THE CHILDREN'S

hy

MARCEL SCHWOB

E N G L I S H V E R S I O N BY A L E X A N D E R WOOLLCOTT

Circa idem tempus pueri sine rectore sine duce de universis omnium
regionum villis et civitatibus versus transmarinas partes avidis
gressibus cucurrerunt, et dum quaereretur ah ipsis quo currerent,
responderunt: Versus Jherusalem, quaerere terram sanctam . . .
Adhuc quo devenerint ignoratur. Sed plurimi redierunt, a quihus
dum quaereretur causa cursus, dixerunt se nescire. Nudae etidm
mulieres circa idem, tempus nichil loquentes per villas et civitates
cucurrerunt. . . .

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 T H E CHILDREN S CRUSADE
FROM " L A L A M P E D E P S Y C H E " BY MARCEL SCHWOB
MERCURE DE F R A N C E , 1 8 9 6

THIS TRANSLATION COPYRIGHT I935 BY ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT. NO

PART O F IT MAY BE PRODUCED I N ANY FORM W I T H O U T PERMISSION O F
T H E VIKING PRESS

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 THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE

A VAGRANT PRIEST SPEAKS

THOUGH I be but a wretched, outcast cleric who must wander

the forests and highways to beg, in the name of Our Lord, my daily
bread, I have seen a sight most holy and heard the words of little chil-
dren. I know my life is not a godly one and that sometimes under the
lime trees by the roadside I have given in to temptation. The brothers
who offer me wine can see well enough that I am little used to drink.
But I am not one of these mutilators. There be wicked men who gouge
out the eyes of babies and cut off their legs and bind their hands in
order to show them off for pity. Therefore was I sore afraid when I be-
held all those children. But without doubt Our Lord will protect them.
I rattle on this way because I am filled to the brim with happiness. The
springtime and everything I see makes me laugh. My mind is none
too good. I was but ten years old when they gave me the tonsure, and
all the Latin words I have clean forgot. I am like a locust, for I leap
about here and there and make a great buzzing. At times I spread my
coloured wings and you can see right through my little empty head.
They say that Saint John the Baptist lived on locusts in the wilder-
ness. He must have eaten a great many. But Saint John was not made
like the rest of us.
I am full of adoration for Saint John, because he too was a wanderer,
and the words he spoke did not always follow one upon another. I
think they must have been all the sweeter for that. The spring is sweet
too this year. Never have I seen so many pink and white flowers. The
meadows are new-washed. Everywhere the blood of Our Lord glistens
in the hedgerows. The blessed Lord Jesus is the colour of the lily but
His blood is the colour of a ruby. Why.? I do not know. Doubtless it
46s

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is all explained in a parchment somewhere. Had I been taught my
letters I would get me a parchment now and write upon it. In that
way I would be able to eat my fill every night. I would go into the
monasteries to pray for the dead of the brotherhood and write their
names upon my scroll. From one abbey to another I would carry my
death-scroll. The brothers would like that. But I do not know the
names of the dead. Perhaps Our Lord does not bother to know them
either. All these children seem to me to have no names, yet it is quite
certain that they have the favour of Our Lord Jesus. They filled all the
highway like a swarm of white bees. I know not whence they came.
They were all small pilgrims. They carried staffs 'of hazelwood and
birch. They had crosses on their shoulders and these crosses were of
many colours. I saw some green ones which must have been made
of leaves sewn together. These children are wild and ignorant. They
are headed for I know not where. They believe in Jerusalem. Me, I
think that Jerusalem is far away and that Our Lord must be much
nearer to us. They will not come to Jerusalem. But Jerusalem will
come to them. And to me. The end of all holy things is joy. Our Lord
is here under this scarlet thorn and on ray lips and in the poor words
I speak, for I think of Him and in my thought lies His sepulchre.
Amen. I will lie down here in the sunlight. It is a holy place. The feet
of Our Lord have made all places holy. I will go to sleep. May Jesus
bring sleep to all the white little children who carry the cross. Verily
to Him I say it. I am very sleepy. Verily I say it to Him, for perhaps
He has not seen them and He should watch over little children. The
hour of noon weighs upon me. All things are white. So be it. Amen.

