{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_74802/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_74802","id":"gutenberg_74802","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74802","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry","Jesus Christ -- Fiction","Portuguese fiction -- Translations into English","Short stories, Portuguese -- Translations into English"],"text":"THE SWEET MIRACLE\n\n\n\nFirst Edition, September 1904\nSecond Edition, December 1904\n\n\n\n\n                               THE SWEET\n                                MIRACLE\n\n\n\n\n                           BY E\u00c7A DE QUEIROZ\n\n\n                         DONE INTO ENGLISH BY\n                            EDGAR PRESTAGE\n                          OF THE LISBON ROYAL\n                          ACADEMY OF SCIENCES\n                          TRANSLATOR OF \u201cTHE\n                        LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE\n                                 NUN\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\n                         LONDON -- DAVID NUTT\n                    AT THE SIGN OF THE PH\u0152NIX 1904\n\n\n\n\n                             TO MY MOTHER\n\n\n\n\n Et circuibat Jesus omnes civitates et castella, docens in synagogis\n eorum et praedicans evangelium regn et curans cranem languorera et\n omnem infirmitatem.\n\n Evangelium secundum Mattbaeum, caput IX.\n\n\n\n\nPREFATORY NOTE\n\n\n_E\u00c7A DE QUEIROZ (born 1846, died 1900) was probably Portugal\u2019s greatest\nprose-writer of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. He is\nknown to us mainly by that splendid romance, cousin basil, which has\nappeared In English under the title of \u201cDragon\u2019s Teeth,\u201d_[1] _but the_\nCORRESPONDENCE OF FRADIQUE MENDES _reveals a versatility of talent in\nthis satyrist, observer, and critic of life which even the foremost\nnovelists have lacked, and_ THE CITY AND THE MOUNTAINS _contains pages\nof landscape-painting which are already classical. The prose-poem here\ntranslated shows that his journey through Palestine had penetrated the\nMaster of Realism with the spirit of the East and calls to mind scenes\nin another book of his,_ THE RELIC, _which sounds like an echo of\nFlaubert. The frontispiece is a copy of a striking water-colour sketch\nby the King of Portugal offered to the Count of Arnoso on the occasion\nof the fifteenth representation of the latter\u2019s charming dramatised\nversion of \u201cThe Sweet Miracle.\u201d His Majesty has graciously approved and\nthe Count has very kindly permitted its reproduction here._\n\n_Other short stories of E\u00e7a de Queiroz will follow if the present one\ncontinues to meet with a favourable reception._\n\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Boston, U.S.A., 1889._]\n\n\n\n\nTHE SWEET MIRACLE\n\n\nIN those days Jesus had not yet departed from Galilee and the fair\nluminous margins of the Lake of Tiberias; but the news of his miracles\nhad already penetrated as far as Enganim, a rich city of strong\nbattlements set among vineyards and olive-groves in the Country of\nIssachar.\n\nOne afternoon there passed down the fresh valley a man of burning,\ndazzled eyes, who announced that a new Prophet, a handsome Rabbi, was\ntraversing, the plains and villages of Galilee, foretelling the coming\nof the Kingdom of God, and curing all human ills. And while he sat\nand rested beside the Fountain of the Orchards, he went on to tell how\nthis Rabbi had healed the slave of a Roman Decurion of leprosy on the\nMagdala Road, merely by spreading over him the shadow of his hands;\nand how, another morning, he had crossed by boat to the Country of the\nGerasenes where the balsam-harvest was commencing, and had raised to\nlife the daughter of Jairus, a man of consideration and learning who\nexpounded the Sacred Books in the Synagogue. And when the husbandmen\nand shepherds round about, and the dark women with water-pots on their\nshoulders, inquired of him in their wonderment if this was in truth\nthe Messias of Judah, and whether the sword of fire shone before him,\nand if the shadows of Gog and Magog, like the shadows of twin towers,\nwalked on either side of him--the man, without even a draught of\nthat thrice-cold water of which Joshua had drunk, took up his staff,\nshook his