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- The Project Gutenberg EBook of When the King Loses His Head and Other
- Stories, by Leonid Andreyev
- This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
- other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
- whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
- the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
- www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
- to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
- Title: When the King Loses His Head and Other Stories
- Author: Leonid Andreyev
- Translator: Archibald J. Wolfe
- Release Date: August 4, 2015 [EBook #49595]
- Language: English
- *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN THE KING LOSES HIS HEAD ***
- Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org
- (Images generously provided by the Internet Archive.)
- WHEN THE KING LOSES HIS HEAD
- AND OTHER STORIES
- By
- LEONID ANDREYEV
- TRANSLATED BY
- ARCHIBALD J. WOLFE
- NEW YORK
- INTERNATIONAL BOOK PUBLISHING COMPANY
- 1920
- PREFACE.
- Leonid Andreyev was born in Orel, the capital of the Russian province
- of the same name, on August 21, 1871. He was ten years younger than his
- future patron and friend Maxim Gorki. He died on September 12, 1919, in
- Finland, an exile from his beloved chaos-ridden fatherland.
- His father, a Russian of pure blood, by profession a surveyor, was a
- man of extraordinary physical vigor. He died at the early age of 42 as
- the result of a brain-stroke. His mother, a woman of much refinement
- and culture, was of Polish ancestry.
- The earliest years of Andreyev's life were spent in close affiliation
- with the stage, through the personal acquaintance of his parents with
- the leading stage folks of the province.
- He was a poor scholar and loved to play "hookey," preferring the great
- outdoors to the crowded class-room. His marks were very poor as the
- result. But he was a voracious reader of literature. His latter years
- in high school (gymnasium) were influenced by Tolstoy's works on
- non-resistance, by Schopenhauer, and by the first works of Maxim Gorki.
- The death of his father and the seeds of the pessimistic philosophy
- gave the inner life of the budding novelist a morose and pessimistic
- direction. In his teens Leonid Andreyev made three unsuccessful
- attempts at suicide.
- It has been the fate of Leonid Andreyev to live through four distinct
- phases of Russian history, each of which has contributed to the shaping
- of his art.
- In the latter eighties and the early nineties he had passed through
- one of the most disheartening periods in the life of the Russian
- people, when under the crushing heel of the despotic Tsar Alexander III
- all initiative and all aspirations of the mind were ruthlessly stifled.
- It was the period of shameful and soulless years, with miserable
- people, relentless persecutors, obedient slaves and a few hunted rebels.
- The horror of this era of nightmare weighed heavily on the sensitive
- soul of young Andreyev and he attempted suicide in 1894 by shooting
- himself near the heart. The attempt was unsuccessful, but left behind
- an affliction of the heart, of which he died twenty-five years later.
- In his student years (Andreyev took up the study of law in the
- University of Moscow) he fell under the influence of Tchekhov and
- of Gorki. Andreyev did not in his earlier years dream of becoming a
- writer. His interest in art led him to painting and his pictures were
- exhibited in the independent salons and much praised. His early stories
- were printed in the newspapers of Moscow under the nom-de-plume of
- James Lynch.
- Andreyev's first story printed under that nom-de-plume in 1898 aroused
- the interest of Maxim Gorki, who sought out the future novelist and
- aided him greatly with advice and suggestions.
- But between the two--between the singer of the people, the singer of
- humanity--Gorki, on the one hand, and the artist of individuality,
- the painter of thought, Andreyev, there is a vast difference and
- divergence. One is the captive of the realities of life, in which
- he loses himself, the other is the captive of fancies, of ever new
- problems of the soul, which he endeavors to illustrate by abstract
- schematism, but which he ultimately fails to solve.
- In this phase of Russian history falls the series of Andreyev's stories
- in which he chastises the Russian intelligent hypochondriac and the
- follower of Tchekhov. Maxim Gorki is to him the personification of the
- joy of life and of the will to battle, which permeates the earlier
- writings of Andreyev.
- The stormy period of the political convulsion which shook Russia in
- the wake of the Japanese war, evoked a number of beautiful stories
- and essays from Andreyev's pen, thrilled and aflame with the love
- of budding freedom. But even here the pessimism of Andreyev breaks
- through. In his charming story of the French Revolution, with which we
- begin this present volume, "When the King Loses His Head," when liberty
- is in danger, when the Twentieth, the symbol of monarchy, is in the
- toils of the people, here and there the crowd cries "Long Live the
- Twenty-First," ready to resume the badge of servitude.
- In the "Abyss" Andreyev portrays the shameful fall of the young
- idealist, but in "The Marseillaise," the prose-poem with which we
- conclude the present volume, written in 1905, Andreyev pictures the
- apotheosis of a hero hidden behind the absurd exterior of a physical
- weakling. "The Marseillaise" is an overture to the stirring drama of
- the brief but glorious epoch of the popular risings after the Japanese
- war.
- But the monarchic power crushed the spirit of the people. A period
- of unparalleled persecutions, executions and repressions followed.
- "The Story of the Seven that were Hanged" is characteristic of this
- terrible period which preceded the World War. This story is dedicated
- to Tolstoy, and its motto might well be "Fear not them that kill the
- body, but cannot kill the soul." Some of the passages of this story are
- so stirring that it is impossible to read them without shedding a tear.
- After the fall of the Romanovs, a brief period of intoxicating sense
- of freedom overwhelmed Russia. It was not the time for literature. It
- was the time for action. But all too soon chaos ensued, and the artist
- dropped his art to defend outraged humanity. It was away from his
- country, with the whole world arrayed against Russia, and with Russia
- arrayed against herself, that Leonid Andreyev fell the victim of heart
- failure, induced, as the brief despatches from Finland state, by the
- shock of a bomb exploding in his vicinity.
- The heroes of Andreyev's stories are "people who stand apart,"
- solitary, lonely characters, walking among men like planets among
- planets, and a baneful atmosphere surrounds them. The idea of most
- of these stories and of most of his dramas is the conflict of the
- personality with fate and with the falsehood which man introduces into
- his fate.
- He has a symbolic story named "The Wall": it is the barrier which men
- cannot pass. The Wall is all bloodstained; at its base crawl lepers;
- centuries, nations strive to climb upon it. But the wall is immobile,
- while ever new heaps of corpses are piled up alongside.
- There are walls between the closest relatives in the stories and dramas
- of Andreyev. Frequently the characters depicted by him are insane.
- Freedom becomes an illusion, a tragic mockery of mankind.
- In the story of "Father Vassili" we are told of an ill-fated parish
- priest. Misfortunes fall upon his head with an ominous purposeful
- frequency. Finally his only son is drowned. The mother takes to drink
- to drown her sorrow. In her insane frenzy she conceives again and bears
- an idiot. The new child, a little monster, brings an atmosphere of
- horror into the home and dominates the whole household. The drunken
- mother accidentally sets the home on fire and dies a victim of the
- conflagration. All through these misfortunes Father Vassili believes
- in his Maker with the depth and passion of despair. But little by
- little this faith and this despair pass into insanity. During a requiem
- mass over the body of a villager Father Vassili commands the corpse to
- arise. He calls upon God to sustain him and to work a miracle. He is
- left alone with the corpse, the worshippers having fled in terror. He
- inclines over the body and sees in the coffin the mocking features of
- his idiot child. A crash of thunder rends the sky. It seems to Father
- Vassili that heaven and earth are crashing into nothingness, he flees
- precipitately into the highway and falls dead. The utter solitude of
- the man, the monstrous domination of elementary powers arrayed against
- him, a moment of consciousness of oneness with the divine and insanity,
- these are the constant horrible and tragic features of Andreyev's art.
- In his stories dealing with biblical characters, Judas Iscariot and
- Lazarus, we have horror and dreams again. Judas Iscariot and the
- Saviour are pictured as twins nailed to the same cross and wearing the
- same crown of thorns. The traitor in Andreyev's story loves Jesus the
- Man. There is a dread secret in the terrible eyes of Judas, as there
- is a wondrous secret in the beautiful eyes of Jesus. This horrible
- proximity of divine beauty and of monstrous hideousness presents a
- problem which the artist tries to solve. He makes of Judas a fanatical
- revolutionist, the slave of an idea who has resolved to materialize
- "horror and dreams" and to bring about the truth. There is in Judas
- that same duality which characterizes so many of Andreyev's heroes. He
- has two faces. He lies and dissembles. Throughout the whole story the
- dual personality of the Traitor is brought out with wonderful skill. In
- "Judas Iscariot" Andreyev contrasts Judas with Jesus. In "Lazarus" he
- contrasts the morose Jew, whom Jesus brought back from death into life
- after three days and three nights in the darkness of the tomb, with the
- life-loving Augustus. If in "Judas Iscariot" Judas, wise, cunning and
- evil, overcomes Jesus, naive, meek and trustful, in "Lazarus" it is the
- Roman Emperor who causes the eyes of the Jew to be pierced, but is in
- the end overcome himself.
- "Anathema"--a play of Andreyev which in grandeur of conception equals
- Goethe's Faust, has for its humble hero, David Leiser, trustful,
- stupid, guileless, ever obedient to his heart, who reaches immortality
- and lives the life of immortality and light. His enemy, Anathema, who
- follows the cold dictates of reason, is foiled.
- From Andreyev's pen we have a series of dramatic pictures, "Black
- Masks," "King Hunger," "Savva," "To the Stars," and others, and a
- number of stories, some of them in places streaked with a realism that
- is almost too revolting for the Anglo-Saxon ideas of propriety. Thus in
- "My Memoirs," he tells of an insane doctor of mathematics, who confined
- for life in a prison for a horrible crime sets down his experiences
- in a series of hypocritical diary notes, and who expatiates upon
- the beauties of nameless vice. In "The Darkness," the bomb throwing
- idealist, who hiding from the police on the eve of his deed, enters a
- house of ill-fame and becomes so abashed at the sight of the life of an
- inmate that he exclaims "It is a disgrace to be good," and kisses her
- hand, only to have his face slapped because the fallen woman resents
- his parading of goodness at her expense.
- Andreyev, because of the cumulative portrayals of the weird and the
- horrible, has been called the Russian Edgar Allan Poe. But between Poe
- and Andreyev there lies a century of time and a world of space.
- Poe's hero, in "The Fall of the House of Usher," is the last remnant
- of a feudal epoch dying in a crumbling castle, every stone of which
- speaks of a series of generations and of external and internal
- dissolution. The heroes of Andreyev are solitary men, hiding in their
- professorial studies, in the basements of tenement houses, in the caves
- of Judea. Death with Poe is mysteriously beautiful, with Andreyev it
- is a blighting, baneful curse. The solitude of Poe's heroes is the
- tragic solitude of a superman on a lonely height, the solitude of
- Andreyev's heroes is the solitude of little men, worn out with the
- futile vicissitudes of life. But the horror of life and of death makes
- these two great artists kin. Of the Russian authors Dostoyevsky is
- nearest to Andreyev. The solitude of the curse-stricken man, of the
- man on the brink of ruin, the morbid acuteness of his perceptions, the
- dominion of intellect over life, the eternal longing to overstep the
- boundary, the endless striving with God, the city with its garrets and
- basements--these are the favorite themes both of Dostoyevsky and of
- Andreyev.
- As to style, Leonid Andreyev is a wonderful word painter, but his brush
- knows only somber colors. The basic background of his stories and of
- his dramas is a dark-grey, sometimes streaked with fiery-red. His
- pessimism leads him to look upon the world through dark spectacles.
- Duke Lorenzo is held captive by "Black Masks." He sails in a ship with
- "black sails." At the prow of the vessel is a "young woman in black."
- The stories included in this first volume of Andreyev's works in the
- "Russian Authors' Library" series are: "When the King Loses his Head,"
- "Judas Iscariot," "Lazarus," "Life of Father Vassili," "Ben-Tobith" and
- "Dies Irae."
- ARCHIBALD J. WOLFE.
- CONTENTS.
- WHEN THE KING LOSES HIS HEAD
- JUDAS ISCARIOT
- LAZARUS
- LIFE OF FATHER VASSILY
- BEN-TOBITH
- THE MARSEILLAISE
- DIES IRAE
- WHEN THE KING LOSES HIS HEAD.
- PART I.
- There stood once in a public place a black tower with massive
- fortress-like walls and a few grim bastioned windows. It had been built
- by robber barons, but time swept them into the beyond, and the tower
- became partly a prison for dangerous criminals and grave offenders,
- and partly a residence. In the course of centuries new structures were
- added to it, and were buttressed against the massive walls of the tower
- and against one another; little by little it assumed the dimensions of
- a fair sized town set on a rock, with a broken skyline of chimneys,
- turrets and pointed roofs. When the sky gleamed green in the west there
- appeared, here and there, lights in the various parts of the tower.
- The gloomy pile assumed quaint and fanciful contours, and it somehow
- seemed that at its foot there stretched not an ordinary pavement, but
- the waves of the sea, the salty and shoreless ocean. And the picture
- brought to one's mind the shapes of the past, long since dead and
- forgotten.
- An immense ancient clock, which could be seen from afar, was set in
- the tower. Its complicated mechanism occupied an entire story of the
- structure, and it was under the care of a one-eyed man who could use
- a magnifying glass with expert skill. This was the reason why he had
- become a clockmaker and had tinkered for years with small timepieces
- before he was given charge of the large clock. Here he felt at home and
- happy. Often, at odd hours, without apparent need he would enter the
- room where the wheels, the gears and the levers moved deliberately,
- and where the immense pendulum cleft the air with wide and even sweep.
