"I have now come from Madrid, but before that I was in many places:
in England, in France, in Belgium, who knows where besides. I have
wandered from one town to another, always struggling against hunger
and the cruelty of men. My footsteps have been dogged by poverty and
the police. When I rest a little, worn out by this Wandering Jew's
existence, Justice, inspired by fear, orders me to move on, and so
once again I begin my march. I am a man to be feared, Esteban, even as
you now see me, with my body ruined before old age, and the certainty
before me of a speedy death. Again, yesterday in Madrid, they told me
I should be sent once more to prison if I stayed there any longer, and
so in the evening I took the train. Where shall I go? The world is
wide; but for me and other rebels it is very small, and narrows till
it does not leave a hand's breadth of ground for our feet. In all the
world nothing was left me but you, and this peaceful silent corner
where you live so happily, and so, I came to seek you. If you turn me
out, nothing will be left me but to die in prison, or in a hospital,
if indeed they would take me in when they know my name."

And Gabriel, spent with his words, coughed painfully, a hollow
cavernous cough that seemed to tear his chest. He expressed himself
vehemently, moving his arms freely, with the gestures of a man used to
speaking in public, burning with the zeal of his cause.

"Ah! brother, brother!" said Esteban, with an accent of mild reproof,
"what has it profited you reading so many books and newspapers? What
is the use of trying to disturb and upset things that are all right;
and if they are all wrong, is there no other means of righting them
possible? If you had followed your own path quietly, you would have
been a beneficiary of the Cathedral, and, who knows, you might have