"Because I would not...let the poor Christ...rest...upon the step."His hallucination seemed beyond all reasonable answer; yet the effect of it upon him scarcely merited disrespect.But I knew nothing that might assuage it; and I told him once more that both of us should be leaving the office at once.
Obedient at last, he raised himself from my dishevelled desk, and permitted me to half lift him to the floor.The gale of his grief had blown away his words; his freshet of tears had soaked away the crust of his 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 face was seared and lined and warped by a sadness almost incredibly the product of a single lifetime.
And then high up in the firmamental darkness we heard the clamant cries of some great, passing birds.My Wandering Jew lifted his hand, with side-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 hear is the souls of the seven Jews that helped with the Crucifixion.