A LEPER SPEAKS

IF you would understand that which I am about to tell you, know

that my head is covered with a white cowl and that I shake a rattle
made of hard wood. I no longer know what my face is like, but my
hands terrify me. They run before me like scaly creatures the colour
of death. I would like to cut them off. Everything that they touch fills

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 THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE 467
me with shame. It seems to me that they bUght the red fruits I gather.
And the poor roots which I pluck from the ground seem to wither at
their touch. Domine ceterorum libera me!
The Saviour has not expiated my ghastly sin. I am forgotten until
the resurrection. Like the toad sealed in the dark of the moon in some
unnoticed rock, I shall stay locked up in my hideous lode when all
the rest arise with their shining bodies. Domine ceterorum jac me
liberum: leprosus sum. I am alone and frightened. Only my teeth have
kept their natural whiteness. All animals fear me and my very soul
would like to run away from me. The daylight avoids me. Twelve
hundred and twelve years ago this Saviour of theirs saved them, but
on me He had no pity. I was not touched by the bloody spear that
pierced His side. Perhaps the blood of their Lord would have healed
me. Often I dream of blood. I could bite it with my teeth, for they are
sound. Since He has been unwilling to give to me, I have a great
yearning to take that which belongs to Him. That is why I kept watch
on these children who came down from the Vendome to this wood-
land on the Loire. They carried crosses, for they were His subjects.
Their flesh is His flesh and He has not made me part of His flesh.
On this earth I am surrounded by a pale damnation. I lay in wait to
suck the innocent blood from the neck of one of these children of His.
Et caro nova fiet in die irae. On the Day of Judgment my flesh will be
new. Loitering behind the others there was a rosy child with red hair.
I marked him out. My leap was sudden. I seized his mouth with my
dreadful hands. He wore only a rough shirt; his feet were bare and
his eyes remained tranquil. Unastonished, he looked at me. Then,
knowing that he was not going to cry out, I was seized with a great
desire to hear a human voice. I took my hands from his mouth and
he did not wipe his lips. His eyes were far away.
"Who art thou?" I said to him.
"Johannes the Teuton," he answered. And his speech was clear and
healing.
"Whither goest thou?" I asked him then.
And he answered: "To Jerusalem to conquer the Holy Land."
Then I began to laugh and I asked him: "Where is Jerusalem?"

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And he answered: "I do not know."
And then I said: "What is Jerusalem?"
And he answered: "It is Our Lord."
Then I began to laugh anew and I asked him: "What is this Lord
of thine.?"
And he said: "I do not know. He is white."
And this word threw me into a fury and I opened my teeth under
my cowl and I bent towards his rosy throat and he did not draw back
and I said: "Why dost thou not fear me?"
And he said: "Why should I have fear of thee, O man all white.?"
Then great tears shook me and I stretched myself upon the earth.
I kissed the ground with my terrible lips and I cried: "Because I am a
leper."
And the child looked at me and said in his limpid voice: "I do not
understand."
He was not afraid of me! He was not afraid of me!
To him my monstrous whiteness was like the whiteness of his Lord
and I took a handful of grass and wiped his lips and his hands and I
said to him: "Go in peace to your white Lord and tell Him that He has
forgotten me."
And the child from the North looked at me and said nothing. I
went along with him out of the darkness of the forest. He walked
without trembling. From afar I watched his red locks vanish into the
sunlight. Domine infantium, libera me! May the sound of my wooden
rattle reach Thee pure as the sound of bells! Master of all who do not
understand, deliver Thou me!