- Having reached the limit of its travel the pendulum said:
- "'Twas ever thus."
- Then it sank and rose again to a new elevation and added:
- "'Twill ever be, 'twas ever thus, 'twill ever be, 'twas ever thus,
- 'twill ever be."
- These were the words with which the one-eyed clockmaker was wont to
- interpret the monotonous and mysterious language of the pendulum: the
- close contact with the large clock had made him a philosopher, as they
- used to say in those days.
- Over the ancient city where the tower stood, and over the entire land
- there ruled one man, the mystic lord of the city and of the land,
- and his mysterious sway, the rule of one man over the millions was
- as ancient as the city itself. He was called the King and dubbed the
- "Twentieth," according to the number of his predecessors of the same
- name, but this fact explained nothing. Just as no one knew of the
- early beginnings of the city, no one knew the origin of this strange
- dominion, and no matter how far back human memory reached the records
- of the hoary past presented the same mysterious picture of one man
- who lorded over millions. There was a silent antiquity over which the
- memory of man had no power, but it, too, at rare intervals, opened
- its lips; it dropped from its jaws a stone, a little slab marked with
- some characters, the fragment of a column, a brick from a wall that
- had crumbled into ruin--and again the mysterious characters revealed
- the same tale of one who had been lord over millions. Titles, names
- and soubriquets changed, but the image remained unchanged, as if it
- were immortal. The King was born and died like all men, and judging
- from appearance, which was that common to all men, he was a man; but
- when one took into account the unlimited extent of his power and might,
- it was easier to imagine that he was God. Especially as God had been
- always imagined to be like a man, and yet suffered no loss of his
- peculiar and incomprehensible essence. The Twentieth was the King. This
- meant that he had power to make a man happy or unhappy; that he could
- take away his fortune, his health, his liberty and his very life; at
- his command tens of thousands of men went forth to war, to kill and to
- die; in his name were wrought acts just and unjust, cruel and merciful.
- And his laws were no less stringent than those of God; this too
- enhanced his greatness in that God's laws are immutable, but he could
- change his at will. Distant or near, he always was higher than life;
- at his birth man found along with nature, cities and books--his King;
- dying--he left with nature, cities and books--the King.
- The history of the land, oral and written, showed examples of
- magnanimous, just and good Kings, and though there lived people better
- than they, still one could understand why they might have ruled.
- But more frequently it happened that the King was the worst man on
- earth, bare of all virtues, cruel, unjust, even a madman--yet even
- then he remained the mysterious one who ruled over millions, and his
- power increased with his misdeeds. All the world hated and cursed
- him, but he, the one, ruled over those who hated and cursed, and this
- savage dominion became an enigma, and the dread of man before man was
- increased by the mystic terror of the unfathomable. And because of this
- wisdom, virtue and kindness served to weaken Kingcraft and made it
- a subject of strife, while tyranny, madness and malice strengthened
- it. And because of this the practice of beneficence and goodness was
- beyond the ability of even the most powerful of these mysterious lords
- though even the weakest of them in destructiveness and evil deeds could
- surpass the devil and the fiends of hell. He could not give life, but
- he imposed death, that mysterious Anointed one of madness, death and
- evil; and his throne rose to greater heights, the more bones had been
- laid down for its foundations.
- In other neighboring lands there sat also lords upon their thrones, and
- the origin of their dominion was lost in hoary antiquity. There were
- years and centuries when the mysterious lord disappeared from one of
- the Kingdoms, though there never was a time when the whole earth was
- wholly without them. Centuries passed and again, no one knows whence,
- there appeared in that land a throne, and again there sat thereon some
- mysterious one, incomprehensibly combining in himself frailty and
- undying power. And this mystery fascinated the people; at all times
- there had been among them such as loved him more than themselves, more
- than their wives and children, and humbly, as if from the hand of God,
- without murmur or pity, they received from him and in his name, death
- in most cruel and shameful form.
- The Twentieth and his predecessors rarely showed themselves to the
- people, and only a few ever saw them; but they loved to scatter abroad
- their image, leaving it on coins, hewing it out of stone, impressing
- it on myriads of canvases, and adorning and perfecting it through the
- skill of artists. One could not take a step without seeing the face,
- the same simple and mysterious face, forcing itself on the mind by
- sheer ubiquity, conquering the imagination, and acquiring a seeming
- omnipresence, just as it had attained immortality. And therefore people
- who but faintly remembered the face of their grandfathers and could not
- have recognized the features of their great grandfathers, knew well
- the faces of their lords of a hundred, two hundred or a thousand years
- back. And therefore, too, no matter how plain the face of the one man
- who was master of millions may have been, it bore always the imprint
- of enigmatic and awe-inspiring mystery. So the face of the dead always
- seems mysterious and significant, for through the familiar and well
- known features one gazes upon death, the mysterious and powerful.
- Thus high above life stood the King. People died, and whole generations
- passed from the face of the earth, but he only changed his soubriquet
- like a serpent shedding his skin: The Eleventh was followed by the
- twelfth, the fifteenth, then again came the first, the fifth, the
- second, and in these cold figures sounded an inevitableness like that
- of a swinging pendulum which marks the passing of time:
- "'Twas ever thus, 'twill ever be."
- PART II.
- And it happened that in that great country, the lord of which was the
- Twentieth, there occurred a revolution, a rising of the millions, as
- mysterious as had been the rule of the one. Something strange happened
- to the strong ties which had bound together the King and the people,
- and they began to decay noiselessly, unnoticeably, mysteriously, like
- a body out of which the life had departed, and in which new forces
- that had been in hiding somewhere commenced their work. There was the
- same throne, the same palace, and the same Twentieth--but his power
- had unaccountably passed away; and no one had noticed the hour of its
- passage, and all thought that it merely was ailing. The people simply
- lost the habit of obeying and that was all, and all at once, from out
- the multitude of separate trifling, unnoticed resistances, there grew
- up a stupendous, unconquerable movement. And as soon as the people
- ceased to obey, all their ancient sores were opened, and wrathfully
- they became conscious of hunger, injustice and oppression. And they
- made an uproar. And they demanded justice. And they reared a gigantic
- beast bristling with wrath, taking vengeance on its tamer for years of
- humiliation and tortures. Just as they had not held counsels to agree
- to obedience, they did not confer about rebelling; and straightway,
- from all sides there gathered a rising and made its way to the palace.
- Wondering at themselves and their deeds, oblivious of the path behind
- them, they advanced closer and closer to the throne, fingering already
- its gilt carving, peeping into the royal bed-chamber and attempting to
- sit upon royal chairs. The King bowed and the Queen smiled, and many of
- the people wept with joy as they beheld the Twentieth at close range;
- the women stroked with cautious finger the velvet of the royal coat and
- the silk of the royal gown, while the men with good-natured severity
- amused the royal infant.
- The King bowed and the pale Queen smiled, and from under the door of
- a neighboring apartment there crept in the black current of the blood
- of a nobleman, who had stabbed himself to death; he could not survive
- the spectacle of somebody's dirty fingers touching the royal coat, and
- committed suicide. And as they dispersed they shouted:
- "Long live the Twentieth."
- Here and there were some who frowned; but it was all so humorous
- that they too forgot their annoyance and gaily laughing as if at a
- carnival when some motley clown is crowned, they also shouted, "Long
- live the Twentieth." And they laughed. But towards evening there was
- gloom in their faces and suspicion in their glances; how could they
- have faith in him who for a thousand years with diabolical cunning had
- been deceiving his good and confiding people! The palace is dark; its
- immense windows gleam insincerely and peer sulkily into the darkness:
- some scheme is being concocted there. They are conjuring the powers of
- darkness and calling on them for vengeance upon the people. There they
- loathingly cleanse the lips from traitorous kisses and bathe the royal
- infant who has been defiled by the touch of the people. Perhaps there
- is no one there. Perhaps in the immense darkened salons there is only
- the suicide nobleman and space--they may have disappeared. One must
- shout, one must call for him, if a living being still be there. "Long
- live the Twentieth."
- A pale-grey, perplexing sky looks down upon pallid, upturned faces;
- the frightened clouds are scurrying over the heavens, and the immense
- windows gleam with a mysterious lifeless light. "Long live the
- Twentieth!"
- The overwhelmed sentinel seems to sway in the surging crowd. He has
- lost his gun and is smiling; the lock upon the iron portals clatters
- spasmodically and feverishly; clinging to the lofty iron rods of
- the gate, like black and misshapen fruit are crouching bodies and
- outstretched hands, that look pale on top and dark below. A shaggy
- mass of clouds sweeps the sky and gazes down upon the scenes. Shouts.
- Someone has lighted a torch, and the palace windows blushed as if
- crimson with blood and drew nearer to the crowd. Something seemed to
- be creeping upon the walls and disappeared upon the roof. The lock
- rattled no longer. The glare of the torch revealed the railing crowded
- with people, and now it became again invisible. The people were moving
- onward.
- "Long live the Twentieth!" A number of dim lights now seem to be
- flittering past the windows. Somebody's ugly features press closely to
- the pane and disappear. It is growing lighter. The torches increase
- in number, multiply and move up and down, like some curious dance or
- procession. Now the torches crowd together and incline as if saluting;
- the king and queen appear on the balcony. There is a blaze of light
- behind them, but their faces are dark, and the crowd is not sure it is
- really they, in person.
- "Give us Light! Twentieth! Give us Light! We can not see thee!"
- Suddenly several torches flash to the right and to the left of them,
- and from a smoky cavern two flushed and trembling countenances come
- into view. The people in the back are yelling: "It is not they! The
- king has fled!" But those nearest now shout with the joy of relieved
- anxiety: "Long live the Twentieth!" The crimson faces are now seen
- moving slowly up and down, now bright in the lurid glare, now vanishing
- in the shadow; they are bowing to the people. It is the Nineteenth, the
- Fourth, the Second who are bowing; bowing in the crimson mist are those
- mysterious creatures who had held so much enigmatic, almost divine
- power, and behind them are vanishing in the crimson mist of the past,
- murders, executions, majesty and dread. Now he must speak; the human
- voice is needed; when he is silent and bows with his flaming face he
- is terrible to look upon, like a devil conjured up from hell.
- "Speak, Twentieth, speak!" A curious motion of the hand, calling for
- silence, a strange commanding gesture, as ancient as kingcraft itself,
- and a gentle unknown voice is heard dropping those ancient and curious
- words: "I am glad to see my good people." Is that all? And is it
- not enough? He is glad! The Twentieth is glad! Be not angry with us
- Twentieth. We love thee, Twentieth, love us, too. If you will not love
- us we shall come again to see you in your study where you work, in your
- dining-room where you eat, in your bed chamber where you sleep, and we
- shall compel you to love us.
- "Long live the Twentieth! Long live the king! Long live our master!"
- Slaves!
- Who said slaves? The torches are expiring. They are departing. The dim
- lights are moving back into the palace, the windows are dark again, but
- they flush with a crimson reflection. Someone is being sought in the
- crowd. The crowds are hurrying, casting frightened glances behind. Had
- he been here or had it been a mere fancy? They ought to have touched
- him, fingered his garments or his face; he ought to have been made to
- cry out with terror or pain. They disperse in silence; the shouts of
- individuals are drowned in the discordant tramp of many feet; they are
- filled with obscure memories, presentiments and terrors. And horrible
- visions hover all night long over the city.
- PART III.
- He had already attempted to flee. He had bewitched some and lulled
- others to sleep and had almost gained his diabolical liberty, when
- a faithful son of the fatherland recognized him in the disguise of a
- shabby domestic. Not trusting to his memory he looked on a coin which
- bore his image--and the bells rang out in alarm, the houses belched
- forth masses of pale and frightened people; it was he! Now he is in the
- tower, in the immense black tower with the massive walls and the small
- bastioned windows; and faithful sons of the people are watching him,
- impervious to bribery, enchantment and flattery. To drive away fear the
- guards drink and laugh and blow clouds of smoke right into his face,
- when he essays to take a walk in the prison with his devilish progeny.
- To prevent him from enchanting the passersby they had boarded up the
- lower portions of the windows and the tower gallery where he was wont
- to promenade, and only the wandering clouds in passing look into his
- face. But he is strong. He transforms the laughter of a freeman into
- servile tears; he sows seeds of disloyalty and treason from behind the
- massive walls and they penetrate into the hearts of the people like
- black flowers, staining the golden raiment of liberty into the likeness
- of a wild beast's skin. Traitors and enemies abound on all hands.
- Descended from their thrones other powerful and mysterious lords gather
- at the frontier with hordes of savage and bewitched people, matricides
- ready to put to death freedom, their mother. In the houses, on the
- streets, in the mysterious wilderness of forests and distant villages,
- in the proud mansions of the popular assembly, there hisses the sound
- of treason and glides the shadow of treachery. Woe unto the people!
- They are betrayed by those who had been the first to raise the banner
- of revolt and the traitors' wretched remains are already cast out of
- the dishonored sepulchres and their black blood drenches the earth.
- Woe unto the people! They are betrayed by those to whom they had given
- their hearts; betrayed by their own elect; whose faces are honest,
- whose tongues are uncompromisingly stern and whose pockets are full of
- somebody's gold.
