The Calle De Amargura - The Street Of Bitterness - Was The Next Scene.
First Came A Long Procession Of Official Romans, - Lictors And Swordsmen,
And The Heralds Announcing The Day's Business.
Demas appears, dragged
along with vicious jerks to execution.
The Saviour follows, and falls
under the weight of the cross before the footlights. Another long and
dreary scene takes place, of brutalities from the Roman soldiers, the
ringleader of whom is a sanguinary Andalusian ingeniously encased in a
tin barrel, a hundred lines of rhymed sorrow from the Madonna, and a
most curious scene of the Wandering Jew. This worthy, who in defiance of
tradition is called Samuel, is sitting in his doorway watching the show,
when the suffering Christ begs permission to rest a moment on his
threshold. He says churlishly, Anda! - "Begone!" "I will go, but thou
shalt go forever until I come." The Jew's feet begin to twitch
convulsively, as if pulled from under him. He struggles for a moment,
and at last is carried off by his legs, which are moved like those of
the walking dolls with the Greek names. This odd tradition, so utterly
in contradiction with the picture the Scriptures give us of the meek
dignity with which the Redeemer forgave all personal injuries, has taken
a singular hold upon the imaginations of all peoples. Under varying
names, - -Ahasuerus, Salathiel, le Juif Errant, der ewige Jude, - his
story is the delight and edification of many lands; and I have met some
worthy people who stoutly insisted that they had read it in the Bible.
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