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At the hour of the hot spring sunset two citizens appeared at the
Patriarch's Ponds. One of them, approximately forty years old, dressed in a
grey summer suit, was short, dark-haired, plump, bald, and carried his
respectable fedora hat in his hand. His neady shaven face was adorned with
black horn-rimmed glasses of a supernatural size. The odier, a
broad-shouldered young man with tousled reddish hair, his checkered cap
cocked back on his head, was wearing a cowboy shirt, wrinkled white trousers
and black sneakers.
The first was none other than Mikhail Alexandrovich
Berlioz,[2] editor of a fat literary journal and chairman of the
board of one of the major Moscow literary associations, called
Massolit[3] for short, and his young companion was the poet Ivan
Nikolaevich Ponyrev, who wrote under the pseudonym of
Homeless.[4]
Once in the shade of the barely greening lindens, the writers dashed
first thing to a brighdy painted stand with the sign: 'Beer and Soft
Drinks.'
Ah, yes, note must be made of the first oddity of this dreadful May
evening. There was not a single person to be seen, not only by the stand,
but also along the whole walk parallel to Malaya Bronnaya Street. At that
hour when it seemed no longer possible to breathe, when the sun, having
scorched Moscow, was collapsing in a dry haze somewhere beyond Sadovoye
Ring, no one came under the lindens, no one sat on a bench, the walk was
empty.
'Give us seltzer,' Berlioz asked.
'There is no seltzer,' die woman in the stand said, and for some reason
became offended.
'Is there beer?' Homeless inquired in a rasping voice.
'Beer'll be delivered towards evening,' the woman replied.
'Then what is there?' asked Berlioz.
'Apricot soda, only warm,' said the woman.
'Well, let's have it, let's have it! . . .'
The soda produced an abundance of yellow foam, and the air began to
smell of a barber-shop. Having finished drinking, the writers immediately
started to hiccup, paid, and sat down on a bench face to the pond and back
to Bronnaya.
Here the second oddity occurred, touching Berlioz alone. He suddenly
stopped hiccuping, his heart gave a thump and dropped away somewhere for an
instant, then came back, but with a blunt needle lodged in it. Besides that,
Berlioz was gripped by fear, groundless, yet so strong that he wanted to
flee the Ponds at once without looking back.
Berlioz looked around in anguish, not understanding what had frightened
him. He paled, wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, thought:
"What's the matter with me? This has never happened before. My heart's
acting up ... I'm overworked . .. Maybe it's time to send it all to the
devil and go to Kislovodsk . . .'[5]
And here the sweltering air thickened before him, and a transparent
citizen of the strangest appearance wove himself out of it. A peaked
jockey's cap on his little head, a short checkered jacket also made of air
... A citizen seven feet tall, but narrow in the shoulders, unbelievably
thin, and, kindly note, with a jeering physiognomy.
The life of Berlioz had taken such a course that he was unaccustomed to
extraordinary phenomena. Turning paler still, he goggled his eyes and
thought in consternation: 'This can't be! . . .'
But, alas, it was, and the long, see-through citizen was swaying before
him to the left and to the right without touching the ground.
Here terror took such possession of Berlioz that he shut his eyes. When
he opened them again, he saw that it was all over, the phantasm had
dissolved, the checkered one had vanished, and with that the blunt needle
had popped out of his heart.
'Pah, the devil!' exclaimed the editor. 'YOU know, Ivan, I nearly had
heatstroke just now! There was even something like a hallucination . ..' He
attempted to smile, but alarm still jumped in his eyes and his hands
trembled. However, he gradually calmed down, fanned himself with his
handkerchief and, having said rather cheerfully: 'Well, and so . . .', went
on with the conversation interrupted by their soda-drinking.
This conversation, as was learned afterwards, was about Jesus Christ.
The thing was that the editor had commissioned from the poet a long
anti-religious poem for the next issue of his journal. Ivan Nikolaevich had
written this poem, and in a very short time, but unfortunately the editor
was not at all satisfied with it. Homeless had portrayed the main character
of his poem - that is, Jesus - in very dark colours, but nevertheless the
whole poem, in the editor's opinion, had to be written over again. And so
the editor was now giving the poet something of a lecture on Jesus, with the
aim of underscoring the poet's essential error.
It is hard to say what precisely had let Ivan Nikolaevich down - the
descriptive powers of his talent or a total unfamiliarity with the question
he was writing about - but his Jesus came out, well, completely alive, the
once-existing Jesus, though, true, a Jesus furnished with all negative
features.
Now, Berlioz wanted to prove to the poet that the main thing was not
how Jesus was, good or bad, but that this same Jesus, as a person, simply
never existed in the world, and all the stories about him were mere fiction,
the most ordinary mythology.
It must be noted that the editor was a well-read man and in his
conversation very skilfully pointed to ancient historians - for instance,
the famous Philo of Alexandria[6] and the brilliantly educated
Flavius Josephus[7] - who never said a word about the existence
of Jesus. Displaying a solid erudition, Mikhail Alexandrovich also informed
the poet, among other things, that the passage in the fifteenth book of
Tacitus's famous Annals, the forty-fourth chapter, where mention is made of
the execution of Jesus, was nothing but a later spurious interpolation.
The poet, for whom everything the editor was telling him was new,
listened attentively to Mikhail Alexandrovich, fixing his pert green eyes on
him, and merely hiccuped from time to time, cursing the apricot soda under
his breath.
There's not a single Eastern religion,' Berlioz was saying, 'in which,
as a rule, an immaculate virgin did not give birth to a god. And in just the
same wav, without inventing anything new, the Christians created their
Jesus, who in fact never lived. It's on this that the main emphasis should
be placed . . .'
Berlioz's high tenor rang out in the deserted walk, and as Mikhail
Alexandrovich went deeper into the maze, which only a highly educated man
can go into without risking a broken neck, the poet learned more and more
interesting and useful things about the Egyptian Osiris,[9] a
benevolent god and the son of Heaven and Earth, and about the Phoenician god
Tammoz,[10] and about Marduk," and even about a lesser known,
terrible god, Vitzliputzli,'[2] once greatly venerated by the
Aztecs in Mexico. And just at the moment when Mikhail Alexandrovich was
telling the poet how the Aztecs used to fashion figurines of Vitzli-putzli
out of dough -- the first man appeared in the walk.
Afterwards, when, frankly speaking, it was already too late, various
institutions presented reports describing this man. A comparison of them
cannot but cause amazement. Thus, the first of them said that the man was
short, had gold teeth, and limped on his right leg. The second, that the man
was enormously tall, had platinum crowns, and limped on his left leg. The
third laconically averred that the man had no distinguishing marks. It must
be acknowledged that none of these reports is of any value.