hair, and made his way pensively beneath the aqueduct, and\nstraightway disappeared from sight in the mass of flowering almond\ntrees. But a hope, delightful as the dew in the month when the\ngrasshopper sings, refreshed these simple souls, and now, through all\nthe Plain that stretches its verdure to Ascalon, the plough seemed\neasier to bury in the soil, and the stone of the winepress lighter\nto move; the children, even while they plucked bunches of anemones,\nwatched, as they went, for a light to rise past the turn of the wall,\nor under the sycamore, while the aged from their stone seats at the\ncity gate ran their fingers through the threads of their beards, and no\nlonger unfolded the old sayings with such wise certainty as of yore.\n\nNow there lived then in Enganim an old man, named Obed, of a priestly\nfamily of Samaria, who had offered sacrifices on the altars of Mount\nEbal, and was possessed of well-nourished flocks and richly bearing\nvineyards, and a heart as full of pride as his cellar was full of\nwheat. But a dry burnt wind, that wind of desolation, which, at the\nLord\u2019s command, blows from the savage lands of Assur, had slain the\nfattest beasts of his flocks, and, on the slopes where his vines twined\nround the elms and stretched themselves on the graceful frames, it\nhad left nought round the bare trees and pillars save broken twigs,\nshrunken stalks, and leaves eaten by curly blight. And Obed squatted\nat the threshold of his gate with the end of his cloak over his face,\nfingered the dust, lamented his old age, and ruminated complaints\nagainst a cruel God.\n\nNow as soon as lie heard tell of the new Rabbi of Galilee, who fed\nthe multitudes, scared demons, and repaired all misfortunes, Obed,\nwho was a man of books, and had travelled in Phenicia, conceived in\nhis mind that Jesus must be one of those soothsayers, well-known in\nPalestine, like Apollonius, or Rabbi Ben-Dossa, or Simon the Subtle.\nThese men, even when the nights are dark, hold converse with the\nstars, whose secrets to them are ever clear and simple; with a wand\nthey drive the gadflies, born in the mud of Egypt, from the standing\ncorn, and grasping in their fingers the shadows of trees, they draw\nthem like kindly screens over the threshing-floors at the hour of\nrest. Of a surety Jesus of Galilee, a younger man with newer charms,\nwould, in return for a liberal largess, bring the mortality among his\nflocks to an end, and make his vineyards green once more. Thereupon\nObed commanded his servants to set forth and search through all Galilee\nfor the new Rabbi, and bring him, with promises of money or goods, to\nEnganim, in the Country of Issachar.\n\nHis slaves tightened their leather belts and swung out by the road of\nthe caravans that coasts the lake and stretches as far as Damascus.\nOne afternoon, over against the West, red as a fully ripe pomegranate,\nthey caught sight of the fine snows of Mount Hermon. Next, amid the\nfreshness of a soft morning, the Lake of Tiberias shone before them,\ntransparent, cloaked in silence, more blue than the heavens, with\nits margins of flowery meadows, dense orchards, porphyry rocks, and\nwhite terraces amid the palm groves, under the flight of the doves. A\nfisherman, who was engaged in lazily untying his boat from a grassy\npoint shaded by oleanders, listened with a smile to the slaves. The\nRabbi of Nazareth? Oh! since the month of Ijar, the Rabbi with his\ndisciples had descended to the sides whither the Jordan bears its\nwaters. The slaves set out at a run along the margin of the stream\nuntil they came in front of the ford where it rests, stretching out in\na great pool, and for a moment slumbers, motionless and green, beneath\nthe tamarinds\u2019 shade. A man of the tribe of the Essenes, clothed from\nhead to foot in white linen, was slowly gathering health-giving herbs\nby the water side with a white lambkin in his arms. The slaves humbly\nsaluted him, for the people love those men of honest, pure hearts, as\nwhite as the vestures they wash morning by morning in the purified\ntanks. And did he know of the passing of the new Rabbi of Galilee who,\nlike the Essenes, taught sweetness and cured men and cattle? The\nEssene murmured that the Rabbi had crossed the Oasis of Engaddi, and\nhad passed further beyond. But where \u201cbeyond?