- Now the city is to be searched. It was ordered that all should be in
- their dwellings at mid-day; and when at the appointed hour the bells
- were rung, their ominous sound rolled echoing over the deserted and
- silent streets. Since the city's birth there had never reigned such
- stillness; not a soul near the fountains; the stores are closed; on the
- streets, from one end to the other, not a pedestrian, not a carriage
- to be seen. The alarmed and astonished cats wander in the shadow of
- the silent walls; they can not tell whether it be day or night; and so
- profound is the silence that it seems as if their velvety footfall were
- plainly audible. The measured tones of the bells pass over the streets
- like invisible brooms sweeping the city clean. Now the cats, too,
- frightened at something, have disappeared. Silence and desolation.
- Suddenly on every street there appear simultaneously little bands of
- armed people. They converse loudly and freely and stamp their feet, and
- although they are not many they seem to cause more noisy commotion than
- the whole city when it is crowded with a hundred thousand pedestrians
- and vehicles. Each house seems to swallow them up in succession and
- to belch them forth again. And as they emerge another or two more are
- belched forth with them, pale with malice or red with wrath. And they
- walked with their hands in their pockets, for in those curious days
- no one feared death, not even the traitors; and they entered into the
- dark jaws of the prison houses. Ten thousand traitors were found that
- day by the faithful servants of the people; they found ten thousand
- traitors and cast them into prison. Now the prisons were pleasant
- and awful to look upon; so full they were from top to bottom with
- disloyalty and shameful treachery. One wondered that the walls could
- bear the load without crumbling into dust.
- That night there was a general rejoicing in the city. The houses
- were emptied once more and the streets were filled; endless black
- throngs engaged in a stupefying dance, a combination of quick and
- unexpected gyrations. Dancing was in progress from one end of the city
- to the other. Around the lamp-posts like the foaming surf that beats
- against the rocks, knots of merrymakers had gathered, clasping hands,
- their faces aglow with laughter, and wide-eyed, whirling around, now
- vanishing from view and ever changing in expression. From the lamp-post
- dangled the corpse of some executed traitor who had not succeeded in
- reaching the shelter of his prison. His extended legs seeking the
- ground, almost touched the heads of the dancers, and the corpse itself
- seemed to dance, yes, it seemed to be the very master of ceremonies and
- the ring-leader of the merriment, directing the dance.
- Then they walked over to the black tower and craning their necks,
- shouted: "Death to the Twentieth! Death!" Cheerful lights gleamed now
- in the tower windows; the faithful sons of the people were watching the
- tyrant. Calmed and assured that he could not escape, they shouted more
- in a jest than seriously: "Death to the Twentieth!" And they departed,
- making room for other shouters. But at night horrible dreams again
- hovered over the city, and like poison which one has swallowed and
- failed to spit out, the black towers and prisons reeking with traitors
- and treachery, gnawed at the city's vitals.
- Now they were putting the traitors to death. They had sharpened their
- sabres, axes and scythes; they had gathered blocks of wood and heavy
- stones and for forty-eight hours they worked in the prisons until they
- collapsed from fatigue. They slept anywhere near their bloody work,
- they ate and drank there. The earth refused to absorb the streams of
- sluggish blood; they had to cover it with heaps of straw, but that
- covering too was drenched and transformed into brownish refuse. Seven
- thousand traitors were put to death that day. Seven thousand traitors
- had bitten the dust in order to cleanse the city and furnish life to
- the newborn freedom. They marched again to see the Twentieth and held
- up to his view the chopped off heads and the torn out hearts of the
- traitors. And he saw them. Then confusion and consternation reigned
- in the popular assembly. They sought him who had given the order to
- slay and could not detect him. But someone must have given the order
- to slay. Was it you? Or you? Or you? But who had dared to give orders
- where the popular assembly alone had the right to command? Some are
- smiling--they seem to know something.
- "Murderers!"
- "No! But we have compassion with our native land, while you express
- pity with traitors!"
- Still peace is afar off, and treachery is growing apace and
- multiplying; insidiously it finds its way into the very hearts of the
- people. Oh! the sufferings, and Oh! the bloodshed--and all in vain!
- Through the massive walls that mysterious sovereign still sows the
- seeds of treachery and enchantment. Alas for freedom! From the West
- comes the news of terrible dissensions, of batties, of a crazed
- portion of the people who had seceded and risen in arms against their
- mother, the Freedom. Threats are heard from the south, and from the
- east and the north other mysterious lords who had descended from their
- thrones are closing in upon the land with their savage hordes. No
- matter whence they come the clouds are imbued with the breath of foes
- and of traitors. No matter whence they blow from the north and the
- south, from the west and the east, the winds waft mutterings of threats
- and of wrath, and strike joyfully on the ear of him who is imprisoned
- in the tower, while they sound a funeral knell in the ears of citizens.
- Alas for the people! Alas for liberty! At night the moon is bright and
- radiant as if shining above ruins, but the sun even is lost in the
- mist and the black concourse of clouds, deformed, monstrous and ugly,
- which seem to strangle it. They attack it and strangle it and a mingled
- shagginess of crimson, they crash into the abyss of the west. Once for
- an instant the sun broke through the clouds--and how sad, awesome and
- frightened was that ray of light. Hurriedly tender it seemed to caress
- the tops of the trees, the roofs of the houses, the spires of the
- churches.
- But in the tower the one-eyed clockmaker, who could so conveniently use
- the magnifying glass, walking amid his wheels and gears, his levers
- and ropes, and bending his head to one side watches the swinging of
- the mighty pendulum. "'Twas ever thus--'twill ever be. 'Twas ever
- thus--'twill ever be!"
- Once when he was very young the clock got out of order and stopped for
- the space of two days. And it was such a terrifying experience, as
- if all time had slipped into an abyss. But after the clock had been
- repaired, all was well again, and now time seems to flow between one's
- fingers, to ooze drop by drop, to split into little pieces, falling
- an inch at a time. The immense brazen disc of the pendulum lights up
- faintly as it moves and seems to swing like a ball of gold if one looks
- at it with half-closed eyes. A pigeon is heard cooing softly among the
- rafters. "'Twas ever thus--'twill ever be!" 'Twas ever thus--'twill
- ever be!"
- PART IV.
- The thousand-year-old monarchy was at last overthrown. There was no
- need of the plebiscite; every man in the popular assembly had risen to
- his feet, and from top to bottom it became filled with standing men.
- Even that sick deputy who had been brought in an armchair rose to his
- feet; supported by his friends he straightened his limbs, crushed with
- paralysis, and stood erect like a tall withered stump supported by two
- young and slender trees.
- "The republic is accepted unanimously," someone announced with a
- sonorous voice, vainly attempting to conceal its triumphant tone.
- But they all remained standing. A minute passed, then another; already
- upon the public square, which was thronged with expectant people,
- there had burst forth a thunderous manifestation of joy, but in the
- hall there reigned a solemn stillness as in a cathedral, and stern,
- majestically serious people, grown rigid in the attitude of proud
- homage. Before whom are they standing? They no longer own a King, even
- God, that tyrant and king of heaven, had long since been overthrown
- from His celestial seat. They are paying homage to Liberty. The aged
- deputy whose head had been shaking for years with senile palsy now
- holds it up erect and proud. There, with an easy gesture of his
- hand, he has pushed aside his friends; he is standing alone; liberty
- has accomplished a miracle. These men who had long since forgotten
- the art of weeping, living amid tempests, riots and bloodshed, are
- weeping now. The cruel eyes of eagles which gazed calm and unmoved on
- the blood-reeking sun of the Revolution can not withstand the gentle
- radiance of Liberty, and they shed tears.
- Silence reigns in the hall; but a tumultuous uproar is heard outside;
- growing in volume and intensity it loses its sharpness; it is uniform
- and mighty and brings to mind the roar of the limitless ocean. They are
- all freemen now. Free are the dying, free are those coming into the
- world, free are the living. The mysterious dominion of One which had
- held the millions in its clutches is overthrown, the black vaults of
- prisons have crumbled into dust--and overhead shines the cloudless and
- radiant sky.
- "Liberty"--someone whispers softly and tenderly like the name of a
- sweetheart. "Liberty!" exclaims another, breathless with unutterable
- joy, his face aglow with intense eagerness and lofty inspiration.
- "Liberty!" is heard in the clanging of the iron. "Liberty!" sing the
- stringed instruments. "Liberty!" roars the many-voiced ocean. He is
- dead, the old deputy. His heart could not contain the infinite joy and
- it stopped, its last beat being--Liberty! The most blessed of mortals;
- into the mysterious shadow of the grave he will carry away an endless
- vision of Newborn Freedom.
- They had been awaiting frenzied excesses in the city, but none took
- place. The breath of liberty ennobled the people, and they grew gentle
- and tender and chaste in their demonstrations of joy. They only gazed
- at one another,'they caressed one another with a cautious touch of the
- hand; it is so sweet to caress a free creature and to look into his
- eyes. And no one was hanged. There was found a madman who shouted in
- the crowd: "Long live the Twentieth!" twirled his mustache and prepared
- himself for the brief struggle and the lengthy agony in the clutches of
- a maddened throng. And some frowned, while others, the large majority,
- merely wonderingly and curiously regarding the hair-brained fellow, as
- a crowd of sightseers might gape at some curious simian from Brazil.
- And they let him go.
- It was late at night when they remembered the Twentieth. A crowd of
- citizens who refused to part with the great day decided to roam around
- until daybreak. By chance they bethought themselves of the Twentieth
- and wended their way to the tower. That black structure merged into
- the darkness of the sky and at the moment when the citizens approached
- seemed to be in the act of swallowing a little star. Some stray bright
- little star came close to it, flashed for a moment and disappeared in
- the darkness. Very close to the ground, in a lower tier of the tower,
- two lighted windows shone out into the darkness. There the faithful
- custodians kept their unceasing vigil. The clock struck the hour of two.
- "Does he or does he not know?" inquired one of the visitors vainly
- attempting to make out with his glance the contours of the pile, as if
- endeavoring to solve its secrets. A dark silhouette now detached itself
- from the wall, and a dull, weary voice responded:
- "He is asleep, citizen."
- "Who are you, citizen? You startled me. You walk as softly as a cat!"
- Other dark silhouettes now approached from various quarters and mutely
- confronted the newcomers.
- "Why don't you answer? If you are a specter, please vanish without
- delay; the assembly has abolished specters."
- But the stranger wearily replied: "We watch the tyrant."
- "Did the commune appoint you?"
- "No. We appointed ourselves. There are thirty-six of us. There had been
- thirty-seven, but one died; we watch the tyrant. We have lived near
- this wall for two months or longer. We are very weary."
- "The nation thanks you. Do you know what happened to-day?"
- "Yes, we heard something. We watch the tyrant."
- "Have you heard that we are a republic now? That we have liberty?"
- "Yes, but we watch the tyrant and we are weary."
- "Let us embrace, brothers!"
- Cold lips wearily touch the burning lips of the visitors.
- "We are weary. He is so cunning and dangerous. Day and night we watch
- the doors and the windows. I watch that window; you could hardly
- distinguish it. So you say we have liberty? Very good.--But we must go
- back to our posts. Be calm, citizens. He is asleep. We receive reports
- every half hour. He is sleeping now."
- The silhouettes moved, separated themselves and vanished as if they had
- gone right through the walls. The gloomy old tower seemed to have grown
- taller, and from one of the battlements there stretched over the city
- a dark and shapeless cloud. It seemed as if the tower had grown out
- of all proportion and was stretching its hand over the city. A light
- flashed from the dense blackness of the wall and suddenly vanished,
- like a signal. The cloud now covered the whole city and reflected with
- a yellowish gleam the lurid glare of many fires. A drizzling rain
- suddenly commenced to descend. All was silent and all was restless.
- Was he really sleeping?
- PART V.
- A few more days passed in the new and delicious sensations of freedom,
- and again new threads of distrust and fear appeared like dark veins
- running through white marble. The tyrant received the news of his
- overthrow with suspicious calmness. How can a man be calm when deprived
- of a kingdom, unless he be planning something terrible? And how can
- the people be calm, when in their midst there lives a mysterious one
- having the gift of pernicious enchantment? Overthrown, he continues
- to be terrible; imprisoned he demonstrates at will his diabolical
- power which grows with distance. Thus the earth, black at close range,
- appears like a shining star when seen from the depths of azure space.
- And in his immediate surroundings his sufferings move to tears. A woman
- was seen to kiss the hand of the queen. A guard was observed drying
- his tears. An orator was heard appealing for mercy. As if even now he
- were not happier than thousands of people who had never seen the light?
- Who could warrant that on the morrow the land would not return to its
- ancient madness, crawling in the dust before him, begging his pardon
- and rearing anew his throne which it cost so much labor and pain to
- overthrow!
- Bristling with frenzy and terror the millions are listening to the
- speeches in the popular assembly. Curious speeches. Terrifying words.
- They speak of his inviolability; they say he is sacro-sanct, that he
- may not be judged like others are judged, that he may not be punished
- like others are punished, that he may not be put to death, for he is
- the King. Consequently Kings still exist! And these words are spoken
- by those who have sworn to love the people and liberty; the words are
- uttered by men of tried honesty, by sworn foes of tyranny, by the sons
- of the people who came forth from the loins of those that were scarred
- by the merciless and sacrilegious rule of the Kings. Ominous blindness!
- Already the majority is inclining in favor of the overthrown one; as
- if a dense yellow fog issuing forth from that tower had forced its way
- into the holy mansions of the people's mind, blinding their bright
- eyes strangling their newly gained freedom; thus a bride adorned with
- white blossoms might meet death in the hour of her bridal triumph.