POPE I N N O C E N T III SPEAKS

WHEN I leave the incense and the chasubles behind me and come to
the one room in all my palace that has no gold left on its walls, I find
it quite easy to talk to God. With no one standing by to prop me up,
I come here to give thought to my old age. During the mass, my
heart is uplifted and my body straightens up. The sparkle of the sacred

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wine fills my eyes and my thinking is eased by the precious oils. But
in this lonely spot in the house of my Lord, I am free to bend under
my earthly weariness. Ecce homo! For the Lord cannot really hear the
voice of His priests through all the thunder of edicts and bulls. Haply
the purple is not pleasing to Him. Nor the jewels, nor the paintings.
Then He may have pity on my faulty babbling when it rises from this
Uttle cell. Lord, I am very old and behold me clad in white before
Thee and my name is Innocent and Thou knowest that I know noth-
ing. Pardon Thou my papacy for it was a thing already set up and I
gave in to it. It was not I who ordained these honours. I would rather
see Thy sun through this round window than in the magnificent gUt-
ter of my stained glass. Let me kneel before Thee as would any old
man and turn towards Thee the pallid and wrinkled face which I find
it so hard to keep above the waves of the eternal night. As the rings
slip along my shrunken fingers, so sUde away the last days of my life.
Oh, God, I am Thy vicar here and towards Thee I reach out a hand
cupped to hold the pure wine of Thy faith. There are great crimes.
There are very great crimes. We can give them absolution. There are
great heresies. There are very great heresies. We should punish them
without pity. In this hour when, all in white, I kneel in this small
white cell, I am in great anguish. Lord, for I know not whether these
crimes and heresies fall within the imposing domain of my papacy
or within the little circle of sunlight in which an old man clasps his
simple hands together. Then, too, I am troubled in this matter of Thy
sepulchre. Always the infidels encircle it. No one knows how to take
it from them. No one has led Thy cross to the Holy Land, yet are we
sunk in torpor. The knights have laid down their arms and there are
no longer kings who know how to command them. And I, Lord, re-
proach myself and beat my breast. I am too weak and too old.
Now, O Lord, hear Thou the tremulous whisper rising from this
little cell in my basiHca and give me counsel. My men have brought
me strange tidings from Flanders and from Germany and from all
along the roads that lead to Marseilles and to Genoa. Unheard-of sects
are about to be born. There have been seen running about the cities
naked women who speak no word at all. These shameless mutes kept

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pointing to heaven. In the pubUc squares madmen have been preach-
ing ruin. Hermits and wandering friars are full of strange tales. And
I know not by what magic more than seven thousand children have
been enticed from their homes. Seven thousand are on the march with
cross and staff. They have nothing to eat. They carry no arms. They
cannot fend for themselves and they discredit us. They are ignorant
of all true religion. My men questioned them. They said they were
going to Jerusalem to conquer the Holy Land. My men told them
they could not cross the sea. They made answer that the waters of the
sea would part and dry up to let them pass. Their own God-fearing
and worthy people tried to hold them back by force but they broke the
locks in the night and climbed over the walls. Many are sons begotten
by noblemen with sinful women. It is a great pity. Lord, all these in-
nocents will be given over to shipwreck and to the worshippers of
Mahomet. I can see the Sultan of Baghdad lying in wait for them in
his palace. I tremble lest the sailors lay hands on them and sell them
into slavery.
Lord, let me speak to you in the formulas of religion. This children's
crusade is no work of piety. It will never win the sepulchre for the
Christians. It but adds to the number of vagabonds who are astray on
the fringe of the true faith. Our priests cannot defend it. We are forced
to believe that the Evil One has possession of these poor creatures.
They flock towards the precipice as the swine ran towards the steep
place. Lord, Thou knowest how gladly the Evil One takes possession
of children. Once he assumed the guise of a ratcatcher and seduced
with his flute-notes all the little children of Hamelin. Some say these
unfortunates were drowned in the river Weser. Others say he shut
them up in the side of a mountain. It is to be feared that Satan is lead-
ing all our children into the toils of those who have not our faith.
Lord, you know yourself it is not a good thing for belief to take new
forms. It had no sooner appeared in the burning bush, than you shut
it up in a tabernacle. And when it was wrung from your lips upon
Golgotha, you ordained that it be enclosed in many a pyx and mon-
strance. These little prophets will shake the edifice of your church, We
must keep them out of it. Will you in scorn for the consecrate—who

