Old Judas
the little cask
Boitelle
A widow
the Englishmen of Etretat
magnetism
A fathers confession
A mother of monsters
an uncomfortable bed
A portrait
the drunkard
the wardrobe
the mountain pool
A cremation
Misti
madame Hermet
the magic couch
This entire stretch of country was amazing; it was
characterized by a grandeur that was almost religious,
and yet it had an air of sinister desolation.
A great, wild lake, filled with stagnant, black water,
in which thousands of reeds were waving to and fro,
lay in the midst of a vast circle of naked hills,
where nothing grew but broom, or here and there an
oak curiously twisted by the wind.
Just one house stood on the banks of that dark lake,
a small, low house inhabited by Uncle Joseph, an old
boatman, who lived on what he could make by his fishing.
Once a week he carried the fish he caught into the
surrounding villages, returning with the few provisions
that he needed for his sustenance.
I went to see this old hermit, who offered to take
me with him to his nets, and I accepted.
His boat was old, worm-eaten and clumsy, and the skinny
old man rowed with a gentle and monotonous stroke
that was soothing to the soul, already oppressed by
the sadness of the land round about.
It seemed to me as if I were transported to olden
times, in the midst of that ancient country, in that
primitive boat, which was propelled by a man of another
age.
He took up his nets and threw the fish into the bottom
of the boat, as the fishermen of the Bible might have
done. Then he took me down to the end of the
lake, where I suddenly perceived a ruin on the other
side of the bank a dilapidated hut, with an enormous
red cross on the wall that looked as if it might have
been traced with blood, as it gleamed in the last
rays of the setting sun.
“What is that?” I asked.
“That is where Judas died,” the man replied,
crossing himself.
I was not surprised, being almost prepared for this
strange answer.
Still I asked:
“Judas? What Judas?”
“The Wandering Jew, monsieur,” he added.
I asked him to tell me this legend.
But it was better than a legend, being a true story,
and quite a recent one, since Uncle Joseph had known
the man.
This hut had formerly been occupied by a large woman,
a kind of beggar, who lived on public charity.
Uncle Joseph did not remember from whom she had this
hut. One evening an old man with a white beard,
who seemed to be at least two hundred years old, and
who could hardly drag himself along, asked alms of
this forlorn woman, as he passed her dwelling.