- Dull despair creeps into the heart, and many hands convulsively stroke
- the trusted blade; it is better to die with Brutus than to live with
- Octavianus.
- Final remonstrances full of deadly indignation.
- "Do you wish to have one man in the land and thirty-five million
- animals?"
- Yes, they wish it. They stand silent with downcast eyes. They are weary
- of fighting, weary of exercising their will, and in their lassitude,
- in their yawning and stretching, in their colorless cold words which,
- however, have a magic effect, one almost fancies the contour of a
- throne. Scattered exclamations, dull speeches, and the blind silence of
- unanimous treachery. Liberty is perishing, the luckless bride adorned
- with white blossoms, who has met her doom in the hour of her bridal
- triumph.
- But hark! The sound of marching. They are coming; like the sound of
- dozens of gigantic drums beating a wild tattoo. Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!
- They come from the suburbs. Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! They march in defense
- of liberty. Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Woe unto traitors! Tramp! Tramp!
- Tramp! Traitors, beware!
- "The People ask permission to march past the assembly."
- But who could stop an avalanche? Who would dare tell an earthquake, "So
- far and no further shalt thou go!"
- The doors are thrown open. There they come from the suburbs. Their
- faces are the color of the earth. Their breasts are bared. An endless
- kaleidoscope of motley rags that serve for raiment. A triumph of
- impulsive, uncontrolled movements. An ominous harmony of disorder.
- A marching chaos. Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Eyes flashing fire! Prongs,
- scythes, tridents, fenceposts. Men, women and children. Tramp! Tramp!
- Tramp!
- "Long live the representatives of the people! Long live liberty! Death
- to traitors!" The deputies smile, frown, bow amiably. They grow dizzy
- watching the motley procession that seems to have no end. It looks like
- a torrential stream rushing through a cavern. All faces begin to look
- alike. All shouts merge into one uniform and solid roar. The tramp of
- the feet resembles the patter of raindrops upon the roof, a sporific,
- will-subduing sound which dominates consciousness. A gigantic roof,
- gigantic raindrops.
- Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! One hour passes, then two, then three, and still
- they are filing past. The torches burn with a crimson glare and emit
- smoke. Both openings, the one through which the people enter and the
- one through which they file out are like yawning jaws; and it is as if
- some black ribbon, gleaming with copper and iron, stretched from one
- door and through the other. Fanciful pictures now present themselves to
- the weary eye. Now it is an endless belt, now a titanic, swollen and
- hairy worm. Those sitting above the doors imagine themselves standing
- on a bridge and feel like floating away. Now and then the clear and
- unusually vivid realization comes to one's mind: it is the people. And
- pride, and consciousness of the power and the thirst for great freedom
- such as has never been known before. A free people, what happiness!
- Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! They have been marching for eight hours and still
- the end is not yet. From both sides, where the people enter and where
- they file out, rode the thunderous notes of the song of the revolution.
- The words can be hardly heard. Only the time, the cadences and the
- notes are plainly distinguished. Momentary stillness and threating
- shouts. "To arms, citizens! Gather into battalions! Let us go! Let us
- go!"
- They go.
- No need of a vote. Liberty is safe once more.
- PART VI.
- Then came the fateful day of the royal judgment. The mysterious power,
- ancient as the world, was called upon to answer for its misdeeds
- to the very people it had so long held in bondage. It was called
- upon to answer to the world which it dishonored by the triumph of
- its absurdity. Stripped of its cap and bells, deprived of its gaudy
- throne, of its high-sounding titles and of all those queer symbols of
- dominion, naked it will stand before the people and will tell by whose
- right and authority it had exercised its rule over millions, vesting in
- the person of one being the power to do wrong with impunity, to rob men
- of their freedom, to inflict punishment and death. But the Twentieth
- has been judged already by the conscience of the people. No mercy will
- be shown him. Yet, ere he goes to his doom, let him unbosom himself,
- let him acquaint the people, not with his deeds, they are sufficiently
- well known to them, but with the thoughts, the motives and the feelings
- of a king. That mythical dragon who devours children and virgins, who
- has held the world in thrall, is now securely fettered and bound with
- heavy chains. He will be taken to the public square and soon the people
- will see his scaly trunk, his venomous fangs and the cruel jaws that
- exhale fierce flames.
- Some plot was feared. All night long troops had marched through
- the tranquil streets, filling the squares and passages, fencing in
- the route of the royal procession with rows of gleaming bayonets,
- surrounding it with a wall of somber and sternly solemn faces. Above
- the black silhouettes of buildings and churches, that loomed sharp,
- square-shaped and strangely indistinct in the twilight of the early
- dawn, there appeared the first faint gleam of the yellow and cloudy
- sky, the cold sky of the city, looking as aged as the houses and, like
- them, covered with soot and rust. It resembled some painting hanging in
- a dark hall of an ancient baronial castle.
- The city slept in anxious anticipation of the great and portentous day,
- while on the streets the citizen-soldiers moved quietly in well-formed
- ranks, striving to muffle the sounds of their heavy footsteps. The
- low-browed cannon, almost grazing the ground with their chins, rattled
- insolently over the roadways with the ruddy glare of a fuse on each
- piece of ordnance.
- Orders were given in a subdued tone, almost in a whisper, as if the
- commanders feared to waken some light and suspicious sleeper. Whether
- they feared for the king and his safety, or whether they feared the
- king himself, no one knew. But everybody knew that there was need of
- preparation, need of summoning the entire strength of the people.
- The morning would dawn, but slowly; massive yellow clouds, bushy and
- grimy as if they had been rubbed with a filthy cloth, hung over the
- church spires, and only as the king emerged from the tower the sun
- burst into radiance through a rift in the clouds. Happy augury for the
- people, ominous warning for the tyrant!
- And thus was he taken from prison; through a narrow lane formed by two
- solid lines of troops there moved companies of armed soldiers--one,
- two, ten, you could not have counted their number. Then came the guns,
- rattling, rattling, rattling. Then gripped in the vice-like embrace
- of rifles, sabers and bayonets came the carriage, scarcely able to
- proceed. And again fresh guns and companies of soldiers. And all
- through that journey of many miles silence preceded the carriage, and
- was behind it and all around it. At one point in the public square
- there were heard a few tentative shouts, "Death to the Twentieth!" But
- finding no support in the crowd, the shouts subsided. Thus in the chase
- of a wild boar only the inexperienced dogs are heard barking, but those
- who will maim and be maimed are silent, gathering wrath and strength.
- In the assembly there reigns an excitedly subdued hubbub of
- conversation. They have been expecting for some hours the coming of the
- tyrant, who approaches with snail-like pace; the deputies walk about
- the corridors in agitation, every moment changing their positions,
- laughing without apparent cause and animatedly gossiping about any
- trivial thing. But many are sitting motionless, like statues of stone,
- and their expression is also stone-like. Their faces are young, but the
- furrows thereon are deep and old, as if hewn by an ax, and their hair
- is rough; their eyes either ominously hidden in the cavernous depths
- of the skull or intently drawn forward, wide and comprehensive, as if
- not shaded by eyebrows, like torches burning in the gloomy recesses of
- a prison. There is no terror on earth which these eyes could not gaze
- on without a tremor. There is no cruelty, no sorrow, no spectral horror
- before which this glance would flinch, hardened as they had been in
- the furnace of the revolution. Those who were the first to launch the
- great movement have long since died and their ashes have been scattered
- abroad; they are forgotten, forgotten are their ideas, aspirations and
- yearnings. The onetime thunder of their speeches is like the rattle in
- the hands of a babe; the great freedom of which they dreamt now seems
- like the crib of a child with a canopy to protect it from flies and the
- glare of daylight. But these have grown up amid the storms and live
- in the tempest; they are the darling children of tumultuous days, of
- blood-reeking heads borne aloft on lances like pumpkins, of massive
- and mighty hearts made to give forth blood; of titanic orations, where
- a word is sharper than the dagger and an idea more pitiless than
- gunpowder. Obedient only to the will of the people they have summoned
- the specter of imperious power, and now, cold and passionless, like
- surgeons dissecting a corpse, like judges, like executioners, they will
- analyze its ghostly bluish effulgence which so awes the ignorant and
- the superstitious, they will dissect its spectral members, they will
- discover the black venom of tyranny, and they will let it pass to its
- doom.
- Now the hubbub outside grows faint, and stillness profound and black
- as the heavens at night ensues; now the rattle of approaching cannon.
- This, too, subsides. A slight commotion near the entrance. Everybody
- is seated; they must be sitting when the tyrant enters. They strive to
- look unconcerned. Heavy tramping of troops placed in various stations
- about the building and a subdued clanging of arms. The last of the
- cannon outside conclude their noisy peregrination. Like a ring of steel
- they surround the buildings, their jaws pointing outward, facing the
- whole world--the west and the east, the north and the south. Something
- looking quite insignificant entered the hall. Seen from the more
- distant benches higher up it appeared to be a fat, undersized manikin
- with swift uncertain movements. Observed at close range it was seen to
- be a stout man of medium height, with a prominent nose that was crimson
- with the cold, baggy cheeks and dull little eyes, an expressive mixture
- of good nature, insignificance and stupidity. He turns his head, not
- knowing whether to bow or not, and then nods lightly; he stands in
- indecision, with feet spread apart, not knowing whether he may sit
- down or not. Not a word is heard, but there is a chair behind him,
- evidently intended for him, and he sits down, first unobtrusively, then
- more firmly, and finally assumes a majestic posture. He has evidently
- a severe cold, for he draws from his pocket a handkerchief and uses
- it with apparent enjoyment, emitting a loud and trumpet-like sound.
- Then he pulls himself together, pockets his handkerchief and grows
- majestically rigid. He is ready. Such is the Twentieth.
- PART VII.
- They had been expecting a King, but there appeared before them a clown.
- They had been expecting a dragon, but there came a big-nosed bourgeois
- with a handkerchief and a bad cold. It was funny, and curious and a
- little uncanny. Had not someone substituted a pretender in his place?
- "It is I, the King," says the Twentieth.
- Yes, it is he, indeed. How funny he is! Think of him for a King! The
- people smiled, shrugged their shoulders and could hardly refrain from
- laughter. They exchanged mocking smiles and salutes and seemed to
- inquire in the language of signs: "Well, what do you think of Him?"
- The deputies were very serious and pale. Undoubtedly the feeling of
- responsibility oppressed them. But the people were merry in a quiet
- way. How had they managed to make their way into the assembly hall? How
- does water trickle through a hole? They had penetrated through some
- broken windows, they had almost slipped through the keyholes. Hundreds
- of ragged and phantastically attired but extremely courteous and
- affable strangers. Crowding a deputy they solicitously inquired: "Hope
- I am not in your way, citizen?" They were very polite. Like quaint
- birds, they clung in dark rows to the window sills, obstructing the
- light and seemed to be signalling something to the people in the square
- outside. It was apparently something funny.
- But the deputies are serious, very serious and even pale. They fix
- their eager eyes like magnifying lenses upon the Twentieth, gazing upon
- him long and intently, and turn away frowning. Some have closed their
- eyes altogether. They loathe the sight of the tyrant. "Citizen deputy,"
- exclaims with delighted awe one of the courteous strangers; "see how
- the tyrant's eyes are glowing." Without raising his drooping eyelids
- the deputy replies, "Yes!"
- "How well nourished he looks."
- "Yes."
- "But you are not very talkative, citizen!"
- Silence again. There below the Twentieth is already mumbling his
- speech. He can not understand of what he could be accused. He had
- always loved the people and the people loved him; and he still loved
- the people in spite of all insults. If the people think a Republic
- would suit them better, let them have a republic. He has nothing
- against it.
- "But why then did you summon other tyrants?"
- "I did not summon them; they came of their own accord."
- This answer is false. Documents had been found in a secret drawer
- establishing the fact of the negotiations. But he insists, clumsily
- and stupidly, like any ordinary rascal caught cheating. He even looks
- offended. As a matter of fact he has always had the best interests of
- the people at heart. No, he has not been cruel; he always pardoned
- whomever he could pardon. No, he has not ruined the land by his
- extravagance, he only used for himself as much as an ordinary plain
- citizen might. He had never been a profligate or a wastrel. He is a
- lover of Greek and Latin classical literature and of cabinet making.
- All the furniture in his study is the work of his hands. So much is
- correct. To look at him, he certainly had the appearance of a plain
- citizen; there are multitudes of stout fellows like him with noses that
- emit trumpet-like sounds; they may be met a-plenty on the riverside of
- a holiday, fishing. Insignificant funny men with big noses. But he had
- been a King! What could it mean? Then anybody could be a King!
- A gorilla might become an absolute ruler over men! And a golden throne
- might be reared for it to sit on! And divine honor might be paid to it,
- and it might lay dawn the laws of life for the people. A hoary gorilla,
- a pitiful survival of the forest!
- The brief autumn day is drawing to a close, and the people begin to
- express impatience. Why bother so long with the tyrant? What, is there
- some new treachery being hatched? In the twilight of an ante-chamber
- two deputies meet. They scrutinize one another and exchange a glance of
- mutual recognition. Then they walk together, for some reason avoiding
- contact with their bodies.
- "But where is the tyrant?" suddenly exclaims one of them and grasps the
- shoulder of his companion, "Tell me, where is the tyrant?"
- "I don't know. I feel too ashamed to enter the hall."
- "Horrible thought! Is insignificance the secret of tyranny? Are
- nonentities our real tyrants?"
- "I don't know, but I am ashamed."