\u201d With a bunch of purple\nflowers he had plucked, the Essene pointed to the country over Jordan,\nthe plain of Moab. The slaves forded the river and sought Jesus in\nvain, toiling breathlessly up the rough tracks to the cliffs where the\nsinister Citadel of Makaur raises its head. At Jacob\u2019s Well they met a\ngreat caravan at rest that was carrying into Egypt myrrh, spices, and\nbalm of Gilead, and the camel drivers, as they drew out the water in\ntheir leather buckets, told the slaves of Obed how in Gadara, at the\nnew moon, a wonderful Rabbi, greater than David or Isaiah, had torn\nseven devils from the breast of a weaver-woman, and how at his voice\na man, whose head had been cut off by the robber Barabbas, had risen\nfrom the tomb, and gone back to his garden. The slaves, still hopeful,\nstraightway mounted in haste by the Pilgrim\u2019s Way to Gadara, that city\nof lofty towers, and further on still to the Springs of Amalha. But\nthat very morning, followed by a crowd singing and waving branches of\nmimosa, Jesus had embarked on the lake in a fishing smack, and made his\nway under sail towards Magdala. And the slaves of Obed, disheartened,\npassed the ford again by the Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob. One day,\nas they trod the country of Roman Judea, their sandals torn with the\nlong ways, they crossed a sombre Pharisee, mounted on a mule, who was\nreturning to Ephraim. With devout reverence they stopped the man of\nthe Law. Had he met, perchance, this new Prophet of Galilee who, like\na God walking the earth, sowed miracles as he went? The hooked face of\nthe Pharisee darkened in every furrow, and his wrath resounded like a\nproud drum. \u201cOh! pagan slaves and blasphemers! Where have ye heard of\nprophets or miracles out of Jerusalem? Only Jehovah in His Temple is\nmighty. Ignorant men and impostors come out of Galilee!\u201d\n\nAnd as the slaves recoiled before his raised fist wrapped round with\nsacred couplets, the furious doctor leapt from his mule and with\nstones from the road pelted the slaves of Obed, howling Racca! Racca!\nand all the ritual curses. The slaves fled to Enganim, and great was\nthe sorrow of Obed because his flocks were dying and his vineyards were\nscorched, and all the time, radiant like the dawn behind the mountains,\nthe fame of Jesus of Galilee, consoling and full of Divine promises,\ngrew and increased.\n\nAt that time a Roman Centurion, named Publius Septimus, had command\nof the fort which dominates the valley of Cesarea as far as the city\nand the sea. A rough man and a veteran of Tiberius\u2019 campaign against\nthe Parthians, Publius had grown rich with prizes and plunder during\nthe revolt of Samaria. He owned mines in Attica, and enjoyed, as a\nsupreme favour of the Gods, the friendship of Flaccus, the Imperial\nLegate in Syria. But a sorrow gnawed his boundless prosperity, even\nas a worm gnaws a very succulent fruit. His only daughter, dearer to\nhim than life and fortune, was pining away with a slow subtle malady\nwhich escaped even the wisdom of the doctors and magicians whom he\nsent to consult at Tyre and Sidon. White and sad like the moon in a\ncemetery, uncomplaining, with pallid smiles for her father, she grew\nweaker and more frail as she sat on the high esplanade of the fort\nunder an awning, and stretched her sad dark eyes with longing regret\nover the blue of the Tyrian Sea by which she had sailed from Italy\nin a rich galley. Now and then, at her side, a legionary between\nthe battlements aimed an arrow carelessly aloft and pierced a great\neagle as it flew with serene wing in the rutilant sky. The daughter\nof Septimus followed the bird for a moment as it turned over and over\nuntil it crashed dead on the rocks, then with a sigh, sadder and more\npale, began once more to gaze at the sea. Now Septimus, having heard\nthe merchants of Chorazim tell of this wonderful Rabbi whose power\nover the Spirits was such that he cured the dark troubles of the soul,\ndespatched three decuria of soldiers with orders to search for him\nthrough Galilee and in all the cities of Decapolis as far as the coast\nand up to Ascalon. The soldiers put up their shields in the canvas\nbags, fixed boughs of the olive tree in their helmets, and hurriedly\ndeparted, their iron-shod sandals resounding on the basalt