First of all, the man described did not limp on any leg, and was
neither short nor enormous, but simply tall. As for his teeth, he had
platinum crowns on the left side and gold on the right. He was wearing an
expensive grey suit and imported shoes of a matching colour. His grey beret
was cocked rakishly over one ear; under his arm 1-e carried a stick with a
black knob shaped like a poodle's head.[13] He looked to be a
little over forty. Mouth somehow twisted. Clean-shaven. Dark-haired. Right
eye black, left -- for some reason -- green. Dark eyebrows, but one higher
than the other. In short, a foreigner.[14]
Having passed by the bench on which the editor and the poet were
placed, the foreigner gave them a sidelong look, stopped, and suddenly sat
down on the next bench, two steps away from the friends.
'A German . . .' thought Berlioz. 'An Englishman . . .' thought
Homeless. 'My, he must be hot in those gloves.'
And the foreigner gazed around at the tall buildings that rectangularly
framed the pond, making it obvious that he was seeing the place for the
first time and that it interested him. He rested his glance on the upper
floors, where the glass dazzlinglv reflected the broken-up sun which was for
ever departing from Mikhail Alexandrovich, then shifted it lower down to
where the windows were beginning to darken before evening, smiled
condescendingly at something, narrowed his eves, put his hands on the knob
and his chin on his hands.
'For instance, Ivan,' Berlioz was saying, 'you portrayed the birth of
Jesus, the son of God, very well and satirically, but the gist of it is that
a whole series of sons of God were born before Jesus, like, say, the
Phoenician Adonis,[15] the Phrygian Atris,[16] the
Persian Mithras.[17] And, to put it briefly, not one of them was
born or ever existed, Jesus included, and what's necessary is that, instead
of portraying his birth or, suppose, the coming of the Magi,'[8]
you portray the absurd rumours of their coming. Otherwise it follows from
your story that he really was born! . . .'
Here Homeless made an attempt to stop his painful hiccuping by holding
his breath, which caused him to hiccup more painfully and loudly, and at
that same moment Berlioz interrupted his speech, because the foreigner
suddenly got up and walked towards the writers. They looked at him in
surprise.
'Excuse me, please,' the approaching man began speaking, with a foreign
accent but without distorting the words, 'if, not being your acquaintance, I
allow myself... but the subject of your learned conversation is so
interesting that. . .'
Here he politely took off his beret, and the friends had nothing left
but to stand up and make their bows.
'No, rather a Frenchman .. .' thought Berlioz.
'A Pole? . . .' thought Homeless.
It must be added that from his first words the foreigner made a
repellent impression on the poet, but Berlioz rather liked him - that is,
not liked but ... how to put it ... was interested, or whatever.
'May I sit down?' the foreigner asked politely, and the friends somehow
involuntarily moved apart; the foreigner adroidy sat down between them and
at once entered into the conversation:
'Unless I heard wrong, you were pleased to say that Jesus never
existed?' the foreigner asked, turning his green left eye to Berlioz.
'No, you did not hear wrong,' Berlioz replied courteously, 'that is
precisely what I was saying.'
'Ah, how interesting!' exclaimed the foreigner.
'What the devil does he want?' thought Homeless, frowning.
'And you were agreeing with your interlocutor?' inquired the stranger,
turning to Homeless on his right.
'A hundred per cent!' confirmed the man, who was fond of whimsical and
figurative expressions.
'Amazing!' exclaimed the uninvited interlocutor and, casting a thievish
glance around and muffling his low voice for some reason, he said:
'Forgive my importunity, but, as I understand, along with everything
else, you also do not believe in God?' tie made frightened eyes and added:
'I swear I won't tell anyone!'
'No, we don't believe in God,' Berlioz replied, smiling slightly at the
foreign tourist's fright, but we can speak of it quite freely.'
The foreigner sat back on the bench and asked, even with a slight
shriek of curiosity:
'You are - atheists?!'
Yes, we're atheists,' Berlioz smilingly replied, and Homeless thought,
getting angry: 'Latched on to us, the foreign goose!'
'Oh, how lovely!' the astonishing foreigner cried out and began
swivelling his head, looking from one writer to the other.
'In our country atheism does not surprise anyone,' Berlioz said with
diplomatic politeness. 'The majority of our population consciously and long
ago ceased believing in the fairytales about God.'
Here the foreigner pulled the following stunt: he got up and shook the
amazed editor's hand, accompanying it with these words:
'Allow me to thank you with all my heart!' 'What are you thanking him
for?' Homeless inquired, blinking. 'For some very important information,
which is of great interest to me as a traveller,' the outlandish fellow
explained, raising his finger significantly.
The important information apparendy had indeed produced a strong
impression on the traveller, because he passed his frightened glance over
the buildings, as if afraid of seeing an atheist in every window.
'No, he's not an Englishman ...' thought Berlioz, and Homeless thought:
'Where'd he pick up his Russian, that's the interesting thing!' and frowned
again.
'But, allow me to ask you,' the foreign visitor spoke after some
anxious reflection, 'what, then, about the proofs of God's existence, of
which, as is known, there are exactly five?'
'Alas!' Berlioz said with regret. 'Not one of these proofs is worth
anything, and mankind shelved them long ago. You must agree that in the
realm of reason there can be no proof of God's existence.'
'Bravo!' cried the foreigner. 'Bravo! You have perfectly repeated
restless old Immanuel's[19] thought in this regard. But here's
the hitch: he roundly demolished all five proofs, and then, as if mocking
himself, constructed a sixth of his own.'
'Kant's proof,' the learned editor objected with a subtle smile, 'is
equally unconvincing. Not for nothing did Schiller say that the Kantian
reasoning on this question can satisfy only slaves, and Strauss simply
laughed at this proof.' Berlioz spoke, thinking all the while: 'But, anyhow,
who is he? And why does he speak Russian so well?'
They ought to take this Kant and give him a three-year stretch in
Solovki[22] for such proofs!' Ivan Nikolaevich plumped quite
unexpectedly.
'Ivan!' Berlioz whispered, embarrassed.
But the suggestion of sending Kant to Solovki not only did not shock
the foreigner, but even sent him into raptures.
'Precisely, precisely,' he cried, and his green left eye, turned to
Berlioz, flashed. 'Just the place for him! Didn't I tell him that time at
breakfast:
"As you will. Professor, but what you've thought up doesn't hang
together. It's clever, maybe, but mighty unclear. You'll be laughed at."'
Berlioz goggled his eyes. 'At breakfast... to Kant? . . . What is this
drivel?' he thought.
'But,' the oudander went on, unembarrassed by Berlioz's amazement and
addressing the poet, 'sending him to Solovki is unfeasible, for the simple
reason that he has been abiding for over a hundred years now in places
considerably more remote than Solovki, and to extract him from there is in
no way possible, I assure you.'
'Too bad!' the feisty poet responded.
'Yes, too bad!' the stranger agreed, his eye flashing, and went on:
'But here is a question that is troubling me: if there is no God, then,
one may ask, who governs human life and, in general, the whole order of
things on earth?'