- The little ante-chamber was quiet, but from all sides, from the
- assembly hall and from the public square outside, there was heard
- a dull roaring. Each individual perhaps spoke in low tones, but
- altogether the result was an elemental turmoil like the roaring of the
- distant ocean. A ruddy glare seemed to be flitting over the walls,
- evidently men outside were lighting their torches. Then not afar off
- was heard the measured tramping of feet and the subdued rattle of arms.
- They were relieving the watches. Whom are they watching? What is the
- use?
- "Drive him out of the country!" "No. The people will not permit it. He
- must be killed." "But that would be another wrong."
- The ruddy spots seem now climbing up and down along the walls, and
- spectral shadows make their appearance, now creeping, now leaping;
- as if the bloody days of the past and of the present were passing in
- review in an endless procession through the visions of a dreamer.
- The turmoil outside grows more boisterous; one can almost discern
- individual shouts. "For the first time in my life, to-day a feeling of
- dread has seized my heart."
- "Likewise of despair, and of shame."
- "Yes, and of despair! Let me have your hand, brother. How cold it
- is. Here in the face of unknown perils and in the hour of a great
- humiliation, let us swear that we will not betray freedom. We shall
- perish. I felt it to-day. But perishing let us shout, "Liberty,
- liberty, brothers!" Let us shout it so loud that a world of slaves
- shall quake with fear. Clasp my hand tighter, brother."
- It was still now; here and there crimson spots flared up along the
- walls, while the misty shadows moved with swiftness, but the abyss
- below roared and thundered with increasing fury, as if a dreadful and
- mighty hurricane had come sweeping onward from the north and the south,
- from the west and the east, and had stirred the multitude with its
- terror. Fragments of songs and howls and one word as if sketched in
- stupendous jagged black outlines in the chaos of sounds:
- "Death! Death to the Tyrant!"
- The two deputies were standing lost in a reverie. Time passed on,
- but still they stood there, unmoved in the maddened chase of shadow
- shapes and smoke, and it seemed as if they had been standing there for
- ages. Thousands of spectral years surrounded them with the mighty and
- majestic silence of eternity, while the shadows whirled on frenziedly,
- and the shouts rose and fell beating against the window like windswept
- breakers. At times the weird and mysterious rhythm of the surf could be
- discerned in the turmoil and the thunderous roar of the breaking waves.
- "Death! Death to the tyrant!" At last they stirred from the spot.
- "Well let us go in there!" "Let us go in! Fool that I was! I had
- thought that this day would end the fight with tyranny." "The fight is
- just commencing. Let us go in!"
- They passed through dark corridors and dawn marble stairways, through
- chilly and silent halls that are as damp as cellars. Suddenly a
- gleam of light, a wave of heated air like the breath of a furnace,
- a hubbub of voices like a hundred caged parrots talking against
- time. Then another doorway and at their feet there opens an immense
- chasm, littered with heads, semi-dark and filled with smoke. Reddish
- tongues of candles stifling for want of fresh air. Someone is speaking
- somewhere. Thunderous applause. The speech is apparently ended. At
- the very bottom of the abyss, between two flickering lights is the
- small figure of the Twentieth. He is wiping the perspiration from
- his forehead with a handkerchief, bends low over the table and reads
- something with an indistinct mumbling voice. He is reading his speech
- of defense. How hot he feels! Ho, Twentieth! Remember that you are
- king. Raise your voice ennoble the ax and the executioner! No! He
- mumbles on, tragically serious in his stupidity.
- PART VIII.
- Many watched the execution of the king from the roofs, but even the
- roofs were not sufficient to accommodate the sight-seers and many did
- not succeed after all in seeing how kings are executed. But the high
- and narrow houses, with the queer coiffure of mobile creatures instead
- of roofs seemed to have become endowed with life, and their opened
- windows resembled black, winking eyes. Behind the houses rose church
- spires and towers, some pointed and others blunt, and at first glance
- they looked the same as usual, but on closer observation they appeared
- to be dotted with dark transverse lines which seemed to be swaying to
- and fro; they, too, were crowded with people. Nothing could be seen
- from so great a height, but they looked on just the same. Seen from the
- roofs of houses the scaffold seemed as small as a child's plaything,
- something like a toy barrow with broken handles. The few persons who
- stood apart from the sight-seers and in the immediate neighborhood of
- the scaffold, the only few persons who stood by themselves (the rest of
- the people having been merged into a dense mass of black), those few
- persons standing by themselves oddly resembled tiny black ants walking
- erect. Everything seemed to be on a level, and yet they laboriously
- and slowly ascended invisible steps. And it seemed strange that right
- beside one, upon the neighboring roofs, there stood people with large
- heads, mouths and noses. The drums beat loudly. A little black coach
- drove up to the scaffold. For quite a little while nothing could be
- discerned. Then a little group separated itself from the mass and very
- slowly ascended some invisible steps. Then the group dispersed, leaving
- in the center a tiny looking individual. The drums beat again and
- one's heart stood still. Suddenly the tattoo came to an end hoarsely
- and brokenly. All was still. The tiny lone figure raised its hand,
- dropped it and raised it again. It is evidently speaking, but not a
- word is heard. What is it saying? What is it saying? Suddenly the drums
- broke into a tattoo, scattering abroad their martial beats, and rending
- the air into myriads of particles which hindered one from seeing.
- Commotion on the scaffold. The little figure has vanished. He is being
- executed. The drums beat again and all of a sudden, hoarsely and
- brokenly, cease from their tumult. On the spot where the Twentieth had
- stood just a moment before there is a new little figure with extended
- hand. And in that hand there is seen something tiny, that is light on
- one side and dark on the other, like a pin head dyed in two colors. It
- is the head of the King. At last! The coffin, with the body and the
- head of the King, was rushed off somewhere, and the conveyance that
- bore it away drove off at a breakneck speed, crushing the people in its
- path. It was feared that the frenzied populace would not spare even the
- remains of the tyrant. But the people were terrible indeed. Imbued with
- the ancient slavish fear they could not bring themselves to believe
- that it had really taken place, that the inviolable sacrosanct and
- potent sovereign had placed his head under the ax of the executioner:
- desperately and blindly they besieged the scaffold; eyes very often
- play tricks on one and the ears deceive. They must touch the scaffold
- with their hands, they must breathe in the odor of royal blood, steep
- their arms in it up to the elbows. They fought, scrambled, fell and
- screamed. There something soft, like a bundle of rags, rolls under
- the feet of the crowd. It is the body of one crushed to death. Then
- another and another. Having fought their way to the heap of ruins
- which remained of the scaffold, with feverish hands they broke off
- fragments of it, scraping them off with their nails; they demolished
- the scaffold greedily, blindly grabbing heavy beams, and after a step
- or two fell under the burden. And the crowd closed in over the heads
- of the fallen while the beams rose to the surface, floated along as
- if borne on some current, and diving again it showed for a moment its
- jagged edge and then disappeared. Some found a little pool of blood
- that the thirsting ground had not yet drained and that had not yet
- been trampled under foot, and they dipped into it their handkerchiefs
- and their raiment. Many smeared the blood on their lips and imprinted
- some mysterious signs on their foreheads, anointing themselves with the
- blood of the King to the new reign of freedom. They were intoxicated
- with savage delight. Unaccompanied by song or speech they whirled in a
- breathless dance; ran about raising aloft their bloodstained rags, and
- scattered over the city, shouting, roaring and laughing incontinently
- and strangely. Some attempted to sing, but songs were too slow, too
- harmonious and rhythmical, and they again resumed their wild laughing
- and shouting. They started toward the national assembly intending to
- thank the deputies for ridding the land of the tyrant, but on the
- way they were deflected from their goal by the pursuit of a traitor
- who shouted: "The King is dead, long live the King! Long live the
- Twenty-first!" And then they dispersed--after having hanged someone.
- Many of those who secretly continued to be loyal to the King could not
- bear the thought of his execution and lost their minds; many others,
- though they were cowards, committed suicide. Until the very last
- moment they waited for something, hoped for something, and had faith in
- the efficacy of their prayers. But when the execution had taken place
- they were seized with despair. Some grimly and sullenly, others in
- sacrilegious frenzy pierced their hearts with daggers. And there were
- some who ran out into the street with a savage thirst for martyrdom,
- and facing the avalanche of the people shouted madly, "Long live the
- Twenty-first!" and they perished.
- The day was drawing to a close and the night was breaking upon the
- city, the stern and truthful night which has no eyes for that which
- is visible. The city was yet bright with the glare of street lights,
- but the river under the bridge was as black as liquid soot, and only
- in the distance, where it curved, and where the last pale cold gleams
- of sunset were dying away, it shone dimly like the cold reflection
- of polished metal. Two men stood on the bridge, leaning against its
- masonry, and peered into the dark and mysterious depth of the river.
- "Do you believe that freedom really came to-day?" asked one of the
- twain in a low tone of voice, for the city was yet bright with many
- lights, while the river below stretched away, wrapped in blackness.
- "Look, a corpse is floating there," exclaimed the other, and he spoke
- in a low tone of voice, for the corpse was very near and its broad blue
- face was turned upward.
- "There are many of them floating in the river these days. They are
- floating down to the sea."
- "I have not much faith in their liberty. They are too happy over the
- death of the Insignificant One."
- From the city where the lights were yet burning the breeze wafted
- sounds of voices, of laughter and of songs. Merrymaking was still in
- progress.
- "Dominion must be destroyed yet," said the first.
- "The slaves must be destroyed. There is no such thing as dominion;
- slavery alone exists. There goes another corpse. And still another.
- How many there are of them. Where do they come from? They appear so
- suddenly from under the bridge!"
- "But the people love liberty."
- "No. They merely fear the whip. When they shall learn to love liberty
- they will become free."
- "Let us go hence. The sight of these corpses nauseates me."
- And as they turned to depart, while the lights were yet shining in the
- city and the river was as black as liquid soot, they beheld something
- massive and somber, that seemed begotten of darkness and light. From
- the east, where the river lost itself in the maze of gloom-enveloped
- meadows, and where the darkness was a stir like a thing of life, there
- rose something immense, shapeless and blind. It rose and stopped
- motionless, and though it had no eyes it looked, and though it had no
- hands, it extended them over the city, and though it was a dead thing,
- it lived and breathed. The sight was awe inspiring.
- "That is the fog rising over the river," said the first.
- "No, that is a cloud," said the second.
- It was both a fog and a cloud.
- "It seems to be looking." It was.
- "It seems to be listening." It was.
- "It is coming toward us." No, it remained motionless. It remained
- motionless, immense, shapeless and blind; upon its weird excrescences
- shone with a ruddy glow the reflected gleaming of the city's lights,
- and below, at its foot, the black river lost itself in the embrace of
- gloom enveloped meadows, and the darkness was a stir like a thing
- of life. Swaying sullenly upon the waves corpses floated into the
- darkness and lost themselves in the gloom, and new corpses took their
- places, swaying dumbly and sullenly and disappeared--countless corpses,
- silent, thinking their own thoughts, black and cold as the water that
- was carrying them hence. And in that lofty tower from where early that
- morning the King had been taken to his doom, the one-eyed clockmaker
- was fast asleep right under the great pendulum. That day he had been
- very pleased with the stillness that reigned in his tower. He even had
- burst into song, that one-eyed clockmaker. Yes, he had been singing;
- and he walked about affectionately among his wheels and levers until
- dark. He felt the guy ropes, sat on the rungs of his ladders, swinging
- his feet and purring, and would not look at the pendulum, pretending
- that he was cross. But then he looked at it sideways and laughed out
- loudly, and the pendulum answered him with joyous peals. It kept on
- swinging, smiling all over its brazen face and roaring; "'Twas ever
- thus! 'Twill ever be! 'Twas ever thus! 'Twill ever be!"
- "Come now! Come now!" urged the one-eyed clockmaker, splitting his
- sides with laughter. "'Twas ever thus! 'Twill ever be!" And when it had
- grown quite dark the one-eyed hermit sought rest beneath the swinging
- pendulum and was soon asleep. But the pendulum did not sleep, and kept
- on swinging all night long above his head, wafting strange dreams to
- the sleeper.
- (The End.)
- JUDAS ISCARIOT.
- CHAPTER I.
- Jesus Christ had been frequently warned that Judas of Kerioth was a
- man of ill repute, a man against whom one should be on guard. Some of
- the disciples of Jesus who had been to Judea knew him well personally,
- others had heard a great deal of him, and there was none to say a good
- word concerning him. And if the good condemned him saying that Judas
- was covetous, treacherous, given to hypocrisy and falsehood, evil men
- also, when questioned about him, denounced him in the most opprobrious
- terms. "He always sows dissensions among us" they would say spitting
- contemptuously at the mere mention of his name; "he has thoughts of his
- own, and creeps into a house softly like a scorpion, but goes out with
- noise." Even thieves have friends, robbers have comrades, and liars
- have wives to whom they speak the truth, but Judas mocks alike the
- thieves and the honest, though he is a skillful thief himself, and in
- appearance he is the most ill-favored among the inhabitants of Judea.
- "No, he is not of us this Judas of Kerioth", the evil would say to the
- surprise of those good people who saw but little difference between
- them and other vicious men in Judea.
