The Door of Unrest

by O. Henry

　　

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I sat an hour by sun, in the editor's room of the Montopolis _WeeklyBugle_. I was the editor. The saffron rays of the declining sunlight filtered through the cornstalksin Micajah Widdup's garden-patch, and cast an amber glory upon mypaste-pot. I sat at the editorial desk in my non-rotary revolving chair,and prepared my editorial against the oligarchies. The room, with its onewindow, was already a prey to the twilight. One by one, with my trenchantsentences, I lopped off the heads of the political hydra, while Ilistened, full of kindly peace, to the home-coming cow-bells and wonderedwhat Mrs. Flanagan was going to have for supper. Then in from the dusky, quiet street there drifted and perched himselfupon a corner of my desk old Father Time's younger brother. His face wasbeardless and as gnarled as an English walnut. I never saw clothes suchas he wore. They would have reduced Joseph's coat to a monochrome. Butthe colours were not the dyer's. Stains and patches and the work of sunand rust were responsible for the diversity. On his coarse shoes was thedust, conceivably, of a thousand leagues. I can describe him no further,except to say that he was little and weird and old -- old I began toestimate in centuries when I saw him. Yes, and I remember that there wasan odour, a faint odour like aloes, or possibly like myrrh or leather; andI thought of museums. And then I reached for a pad and pencil, for business is business, andvisits of the oldest inhabitants are sacred and honourable, requiring tobe chronicled. "I am glad to see you, sir," I said. "I would offer you a chair, but --you see, sir," I went on, "I have lived in Montopolis only three weeks,and I have not met many of our citizens." I turned a doubtful eye upon hisdust-stained shoes, and concluded with a newspaper phrase, "I suppose thatyou reside in our midst?" My visitor fumbled in his raiment, drew forth a soiled card, and handed itto me. Upon it was written, in plain but unsteadily formed characters,the name "Michob Ader." "I am glad you called, Mr. Ader," I said. "As one of our older citizens,you must view with pride the recent growth and enterprise of Montopolis.Among other improvements, I think I can promise that the town will now beprovided with a live, enterprising newspa--" "Do ye know the name on that card?" asked my caller, interrupting me. "It is not a familiar one to me," I said. Again he visited the depths of his ancient vestments. This time hebrought out a torn leaf of some book or journal, brown and flimsy withage. The heading of the page was the _Turkish Spy_ in old-style type; theprinting upon it was this: "There is a man come to Paris in this year 1643 who pretends to have livedthese sixteen hundred years. He says of himself that he was a shoemakerin Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion; that his name is Michob Ader;and that when Jesus, the Christian Messias, was condemned by PontiusPilate, the Roman president, he paused to rest while bearing his cross tothe place of crucifixion before the door of Michob Ader. The shoemakerstruck Jesus with his fist, saying: 'Go; why tarriest thou?' The Messias answered him: 'I indeed am going; but thou shalt tarry until I come';thereby condemning him to live until the day of judgment. He livesforever, but at the end of every hundred years he falls into a fit ortrance, on recovering from which he finds himself in the same state ofyouth in which he was when Jesus suffered, being then about thirty yearsof age. "Such is the story of the Wandering Jew, as told by Michob Ader, whorelates --" Here the printing ended. I must have muttered aloud something to myself about the Wandering Jew,for the old man spake up, bitterly and loudly. "'Tis a lie," said he, "like nine tenths of what ye call history. 'Tis aGentile I am, and no Jew. I am after footing it out of Jerusalem, my son;but if that makes me a Jew, then everything that comes out of a bottle isbabies' milk. Ye have my name on the card ye hold; and ye have read thebit of paper they call the _Turkish Spy_ that printed the news when Istepped into their office on the 12th day of June, in the year 1643, justas I have called upon ye to-day." I laid down my pencil and pad. Clearly it would not do. Here was an itemfor the local column of the _Bugle_ that -- but it would not do. Still,fragments of the impossible "personal" began to flit through myconventionalized brain. "Uncle Michob is as spry on his legs as a youngchap of only a thousand or so." "Our venerable caller relates with' pridethat George Wash -- no, Ptolemy the Great -- once dandled him on his kneeat his father's house." "Uncle Michob says that our wet spring was nothingin comparison with the dampness that ruined the crops around Mount Araratwhen he was a boy --" But no, no -- it would not do. I was trying to think of some conversational subject with which tointerest my visitor, and was hesitating between walking matches and thePliocene age, when the old man suddenly began to weep poignantly