So far were they from an
inhabited place that no alms of
bread or honey ever entered their
door. Herbs plucked in the fis-
sures of the rocks and cooked
without salt were all that nou-
rished those creatures of God in
31

THE S\(rEET MIRACLE

the Chosen Land where even birds
of ill omen had enough and to
spare !

One day a beggar entered the
hut and shared his wallet with
the sorrowing mother, and as he
sat for a moment at the hearth-
stone and scratched the wounds
in his legs, he told of the great
hope of the afflicted, this Rabbi
who had appeared in Galilee and
of one loaf in a basket made
seven, and how he loved all little
children and dried all tears, and
promised the poor a great and
luminous kingdom of more abun-
dance than the Court of Solomon.
The womanlistened with famished
eyes. And this sweet Rabbi, this
hope of the sorrowful, where was
he to be found ? The beggar sighed.
Ah, this sweet Rabbi ! How many
32

THE S^)C^EET MIRACLE

had longed for him and been dis-
appointed ! His fame was going
over all Judea like the sun that
leaves not even a stretch of old
wall without its blessed rays, yet
only those fortunate ones chosen
of his will could gain a sight of
his fair countenance.

Obed, the rich, had sent his
slaves throughout all Galilee to
search for Jesus and bring him
with promises to Enganim : Septi-
mus, the powerful, had despatched
his soldiers as far as the sea coast
to find Jesus and conduct him by
his orders to Cesarea. As he
wandered and begged his bread
on many a road, he had met the
slaves of Obed and then the legion-
aries of Septimus. And all had
returned like beaten men, their
sandals torn, without having dis-

33 E

THE SWEET MIRACLE

covered the wood or city, hovel or
palace, vrhere Jesus lay hid.

The evening was falling. The
beggar took up his staff and de-
scended by the hard track between
the heather and the rocks, while
the mother returned to her corner
more cast down and desolate than
before. And then in a murmur,
weaker than the brush of a wing,
her little son begged his mother to
bring him this Rabbi who loved
even the poorest little children
and healed even the longest sick-
nesses. The mother clasped his
tangled head and said :

"Oh, my son ! How canst thou
ask me to leave thee and set out
on the road in search of the Rabbi
of Galilee ? Obed is rich and
hath slaves, and in vain they sought
Jesus over hills, and through

34

THE S\C^EET MIRACLE

sandy plains from Chorazim to
the Country of Moab. Septimus
is mighty and hath soldiers, yet in
vain they hunted for Jesus from
Hebron to the sea ! How canst
thou ask me to leave thee ? Jesus
is afar off, and our grief abideth
with us within these walls and im-
prisons us between them. And
were I to meet with him, how
should I persuade this longed-for
Rabbi, for whom the rich and
mighty sigh, to come down from
city to city as far as this solitude
in order to cure such a poor little
impotent on such a ragged mat-
tress !"

But the child, with two long tears
on its thin little face, murmured :
" Mother, Jesus loveth all the little
ones. And I am still so small
and have such a heavy sickness

35

THE SWEET MIRACLE

and should so like to be cured ! "
To which the mother sobbing :
" child of mine how can I leave
thee? The roads of Galilee are
long, and the pity of men is short.
So ragged, so limping, so sorrow-
ful am I, that even the dogs would
bark at me from the homestead
doors. None would give car to
my message, none would show me
the dwelling-place of the sweet
Rabbi, And, my child ! perhaps
Jesus is dead, for not even the
rich or the mighty meet with him.
Heaven sent him. Heaven hath
taken him away. And with him
the hopes of the sorrowful have
died for ever." The child raised
his trembling little hands from
out of his dark rags and mur-
mured : " Mother, I want to see
Jesus."

36

THE S^EET MIRACLE

And immediately, opening the
door slowly and smiling, Jesus said
to the Child : "I am here."

Ballan'itnu Press

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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