be counted wise, should believe the same. For the last fifty years I
had found not one that would receive my testimony. For when I told
them the truth concerning myself, saying as I now say, and knowing
the thing for true--that I was Ahasuerus whom the Word had banished
from his home in the regions governed of Death, shutting against him
the door of the tomb that he should not go in, every man said I was
mad, and would hold with me no manner of communication, more than if
I had been possessed with a legion of swine-loving demons. Therefore
was I cold at heart, and lonely to the very root of my being. And
thus it was with me that midnight as I entered the village among the
mountains.--Now all therein slept, so even that not a dog barked at
the sound of my footsteps. But suddenly, and my soul yet quivers
with dismay at the remembrance, a yell of horror tore its way from
the throat of every sleeper at once, and shot into every cranny of
the many-folded mountains, that my soul knocked shaking against the
sides of my body, and I also shrieked aloud with the keen terror of
the cry. For surely there was no sleeper there, man, woman, or
child, who yelled not aloud in an agony of fear. And I knew that it
could only be because of the unseen presence in their street of the
outcast, the homeless, the loveless, the wanderer for ever, who had
refused a stone to his maker whereon to rest his cross. Truly I know
not whence else could have come that cry. And I looked to see that
all the inhabitants of the village should rush out upon me, and go
for to slay the unslayable in their agony. But the cry passed, and
after the cry came again the stillness. And for very dread lest yet
another such cry should enter my ears, and turn my heart to a jelly,
I did hasten my steps to leave the dwellings of the children of the
world, and pass out upon the pathless hills again. But as I turned
and would have departed, the door of a house opened over against
where I stood; and as it opened, lo! a sharp gust of wind from the