slabs of the\nRoman road which cuts the whole Tetrarchate of Herod from Cesarea to\nthe Lake. At night their arms shone out on the tops of the hills amid\nthe waving flames of the torches they bore aloft. By day they invaded\nthe homesteads, searched through the thickest apple orchards, and drove\nthe points of their lances into the haystacks, and the frightened\nwomen, to appease them, hastened in with cakes of honey, new figs, and\nbowls full of wine, which they drank at one draught as they sat in the\nshade of the sycamores. In this way they traversed Lower Galilee--but\nof the Rabbi all they found was his bright track in the hearts of the\npeople. Wearied with futile marching, and suspecting that the Jews were\nconcealing their wonder-worker lest the Romans should avail themselves\nof his superior magic, they let loose a tumult of anger as they passed\nthrough the pious subject-land. At the entrance to bridges they stopped\nthe Pilgrims, shouting the name of the Rabbi, tearing the veils from\nthe virgins\u2019 faces, and, at the hour when pitchers are filled at the\ncisterns, they invaded the narrow streets of towns, penetrated into\nthe Synagogues and beat sacrilegiously with their sword hilts on the\nThebahs--the holy Arks of cedar which enclosed the Sacred Books. In the\nenvirons of Hebron they dragged the Hermits by the beard from their\ncaves to draw from them the name of the desert or palm grove where\nthe Rabbi was hid, and two Ph\u0153nician merchants who were coming from\nJoppa with a cargo of malobatrum, and who had never heard the name of\nJesus, paid one hundred drachmas for this crime to each Decurion. And\nnow the peasantry, and even the wild shepherds of Idumea who bring in\nthe white beasts for the Temple, fled in terror to the mountains as\nsoon as they saw the arms of the violent band glittering at some turn\nof the road; while from the edge of the terraces the old women shook\nthe ends of their dishevelled hair like bags, and flung ill-luck at\nthem, invoking the vengeance of Elias. In this tumult they wandered\nas far as Ascalon, but failed to find Jesus, and returning along the\ncoast they buried their sandals in the burning sands. One morning near\nCesarea, as they were marching in a valley, they caught sight of a\ndark green grove of laurels on a hill, among which the elegant bright\nportico of a temple shone white in its retirement. An old man of long\nwhite beard, crowned with laurel leaves, clothed in a saffron tunic and\nholding a short three-stringed lyre, was gravely awaiting the rising of\nthe sun on the marble steps. Down below, the soldiers waved a branch\nof olive and shouted to the priest. Did he know a new Prophet who had\narisen in Galilee and who was so clever in miracles that he raised the\ndead to life, and changed water into wine? Quietly extending his arms,\nthe serene old man cried out over the dewy verdure of the valley--\u201cYe\nRomans, believe ye that prophets appear working miracles in Galilee\nor Judea? How can a barbarian alter the order established by Zeus?\nMagicians and soothsayers are pedlars who murmur empty words to snatch\nan alms from simple folk. Without the permission of the Immortals, not\na withered branch can fall from the tree, not a dry leaf be shaken.\nThere are no prophets, no miracles.... The Delphic Apollo alone knoweth\nthe secret of things!\u201d\n\nSlowly then, with heads cast down as after a defeat, the soldiers\nreturned to the fortress of Cesarea, and great was the despair of\nSeptimus because his daughter was dying, and no complaint did she\nutter, but gazed as she lay there at the Tyrian Sea, and all the while\nthe fame of Jesus, the healer of lingering maladies, grew ever fresher\nand more consoling, like the afternoon breeze that blows from Hermon\nand revives and lifts the drooping lilies in the gardens.