An excerpt from
The Heresiarch & Co.
by Guillaume Apollinaire

I went out with the idea of taking a walk as long as the light lasted, and then dining at some Bohemian inn. According to my custom, I again asked a passerby for information. It happened that he too recogmzed my accent, and answered me in French:

"I am a foreigner like yourself, but I know the beauties and sights of Prague well enough to invite you to accompany me across the city."

I looked at the man. He seemed to be about sixty years old, though still in his prime. His outer clothing consisted of a long brown coat with an otter-skin collar, and close-fitting black trousers, cut tight enough to outline a calf which I judged to be very muscular. He wore a broadbrimmed black felt hat, like those often affected by German professors. Round his forehead was bound a narrow riband of black silk. His shoes, made of soft leather, without heels, hushed the sound of his slow and regular footsteps, which were those of a man who, having a long road to travel, does not wish to be tired at the end of his journey. We walked on in silence while my mind absorbed the details of his profile. His features were almost hidden behind a massive beard and mustaches; his hair was immoderately long, but carefully combed and white as ermine. Through the beard one could distinguish thick violet lips. His nose was prominent, hairy and hooked.

The stranger stopped near a urinal and said:

"Excuse me, sir."

I followed him in. I noticed that his trousers were what tailors call whole fall, the cloth flap hanging down in front of him.

When we came out he continued:

"Look at these old houses. They have kept the signs which distinguished them from one another before they were numbered. Here is the house of the Virgin, the one over there is the house of the Eagle, and there is the house of the Knight."

Above the porch of the last one was carved a date.

The old man read it aloud:

"1721. Let me see, where was I then?… On the 21st of June, I had arrived at the gates of Munich."

I was listening to him, frightened, thinking I had to do with a madman. He looked at me and smiled, revealing toothless gums, then continued:

"I had reached the gates of Munich. But there, it seemed, my face did not please the soldiers of the guard, because they questioned me very indiscreetly. My answers did not satisfy them, so they bound me and brought me before the inquisitors. Although my conscience was clear, this hardly reassured me. On the way there, the sight of St. Onuphre, painted on the house which today bears the number 17 Marienplak, assured me that I would live at least until the following day, because this picture had the property of according a day’s life to whosoever looked at it. It is true that my particular glance was of little use to me, for I have the ironic certainty of survival. The judges set me free, and I wandered about Munich for eight days."

"You must have been very young then," I managed to stammer, in order at least to say something. "Very young."

He replied indifferently:

"Younger by about two centuries. Though, apart from these clothes, my appearance was much as it is now. Again, this was not my first visit to Munich. I had been there before in 1334. I shall always remember two processions I met on that occasion. The first was composed of archers leading a whore who faced the boos of the rabble valiantly, and wore her crown of straw — that diadem of infamy at the tip of which jingled a little bell — with a regal air. Two long straw plaits fell to the ankles of the girl, who was pretty. She bore her chained hands crossed in front of her belly, which advanced veneriously, following the custom of the times, in which the beauty of a woman lay in appearing to be pregnant. It is of course their only claim to beauty. The second procession was that of a Jew who was being led off to be hanged. I walked as far as the gibbet among the yelling crowd, drunk on beer. The Jew’s head was enclosed in an iron mask, painted red. Made to look like a diabolical character, it had ears in the shape of paper cornets, like the donkey’s ears which we put on the heads of naughty children. The nose ended in a point, and as it was heavy, it forced the poor man to walk with his back hunched. An immense tongue, flat, narrow, and curled upwards from the mouth, completed the unwieldy toy. Not one woman in the crowd took pity on the Jew. Not one of them thought of wiping his sweating face beneath the mask, as did the unknown woman, St. Veronica, who wiped the sweat from the face of Jesus. Noticing that a servant in the procession was leading two large dogs, the rabble insisted that they should be hanged next to the Jew. I felt that this was a double sacrilege, first from the point of view of these people’s own religion who were making of the Jew a sort of horrifying Christ, second from the point of view of all humanity, because I detest animals, sir, and cannot accept that they should be treated like men!"

"You are a Jew, are you not?" I asked simply.

He replied:

"I am the Wandering Jew, as you have no doubt already guessed. I am the eternal Jew. That is what the Germans call me. I am Isaac Laquedem."