anddistressfully. "Cheer up, Mr. Ader," I said, a little awkwardly; "this matter may blowover in a few hundred years more. There has already been a decidedreaction in favour of Judas Iscariot and Colonel Burr and the celebratedviolinist, Signor Nero. This is the age of whitewash. You must not allowyourself to become down-hearted." Unknowingly, I had struck a chord. The old man blinked belligerentlythrough his senile tears. "'Tis time," he said, "that the liars be doin' justice to somebody. Yerhistorians are no more than a pack of old women gabblin' at a wake. Afiner man than the Imperor Nero niver wore sandals. Man, I was at theburnin' of Rome. I knowed the Imperor well, for in them days I was awell-known char-acter. In thim days they had rayspect for a man thatlived forever. "But 'twas of the Imperor Nero I was goin' to tell ye. I struck intoRome, up the Appian Way, on the night of July the 16th, the year 64. Ihad just stepped down by way of Siberia and Afghanistan; and one foot ofme had a frost-bite, and the other a blister burned by the sand of thedesert; and I was feelin' a bit blue from doin' patrol duty from the NorthPole down to the Last Chance corner in Patagonia, and bein' miscalled aJew in the bargain. Well, I'm tellin' ye I was passin' the CircusMaximus, and it was dark as pitch over the way, and then I heard somebodysing out, 'Is that you, Michob?' "Over ag'inst the wall, hid out amongst a pile of barrels and olddry-goods boxes, was the Imperor Nero wid his togy wrapped around histoes, smokin' a long, black segar. "'Have one, Michob?' says he. "'None of the weeds for me,' says I -- 'nayther pipe nor segar. What'sthe use,' says I, 'of smokin' when ye've not got the ghost of a chance ofkillin' yeself by doin' it?' "'True for ye, Michob Ader, my perpetual Jew,' says the Imperor; 'ye'renot always wandering. Sure, 'tis danger gives the spice of our pleasures-- next to their bein' forbidden.' "'And for what,' says I, 'do ye smoke be night in dark places widout evena cinturion in plain clothes to attend ye?' "'Have ye ever heard, Michob,' says the Imperor, 'of predestinarianism?' "'I've had the cousin of it,' says I. 'I've been on the trot withpedestrianism for many a year, and more to come, as ye well know.' "'The longer word,' says me friend Nero, 'is the tachin' of this new sectof people they call the Christians. 'Tis them that's raysponsible for mesmokin' be night in holes and corners of the dark.' "And then I sets down and takes off a shoe and rubs me foot that isfrosted, and the Imperor tells me about it. It seems that since I passedthat way before, the Imperor had mandamused the Impress wid a divorcesuit, and Misses Poppaea, a cilibrated lady, was ingaged, widoutriferences, as housekeeper at the palace. 'All in one day,' says theImperor, 'she puts up new lace windy-curtains in the palace and joins theanti-tobacco society, and whin I feels the need of a smoke I must be aftersneakin' out to these piles of lumber in the dark.' So there in the darkme and the Imperor sat, and I told him of me travels. And when they saythe Imperor was an incindiary, they lie. 'Twas that night the firestarted that burnt the city. 'Tis my opinion that it began from a stumpof segar that he threw down among the boxes. And 'tis a lie that hefiddled. He did all he could for six days to stop it, sir." And now I detected a new flavour to Mr. Michob Ader. It had not beenmyrrh or balm or hyssop that I had smelled. The emanation was the odourof bad whiskey -- and, worse still, of low comedy -- the sort that smallhumorists manufacture by clothing the grave and reverend things of legendand history in the vulgar, topical frippery that passes for a certain kindof wit. Michob Ader as an impostor, claiming nineteen hundred years, andplaying his part with the decency of respectable lunacy, I could endure;but as a tedious wag, cheapening his egregious story with song-booklevity, his importance as an entertainer grew less. And then, as if he suspected my thoughts, he suddenly shifted his key. "You'll excuse me, sir," he whined, "but sometimes I get a little mixed inmy head. I am a very old man; and it is hard to remember everything." I knew that he was right, and that I should not try to reconcile him withRoman history; so I asked for news concerning other ancients with whom hehad walked familiar. Above my desk hung an engraving of Raphael's cherubs. You could yet makeout their forms, though the dust blurred their outlines strangely. "Ye calls them 'cher-rubs'," cackled the old man. "Babes, ye fancy theyare, with wings. And there's one wid legs and a bow and arrow that yecall Cupid -- I know where they was found. Thegreat-great-great-grandfather of thim all was a billy-goat. Bein' aneditor, sir, do ye happen to know where Solomon s Temple stood?" I fancied that it was in -- in Persia? Well, I did not know. "'Tis not in history nor in the Bible where it was. But I saw it,meself. The first pictures of cher-rubs and cupids was sculptured uponthim walls and pillars. Two of the biggest, sir, stood in the adytum toform the baldachin over the Ark. But the wings of thim sculptures wasintindid for horns. And the faces was the faces of goats. Ten thousandgoats there was in and about the temple. And your cher-rubs wasbilly-goats in the days of King Solomon, but the painters misconstrued thehorns into wings. "And I knew Tamerlane, the lame Timour, sir, very well. I saw him atKeghut and at Zaranj. He was a little man no larger than yerself, withhair the colour of an amber pipe stem. They buried him at Samarkand I wasat the wake, sir. Oh, he was a fine-built man in his coffin, six feetlong, with black whiskers to his face. And I see 'em throw turnips at theImperor Vispacian in Africa. All over the world I have tramped, sir,without the body of me findin' any rest. 