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wear in your service their albs and their stoles and who, to win you,
have sternly resisted all temptation—will you now find acceptable these
who know not what they do ? We should suffer little children to come
unto you, but only by the avenue of your faith. Lord, I speak to you
according to your own laws. These children will perish. Let there not
be under Innocent a new massacre of the innocents.
Pardon me, O God, if, though I wear Thy diadem, I still seek coun-
sel. The palsy of old age seizes me anew. See Thou my poor hands.
I am a very old man. I no longer have the faith all little children have.
Time has worn the gold from the walls of this cell. They are white.
This bit of Thy sunlight is white. My robe is white, too. And my
withered heart is without stain. I have spoken according to Thy law.
There are crimes. There are very great crimes. There are heresies.
There are very great heresies. My head shakes from weakness. Perhaps
we should neither punish nor absolve. When life has gone by, it makes
our resolutions falter. I have never seen a miracle. Give me light. Is this
a miracle.? What sign hast Thou given them? Is the day at hand?
Is it Thy wish that a very old man such as I am be as white as Thy
stainless children? Seven thousand! What if theirs be an ignorant faith,
wilt Thou punish the ignorance of seven thousand innocents? I, too,
am Innocent. Lord, I am as innocent as they. Do not punish me in my
old age. The long, long years have taught me that this flock of chil-
dren cannot succeed. And yet. Lord, is it a miracle ? This cell of mine
remains as calm as when I have meditated here before. I know there
is no need of imploring Thee to make Thyself manifest, and yet, from
the height of my great age, from the dizzy height of Thy papacy, I do
so implore Thee. Teach me, for I do not understand. Lord, these are
Thy little innocents and I, Innocent, I do not understand. I do not
understand.

TWO C H I L D R E N SPEAK

W E three—Nicolas, who cannot talk, and Alain and Denis—we

are on our way to Jerusalem. We have been walking a long time. White

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voices called out to us in the night. They were calling all little chil-
dren. They were like the voices of birds who died in the winter time.
At first we saw many poor birds stretched upon the frozen ground,
many small birds with red throats. Then we saw the first flowers and
the first leaves, and from these we braided crosses. We sang outside
the villages just as we always used to at New Year's. And all the
children ran towards us. And we moved forward like an army. Some
men cursed us because they did not know the Lord. There were
women who caught us by the arms and questioned us and covered
our faces with kisses. And then there were kind people who brought
us wooden bowls with warm milk and fruits. And everybody was
sorry for us, for they did not know where we were going and they
had not heard the voices.
There are dense forests on this earth, and rivers and mountains and
pathways full of brambles. At the end of the land is the sea, which we
shall soon be crossing. And at the end of the sea is Jerusalem. We have
no leaders or guides but we have found all the roads good. Although
he does not know how to talk, Nicolas walks just as we, Alain and
Denis, do. And all countries are alike, one as dangerous for children
as another. Everywhere there are thick forests and rivers and moun-
tains and thorns. But everywhere the voices will be with us.
There is a child here whose name is Eustace and who was born
with his eyes closed. He keeps his arms outstretched and he smiles.
We see no more than he does. A little girl leads him and carries his
cross. Her name is AUys. She never speaks and she never cries. She
keeps her eyes fixed upon Eustace's feet so that she can hold him up
when he stumbles. We love them both. Eustace will not be able to see
the sacred lamps of the sepulchre. But AUys will take his hands and
see that he touches the slabs of the tomb.
Oh, how beautiful the things of this earth are! We remember noth-
ing because we never learned anything. Yet we have seen old trees and
red rocks. Sometimes we pass through long shadows. Sometimes we
walk until sunset in bright pastures. We have shouted the name of
Jesus into Nicolas's ears and he knows it well. But he cannot say it. He
enjoys what we see. His lips part out of happiness and he pats us on

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the shoulders. They are not unhappy, for AUys looks after Eustace and
we, Alain and Denis, we look after Nicolas.
They told us we should meet ogres and werewolves in the woods.
Those were lies. No one has frightened us. No one has done us any
harm. Hermits and sick people come to look at us and old women
light rush-candles for us in the huts. They ring the churchbells for us.
Peasants stand up in the furrows and stare at us. The cattle look at us
too, and do not run away. And since we have been on the march the
sun has grown warmer, and the flowers we pick are different. But all
the stems can be braided into the same forms and our crosses are
always fresh. So our hopes are high and soon we shall see the blue
sea. And at the end of the blue sea is Jerusalem. And the Lord will
suffer all little children to come to his tomb. And the white voices
will be happy in the night.

