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--that murderous yoke,
which others take in their turn, thus to be borne from age to age on the
submissive and bruised shoulders of the masses.

"And now, for the third time in five centuries, I reach the summit of one
of the hills that overlook the city. And perhaps I again bring with me
fear, desolation, and death.

"Yet this city, intoxicated with the sounds of its joys and its nocturnal
revelries, does not know--oh! does not know that I am at its gates.

"But no, no! my presence will not be a new calamity. The Lord, in his
impenetrable views, has hitherto led me through France, so as to avoid
the humblest hamlet; and the sound of the funeral knell has not
accompanied my passage.

"And, moreover, the spectre has left me--the green, livid spectre, with
its hollow, bloodshot eyes. When I touched the soil of France, its damp
and icy hands was no longer clasped in mine--and it disappeared.

"And yet--I feel that the atmosphere of death is around me.

"The sharp whistlings of that fatal wind cease not, which, catching me in