- It was rumored also that Judas had years back forsaken his wife, and
- that the poor woman, hungry and wretched, was vainly striving to eke
- out her sustenance from the three rocks that formed the patrimony of
- Judas, while he wandered aimlessly for many years among the nations,
- reaching in his travels the sea, and even another sea that was further
- still, lying, cutting apish grimaces and keenly searching for something
- with his thievish eye, only to depart suddenly, leaving in his wake
- unpleasantness and dissension,--curious, cunning and wicked like a
- one-eyed demon. He had no children, and this again showed that Judas
- was an evil man, and that God desired no progeny from him.
- None of the disciples had noticed the occasion on which this red-haired
- and repulsive Judean first came near the Christ. But he had been
- going their way for some time already, unabashed, mingling in their
- conversations, rendering them small services, bowing, smiling,
- ingratiating himself. There were moments when he seemed to fit into the
- general scheme, deceiving the wearied scrutiny, but often he obtruded
- himself on the eye and the ear, offending both as something incredibly
- repulsive, false and loathsome. Then they would drive him away with
- stern rebuke, and for a time he would be lost somewhere on the road,
- merely to reappear unobserved, servile, flattering and cunning like a
- one-eyed demon. And there was no doubt to some of His disciples that in
- his desire to come near Jesus there was hidden some mysterious object,
- some evil and calculating design.
- But Jesus did not heed their counsel; their voice of warning did
- not touch His ear. With that spirit of radiant contradiction
- which irrepressibly drew Him to the rejected and the unloved, He
- resolutely received Judas and included him even in the circle of
- His chosen ones. The disciples were agitated and murmured among
- themselves, but He sat still, His face turned to the setting sun,
- and listened pensively,--perhaps to them and perhaps to something
- entirely different. For ten days not a breath of wind had stirred the
- atmosphere, and the same diaphanous air, stationary, immobile, keen
- of scent and perception hung over the earth. And it seemed as though
- it had preserved in its diaphanous depth all that had been shouted and
- sung during these days by man, beast or bird,--the tears, the sobs
- and the merry songs, the prayers and the curses; and these glassy
- transfixed sounds seemed to burden and satiate it with invisible life.
- And once more the sun was setting. Its flaming orb was heavily rolling
- down the firmament, setting it ablaze with its dying radiance, and all
- on earth that was turned toward it: the swarthy face of Jesus, the
- walls of houses and the foliage of trees reflected obediently that
- distant and weirdly pensive light. The white wall was no longer white
- now, nor did the crimson city on the crimson hill appear white to the
- eye.
- * * *
- And now came Judas.
- He came humbly bowing, bending his back, cautiously and anxiously
- stretching out his misshapen large head, and looking just like those
- who knew had pictured him. He was gaunt, well built, in stature almost
- as tall as Jesus, who was slightly bent from the habit of thinking
- while He walked. And he seemed to be sufficiently vigorous, though for
- some reason he pretended to be ailing and frail, and his voice was
- changeable: now manly and strong, now shrill like the voice of an old
- woman scolding her husband, thin and grating on the ear. And often the
- listener wished to draw the words of Judas out of his ears like some
- vile insect. His stubbly red hair failed to conceal the strange and
- unusual form of his skull: it seemed cleft from the back by a double
- blow of the sword and patched together. It was plainly divided into
- four parts, and its appearance inspired mistrust and even awe. Such
- a skull does not bode peace and concord; such a skull leaves in its
- wake the noise of bloody and cruel conflicts. The face of Judas, too,
- was double: one side, with its black, keen, observing eye was living,
- mobile, ready to gather into a multitude of irregular wrinkles. The
- other side was free from wrinkles, deathly smooth, flat and rigid; and
- though in size it was equal to the other, it seemed immense because
- of the wide-open, sightless eye. Covered with an opaque film it never
- closed night or day, facing alike the light and the darkness; but its
- vigilant and cunning mate was so close that one was loth to credit
- its entire blindness. When in fear or excitement Judas happened to
- close his seeing eye and shake his head, it rolled with the motion of
- the head and gazed silently and intently. Even altogether unobserving
- persons realized when they looked on the Iscariot that such a man could
- bring no good; but Jesus took him up and even seated him at His side,
- at His very side!
- John, the beloved disciple, moved away loathingly, while the others,
- loving their Teacher, looked on the ground with disapproval. But
- Judas sat down, and, moving his head to the left and to the right,
- immediately commenced to complain with a thin voice of various
- ailments, how his breast pained at night, how he was apt to lose breath
- when walking uphill or grow dizzy at the edge of the precipice, hardly
- restraining a stupid desire to cast himself into the abyss. And many
- other things he invented impiously, evidently failing to grasp that
- sickness comes to man not by chance but is born from a failure to shape
- his acts in accord with the commands of the Eternal. He rubbed his
- chest with his palm and coughed hypocritically, this Judas of Kerioth,
- amid general silence and downcast glances.
- John, avoiding the Teacher's glance, whispered to Simon Peter:--"Art
- thou not tired of this falsehood? I cannot bear it longer and I shall
- go hence."
- Peter looked at Jesus, and meeting His glance, swiftly rose to his
- feet. "Wait!" he said to his friend.
- Once more he glanced at Jesus and then, impetuously, like a rock
- dislodged from the mountain side, he gained the side of Judas Iscariot
- and loudly greeted him with a wide and unmistakable cordiality:--"Now
- you are with us, Judas!" Then he amiably slapped the newcomer's curved
- back, and not seeing the Teacher, though feeling His glance, he added
- with that loud voice of his which dispelled all objections as water
- displaces air:
- "Your bad looks do not matter. We get uglier creatures into our nets
- and they turn out the best to eat. And it is not for us, fishers for
- the Lord, to throw away our haul because the fish is ugly and one-eyed.
- I saw once in Tyre an octopus caught by the fishermen there and was
- scared enough to run. They laughed at me, who am a fisherman from
- Tiberias, and gave me a taste of it. And I asked for another helping,
- it was so fine. Dost Thou remember, Teacher, I told Thee of it and Thou
- didst laugh? And thou, too, Judas, resemblest an octopus, at least one
- half of thee does."
- And he laughed loudly, pleased with his jest. When Peter spoke, his
- words sounded firm and solid as though he were nailing them down with
- a hammer. When Peter moved or did anything he made a noise that was
- heard afar off and evoked a response from the dullest objects: the
- stone floor groaned under his feet, the doors trembled and banged, and
- the very air was thrilled. In the mountain fastnesses his voice woke an
- angry echo, and in the morning, while they fished, it rolled sonorously
- over the somnolently glistening waters and beguiled the first timid
- rays of the sun into a responsive smile. And perhaps that was why
- they loved Peter so: while upon the faces of others there rested yet
- the shadows of the night, his massive head and bare bosom and freely
- swinging arms glowed already in the radiance of the rising sun.
- The words of Peter, approved by the Teacher, dispelled the
- embarrassment of the disciples. But some of them, who had been to the
- seashore and had seen the octopus, were disquieted by the simile which
- Peter had so frivolously applied to the new disciple. They remembered
- the monster's immense eyes, the multitude of its greedy tentacles, its
- pretended calm at the very moment it was ready to embrace and to crush
- the victim and to suck out its life, without a single wink of its great
- big eyes.
- What was that? Jesus was silent, Jesus smiled; He was watching them
- with a kindly smile while Peter spoke of the octopus,--and one after
- the other the confused disciples approached Judas, addressing him
- cordially, but they walked away quickly and in embarrassment.
- And only John, the Son of Zebedee, remained obstinately silent; and
- Thomas too was ruminating over the incident and apparently could not
- make up his mind to say anything. He intently watched Christ and Judas
- who were seated together, and this strange proximity of divine beauty
- and monstrous hideousness, of the Man with the gentle glance and the
- Octopus with the immense, immobile lack-lustre, greedy eyes--oppressed
- his mind like an unfathomable mystery. He strained and wrinkled his
- straight and smooth forehead, half closing his eyes in an effort to see
- better, but his exertion had only the effect of making it appear that
- Judas had really eight restlessly shuffling tentacles. But that was an
- error. Thomas realized this and gazed again with obstinate effort.
- But Judas little by little grew bolder: he stretched out his arms,
- which he had held cramped at the elbows, relaxed the muscles that
- had kept his jaws in a state of rigidity and cautiously proceeded to
- exhibit his redhaired skull. It was in the plain view of all, but it
- seemed to Judas that it had been deeply and impenetrably hidden from
- sight by some invisible, opaque and cunningly devised film. And as
- one emerging from the grave, he first felt the rays of light touching
- his strangely shaped skull and then his sight met the eyes of the
- onlookers. He paused and suddenly revealed his entire face. But nothing
- happened. Peter had gone somewhere on an errand. Jesus sat musing and
- leaned His head upon His arm, softly swinging His sunburnt foot. The
- disciples were conversing quietly and only Thomas was attentively and
- seriously scrutinizing him like a conscientious tailor taking his
- customer's measure. Judas smiled, but Thomas did not respond, though
- he apparently took the smile into account, like everything else, and
- continued his scrutiny. But a disquieting sensation annoyed the left
- side of Judas' face and he turned around: from a dark corner John was
- looking upon him with his cold and beautiful eyes, handsome, pure,
- without a spot on his snowwhite conscience. Walking apparently like
- other people, but with the inward feeling of slinking away like a
- chastised dog, Judas approached him and said:
- "Why art thou silent, John? Thy words are like golden fruit in
- transparent silver vessels. Give some of it unto Judas who is so poor."
- John gazed at the immobile and wide-open eye and did not utter a word.
- And he saw Judas creep away, linger an instant irresolutely and
- disappear in the darkness of the open doorway.
- It was the time of the full moon and many took the opportunity for a
- walk. Jesus, too, went forth with the others, and Judas watched the
- departing figures from the low roof on which he had spread his bed. In
- the moonlight each figure had on airy and deliberate aspect and seemed
- to float, with its black shadow in the rear. Suddenly the man would
- vanish in the gloom and then his voice would be heard. But when the
- people emerged again into the moonlight, they seemed silent like the
- white walls, like the black shadows, like that transparently hazy and
- moonlit night.
- Most people were sleeping already when Judas heard the gentle voice of
- the homecoming Christ. And all had grown still in the house and about
- him. The cock crew; somewhere an ass, disturbed in his slumber, brayed
- in a loud and injured tone, and ungraciously stopped again after a
- few protests. But Judas slept not; he was listening intently from his
- hiding place. The moon illumined one half of his face and its radiance
- cast a queer reflection in the large and open eye, as if mirroring
- itself on a lake of ice.
- Suddenly, as if remembering something, he coughed several times in
- quick succession, and rubbed with his palm his hairy and vigorous
- breast: someone might be awake and listening to the thoughts of Judas.
- CHAPTER II.
- Little by little the disciples became accustomed to Judas and ceased
- to notice his ugliness. Jesus turned over to him the treasure chest,
- and with it the household cares: his task was now to purchase the
- necessary food and raiment, to distribute alms, and to prepare a
- lodging place during their wanderings. All this he accomplished
- skillfully and in a very short time he succeeded in gaining the
- goodwill of some of the disciples who observed the pains he was taking.
- Judas, indeed, lied incessantly, but they had become used to this also,
- for they failed to find any evil deed in the wake of his lying, and it
- added a peculiar piquancy to his tales making life appear like some
- absurd, and at times terrible legend.
- From Judas' tales it seemed as though he knew all men, and each man
- whom he knew had at one time or another in his life committed an evil
- deed, perhaps a crime. Good people in his opinion were those who knew
- well how to hide their actions and thoughts; but if one were to embrace
- them, to set them at ease with caresses and, to closely question them,
- he felt sure evil and falsehood would ooze from them like poison from
- a suppurating wound. He readily agreed that he too was wont to lie
- now and then, but affirmed with an oath that others lied even more,
- and that if there was one person in the world foully imposed upon and
- ill-used that person was Judas. Many people had deceived him, and more
- than once and in divers ways. Thus a certain steward who had charge
- of a nobleman's treasure had confessed to Judas that for ten years
- he had coveted the possession of the treasure entrusted to him, but
- feared his master and his conscience. And Judas believed him, but lo!
- suddenly he stole the treasure and deceived Judas. And again Judas
- believed him, but he as unexpectedly returned the stolen goods to his
- master--and again deceived Judas. And everybody was deceiving him--even
- the animals. If he petted a dog, it would snap at his fingers; if he
- beat it with a rod it licked his hand and looked into his eyes with
- a filial expression. He killed such a dog once, buried the animal
- deep in the ground and lay a heavy stone on the burial spot, but who
- knows? perhaps because he had killed it, it became endowed with a
- more abundant life and was no longer resting in its grave but merrily
- running about with other dogs.
- Every one laughed at Judas' tales, and he himself smiled pleasantly,
- winking his live and mocking eye, and smilingly confessed again that he
- had lied a little: that he had never killed such a dog, but promised
- to find it and surely kill it, for he hated to be deceived. And they
- laughed still more at such words.
- But sometimes in his tales he exceeded the limits of probability and
- verisimilitude and ascribed to people tendencies such as are foreign
- even to beasts and accused them of simply incredible crimes. And as he
- mentioned in such connection names of the most respected people, some
- were indignant at the slander, while others jestingly inquired:
- "But thy father and mother, Judas, were they not good people?"
- Judas winked his eye, smiled and shrugged his shoulders. And as he
- shook his head his congealed wide open eye shook in its orbit and gazed
- dumbly:
- "And who was my father? Perhaps the man who chastised me when I was a
- child, perhaps the devil, or a goat or a rooster. Can Judas know with
- whom his mother shared her couch? Judas has many fathers. Of whom speak
- you?"