'Man governs it himself,' Homeless angrily hastened to reply to this
admittedly none-too-clear question.
'Pardon me,' the stranger responded gently, 'but in order to govern,
one needs, after all, to have a precise plan for a certain, at least
somewhat decent, length of time. Allow me to ask you, then, how can man
govern, if he is not only deprived of the opportunity of making a plan for
at least some ridiculously short period - well, say, a thousand years - but
cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow?
'And in fact,' here the stranger turned to Berlioz, 'imagine that you,
for instance, start governing, giving orders to others and yourself,
generally, so to speak, acquire a taste for it, and suddenly you get ...hem
... hem ... lung cancer ...' -- here the foreigner smiled sweetly, and if
the thought of lung cancer gave him pleasure -- 'yes, cancer' -- narrowing
his eyes like a cat, he repeated the sonorous word -- 'and so your governing
is over!
'You are no longer interested in anyone's fate but your own. Your
family starts lying to you. Feeling that something is wrong, you rush to
learned doctors, then to quacks, and sometimes to fortune-tellers as well.
Like the first, so the second and third are completely senseless, as you
understand. And it all ends tragically: a man who still recently thought he
was governing something, suddenly winds up lying motionless in a wooden box,
and the people around him, seeing that the man lying there is no longer good
for anything, burn him in an oven.
'And sometimes it's worse still: the man has just decided to go to
Kislovodsk' - here the foreigner squinted at Berlioz - 'a trifling matter,
it seems, but even this he cannot accomplish, because suddenly, no one knows
why, he slips and falls under a tram-car! Are you going to say it was he who
governed himself that way? Would it not be more correct to think that he was
governed by someone else entirely?' And here the unknown man burst into a
strange little laugh.
Berlioz listened with great attention to the unpleasant story about the
cancer and the tram-car, and certain alarming thoughts began to torment him.
'He's not a foreigner .. . he's not a foreigner . ..' he thought, 'he's a
most peculiar specimen ... but, excuse me, who is he then?...'
You'd like to smoke, I see?' the stranger addressed Homeless
unexpectedly. "Which kind do you prefer?'
'What, have you got several?' the poet, who had run out of cigarettes,
asked glumly.
'Which do you prefer?' the stranger repeated.
'Okay -- Our Brand,' Homeless replied spitefully.
The unknown man immediately took a cigarette case from his pocket and
offered it to Homeless:
'Our Brand . . .'
Editor and poet were both struck, not so much by Our Brand precisely
turning up in the cigarette case, as by the cigarette case itself. It was of
huge size, made of pure gold, and, as it was opened, a diamond triangle
flashed white and blue fire on its lid.
Here the writers thought differently. Berlioz: 'No, a foreigner!', and
Homeless: 'Well, devil take him, eh!...'
The poet and the owner of the cigarette case lit up, but the non-smoker
Berlioz declined.
'I must counter him like this,' Berlioz decided, 'yes, man is mortal,
no one disputes that. But the thing is . ..'
However, before he managed to utter these words, the foreigner spoke:
'Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst
of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal -- there's the trick! And
generally he's unable to say what he's going to do this same evening.'
'What an absurd way of putting the question ...' Berlioz thought and
objected:
'Well, there's some exaggeration here. About this same evening I do
know more or less certainly. It goes without saying, if a brick should fall
on my head on Bronnaya . . '
'No brick,' the stranger interrupted imposingly, 'will ever fall on
anyone's head just out of the blue. In this particular case, I assure you,
you are not in danger of that at all. You will die a different death.'
'Maybe you know what kind precisely?' Berlioz inquired with perfectly
natural irony, getting drawn into an utterly absurd conversation. 'And will
tell me?'
'Willingly,' the unknown man responded. He looked Berlioz up and down
as if he were going to make him a suit, muttered through his teeth something
like: 'One, two . . . Mercury in the second house . . . moon gone ... six -
disaster . . . evening - seven . . .' then announced loudly and joyfully:
'Your head will be cut off!'
Homeless goggled his eyes wildly and spitefully at the insouciant
stranger, and Berlioz asked, grinning crookedly:
'By whom precisely? Enemies? Interventionists?'[23]
'No,' replied his interlocutor, 'by a Russian woman, a Komsomol[24
]girl.'
'Hm . . .' Berlioz mumbled, vexed at the stranger's Utde joke, 'well,
excuse me, but that's not very likely.'
'And I beg you to excuse me,' the foreigner replied, 'but it's so. Ah,
yes, I wanted to ask you, what are you going to do tonight, if it's not a
secret?'
'It's not a secret. Right now I'll stop by my place on Sadovaya, and
then at ten this evening there will be a meeting at Massolit, and I will
chair it.'
'No, that simply cannot be,' the foreigner objected firmly.
'Why not?'
'Because,' the foreigner replied and, narrowing his eyes, looked into
the sky, where, anticipating the cool of the evening, black birds were
tracing noiselessly, 'Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil, and has
not only bought it, but has already spilled it. So the meeting will not take
place.'
Here, quite understandably, silence fell under the lindens.
'Forgive me,' Berlioz spoke after a pause, glancing at the
drivel-spouting foreigner, 'but what has sunflower oil got to do with it ...
and which Annushka?'
'Sunflower oil has got this to do with it,' Homeless suddenly spoke,
obviously deciding to declare war on the uninvited interlocutor. 'Have you
ever happened, citizen, to be in a hospital for the mentally ill?'
'Ivan!.. .' Mikhail Alexandrovich exclaimed quietly. But the foreigner
was not a bit offended and burst into the merriest laughter.
'I have, I have, and more than once!' he cried out, laughing, but
without taking his unlaughing eye off the poet. 'Where haven't I been! Only
it's too bad I didn't get around to asking the professor what schizophrenia
is. So you will have to find that out from him yourself, Ivan Nikolaevich!'
'How do you know my name?'
'Gracious, Ivan Nikolaevich, who doesn't know you?' Here the foreigner
took out of his pocket the previous day's issue of the Literary Gazette, and
Ivan Nikolaevich saw his own picture on the very first page and under it his
very own verses. But the proof of fame and popularity, which yesterday had
delighted the poet, this time did not delight him a bit.
'Excuse me,' he said, and his face darkened, 'could you wait one little
moment? I want to sav a couple of words to my friend.'
'Oh, with pleasure!' exclaimed the stranger. 'It's so nice here under
the lindens, and, by the way, I'm not in any hurry.'
'Listen here, Misha,' the poet whispered, drawing Berlioz aside, 'he's
no foreign tourist, he's a spy. A Russian emigre[25] who has
crossed back over. Ask for his papers before he gets away...'
'YOU think so?' Berlioz whispered worriedly, and thought: 'Why, he's
right...'