REPORT OF F R A N C O I S L O N G U E J O U E ,
SCRIVENER

TODAY, the fifteenth day of September in the twelve-hundred-and-

twelfth year after the incarnation of Our Lord, there came into the
shipyard of my master, Hugues Ferre, several children as\ing that
they might cross the sea to visit the Holy Sepulchre. And because the
aforesaid Ferre did not have enough merchantmen in the port of Mar-
seilles, he bade me call upon Master Guillaume Pore in order to com-
plete the number. The said Hugues Ferre and the said Guillaume Pore
will sail the ships all the way to the Holy Land for the love of Our
Lord, J. C. Just now more than seven thousand children are spread
around the city of Marseilles, and some of them spea\ strange and
savage tongues. So the Honourable Aldermen, fearing with some rea-
son that there might be a shortage of food, met at the town hall where,
after deliberation, they summoned the aforesaid shipmasters to urge
and beg them to dispatch the ships with all convenient speed. Because
of the equinox, the weather at sea is none too good, but one must bear
in mind that such a mob might be dangerous to our good city, all the

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more because these children are starved after their long march and
know not what they are doing. I have had a call put in for sailors at
the port and have had the ships outfitted. They can set sail at the
vesper hour. The swarm of children is not inside the city, but they are
running all along the shore gathering up shells as tokens of the voyage.
And it is said they are amazed at the starfish and thin\ these must
have fallen alive from heaven to point out their road to the Lord. And
of this extraordinary happening, here is what 1 have to say: first, it is
much to be desired that Master Hugues Ferre and Master Guillaume
Pore should conduct this alien disorder outside our city with all
promptness; second, it has been a harsh winter so that the soil is poor
this year, as the merchants of the town know full well; third, the
church received no notice of the plan of this horde from the north and
will take no part in all this nonsense of a childish army. (Turba in-
fantium.) Also it is meet to praise Master Hugues Ferre and Master
Guillaume Pore as much for the love they bear our good city as for
their obedience to Our Lord, sending forth their ships and sailing them
at the equinox, in great danger, moreover, from attack by the infidels
who, in their feluccas from Algiers and Bougie, do scour this sea which
belongs to us.

THE K.ALANDAR SPEAKS

GLORY be to God! All praise to the Prophet who has let me be poor
and wander from city to city calling on the name of the Lord! Thrice
blessed be the holy companions of Mahomet, who founded the divine
order to which I belong! For I am like unto him when he was stoned
out of the infamous city which I will not name and when he hid in a
vineyard where in pity a Christian slave gave him grapes and was
reached by the words of the faith at sundown. God is great! I have
passed through the cities of Mosul and of Baghdad and of Basrah,
and I have known Sala'h-ud-Din (may God keep his soul) and his
brother, the Sultan Seif-ud-Din, and I have looked upon the Com-
mander of the Faithful. I live well enough on the little rice I beg and