- But at this the ire of all was aroused, for they greatly honored their
- parents, and Matthew, thoroughly versed in the Scriptures, sternly
- repeated the words of Solomon:
- "He who speaks ill of his father and his mother, his lamp will be
- extinguished in utter darkness."
- And John of Zebedee inquired contemptuously: "And how about us? What
- evil wilt thou say about us, Judas of Kerioth?"
- But he, with pretended fear, threw up his hands, cringing and whining
- like a beggar vainly praying alms from a passer-by:
- "Ah! Wouldst thou tempt poor Judas? Mock poor Judas, deceive poor
- guileless Judas?"
- While one side of his face was distorted in apish grimaces, the other
- seemed serious and stern and the never-closed eye peered mutely and
- vaguely into space. Above all others, and most loudly, Simon Peter was
- wont to laugh at his jests. But once it happened that with a sudden
- frown he paused and hastily took Judas aside, almost dragging him by
- his sleeve:
- "And Jesus? What thinkest thou of Jesus?" he inquired in a loud whisper
- bending over him. "But no jesting now, I pray thee."
- Judas looked up with hatred:
- "And what thinkest thou?"
- "I think that He is the Son of the living God."
- "Then why askest thou? What could Judas say whose father is a goat?"
- "But dost thou love Him? It seems that thou lovest no one."
- And with the same odd malice-reeking manner the Iscariot snapped out:
- "I do."
- After this conversation Peter for a day or two loudly referred to Judas
- as his friend the octopus, while the other clumsily and wrathfully
- sought to escape from him into some obscure nook where he would sit and
- sulk, while his white never-closed eye gleamed ominously in the dark.
- Thomas alone regarded Judas' tales with seriousness. He was incapable
- of understanding jests, pretensions and lies, plays of words and of
- thoughts, and in everything sought the substantial and positive. All
- stories of Judas concerning evil people and their deeds he interrupted
- with brief business-like questions:
- "Can you prove it? Who heard this? And who else was present? What was
- his name?"
- Judas shrilly protested that he himself had heard and seen it all,
- but the obstinate Thomas persisted in questioning him calmly and
- methodically until Judas confessed that he had lied or until he
- invented a more plausible falsehood over which Thomas would pore for
- some time. Then discovering the deception he immediately returned and
- quietly exposed the liar. Judas on the whole aroused in him an intense
- curiosity, which brought about a queer sort of a friendship between
- them, noisy, full of laughter and vituperation on the one hand, and
- characterized by calm and insistent inquisitiveness on the other.
- At times Judas felt an irresistible contempt for his unimaginative
- friend and piercing him with a poignant glance he would inquire with
- irritation and almost pleadingly:
- "What else dost thou want? I have told thee all, all."
- "I want thee to explain to me how a goat could be thy father," insisted
- Thomas phlegmatically and waited for an answer. Once after listening to
- such a query Judas relapsed into silence and scanned the inquirer from
- head to foot in amazement. He saw a man of erect and lanky stature, of
- grey countenance, transparently clear straightforward eyes, two massive
- folds starting at the nose and losing themselves in the evenly trimmed
- rough beard, and observed with conviction:
- "How stupid thou art Thomas! What seest thou in thy dreams? A tree, a
- wall, an ass?"
- And Thomas blushed in confusion, finding no answer. But just as Judas'
- living and unsteady eye was about to close in sleep, he suddenly
- exclaimed (they both now slept on the roof):
- "Thou art wrong, Judas. I do see evil dreams sometimes. How sayest
- thou, is a man responsible for his dreams?"
- "And who else sees them but the man himself?" Thomas softly sighed
- and lapsed into musing. Judas smiled contemptuously, tightly shutting
- his thievish eyes and calmly yielded himself up to his rebellious
- dreams, monstrous visions, and mad imaginings which rent to pieces his
- illshaped skull.
- * * *
- When in the wanderings of Jesus through Judea the pilgrims approached
- a village, the Iscariot was in the habit of relating evil things
- concerning the inhabitants thereof and predicting calamities. But it
- generally happened that the people whom he denounced met Christ and His
- friends joyously, surrounded them with attentions, and the treasure
- chest of Judas grew so heavy that he could hardly carry it.
- And when he was twitted with his mistake he shrugged his shoulders in
- resignation and said:
- "Yes, yes. Judas thought they were wicked and they are good. They
- believed quickly and gave us money. And again they deceived Judas, poor
- trusting Judas of Kerioth."
- But once having departed from a village where they had been cordially
- received Thomas and Judas had a violent dispute, and in order to settle
- it they chanced to turn back. A day later they caught up with Jesus
- and the disciples. Thomas looked confused and saddened, but Judas
- bore himself triumphantly, as if waiting for the others to come and
- congratulate him. Coming near the Teacher, Thomas announced:
- "Judas was right, Lord. Those were stupid and wicked people. Thy seed
- fell upon rocky ground."
- And then he related what had happened. Soon after Jesus and His
- disciples had gone an old woman discovered the loss of a kid and
- accused the strangers of the theft. The villagers argued with her, but
- she obstinately insisted that nobody else could have stolen it but
- Jesus. Many believed her and talked of pursuing the strangers. But
- soon the kid was found (it had become entangled in the bushes). The
- villagers, however, decided that Jesus was after all a deceiver and
- perhaps a thief.
- "Indeed?" said Peter, distending his nostrils. "Lord, say the word and
- I shall return to those fools."
- But Jesus, who had kept silence all this time, glanced at him sternly,
- and Peter stopped and hid himself behind the backs of others. And no
- one else spoke of the incident, as if nothing had happened, as if he,
- Judas, had proved to be in the wrong. Vainly he strove to show himself
- from every point of view, laboring to impart to his twofold predatory,
- birdlike beaked face an appearance of modesty. No one looked on him,
- except to cast a casual, very unfriendly and even contemptuous glance.
- And from that day the attitude of Jesus towards him strangely changed.
- Until then it had somehow seemed as though Judas never spoke directly
- to Jesus, and as though Jesus never addressed him directly, but still
- the Teacher had frequently looked at him with a kindly glance, smiling
- at some of his conceits, and if he missed him for any length of time
- he was wont to inquire: "And where is Judas?" But now he looked on
- Judas without noticing him, though as heretofore His glance sought him
- out, and even more persistently than formerly, whenever He began to
- speak to His disciples or to the people--but He either turned His back
- to Judas as He sat down or cast His words at him over His shoulder or
- else appeared not to notice him at all. And whatever He said, though
- it may have been one thing to-day or another the next, though it
- were the same thing that Judas himself had in his mind, it seemed as
- though He always spoke against Judas. And unto all He was a tender and
- beautiful flower, the fragrant Rose of Lebanon, but for Judas He had
- only sharp thorns--as though Judas had no heart, as though he had no
- eyes or nostrils, as though he were not better able than all others to
- appreciate the beauty of tender and thornless rose leaves.
- "Thomas, lovest thou the yellow Rose of Lebanon that has a swarthy
- face and eyes like a hind?" he once asked of his friend and Thomas
- indifferently replied:
- "The Rose? Yes, its odor is agreeable to me, but I have never heard
- that roses had swarthy faces or eyes like hinds!"
- "How? Dost thou not even know that the many-armed cactus which
- yesterday rent thy garment has only one red flower and only one eye?"
- But Thomas was ignorant of this also, though the day before a cactus
- had actually gripped a portion of his garment and rent it into shreds.
- He knew nothing this Thomas, though he inquired about everything and
- gazed so straightforwardly with his clear and transparent eyes through
- which one could see as through a Phoenician glass the wall behind him
- and the plodding ass hitched to it.
- Before long another incident occurred when Judas again proved to
- have been correct. In a certain Judean village which he had severely
- criticised and sought to have left out of the itinerary, Christ was
- received with much hostility and after He had preached and denounced
- the hypocrites, the populace was aroused to a wild remonstrance and
- thought of stoning Him and His disciples.
- The opponents were numerous and they would have 'surely succeeded in
- carrying out their design if it had not been for Judas of Kerioth.
- Seized with a mad fear for Jesus, as though perceiving already the
- drops of crimson on His white robe, Judas blindly and frenziedly cast
- himself against the mob, menacing, screaming, pleading, and lying, and
- thus gave Jesus and His disciples an opportunity to escape. Amazingly
- agile, as though scurrying on dozens of feet, ludicrous and terrible in
- his frenzied pleading, he rushed madly before the crowd and fascinated
- it with some strange spell. He screamed that the Nazarene was not at
- all possessed of the devil, that He was a mere deceiver, a thief, a
- lover of money, like all of His disciples, like he, Judas, himself,--he
- shook the money chest in their faces, distorted his features and
- pleaded with them casting himself to the ground. And gradually the
- wrath of the mob turned into laughter and disgust and the arms that had
- held the stones sank to their sides.
- "Unworthy, unworthy they are to die of an honest man's hand,"
- exclaimed some, while others musingly gazed after the speedily vanished
- Judas.
- And again Judas expected congratulations, praises, and thanks, and
- made a show of his rent garments and falsely claimed that he had been
- beaten, but again he was inconceivably deceived. Filled with wrath
- Jesus walked ahead taking large steps and silent, and even John and
- Peter dared not approach him, while the others coming across Judas,
- with his rent garments, his face aglow with excitement and triumph
- though still a little pale with recent fright, drove him away with curt
- and angry remarks. As if he had not saved them, as if he had not saved
- their teacher whom they loved so much.
- "Dost thou wish to see a pack of fools?" he remarked to Thomas who
- musingly plodded by his side. "Look how they walk along the roadway,
- like a herd of sheep, raising the dust. And thou, clever Thomas, art
- dragging along behind; and I, noble and beautiful Judas, am also
- trudging in the rear like a filthy slave not fit to walk by the side of
- his master."
- "Why callest thou thyself beautiful?" inquired the surprised Thomas.
- "Because I am handsome," replied Judas with conviction and began to
- relate to him, with many additions, how he had deceived the enemies of
- Jesus and laughed at them and their stones.
- "But thou didst lie!" remarked Thomas.
- "Of course I lied," agreed the Iscariot in a matter-of-fact tone. "I
- gave them what they asked and they returned to me what I needed. And
- what is a lie, my clever Thomas? Would not the death of Jesus have been
- the greater lie?"
- "Thou didst wrong. Now I know that thy father was the devil. He taught
- thee this, Judas."
- The Iscariots cheek blanched and seemed to overshadow Thomas, as though
- a white cloud had descended and hidden the roadway and Jesus. With a
- lithe movement Judas suddenly seized Thomas and pressed him to himself
- with a grip so tight that he could not move and whispered into his ear:
- "Good. The devil taught me? Good, Thomas, good. And I saved Jesus,
- didn't I? Then the devil loves Jesus, then the devil needs Jesus and
- Truth? Good, good Thomas. But my father was not the devil, he was a
- goat. Mayhap the goat needs Jesus? Hey? And you, do you not want Him?
- Do you not want the Truth?"
- Angered and slightly frightened Thomas with an effort released himself
- from Judas' slimy embrace and walked ahead swiftly, but soon slowed
- down in order to ponder over what had just happened.
- But Judas plodded on quietly in the rear, falling back little by
- little. The wanderers had merged into one motley group in the distance
- and it was impossible to tell accurately which of the little figures
- was Jesus. Now even the tiny figure of Thomas changed into a grey dot,
- and suddenly they were all lost to sight behind a turn in the road;
- glancing around Judas turned aside from the roadway and with mighty
- leaps descended into the depths of a rocky ravine. His robe inflated
- from his swift and impetuous flight and his arms stretched upward as
- though he soared on wings. There on a steep decline he slipped and
- rapidly rolled down in a grey heap, his flesh torn by the shaggy rock,
- and leaped again to his feet angrily shaking his fist at the mountain.
- "You too, curse you!"
- And suddenly forsaking his swiftness of movement for a sullen and
- concentrated deliberateness he chose a spot near a large rock and
- slowly seated himself. He turned around as if in search of a
- comfortable position, pressed the palms of his hands close together
- against the grey rock and heavily leaned his head upon them. Thus
- he sat for an hour or two without stirring, deceiving the birds,
- motionless and grey like the rock itself. Before him, behind him and
- around him rose the steep sides of the ravine cutting with their sharp
- outline into the azure sky; and everywhere rose immense stones, rooted
- into the ground, as if there had passed over the place a shower of
- rocks and its heavy drops had grown transfixed in neverending thought.
- The wild and deserted ravine resembled an overturned decapitated skull
- and each rock therein seemed a congealed thought, and there were many
- of them, and they all were brooding heavy, limitless, stubborn thoughts.
- There a deceived scorpion hobbled amicably past Judas on his rickety
- legs; Judas glanced at him without lifting his head from the stone, and
- again his eyes stopped rigidly fixed on some object, both motionless,
- both covered with an odd and whitish film, both seemingly blind and
- dreadfully seeing. Then from the ground, from the rocks, from the
- crevices began to rise the calm gloom of night; it enshrouded the
- motionless Judas and swiftly crept upwards to the luminously pallid
- sky. The night was advancing with its thoughts and dreams.
- That night Judas failed to return to the lodging, and the disciples
- torn from their thoughts by cares for food and drink murmured at his
- negligence.
- CHAPTER III.
- Once about noon time, Jesus and his disciples were ascending a rocky
- and mountainous path barren of shade, and as they had been over five
- hours on the road Jesus commenced to complain of weariness. The
- disciples stopped and Peter with his friend John spread their mantles
- and those of other disciples on the ground and fastened them overhead
- on two protruding rocks and thus prepared a sort of a tent for Jesus.