\n\nNow between Enganim and Cesarea, in a wretched hut sunk in the cleft\nof a hillock, there lived at this time a widow, the most miserable of\nall the women in Israel. Her only son, a little boy crippled in every\npart, had passed from the lean breasts at which she had suckled him\nto the rags of a rotting mattress, where he had lain starving and\ngroaning now seven years. And her, too, sickness had shrivelled within\nher never-changed rags until she was darker and more contorted than\nan uprooted vine. And, over the twain, misery had grown thick as the\nmould over broken potsherds lost in a desert. Even the oil in their\nred clay lamp had long since dried up, and neither seed nor crust was\nleft in the painted chest. In the summer, their goat had died for lack\nof pasture; next, the fig-tree in the garden ceased to bear. So far\nwere they from an inhabited place that no alms of bread or honey ever\nentered their door. Herbs plucked in the fissures of the rocks and\ncooked without salt were all that nourished those creatures of God in\nthe Chosen Land where even birds of ill omen had enough and to spare!\n\nOne day a beggar entered the hut and shared his wallet with the\nsorrowing mother, and as he sat for a moment at the hearthstone and\nscratched the wounds in his legs, he told of the great hope of the\nafflicted, this Rabbi who had appeared in Galilee and of one loaf in\na basket made seven, and how he loved all little children and dried\nall tears, and promised the poor a great and luminous kingdom of more\nabundance than the Court of Solomon. The woman listened with famished\neyes. And this sweet Rabbi, this hope of the sorrowful, where was he to\nbe found? The beggar sighed. Ah, this sweet Rabbi! How many had longed\nfor him and been disappointed! His fame was going over all Judea like\nthe sun that leaves not even a stretch of old wall without its blessed\nrays, yet only those fortunate ones chosen of his will could gain a\nsight of his fair countenance.\n\nObed, the rich, had sent his slaves throughout all Galilee to search\nfor Jesus and bring him with promises to Enganim: Septimus, the\npowerful, had despatched his soldiers as far as the sea coast to find\nJesus and conduct him by his orders to Cesarea. As he wandered and\nbegged his bread on many a road, he had met the slaves of Obed and then\nthe legionaries of Septimus. And all had returned like beaten men,\ntheir sandals torn, without having discovered the wood or city, hovel\nor palace, where Jesus lay hid.\n\nThe evening was falling. The beggar took up his staff and descended\nby the hard track between the heather and the rocks, while the mother\nreturned to her corner more cast down and desolate than before. And\nthen in a murmur, weaker than the brush of a wing, her little son\nbegged his mother to bring him this Rabbi who loved even the poorest\nlittle children and healed even the longest sicknesses. The mother\nclasped his tangled head and said:\n\n\u201cOh, my son! How canst thou ask me to leave thee and set out on the\nroad in search of the Rabbi of Galilee? Obed is rich and hath slaves,\nand in vain they sought Jesus over hills, and through sandy plains\nfrom Chorazim to the Country of Moab. Septimus is mighty and hath\nsoldiers, yet in vain they hunted for Jesus from Hebron to the sea!\nHow canst thou ask me to leave thee? Jesus is afar off, and our grief\nabideth with us within these walls and imprisons us between them. And\nwere I to meet with him, how should I persuade this longed-for Rabbi,\nfor whom the rich and mighty sigh, to come down from city to city as\nfar as this solitude in order to cure such a poor little impotent on\nsuch a ragged mattress!\u201d\n\nBut the child, with two long tears on its thin little face, murmured:\n\u201cMother, Jesus loveth all the little ones. And I am still so small\nand have such a heavy sickness and should so like to be cured!\u201d To\nwhich the mother sobbing: \u201cchild of mine how can I leave thee? The\nroads of Galilee are long, and the pity of men is short. So ragged, so\nlimping, so sorrowful am I, that even the dogs would bark at me from\nthe homestead doors. None would give ear to my message, none would show\nme the dwelling-place of the sweet Rabbi. And, my child! perhaps Jesus\nis dead, for not even the rich or the mighty meet with him. Heaven\nsent him. Heaven hath taken him away. And with him the hopes of the\nsorrowful have died for ever.\u201d The child raised his trembling little\nhands from out of his dark rags and murmured: \u201cMother, I want to see\nJesus.\u201d\n\nAnd immediately, opening the door slowly and smiling, Jesus said to the\nChild: \u201cI am here.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nBALLANTYNE PRESS","title":"The sweet miracle","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":3614}