'Believe me,' the poet rasped into his ear, 'he's pretending to be a
fool in order to find out something or other. Just hear how he speaks
Russian.' As he spoke, the poet kept glancing sideways, to make sure the
stranger did not escape. 'Let's go and detain him, or he'll get away . . .'
And the poet pulled Berlioz back to the bench by the arm.
The unknown man was not sitting, but was standing near it, holding in
his hands some booklet in a dark-grey binding, a sturdy envelope made of
good paper, and a visiting card.
'Excuse me for having forgotten, in the heat of our dispute, to
introduce myself. Here is my card, my passport, and an invitation to come to
Moscow for a consultation,' the stranger said weightily, giving both writers
a penetrating glance.
They were embarrassed. 'The devil, he heard everything .. .' Berlioz
thought, and with a polite gesture indicated that there was no need to show
papers. While the foreigner was pushing them at the editor, the poet managed
to make out the word 'Professor' printed in foreign type on the card, and
the initial letter of the last name - a double 'V' - 'W'.
'My pleasure,' the editor meanwhile muttered in embarrassment, and the
foreigner put the papers back in his pocket.
Relations were thus restored, and all three sat down on the bench
again.
'You've been invited here as a consultant. Professor?' asked Berlioz.
'Yes, as a consultant.'
"You're German?' Homeless inquired.
'I? . ..' the professor repeated and suddenly fell to thinking. 'Yes,
perhaps I am German .. .' he said.
'YOU speak real good Russian,' Homeless observed.
'Oh, I'm generally a polyglot and know a great number of languages,'
the professor replied.
'And what is your field?' Berlioz inquired.
'I am a specialist in black magic.'
There he goes!...' struck in Mikhail Alexandrovich's head.
'And . .. and you've been invited here in that capacity?' he asked,
stammering.
'Yes, in that capacity,' the professor confirmed, and explained: 'In a
state library here some original manuscripts of the tenth-century
necromancer Gerbert of Aurillac[26] have been found. So it is
necessary for me to sort them out. I am the only specialist in the world.'
'Aha! You're a historian?' Berlioz asked with great relief and respect.
'I am a historian,' the scholar confirmed, and added with no rhyme or
reason: This evening there will be an interesting story at the Ponds!'
Once again editor and poet were extremely surprised, but the professor
beckoned them both to him, and when they leaned towards him, whispered:
'Bear in mind that Jesus did exist.'
'You see. Professor,' Berlioz responded with a forced smile, 'we
respect your great learning, but on this question we hold to a different
point of view.'
'There's no need for any points of view,' the strange professor
replied, 'he simply existed, that's all.'
'But there's need for some proof. . .' Berlioz began. "There's no need
for any proofs,' replied the professor, and he began to speak softly, while
his accent for some reason disappeared: 'It's all very simple: In a white
cloak with blood-red lining, with the shuffling gait of a cavalryman, early
in the morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan . .

In a white cloak with blood-red lining, with the shuffling gait of a
cavalryman, early in the morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month
of Nisan, there came out to the covered colonnade between the two wings of
the palace of Herod the Great' the procurator of Judea,[2]
Pontius Pilate.[3]
More than anything in the world the procurator hated the smell of rose
oil, and now everything foreboded a bad day, because this smell had been
pursuing the procurator since dawn.
It seemed to the procurator that a rosy smell exuded from the cypresses
and palms in the garden, that the smell of leather trappings and sweat from
the convoy was mingled with the cursed rosy flux.
From the outbuildings at the back of the palace, where the first cohort
of the Twelfth Lightning legion,[4] which had come to
Yershalaim[5 ]with the procurator, was quartered, a whiff of
smoke reached the colonnade across the upper terrace of the palace, and this
slightly acrid smoke, which testified that the centuries' mess cooks had
begun to prepare dinner, was mingled with the same thick rosy scent.
'Oh, gods, gods, why do you punish me? . . . Yes, no doubt, this is it,
this is it again, the invincible, terrible illness . .. hemicrania, when
half of the head aches . . . there's no remedy for it, no escape ... I'll
try not to move my head . . .'
On the mosaic floor by the fountain a chair was already prepared, and
the procurator, without looking at anyone, sat in it and reached his hand
out to one side. His secretary deferentially placed a sheet of parchment in
this hand. Unable to suppress a painful grimace, the procurator ran a
cursory, sidelong glance over the writing, returned the parchment to the
secretary, and said with difficulty:
"The accused is from Galilee?[6] Was the case sent to the
tetrarch?'
'Yes, Procurator,' replied the secretary.
'And what then?'
'He refused to make a decision on the case and sent the
Sanhedrin's[7 ]death sentence to you for confirmation,' the
secretary explained.
The procurator twitched his cheek and said quietly:
'Bring in the accused.'
And at once two legionaries brought a man of about twenty-seven from
the garden terrace to the balcony under the columns and stood him before the
procurator's chair. The man was dressed in an old and torn light-blue
chiton. His head was covered by a white cloth with a leather band around the
forehead, and his hands were bound behind his back. Under the man's left eye
there was a large bruise, in the corner of his mouth a cut caked with blood.
The man gazed at the procurator with anxious curiosity.
The latter paused, then asked quiedy in Aramaic:[8]
'So it was you who incited the people to destroy the temple of
Yershalaim?'[9]
The procurator sat as if made of stone while he spoke, and only his
lips moved slighdy as he pronounced the words. The procurator was as if made
of stone because he was afraid to move his head, aflame with infernal pain.
The man with bound hands leaned forward somewhat and began to speak:
'Good man! Believe me . ..'
But me procurator, motionless as before and not raising his voice in
the least, straight away interrupted him:
'Is it me that you are calling a good man? You are mistaken. It is
whispered about me in Yershalaim that I am a fierce monster, and that is
perfecdv correct.' And he added in the same monotone: 'Bring the centurion
Ratslayer.'
It seemed to everyone that it became darker on the balcony when the
centurion of the first century. Mark, nicknamed Ratslayer, presented himself
before the procurator. Ratslayer was a head taller than the tallest soldier
of the legion and so broad in the shoulders that he completely blocked out
the still-low sun.
The procurator addressed the centurion in Latin:
'The criminal calls me "good man". Take him outside for a moment,
explain to him how I ought to be spoken to. But no maiming.'
And everyone except the motionless procurator followed Mark Ratslayer
with their eyes as he motioned to the arrested man, indicating that he
should go with him. Everyone generally followed Ratslayer with their eyes
wherever he appeared, because of his height, and those who were seeing him
for the first time also because the centurion's face was disfigured: his
nose had once been smashed by a blow from a Germanic club.
Mark's heavy boots thudded across the mosaic, the bound man noiselessly
went out with him, complete silence fell in the colonnade, and one could
hear pigeons cooing on the garden terrace near the balcony and water singing
an intricate, pleasant song in the fountain.
The procurator would have liked to get up, put his temple under the
spout, and stay standing that way. But he knew that even that would not help
him.
