stand, he waited for them to place the
cross on his shoulders; but scarcely was he again loaded with his
burthen, when, despite his courage and goodwill, he tottered and fell a
second time, crushed beneath the weight.

'Come,' said one of the emissaries, who, like the pharisees, had not
quitted his victim, 'see you that man in the brown mantle, who passes
so quickly, turning away his head as if he desired not to be recognized?
I have often seen him at the sermons of the Nazarene; suppose we force
him to carry the cross?'

'Yes,' said Baruch, 'call him.'

'Here! Simon!' cried the emissary; 'here! Simon the Cyrenean! you who
took part in the predictions of the Nazarene, come now, and take part in
the burthen he carries.'

Scarcely had the man Simon been recognized, than several amongst the
crowd cried like him, 'Here, Simon! Simon!'

The latter, at the first appeal of the emissary, had quickened his
march, as if he had heard nothing; but when a great number of voices
cried out his name, he turned back, advanced to where Jesus was, and
approached him with a troubled air.

'They are about to crucify Jesus of Nazareth, whose words you were so
delighted to hear,' said the banker Jonas to him in a jesting manner;
'he is your friend, will you not help him to carry his cross?'

'I will carry it myself,' replied Simon, having the courage to look with
an eye of pity on his young master, who, still kneeling, seemed ready to
fall.

Simon, having taken up the cross, walked before Jesus, and the cortege
pursued its route.

About a hundred paces further on, at the commencement of the street that
leads to the Judicial Gate, in passing before the shop of a vendor of
woolen cloths, Genevieve saw a woman of a venerable figure leave the
shop. This woman, at the sight of Jesus, pale, exhausted and bleeding,
could not restrain her tears; then, for the first time, the slave, who
until now, had forgotten that she might be sought after by order of her
master the Seigneur Gremion, remembered the address which her mistress
Aurelia had given her on the part of Jane, telling her that Veronica,
her nurse, keeping a shop near the Judicial Gate, could give her an
asylum. But Genevieve at this moment did not think of profiting by this
chance of safety. An unconquerable force attached her to the steps of
the young man of Nazareth, whom she resolved to follow to the end. She
then saw Veronica in tears approach Jesus, whose face was bathed in a