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on the water people pour into my calabash. I keep my body pure, but
the greatest purity is of the soul. It is written that the Prophet, before
his mission, once fell into a deep sleep upon the ground. And
two men in white came down to the right and to the left of his body
and stood there. And the man on the left cut open his breast with
a golden knife and drew out his heart from which he squeezed the
black blood. And the man on the right cut open his belly with a
golden knife and drew out the entrails which he purified. And they
put the entrails back in place and thus did the Prophet become pure
so that he might proclaim the faith. That was a more than human
purity, which chiefly belongs to the angels. Yet children are pure,
too. Theirs is the kind of purity which the witch-woman wished to
conceive when she saw the halo around the head of Mahomet's father
and tried to have union with him. But the Prophet's father joined with
his wife, Aminah, and when the halo vanished from his forehead, the
witch-woman knew that Aminah had conceived a pure being. Glory
to God Who purifies!
Here in the portico of this bazaar I can rest myself and call out to
passers-by. Squatting here alongside me are rich merchants of fabrics
and jewels. That caftan there must be worth a thousand dinars. Me,
I have no need of money and I am as free as a dog. Glory be to God!
Now that I am in the shade, I recall the start of my discourse. First I
spoke of God, for there is but one God, and of our holy Prophet who
revealed the faith. For that is the origin of all thoughts, whether they
issue from the mouth or are writ with a reed-pen. Next, I dwelt upon
the purity which God has given to the saints and to angels. In the
third place, I reflected upon the purity of children.
As it happens, I have just seen a great number of Christian children
who were bought by the Commander of the Faithful. I saw them on
the highway. They were going along like a flock of sheep. Some say
they came from Egypt and that the ships of the Franks had unloaded
them there. Satan had entered into them, tempting them to cross the
sea to Jerusalem. Glory be to God! He would not let so great a cruelty
be carried out, for the poor children would have died along the way,
having no one to help them and no food to eat. They are altogether

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innocent. And at the sight of them I cast myself upon the earth and
I beat the ground with my forehead, blessing the Lord at the top of
my voice. This is how it was with these children. They were dressed
in white and they had crosses sewn upon their clothing. They ap-
peared not to know where they were but they did not seem troubled.
Always their look was faraway. I noticed that one of them was blind
and a little girl led him by the hand. Many of them had red hair and
green eyes. These were Franks, who belong to the Roman Emperor.
The Franks make the mistake of adoring the prophet Jesus. This error
of theirs is obvious. To begin with, it has been proven by the books
and the miracles that there is no law save that of Mahomet. Then,
God lets us glorify Him every day and beg for our living, and He has
ordained that His faithful shall protect our order. Finally, He has
denied clairvoyance to these children who, tempted by Iblis, left their
far-off country without His giving them a warning sign. If they had
not luckily fallen into the hands of the faithful, they would have been
seized by the fire-worshippers and chained in deep caves. These
damnable people would have offered them up as sacrifices to their de-
vouring and loathsome idol. Praised be our God Who does all things
well and protects even those who do not confess Him. God is great!
Now I shall go over to that goldsmith's shop there and demand my
share of the rice. And at the same time I shall proclaim my contempt
of riches. If it be pleasing to God, all these children will be saved by
the faith.

LITTLE ALLYS SPEAKS

I CANNOT walk much farther for we are in a burning country to

which two wicked men from Marseilles brought us. Then there was
that day when all was blackness and we were tossed about on the sea
with the fires of heaven all around us. But my little Eustace was not
afraid because he saw nothing and I held his two hands. I love him
dearly and I came here for his sake. For I do not know where we are
going. It is such a long time ago that we started out. People told us

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 THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE 477
about the city of Jerusalem at the end of the sea. And about Our Lord
who would be there to receive us. And Eustace knows Our Lord Jesus,
but he does not know what Jerusalem is. Nor what a city is. Nor the
sea. He ran away to obey the voices he heard every night. It was in the
night he heard them because of the stillness. For he does not know
the difference between night and day. And he asked me about these
voices but I could not tell him anything. I know nothing and my
only worry is about Eustace. We used to walk with Nicolas and
Alain and Denis but they got on to another ship, and when the sun
rose next day, all the other ships were gone. Alas, what has become
of them ? Will we find them again when we come close to Our Lord ?
It is still very far off. Some say there is a great king who has sent
for us and who holds the city of Jerusalem in his power. In this coun-
try everything is white, the houses white and the garments. And the
faces of the women are covered with veils. Poor Eustace can't see this
whiteness but I tell him about it and it makes him happy, for he says
it is a sign of the end. The Lord Jesus is white. Little AUys is very
tired but she holds Eustace by the hand that he may not fall and she
has no time to think of her own weariness. We will rest this evening
and AUys will sleep as always close to Eustace. And if the voices have
not deserted us she will try to hear them in the clear night. And she
will hold Eustace by the hand until the shining end of the long jour-
ney. For she must point out the Lord to him. And surely the Lord will
have pity because of Eustace's patience and will suffer Eustace to see
Him. And perhaps then Eustace will see Uttle AUys.