Having brought the arrested man from under the columns out to the
garden, Ratslayer took a whip from the hands of a legionary who was standing
at the foot of a bronze statue and, swinging easily, struck the arrested man
across the shoulders. The centurion's movement was casual and light, yet the
bound man instantly collapsed on the ground as if his legs had been cut from
under him; he gasped for ait, the colour drained from his face, and his eyes
went vacant.
With his left hand only. Mark heaved the fallen man into the air like
an empty sack, set him on his feet, and spoke nasally, in poorly pronounced
Aramaic:
The Roman procurator is called Hegemon.[10] Use no other
words. Stand at attention. Do you understand me, or do I hit you?'
The arrested man swayed, but got hold of himself, his colour returned,
he caught his breath and answered hoarsely:
T understand. Don't beat me.'
A moment later he was again standing before the procurator.
A lustreless, sick voice sounded:
'Name?'
'Mine?' the arrested man hastily responded, his whole being expressing
a readiness to answer sensibly, without provoking further wrath.
The procurator said softly:
'I know my own. Don't pretend to be stupider than you are. Yours.'
'Yeshua,'" the prisoner replied prompdy.
'Any surname?'
'Ha-Nozri.'
'Where do you come from?'
The town of Gamala,'[12] replied the prisoner, indicating
with his head that there, somewhere far off to his right, in the north, was
the town of Gamala.
'Who are you by blood?'
'I don't know exactly,' the arrested man replied animatedly, 'I don't
remember my parents. I was told that my father was a Syrian . . .'
"Where is your permanent residence?'
'I have no permanent home,' the prisoner answered shyly, 'I travel from
town to town.'
That can be put more briefly, in a word - a vagrant,' the procurator
said, and asked:
'Any family?'
"None. I'm alone in the world.'
'Can you read and write?'
'Yes.'
'Do you know any language besides Aramaic?'
'Yes. Greek.'
A swollen eyelid rose, an eye clouded with suffering fixed the arrested
man. The other eye remained shut.
Pilate spoke in Greek.
'So it was you who was going to destroy the temple building and called
on the people to do that?'
Here the prisoner again became animated, his eyes ceased to show fear,
and he spoke in Greek:
'Never, goo .. .' Here terror flashed in the prisoner's eyes, because
he had nearly made a slip. 'Never, Hegemon, never in my life was I going to
destroy the temple building, nor did I incite anyone to this senseless act.'
Surprise showed on the face of the secretary, hunched over a low table
and writing down the testimony. He raised his head, but immediately bent it
to the parchment again.
'All sorts of people gather in this town for the feast. Among them
there are magicians, astrologers, diviners and murderers,' the procurator
spoke in monotone, 'and occasionally also liars. You, for instance, are a
liar. It is written clearly: "Incited to destroy the temple". People have
testified to it.'
These good people,' the prisoner spoke and, hastily adding 'Hegemon',
went on: '... haven't any learning and have confused everything I told them.
Generally, I'm beginning to be afraid that this confusion may go on for a
very long time. And all because he writes down the things I say incorrecdy.'
Silence fell. By now both sick eyes rested heavily on the prisoner.
'I repeat to you, but for the last time, stop pretending that you're a
madman, robber,' Pilate said softly and monotonously, 'there's not much
written in your record, but what there is is enough to hang you.'
'No, no, Hegemon,' the arrested man said, straining all over in his
wish to convince, 'there's one with a goatskin parchment who follows me,
follows me and keeps writing all the time. But once I peeked into this
parchment and was horrified. I said decidedly nothing of what's written
there. I implored him: "Burn your parchment, I beg you!" But he tore it out
of my hands and ran away.'
'Who is that?' Pilate asked squeamishly and touched his temple with his
hand.
'Matthew Levi,'[13] the prisoner explained willingly. 'He
used to be a tax collector, and I first met him on the road in
Bethphage,'[4] where a fig grove juts out at an angle, and I got
to talking with him. He treated me hostilely at first and even insulted me -
that is, thought he insulted me -- by calling me a dog.' Here the prisoner
smiled. 'I personally see nothing bad about this animal, that I should be
offended by this word . . .'
The secretary stopped writing and stealthily cast a surprised glance,
not at the arrested man, but at the procurator.
'. . . However, after listening to me, he began to soften,' Yeshua went
on, 'finally threw the money down in the road and said he would go
journeying with me . . .'
Pilate grinned with one cheek, baring yellow teeth, and said, turning
his whole body towards the secretary:
'Oh, city ofYershalaim! What does one not hear in it! A tax collector,
do you hear, threw money down in the road!'
Not knowing how to reply to that, the secretary found it necessary to
repeat Pilate's smile.
'He said that henceforth money had become hateful to him,' Yeshua
explained Matthew Levi's strange action and added: 'And since then he has
been my companion.'
His teeth still bared, the procurator glanced at the arrested man, then
at the sun, steadily rising over the equestrian statues of the hippodrome,
which lay far below to the right, and suddenly, in some sickening anguish,
thought that the simplest thing would be to drive this strange robber off
the balcony by uttering just two words: 'Hang him.' To drive the convoy away
as well, to leave the colonnade, go into the palace, order the room
darkened, collapse on the bed, send for cold water, call in a plaintive
voice for his dog Banga, and complain to him about the hemicrania. And the
thought of poison suddenly flashed temptingly in the procurator's sick head,
He gazed with dull eyes at the arrested man and was silent for a time,
painfully trying to remember why there stood before him in the pitiless
morning sunlight of Yershalaim this prisoner with his face disfigured by
beating, and what other utterly unnecessary questions he had to ask him.
'Matthew Levi?' the sick man asked in a hoarse voice and closed his
eyes.
'Yes, Matthew Levi,' the high, tormenting voice came to him.
'And what was it in any case that you said about the temple to the
crowd in the bazaar?'
The responding voice seemed to stab at Pilate's temple, was
inexpressibly painful, and this voice was saying:
'I said, Hegemon, that the temple of the old faith would fall and a new
temple of truth would be built. I said it that way so as to make it more
understandable.'
'And why did you stir up the people in the bazaar, you vagrant, talking
about the truth, of which you have no notion? What is truth?'[15]
And here the procurator thought: 'Oh, my gods! I'm asking him about
something unnecessary at a trial... my reason no longer serves me . . .' And
again he pictured a cup of dark liquid. 'Poison, bring me poison . . .'
And again he heard the voice:
The truth is, first of all, that your head aches, and aches so badly
that you're having faint-hearted thoughts of death. You're not only unable
to speak to me, but it is even hard for you to look at me. And I am now your
unwilling torturer, which upsets me. You can't even think about anything and
only dream that your dog should come, apparently the one being you are
attached to. But your suffering will soon be over, your headache will go
away.'
The secretary goggled his eyes at the prisoner and stopped writing in
mid-word.
