< Page:Auerbach-Spinozanovel.djvu
This page has been validated.

MISSIONARIES.

397

"No."

"A Rabbi? A Pope?"

"No, you are not guessing now, I know. I saw you as Masaniello, with a fishing net on your back; your red embroidered cap with the long tassel suited your coal-black hair, and your sleeves were rolled up above your elbows. I saw you carried through the streets that way, by a crowd of Jews, to the new Town Hall; there you climbed up to the golden ship on the tower and cried: 'Fellow-citizens, you who, as Erasmus of Rotterdam says, live like crows on the tops of trees! I see your fork-like chimneys and your double-faced gables, I see the canals and dams that intersect your land, and your life that flows on as much contracted, and without free tide, in the preordained way. I tell you, this will all be changed. I erase the "You should" from your book of life, and in my doctrine write it, "You must, for you can." You think fish are mute? It is not true. I have caught a legion from the depth of the sea, who all speak wisdom.' Then you took your net from your back, it was empty; you turned it round, and an infinite number of fish fell out; they glittered beautifully in the sun, their fins became wings, and they fluttered away screaming. You, however, remained there, and uttered a Philippic against the legend that, on the day on which the envoys of the Seven United Provinces should go through the seven doors of the

    This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.