POPE GREGORY IX SPEAKS

BEHOLD the devouring sea, which looks so blue and so innocent. Its
folds are soft and edged with white like a heavenly robe. It is a liquid
sky with living stars. I meditate upon it from this rocky throne whither
I have had myself borne from my litter. It is well named for, in all
truth, it is the centre of Christendom. Into it pours the holy water
wherewith once the Forerunner washed away sins. AU the sainted faces

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478 THE WOOLLCOTT READER
have bent over its brink, and its tremulous mirror has held for a time
their transparent reflections. Anointed and mysterious font, which has
neither ebb nor flow, azure cradle set Uke a liquid jewel in an earthly
ring, my eyes interrogate thee. O Mediterranean, give me back my
children. Why hast thou taken them?
I never knew them. My old age was never caressed by their sweet
breaths. They never came begging to me with their tender lips parted.
Alone, little vagabonds full of a blind and raging faith, they flung
themselves towards the Promised Land and were annihilated. From
Germany and from Flanders, from France and Savoy and Lombardy,
they came towards thy treacherous waves, O holy sea, so that there was
a mighty humming sound made from their half-heard words of wor-
ship. They went as far as the city of Marseilles. They went as far as
the city of Genoa. And thou didst carry them in ships upon thy great
foam-crested back. And thou didst twist and stretch out towards them
thy grey-green arms. And thou didst hold them fast. And others thou
didst betray, carrying them to the infidels, so that now,- captives of
those who worship Mahomet, they sigh in the palaces of the East.
Once upon a time, a proud king of Asia had thee beaten with rods
and loaded with chains. O Mediterranean, who will pardon thee.''
Thou art sadly guilty. It is thou I accuse. Thou alone. So treacherously
limpid and clear, evil mirage of the sky! I call thee to account before
the throne of the Most High, whence come all things created. Conse-
crated sea, what hast thou done with our children.? Lift towards Him
thy cerulean face, stretch towards Him thy fingers all shimmering
with bubbles, unleash thy measureless wine-dark laughter, turn thy
murmurous voice into speech and render account unto Him.
Silent in every one of thy white mouths which have just breathed
their last at my feet upon this shore, thou sayest naught. In my palace
at Rome there is a chipped old cell which time has made white as an
alb. Pope Innocent used to shut himself away in it. They say he medi-
tated long upon those children and on their faith and sought a sign
from the Lord. Here from this high rock-throne in the open air, I de-
clare that Pope Innocent himself had the faith of a child and that he
shook in vain his weary locks. I am much older than Innocent. I am

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 THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE 479
the oldest of all the vicars whom the Lord has placed here below and
I am only beginning to understand.
God never manifests Himself. Did He stand by His son at Geth-
semane? Did He not abandon Him in His supreme anguish? What
childish folly to invoke His aid! All evil and all ordeal lie only in
ourselves. He has perfect confidence in the work fashioned by His
hands and thou hast betrayed His confidence. O sea divine, be not
astonished at what I say. All things are equal before the Lord. Reckon-
ing by infinity, man's mighty reason is worth no more than the tiny,
starry eye of one of the creatures that dwell in thy depths. God allots
the same share to the grain of sand and to the emperor. The gold ripens
in the mine, sinless as the monk meditating in the monastery. All
worldly factions are equally guilty when they do not follow the lines
of goodness, for these issue from Him. In His eyes there are no rocks,
nor plants, nor animals, nor men. There are only creations. I see all
these whitening heads which leap above thy waves and vanish into
thy waters. Damned or elect, they glisten but for a moment in the
light of the sun. Great age can give pride a lesson and make religion
clear. I have as much pity for this little pearly shell as I have for
myself.
That is why I accuse thee, devouring sea, who hast swallowed up my
little children. Remember the Asian king by whom thou wast pun-
ished. But he had not lived to be a hundred, that king. He had not
been through enough years. The universe still mystified him. I will not
punish thee, for my complaint and thy murmur, they will die together
at the feet of the Most High, just as the whisperings of thy tiniest
drops have this moment died at my feet. O Mediterranean, I pardon
thee and I absolve thee. I give thee most holy absolution. Go thou and
sin no more. Like thee, I am guilty of faults of which I know nothing.
In every moment of time thy myriad murmurous lips make confes-
sion on the shore. With my withered lips I confess to thee, great sacred
sea. We confess to each other. Absolve thou me and I will absolve
thee. Let us both relapse into honest ignorance. So be it.
What shall I do on earth? There shall be a monument in expiation,
a monument to uncomprehending faith. The ages to come should