'Twas so commanded I sawJerusalem destroyed, and Pompeii go up in the fireworks; and I was at thecoronation of Charlemagne and the lynchin' of Joan of Arc. And everywhereI go there comes storms and revolutions and plagues and fires. 'Twas socommanded. Ye have heard of the Wandering Jew. 'Tis all so, except thatdivil a bit am I a Jew. But history lies, as I have told ye. Are yequite sure, sir, that ye haven't a drop of whiskey convenient? Ye wellknow that I have many miles of walking before me." "I have none," said I, "and, if you please, I am about to leave for mysupper." I pushed my chair back creakingly. This ancient landlubber was becomingas great an affliction as any cross-bowed mariner. He shook a mustyeffluvium from his piebald clothes, overturned my inkstand, and went onwith his insufferable nonsense. "I wouldn't mind it so much," he complained, "if it wasn't for the work Imust do on Good Fridays. Ye know about Pontius Pilate, sir, of course.His body, whin he killed himself, was pitched into a lake on the Alpsmountains. Now, listen to the job that 'tis mine to perform on the nightof ivery Good Friday. The ould divil goes down in the pool and drags upPontius, and the water is bilin' and spewin' like a wash pot. And theould divil sets the body on top of a throne on the rocks, and thin comesme share of the job. Oh, sir, ye would pity me thin -- ye would pray forthe poor Wandering Jew that niver was a Jew if ye could see the horror ofthe thing that I must do. 'Tis I that must fetch a bowl of water andkneel down before it till it washes its hands. I declare to ye thatPontius Pilate, a man dead two hundred years, dragged up with the lakeslime coverin' him and fishes wrigglin' inside of him widout eyes, and inthe discomposition of the body, sits there, sir, and washes his hands inthe bowl I hold for him on Good Fridays. 'Twas so commanded." Clearly, the matter had progressed far beyond the scope of the _Bugle's_local column. There might have been employment here for the alienist orfor those who circulate the pledge; but I had had enough of it. I got up,and repeated that I must go. At this he seized my coat, grovelled upon my desk, and burst again intodistressful weeping. Whatever it was about, I said to myself that hisgrief was genuine. "Come now, Mr. Ader," I said, soothingly; "what is the matter?" The answer came brokenly through his racking sobs: "Because I would not...let the poor Christ...rest...upon the step." His hallucination seemed beyond all reasonable answer; yet the effect ofit upon him scarcely merited disrespect. But I knew nothing that mightassuage it; and I told him once more that both of us should be leaving theoffice at once. Obedient at last, he raised himself from my dishevelled desk, andpermitted me to half lift him to the floor. The gale of his grief hadblown away his words; his freshet of tears had soaked away the crust ofhis grief. Reminiscence died in him -- at least, the coherent part of it. "'Twas me that did it," he muttered, as I led him toward the door -- "me,the shoemaker of Jerusalem." I got him to the sidewalk, and in the augmented light I saw that his facewas seared and lined and warped by a sadness almost incredibly the productof a single lifetime. And then high up in the firmamental darkness we heard the clamant cries ofsome great, passing birds. My Wandering Jew lifted his hand, withside-tilted head. "The Seven Whistlers!" he said, as one introduces well-known friends. "Wild geese," said I; "but I confess that their number is beyond me." "They follow me everywhere," he said. "'Twas so commanded. What ye hearis the souls of the seven Jews that helped with the Crucifixion.Sometimes they're plovers and sometimes geese, but ye'll find them alwaysflyin' where I go." I stood, uncertain how to take my leave. I looked down the street,shuffled my feet, looked back again -- and felt my hair rise. The old manhad disappeared. And then my capillaries relaxed, for I dimly saw him footing it awaythrough the darkness. But he walked so swiftly and silently and contraryto the gait promised by his age that my composure was not all restored,though I knew not why. That night I was foolish enough to take down some dust-covered volumesfrom my modest shelves. I searched "Hermippus Redivvus" and "Salathiel"and the "Pepys Collection" in vain. And then in a book called "TheCitizen of