Pilate raised his tormented eyes to the prisoner and saw that the sun
already stood quite high over the hippodrome, that a ray had penetrated the
colonnade and was stealing towards Yeshua's worn sandals, and that the man
was trying to step out of the sun's way.
Here the procurator rose from his chair, clutched his head with his
hands, and his yellowish, shaven face expressed dread. But he instantly
suppressed it with his will and lowered himself into his chair again.
The prisoner meanwhile continued his speech, but the secretary was no
longer writing it down, and only stretched his neck like a goose, trying not
to let drop a single word.
'Well, there, it's all over,' the arrested man said, glancing
benevolently at Pilate, 'and I'm extremely glad of it. I'd advise you,
Hegemon, to leave the palace for a while and go for a stroll somewhere in
the vicinity - say, in the gardens on the Mount of Olives.[16] A
storm will come . . .' the prisoner turned, narrowing his eyes at the
sun,'... later on, towards evening. A stroll would do you much good, and I
would be glad to accompany you. Certain new thoughts have occurred to me,
which I think you might find interesting, and I'd willingly share them with
you, the more so as you give the impression of being a very intelligent
man.'
The secretary turned deathly pale and dropped the scroll on the floor.
'The trouble is,' the bound man went on, not stopped by anyone, 'that
you are too closed off and have definitively lost faith in people. You must
agree, one can't place all one's affection in a dog. Your life is
impoverished, Hegemon.' And here the speaker allowed himself to smile.
The secretary now thought of only one thing, whether to believe his
ears or not. He had to believe. Then he tried to imagine precisely what
whimsical form the wrath of the hot-tempered procurator would take at this
unheard-of impudence from the prisoner. And this the secretary was unable to
imagine, though he knew the procurator well.
Then came the cracked, hoarse voice of the procurator, who said in
Latin:
'Unbind his hands.'
One of the convoy legionaries rapped with his spear, handed it to
another, went over and took the ropes off the prisoner. The secretary picked
up his scroll, having decided to record nothing for now, and to be surprised
at nothing.
'Admit,' Pilate asked softly in Greek, 'that you are a great
physician?'
'No, Procurator, I am not a physician,' the prisoner replied,
delightedly rubbing a crimped and swollen purple wrist.
Scowling deeply, Pilate bored the prisoner with his eyes, and these
eyes were no longer dull, but flashed with sparks familiar to all.
'I didn't ask you,' Pilate said, 'maybe you also know Latin?'
'Yes, I do,' the prisoner replied.
Colour came to Pilate's yellowish cheeks, and he asked in Latin:
'How did you know I wanted to call my dog?'
'It's very simple,' the prisoner replied in Latin. 'YOU were moving
your hand in the air' -- and the prisoner repeated Pilate's gesture -- 'as
if you wanted to stroke something, and your lips . . .'
'Yes,' said Pilate.
There was silence. Then Pilate asked a question in Greek:
'And so, you are a physician?'
'No, no,' the prisoner replied animatedly, 'believe me, I'm not a
physician.'
Very well, then, if you want to keep it a secret, do so. It has no
direct bearing on the case. So you maintain that you did not incite anyone
to destroy ... or set fire to, or in any other way demolish the temple?'
'I repeat, I did not incite anyone to such acts, Hegemon. Do I look
like a halfwit?'
'Oh, no, you don't look like a halfwit,' the procurator replied quiedy
and smiled some strange smile. 'Swear, men, that it wasn't so.'
'By what do you want me to swear?' the unbound man asked, very
animated.
'Well, let's say, by your life,' the procurator replied. 'It's high
time you swore by it, since it's hanging by a hair, I can tell you.'
'You don't think it was you who hung it, Hegemon?' the prisoner asked.
'If so, you are very mistaken.'
Pilate gave a start and replied through his teeth:
'I can cut that hair.'
'In that, too, you are mistaken,' the prisoner retorted, smiling
brightly and shielding himself from the sun with his hand. 'YOU must agree
that surely only he who hung it can cut the hair?'
'So, so,' Pilate said, smiling, 'now I have no doubts that the idle
loafers of Yershalaim followed at your heels. I don't know who hung such a
tongue on you, but he hung it well. Incidentally, tell me, is it true that
you entered Yershalaim by the Susa gate[17] riding on an
ass,[18 ]accompanied by a crowd of riff-raff who shouted
greetings to you as some kind of prophet?' Here the procurator pointed to
the parchment scroll.
The prisoner glanced at the procurator in perplexity.
'I don't even have an ass, Hegemon,' he said. 'I did enter Yershalaim
by the Susa gate, but on foot, accompanied only by Matthew Levi, and no one
shouted anything to me, because no one in Yershalaim knew me then.'
'Do you happen to know,' Pilate continued wimout taking his eyes off
the prisoner, 'such men as a certain Dysmas, another named Gestas, and a
third named Bar-Rabban?'[19]
'I do not know these good people,' the prisoner replied.
Truly?'
Truly.'
'And now tell me, why is it that you use me words "good people" all the
time? Do you call everyone that, or what?'
'Everyone,' the prisoner replied. There are no evil people in the
world.'
The first I hear of it,' Pilate said, grinning. 'But perhaps I know too
little of life! .. . You needn't record any more,' he addressed the
secretary, who had not recorded anything anyway, and went on talking with
the prisoner. 'YOU read that in some Greek book?'
'No, I figured it out for myself.'
'And you preach it?'
'Yes.'
'But take, for instance, the centurion Mark, the one known as
Rat-slayer - is he good?'
'Yes,' replied the prisoner. True, he's an unhappy man. Since the good
people disfigured him, he has become cruel and hard. I'd be curious to know
who maimed him.'
'I can willingly tell you that,' Pilate responded, 'for I was a witness
to it. The good people fell on him like dogs on a bear. There were German!
fastened on his neck, his arms, his legs. The infantry maniple was
encircled, and if one flank hadn't been cut by a cavalry turm, of which I
was the commander -- you, philosopher, would not have had the chance to
speak with the Ratslayer. That was at the battle of
Idistaviso,[20] in the Valley of the Virgins.'
'If I could speak with him,' the prisoner suddenly said musingly, 'I'm
sure he'd change sharply.'
'I don't suppose,' Pilate responded, 'that you'd bring much joy to the
legate of the legion if you decided to talk with any of his officers or
soldiers. Anyhow, it's also not going to happen, fortunately for everyone,
and I will be the first to see to it.'
At that moment a swallow swiftly flitted into the colonnade, described
a circle under the golden ceiling, swooped down, almost brushed the face of
a bronze statue in a niche with its pointed wing, and disappeared behind the
capital of a column. It may be that it thought of nesting there.