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48o THE WOOLLCOTT READER
recognize our piety and not despair. By the sanctified sin of the sea,
God drew the little crusaders to Him. There was a massacre of inno-
cents. Their bodies shall find asylum. On the Reef of the Hermit seven
ships foundered. I will build a church of the New Innocents on that
island and I will set up twelve canons there. And thou shalt return to
me the bodies of my children, O innocent and consecrated sea. And
thou shalt bear them towards the shores of the island and the canons
shall place them in the crypts of the temple. And above them they
shall light eternal lamps wherein the holy oils will burn and they shall
show to pious travellers all these little whitened bones stretched out in
the night.

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 AN AFTERWORD ON
THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE

T was on a June night in 1914 that Walter Duranty of Mos-

cow and elsewhere, who was then toiling fitfully as leg-man
. L for the Paris correspondent of The 'New Yor\ Times, came
up to me on the terrasse of the Closerie des Lilas in the Boul'
Miche and gave me, as a book to read on the boat going home,
a yellow-backed miscellany by Marcel Schwob called La Lampe
de Psyche, marking in it for my special attention the small dossier
of imagined testimony called "La Croisade des Enfants." The
English version given here is the result of the editor's determina-
tion to include the work in this anthology and the publisher's
implacable refusal to admit the French text to the canon. No
satisfactory translation appearing to be available, the evasive
Duranty was vainly besought to make one. Past master of the
fine art of not writing at all, he gave as his excuse this time the
impossibility of capturing in English the hypnotic beauty of
Schwob's prose. He may have been right.
Andre-Mayer Marcel Schwob, who sometimes employed
Loyson-Bridet as his nom de guerre, was born on the outskirts of
Paris (at Chaville, Seine-et-Oise) three years before the Franco-
Prussian war. He died before he was forty. Heir to a long line of
distinguished Jewish scholars, he "learned the lore rabbinic at the
grandparental knee." His wife was Marguerite Moreno of the
Comedie Frangaise and lately we encountered them both as recur-
rent figures in the Parisian entries of Arnold Bennett's diary.

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482 THE WOOLLCOTT READER
through which Schwob moves frail and intense, a man consumed,
a haunted Httle man with huge, burning eyes.
Just after the turn of the century America knew him best as
the Frenchman who made the prose translation of Hamlet which
Bernhardt played. About that translation a tale is told which be-
longs in the archives of the universal and eternal theater. In her
younger days at the Theatre Frangais, Sarah was often the
Ophelia to the Hamlet of Mounet-SuUy, but in 1900 the Divine
One set herself the bold and unprecedented task of playing the
Melancholy One herself. Schwob, who had a passion for English
literature and who had in his time done much translation from
English into French, was commissioned to prepare the version.
When his first act was finished, he read it to her and she was
delighted with it. But what about the other acts? They would,
he assured her, be of much the same caliber. And the last act.?
That, too, Schwob said, would be of a piece with the rest.' "No,
no," Madame Sarah protested, "you misunderstand me. I want to
know what happens in the last act. Doubtless Hamlet dies. But
just how.?" It is quite true. She had never known. In the old days,
her Ophelia had always gone buckety-buckety off home as soon
as she was drowned and never did hear tell what happened to
the Sweet Prince.
The Schwob text from which the translation for this Reader
was made begat in the French composer, Gabriel Pierne, a four-
part musical legend called The Children's Crusade which has
been heard in this country. Then I am under the impression that
Yvette Guilbert once staged the eight narratives in a recital in
Paris,
A. W.

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THE SCHARTZ =
MeTT£RKLlIM£
METHOD
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SAKI (H. H. Munro)

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