the World," and in one two centuries old, I came upon what Idesired. Michob Ader had indeed come to Paris in the year 1643, andrelated to the _Turkish Spy_ an extraordinary story. He claimed to be theWandering Jew, and that -- But here I fell asleep, for my editorial duties had not been light thatday. Judge Hoover was the _Bugle's_ candidate for congress. Having to conferwith him, I sought his home early the next morning; and we walked togetherdown town through a little street with which I was unfamiliar. "Did you ever hear of Michob Ader?" I asked him, smiling. "Why, yes," said the judge. "And that reminds me of my shoes he has formending. Here is his shop now." Judge Hoover stepped into a dingy, small shop. I looked up at the sign,and saw "Mike O'Bader, Boot and Shoe Maker," on it. Some wild geesepassed above, honking clearly. I scratched my ear and frowned, and thentrailed into the shop. There sat my Wandering Jew on his shoemaker's bench, trimming ahalf-sole. He was drabbled with dew, grass-stained, unkempt, andmiserable; and on his face was still the unexplained wretchedness, theproblematic sorrow, the esoteric woe, that had been written there bynothing less, it seemed, than the stylus of the centuries. Judge Hoover inquired kindly concerning his shoes. The old shoemakerlooked up, and spoke sanely enough. He had been ill, he said, for a fewdays. The next day the shoes would be ready. He looked at me, and Icould see that I had no place in his memory. So out we went, and on ourway. "Old Mike," remarked the candidate, "has been on one of his sprees. Hegets crazy drunk regularly once a month. But he's a good shoemaker." "What is his history?" I inquired. "Whiskey," epitomized Judge Hoover. "That explains him." I was silent, but I did not accept the explanation. And so, when I hadthe chance, I asked old man Sellers, who browsed daily on my exchanges. "Mike O'Bader," said he, "was makin' shoes in Montopolis when I come heregoin' on fifteen year ago. I guess whiskey's his trouble. Once a monthhe gets off the track, and stays so a week. He's got a rigmarolesomethin' about his bein' a Jew pedler that he tells ev'rybody. Nobodywon't listen to him any more. When he's sober he ain't sich a fool --he's got a sight of books in the back room of his shop that he reads. Iguess you can lay all his trouble to whiskey." But again I would not. Not yet was my Wandering Jew rightly construed forme. I trust that women may not be allowed a title to all the curiosity inthe world. So when Montopolis's oldest inhabitant (some ninety scoreyears younger than Michob Ader) dropped in to acquire promulgation inprint, I siphoned his perpetual trickle of reminiscence in the directionof the uninterpreted maker of shoes. Uncle Abner was the Complete History of Montopolis, bound in butternut. "O'Bader," he quavered, "come here in '69. He was the first shoemaker inthe place. Folks generally considers him crazy at times now. But hedon't harm nobody. I s'pose drinkin' upset his mind -- yes, drinkin' verylikely done it. It's a powerful bad thing, drinkin'. I'm an old, oldman, sir, and I never see no good in drinkin'." I felt disappointment. I was willing to admit drink in the case of myshoemaker, but I preferred it as a recourse instead of a cause. Why hadhe pitched upon his perpetual, strange note of the Wandering Jew? Why hisunutterable grief during his aberration? I could not yet accept whiskeyas an explanation. "Did Mike O'Bader ever have a great loss or trouble of any kind?" I asked. "Lemme see! About thirty year ago there was somethin' of the kind, Irecollect. Montopolis, sir, in them days used to be a mighty strict place. "Well, Mike O'Bader had a daughter then -- a right pretty girl. She wastoo gay a sort for Montopolis so one day she slips off to another town andruns away with a circus. It was two years before she comes back, allfixed up in fine clothes and rings and jewellery, to see Mike. Hewouldn't have nothin' to do with her, so she stays around town awhile,anyway. I reckon the men folks wouldn't have raised no objections, butthe women egged 'em on to order her to leave town. But she had plenty ofspunk, and told 'em to mind their own business. "So one night they decided to run her away. A crowd of men and womendrove her out of her house, and chased her with sticks and stones. Sherun to her father's door, callin' for help. Mike opens it, and when hesees who it is he hits her with his fist and knocks her down and shuts thedoor. "And then the crowd kept on chunkin' her till she run clear out of town.And the next day they finds her drowned dead in Hunter's mill pond. Imind it all now. That was thirty year ago." I leaned back in my non-rotary revolving chair and nodded gently, like amandarin, at my paste-pot. "When old Mike has a spell," went on Uncle Abner, tepidly garrulous, "hethinks he's the Wanderin' Jew." "He is," said I, nodding away. And Uncle Abner cackled insinuatingly at the editor's remark, for he wasexpecting at least a "stickful" in the "Personal Notes" of the _Bugle_.

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