During its flight, a formula took shape in the now light and lucid head
of the procurator. It went like this: the hegemon has looked into the case
of the vagrant philosopher Yeshua, alias Ha-Nozri, and found in it no
grounds for indictment. In particular, he has found not the slightest
connection between the acts of Yeshua and the disorders that have lately
taken place in Yershalaim. The vagrant philosopher has proved to be mentally
ill. Consequently, the procurator has not confirmed the death sentence on
Ha-Nozri passed by the Lesser Sanhedrin. But seeing that Ha-Nozri's mad
Utopian talk might cause disturbances in Yershalaim, the procurator is
removing Yeshua from Yershalaim and putting him under confinement in
Stratonian Caesarea on the Mediterranean - that is, precisely where the
procurator's residence was.
It remained to dictate it to the secretary.
The swallow's wings whiffled right over the hegemon's head, the bird
darted to the fountain basin and then flew out into freedom. The procurator
raised his eyes to the prisoner and saw the dust blaze up in a pillar around
him.
'Is that all about him?' Pilate asked the secretary.
'Unfortunately not,' the secretary replied unexpectedly and handed
Pilate another piece of parchment.
'What's this now?' Pilate asked and frowned.
Having read what had been handed to him, he changed countenance even
more: Either the dark blood rose to his neck and face, or something else
happened, only his skin lost its yellow tinge, turned brown, and his eyes
seemed to sink.
Again it was probably owing to the blood rising to his temples and
throbbing in them, only something happened to the procurator's vision. Thus,
he imagined that the prisoner's head floated off somewhere, and another
appeared in its place.[21] On this bald head sat a scant-pointed
golden diadem. On the forehead was a round canker, eating into the skin and
smeared with ointment. A sunken, toothless mouth with a pendulous,
capricious lower lip. It seemed to Pilate that the pink columns of the
balcony and the rooftops of Yershalaim far below, beyond the garden,
vanished, and everything was drowned in the thickest green ofCaprean
gardens. And something strange also happened to his hearing: it was as if
trumpets sounded far away, muted and menacing, and a nasal voice was very
clearly heard, arrogandy drawling: 'The law of lese-majesty. . .'
Thoughts raced, short, incoherent and extraordinary: 'I'm lost! . . .'
then: 'We're lost! . . .' And among them a totally absurd one, about some
immortality, which immortality for some reason provoked unendurable anguish.
Pilate strained, drove the apparition away, his gaze returned to the
balcony, and again the prisoner's eyes were before him.
'Listen, Ha-Nozri,' the procurator spoke, looking at Yeshua somehow
strangely: the procurator's face was menacing, but his eyes were alarmed,
'did you ever say anything about the great Caesar? Answer! Did you? . . .
Yes ... or ... no?' Pilate drew the word 'no' out somewhat longer than is
done in court, and his glance sent Yeshua some thought that he wished as if
to instil in the prisoner.
To speak the truth is easy and pleasant,' the prisoner observed.
'I have no need to know,' Pilate responded in a stifled, angry voice,
'whether it is pleasant or unpleasant for you to speak the truth. You will
have to speak it anyway. But, as you speak, weigh every word, unless you
want a not only inevitable but also painful death.'
No one knew what had happened with the procurator of Judea, but he
allowed himself to raise his hand as if to protect himself from a ray of
sunlight, and from behind his hand, as from behind a shield, to send the
prisoner some sort of prompting look.
'Answer, then,' he went on speaking, 'do you know a certain Judas from
Kiriath,[22] and what precisely did you say to him about Caesar,
if you said anything?'
'It was like this,' the prisoner began talking eagerly. The evening
before last, near the temple, I made the acquaintance of a young man who
called himself Judas, from the town of Kiriath. He invited me to his place
in the Lower City and treated me to . . .'
'A good man?' Pilate asked, and a devilish fire flashed in his eyes.
'A very good man and an inquisitive one,' the prisoner confirmed. 'He
showed the greatest interest in my thoughts and received me very cordially.
..'
'Lit the lamps . . .'[23] Pilate spoke through his teeth, in
the same tone as the prisoner, and his eyes glinted.
Tes,' Yeshua went on, slighdy surprised that the procurator was so well
informed, 'and asked me to give my view of state authority. He was extremely
interested in this question.'
'And what did you say?' asked Pilate. 'Or are you going to reply that
you've forgotten what you said?' But there was already hopelessness in
Pilate's tone.
'Among other things,' the prisoner recounted, 'I said that all
authority is violence over people, and that a time will come when there will
be no authority of die Caesars, nor any other authority. Man will pass into
the kingdom of truth and justice, where generally there will be no need for
any authority.'
'Go on!'
'I didn't go on,' said the prisoner. 'Here men ran in, bound me, and
took me away to prison.'
The secretary, trying not to let drop a single word, rapidly traced die
words on his parchment.
'There never has been, is not, and never will be any authority in this
world greater or better for people than the authority of the emperor
Tiberius!' Pilate's cracked and sick voice swelled. For some reason die
procurator looked at the secretary and the convoy with hatred.
'And it is not for you, insane criminal, to reason about it!' Here
Pilate shouted: 'Convoy, off the balcony!' And turning to the secretary, he
added: 'Leave me alone widi the criminal, this is a state matter!'
The convoy raised dieir spears and with a measured tramp of hobnailed
caligae walked off die balcony into the garden, and the secretary followed
the convoy.
For some time the silence on the balcony was broken only by the water
singing in the fountain. Pilate saw how the watery dish blew up over the
spout, how its edges broke off, how it fell down in streams.
The prisoner was the first to speak.
'I see that some misfortune has come about because I talked with that
young man from Kiriath. I have a foreboding, Hegemon, that he will come to
grief, and I am very sorry for him.'
'I think,' the procurator replied, grinning strangely, 'that there is
now someone else in the world for whom you ought to feel sorrier than' for
Judas of Kiriath, and who is going to have it much worse than Judas! . . .
So, then. Mark Ratslayer, a cold and convinced torturer, die people who, as
I see,' the procurator pointed to Yeshua's disfigured face, 'beat you for
your preaching, the robbers Dysmas and Gestas, who widi their confreres
killed four soldiers, and, finally, the dirty traitor Judas -- are all good
people?'
'Yes,' said the prisoner.
'And the kingdom of truth will come?'
'It will, Hegemon,' Yeshua answered with conviction.
'It will never come!' Pilate suddenly cried out in such a terrible
voice that Yeshua drew back. Thus, many years before, in the Valley of the
Virgins, Pilate had cried to his horsemen the words: 'Cut them down! Cut
them down! The giant Ratslayer is trapped!' He raised his voice, cracked
with commanding, still more, and called out so that his words could be heard
in the garden: 'Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!' And dien, lowering his voice,
he asked: 'Yeshua Ha-Nozri, do you believe in any gods?'
'God is one,' replied Yeshua, 'I believe in him.'
Then pray to him! Pray hard! However ...' here Pilate's voice gave out,
'that won't help. No wife?' Pilate asked with anguish for some reason, not
understanding what was happening to him. " 'No, I'm alone.'
