her strength fail her--for only superhuman
courage had enabled her to watch all the terrible incidents of the
struggle.

BOOK IX.

XV. The Constant Wanderer XVI. The Luncheon XVII. Rendering
the Account XVIII. The Square of Notre Dame XIX. The Cholera
Masquerade XX. The Defiance XXI. Brandy to the Rescue XXII.
Memories XXIII. The Poisoner XXIV. In the Cathedral XXV. The
Murderers XXVI. The Patient XXVII. The Lure XXVIII. Good
News XXIX. The Operation XXX. The Torture XXXI. Vice and
Virtue XXXII. Suicide

CHAPTER XV. THE CONSTANT WANDERER.

It is night. The moon shines and the stars glimmer in the midst of a
serene but cheerless sky; the sharp whistlings of the north wind, that
fatal, dry, and icy breeze, ever and anon burst forth in violent gusts.
With its harsh and cutting breath, it sweeps Montmartre's Heights. On
the highest point of the hills, a man is standing. His long shadow is
cast upon the stony, moon-lit ground. He gazes on the immense city,
which lies outspread beneath his feet. PARIS--with the dark outline of
its towers, cupolas, domes, and steeples, standing out from the limpid
blue of the horizon, while from the midst of the ocean of masonry, rises
a luminous vapor, that reddens the starry azure of the sky. It is the
distant reflection of the thousand fires, which at night, the hour of
pleasures, light up so joyously the noisy capital.

"No," said the wayfarer; "it is not to be. The Lord will not exact it.
Is not twice enough?

"Five centuries ago, the avenging hand of the Almighty drove me hither
from the uttermost confines of Asia. A solitary traveller, I had left
behind me more grief, despair, disaster, and death, than the innumerable
armies of a hundred devastating conquerors. I entered this town, and it
too was decimated.

"Again, two centuries ago, the inexorable hand, which leads me through
the world, brought me once more hither; and then, as the time before,
the plague, which the Almighty attaches to my steps, again ravaged this
city, and fell first on my brethren, already worn out with labor and
misery.

"My brethren--mine?--the cobbler of Jerusalem, the artisan accursed by
the Lord, who, in my person, condemned the whole race of workmen,
ever suffering, ever disinherited, ever in slavery, toiling on like me
without rest or pause, without recompense or hope, till men, women,
and children, young and old, all die beneath the same iron yoke-