'Hateful city . . .' die procurator suddenly muttered for some reason,
shaking his shoulders as if he were cold, and rubbing his hands as though
washing them, 'if they'd put a knife in you before your meeting with Judas
of Kiriath, it really would have been better.'
'Why don't you let me go, Hegemon?' the prisoner asked unexpectedly,
and his voice became anxious. 'I see they want to kill me.'
A spasm contorted Pilate's face, he turned to Yeshua the inflamed,
red-veined whites of his eyes and said:
'Do you suppose, wretch, that the Roman procurator will let a man go
who has said what you have said? Oh, gods, gods! Or do you think I'm ready
to take your place? I don't share your thoughts! And listen to me: if from
this moment on you say even one word, if you speak to anyone at all, beware
of me! I repeat to you -- beware!'
'Hegemon . . .'
'Silence!' cried Pilate, and his furious gaze followed the swallow that
had again fluttered on to the balcony. 'To me!' Pilate shouted.
And when the secretary and the convoy returned to their places, Pilate
announced that he confirmed the death sentence passed at the meeting of the
Lesser Sanhedrin on the criminal Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and the secretary wrote
down what Pilate said.
A moment later Mark Ratslayer stood before the procurator. The
procurator ordered him to hand the criminal over to the head of the secret
service, along with the procurator's directive that Yeshua Ha-Nozri was to
be separated from the other condemned men, and also that the soldiers of the
secret service were to be forbidden, on pain of severe punishment, to talk
with Yeshua about anything at all or to answer any of his questions.
At a sign from Mark, the convoy closed around Yeshua and led him from
the balcony.
Next there stood before the procurator a handsome, light-bearded man
with eagle feathers on the crest of his helmet, golden lions' heads shining
on his chest, and golden plaques on his sword belt, wearing triple-soled
boots laced to the knees, and with a purple cloak thrown over his left
shoulder. This was the legate in command of the legion.
The procurator asked him where the Sebastean cohort was stationed at
the moment. The legate told him that the Sebasteans had cordoned off the
square in front of the hippodrome, where the sentencing of the criminals was
to be announced to the people.
Then the procurator ordered the legate to detach two centuries from the
Roman cohort. One of them, under the command of Ratslayer, was to convoy the
criminals, the carts with the implements for the execution and the
executioners as they were transported to Bald Mountain,[24] and
on arrival was to join the upper cordon. The other was to be sent at once to
Bald Mountain and immediately start forming the cordon. For the same
purpose, that is, to guard the mountain, the procurator asked the legate to
send an auxiliary cavalry regiment -- the Syrian ala.
After the legate left the balcony, the procurator ordered the secretary
to summon to the palace the president of the Sanhedrin, two of its members,
and the head of the temple guard in Yershalaim, adding that he asked things
to be so arranged that before conferring with all these people, he could
speak with the president previously and alone.
The procurator's order was executed quickly and precisely, and the sun,
which in those days was scorching Yershalaim with an extraordinary
fierceness, had not yet had time to approach its highest point when, on the
upper terrace of the garden, by the two white marble lions that guarded the
stairs, a meeting took place between the procurator and the man fulfilling
the duties of president of the Sanhedrin, the high priest of the Jews,
Joseph Kaifa.[25]
It was quiet in the garden. But when he came out from under the
colonnade to the sun-drenched upper level of the garden with its palm trees
on monstrous elephant legs, from which there spread before the procurator
the whole of hateful Yershalaim, with its hanging bridges, fortresses, and,
above all, that utterly indescribable heap of marble with golden dragon
scales for a roof - the temple of Yershalaim - the procurator's sharp ear
caught, far below, where the stone wall separated the lower terraces of the
palace garden from the city square, a low rumble over which from time to
time there soared feeble, thin moans or cries.
The procurator understood that there, on the square, a numberless crowd
of Yershalaim citizens, agitated by the recent disorders, had already
gathered, that this crowd was waiting impatiently for the announcement of
the sentences, and that restless water sellers were crying in its midst.
The procurator began by inviting the high priest on to the balcony, to
take shelter from the merciless heat, but Kaifa politely apologized[26
]and explained that he could not do that on the eve of the feast.
Pilate covered his slightly balding head with a hood and began the
conversation. This conversation took place in Greek.
Pilate said that he had looked into the case of Yeshua Ha-Nozri and
confirmed the death sentence.
Thus, three robbers - Dysmas, Gestas and Bar-Rabban - and this Yeshua
Ha-Nozri besides, were condemned to be executed, and it was to be done that
day. The first two, who had ventured to incite the people to rebel against
Caesar, had been taken in armed struggle by the Roman authorities, were
accounted to the procurator, and, consequently, would not be talked about
here. But the second two, Bar-Rabban and Ha-Nozri, had been seized by the
local authorities and condemned by the Sanhedrin. According to the law,
according to custom, one of these two criminals had to be released in honour
of the great feast of Passover, which would begin that day. And so the
procurator wished to know which of the two criminals the Sanhedrin intended
to set free: Bar-Rabban or Ha-Nozri?[27]
Kaifa inclined his head to signify that the question was clear to him,
and replied:
'The Sanhedrin asks that Bar-Rabban be released.' The procurator knew
very well that the high priest would give precisely that answer, but his
task consisted in showing that this answer provoked his astonishment.
This Pilate did with great artfulness. The eyebrows on the arrogant
face rose, the procurator looked with amazement straight into the high
priest's eyes.
'I confess, this answer stuns me,' the procurator began softly, 'I'm
afraid there may be some misunderstanding here.'
Pilate explained himself. Roman authority does not encroach in the
least upon the rights of the local spiritual authorities, the high priest
knows that very well, but in the present case we are faced with an obvious
error. And this error Roman authority is, of course, interested in
correcting.
In fact, the crimes of Bar-Rabban and Ha-Nozri are quite incomparable
in their gravity. If the latter, obviously an insane person, is guilty of
uttering preposterous things in Yershalaim and some other places, the
former's burden of guilt is more considerable. Not only did he allow himself
to call directly for rebellion, but he also killed a guard during the
attempt to arrest him. Bar-Rabban is incomparably more dangerous than
Ha-Nozri.
On the strength of all the foregoing, the procurator asks the high
priest to reconsider the decision and release the less harmful of the two
condemned men, and that is without doubt Ha-Nozri. And so? ...
Kaifa said in a quiet but firm voice that the Sanhedrin had thoroughly
familiarized itself with the case and informed him a second time that it
intended to free Bar-Rabban.
'What? Even after my intercession? The intercession of him through
whose person Roman authority speaks? Repeat it a third time. High Priest.'
'And a third time I repeat that we are setting Bar-Rabban free,' Kaifa
said softly.
It was all over, and there was nothing more to talk about. Ha-Nozri was
departing for ever, and there was no one to cure the dreadful, wicked pains
of the procurator, there was no remedy for them except death.

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