- And he reclined in that tent, resting from the heat of the sun, while
- they sought to divert Him with merry talk and jests. But seeing that
- speech wearied Him they withdrew a short distance and engaged in
- various occupations, being themselves but little sensitive to heat
- and fatigue. Some searched the mountainside for edible roots among
- the rocks, and brought them to Jesus, others ascended higher and
- higher. John had found a pretty blue lizard among the stones and bore
- it tenderly to Jesus, with a gentle smile; the lizard gazed with its
- protruding mysterious eyes into His eyes and then swiftly glided with
- its cold little body over His warm hand and rapidly bore away somewhere
- its tender and trembling tail.
- Peter, caring little for such diversions, amused himself in company
- with Philip by detaching large stones from the mountainside and rolling
- them down in a contest of strength. Attracted by their loud laughter,
- little by little the others gathered around them and took part in
- the game. Straining every muscle each tore from the glen a hoary
- moss-covered stone, lifted it high overhead with both arms and dropped
- it down the incline. It struck heavily with a short, blunt contact and
- seemed to stop for an instant, as if in thought, then irresolutely it
- took the first leap, and each time it touched the earth it gathered
- from it speed and strength, grew light, ferocious, all-crushing. Then
- it leaped no longer, but flew with flashing teeth, and the air with a
- whizzing noise made way for the compact rotund missile. Now it reached
- the edge of the ravine; with a smooth final movement the stone flew
- up a little distance into the air, and rolled below, clumsy, heavy and
- circular, towards the bottom of the invisible abyss.
- "Now then one more!" cried Peter. His white teeth glistened through his
- black beard and mustache, his powerful breast and arms were bared and
- the old angry stones, dully wondering at the strength that cast them,
- one after the other submissively passed into the abyss. Even frail John
- threw little pebbles, and Jesus smiling gently watched their game.
- "Well, Judas, why dost thou not take part in the game, it is apparently
- so diverting?" asked Thomas having found his queer friend motionless
- behind a large grey rock.
- "My breast pains and they have not called me."
- "Is there any need to call thee? Well, I call thee. Come. Look how
- large are the stones that Peter is casting down."
- Judas glanced sideways at him and for the first time Thomas dimly
- realized that Judas of Kerioth had two faces. But hardly had he grasped
- the idea when Judas remarked in his wonted tone, ingratiating and at
- the same time sneering:
- "Is there any one stronger than Peter? When he shouts all the asses
- in Jerusalem think their Messias has come and respond. Hast thou ever
- heard their braying?"
- Smiling amicably and bashfully covering his breast that was covered
- with curly red hair Judas entered the circle of the players. And as
- they all felt merry they received him with glad shouts and hilarious
- jests and even John indulgently smiled when Judas, groaning and
- simulating great strain detached an immense stone. But now he easily
- raised it and cast it down. His blind wide-open eye shifted and fixed
- itself rigidly on Peter, while the other, cunning and happy twinkled
- with suppressed merriment.
- "Well, you throw another one," broke in Peter in an offended tone.
- And then one after another they raised and dropped gigantic stones,
- and in surprise the disciples watched them. Peter would throw a large
- stone, but Judas a still larger one. Peter, with a frown, wrathfully
- turned a fragment of the rock and reeling raised it and dropped it into
- the depths. Judas, still smiling, searched with a glance for a still
- larger fragment, caressingly dug into it with his lean long fingers,
- clung to it, swayed with it and with blanching cheek sent it down into
- the abyss. Having dropped his stone, Peter fell back and thus watched
- its flight, while Judas bent forward, leaned over the abyss and spread
- out his long and creepy arms as though he meant to fly after the stone.
- Finally both of them, first Peter and then Judas, seized a grey stone
- and were unable to raise it, neither one nor the other. Flushed with
- his effort Peter resolutely approached Jesus and loudly exclaimed:
- "Lord, I do not want Judas to be stronger than I. Help me to raise that
- stone and cast it down."
- And Jesus softly made some reply. Peter dissatisfied shrugged his broad
- shoulders, but dared no rejoinder and returned with the following words:
- "He said: 'And who shall help the Iscariot?'"
- But glancing at Judas, who with bated breath and tightly clenched teeth
- still clung to the stubborn stone, Peter burst out in a laugh:
- "Look at the sick man! Look at our poor ailing Judas."
- And Judas himself laughed, being so unexpectedly exposed in a lie, and
- the others laughed also; even Thomas suffered a smile to slip past his
- straight, shaggy mustache.
- With merry and friendly speech they started again on their way, and
- Peter, having made full peace with the victor, now and again nudged his
- ribs with his fists and laughed loudly.
- "The sick man!"
- Everyone praised Judas, everyone acknowledged him victor, everyone
- conversed with him cordially, but Jesus--Jesus even this time failed to
- praise Judas. Silently He walked on ahead, gnawing at a blade of grass,
- and little by little the disciples ceased their laughter and joined
- Jesus. Soon it happened that they walked all in one group ahead, but
- Judas, the victor Judas, the strong Judas, trudged along in the rear
- swallowing dust.
- They paused, and Jesus laying one hand on Peter's shoulder pointed with
- the other into the distance, where already in the mist had appeared
- Jerusalem; and the big broad back of Peter carefully couched His fine
- sunburnt hand.
- For the night's lodging they stopped in Bethany, in the house of
- Lazarus. And when they all gathered to converse, Judas thought it a
- good time to recall his victory over Peter. The disciples, however, had
- little to say and were unusually silent. The images of the journey just
- completed, the sun, the rocks, the grass, Christ reposing in the tent,
- floated softly through their minds, exhaling a gentle pensiveness,
- generating dimly sweet dreams of some eternal motion under the sun. The
- wearied body rested sweetly, musing of something mysteriously beautiful
- and great--and not one remembered Judas.
- Judas went out. Then he returned. Jesus was speaking and his disciples
- listened in silence. Motionless as a statue, Mary sat at His feet and
- with head thrown back gazed into His face. John had come close to the
- Teacher and strove to touch the hem of His garment with his hand, but
- so as not to disturb him. And having touched it he sat breathlessly
- still. And Peter breathed hard and loud, echoing the words of Jesus
- with his breath.
- The Iscariot stopped at the threshold and contemptuously passed his
- glance over those assembled, concentrating its flames upon Jesus. And
- as he gazed, all around him grew dim and was lost in gloom and silence;
- Jesus only, with uplifted hand, was radiant. But now He too seemed to
- rise in the air, seemed to melt and His substance seemed to change into
- luminous mist such as hangs over the lake when the moon goes down;
- and His soft-spoken words sounded somewhere afar off and gentle. And
- gazing deeper into this wavering vision, drinking in with his ears the
- tender melody of those distant and spectral words, Judas gripped his
- whole soul with claws of iron and silently in its unfathomable gloom
- commenced to rear something stupendous. Slowly in the dense darkness,
- he raised immense mountainous masses, piling them up one upon another,
- and raised others and piled them up again; and something was growing
- in the darkness, expanding voicelessly, spreading its outlines. Now he
- felt his head transformed into a vast dome, and in its impenetrable
- gloom there grew and grew something stupendous, and someone wrought
- therein, raising mountainlike masses, piling them up one upon another
- and raising up new ones ... And gently there sounded somewhere distant
- and spectral words.
- Thus he stood, blocking the doorway, towering tall and dark, while
- Jesus spoke, and Peter's loud breathing same in unison with His words.
- But suddenly Jesus ceased--with an abruptly incomplete sound, and
- Peter, like one awakened out of a trance, triumphantly exclaimed:
- "Lord, Thou knowest the words of Eternal Life!"
- But Jesus was gazing somewhere in silence. And when they followed
- his glance they saw Judas in the doorway rigid, open-mouthed and
- with staring eyes. And not knowing what it was about, they laughed.
- But Matthew, learned in the Scriptures, touched Judas' shoulder and
- remarked in Solomon's words:
- "He who has a gentle look will be shown mercy, but he who is met in the
- gate will oppress others."
- Judas shuddered and even uttered a faint hoarse cry of fear, and all of
- his body--eyes, arms and legs seemed to flee in different directions.
- So a beast might look when suddenly facing the eyes of man. Jesus
- walked straight against Judas, seemingly bearing some word on His lips,
- and he walked past Judas through the door which was now open and free.
- * * *
- Long after midnight Thomas, becoming worried, approached Judas'
- sleeping place and bending over him inquired:
- "Thou weepest, Judas?"
- "No, go away, Thomas."
- "Then why groanest thou and gnashest thy teeth? Art thou ill?"
- Judas was silent for a space of time, and then from his lips poured
- forth one after another heavy words, throbbing with yearning and wrath.
- "Why does He not love me? Why does He love them? Am I not more
- beautiful, am I not better, am I not stronger than they? Did I not save
- His life while the others were running away cringing like cowardly
- curs?" "My poor friend, thou art not entirely in the right. Thou are
- not at all beautiful and thy tongue is as disagreeable as thy face.
- Thou art forever lying and speaking ill of others. How dost thou expect
- that Jesus should love thee?"
- But Judas heard him not and continued: "Why is He with those who do not
- love Him, instead of with Judas? John brought Him a lizard, I would
- have brought Him a venomous snake. Peter cast stones, I would have
- turned the mountain around for Him. But what is a snake? Draw its tooth
- and it will cling about thy neck like a necklace. What is a mountain
- which one can dig with his hands and trample under foot? I would have
- given Him Judas, daring, beautiful Judas. But now He will perish and
- Judas will perish with Him."
- "Thou sayest strange things, Judas."
- "The withered fig tree which is to be hewn down! Why, that is I, He
- said it of me! Why does He not hew? He dare not, Thomas. I know Him. He
- fears Judas! He hides before the daring, the beautiful Judas! He loves
- the fools, the traitors, the liars! Thou art a liar, Thomas, hast thou
- heard me?"
- Thomas was greatly surprised, and thought of protesting, but he decided
- that Judas was merely brawling, and contented himself by shaking his
- head. But Judas' agony increased: he moaned, gnashed his teeth, and one
- could hear his huge body shifting restlessly under the blanket.
- "What is it that pains Judas so? Who has set fire to his body? He
- gives his son unto the dogs, he yields his daughter into the hands
- of robbers for defilement. But is not the heart of Judas tender? Go
- away, Thomas, go away, thou fool. Leave Judas alone, strong, daring,
- beautiful Judas."
- CHAPTER IV.
- Judas purloined a few pieces of silver and the theft was discovered by
- Thomas who had chanced to note the exact sum of money given him. It
- was thought likely that he had stolen on previous occasions, and the
- indignation of the disciples knew no bounds. Bristling with wrath Peter
- seized Judas by the neck and half dragged him to Jesus. The pale and
- frightened culprit offered no resistance.
- "Teacher, look. Our jester! Just look at him, the thief. Thou trustest
- him, but he steals our money. The rogue! If thou wilt but say the word,
- I shall...."
- But Jesus was silent. Peter looked up curiously scanning the Teacher's
- expression, and with flushed face relaxed his hold on Judas. The latter
- smoothed his garments with a sheepish mien and assumed the downcast
- appearance of a penitent sinner.
- "What do you think of that!" growled Peter, and walked out of the
- room banging the door. Everybody was annoyed, and the disciples
- declared that on no account would they remain together with Judas.
- John, however, with a sudden inspiration quietly slipped into the room
- whence through the open doorway was now heard the gentle and apparently
- cordial voice of Jesus.
- When John returned, his face was pale and his eyes were red with recent
- tears.
- "The Teacher says ... The Teacher says that Judas may take all the
- money he likes."
- Peter laughed angrily. Swiftly and reproachfully John glanced at the
- impetuous disciple, and suddenly, all aglow, his tears mingling with
- his wrath, his joy mingling with his tears, he exclaimed with a ringing
- voice:
- "And none shall keep count of the money which Judas receives. He is our
- brother and all the money is his as well as ours, and if he needs much
- let him take much, telling no one nor taking counsel with any. Judas is
- our brother and you have deeply offended against him," thus sayeth our
- Teacher. "Shame on us, brethren!"
- In the doorway stood Judas, pale and with a sickly smile. John with a
- quick movement approached him and kissed him thrice on the cheek. And
- after him, exchanging glances and awkwardly, came the others, James,
- Philip, and the rest. After each kiss Judas wiped his mouth, though he
- received the kiss with a resounding smack as if the sound afforded him
- much pleasure. The last to kiss him was Peter.
- "We are all fools, Judas. We are all blind. One alone is seeing, One
- alone is wise. May I kiss thee?"
- "Why not? Kiss," assented Judas.
- Peter cordially kissed him and whispered into his ear:
- "And I almost choked thee. The others were gentler, but I seized thee
- by the throat. Did it pain thee?"
- "A little."
- "I shall go to Him and tell Him. I was even angry with Him," gloomily
- remarked Peter striving to open the door without noise.
- "And how about thee, Thomas?" sternly inquired John who was watching
- the actions of the disciples.
- "I don't know yet. I must think."
- And Thomas thought long, almost the whole day.
- The disciples had gone about their business, and somewhere behind the
- wall Peter shouted loudly and merrily, but Thomas was still thinking.
- Pie would have finished sooner, but Judas, whose mocking glance
- persistently pursued his movement, disturbed him. Now and then the
- Iscariot inquired with a mock curiosity:
- "Well, how is it Thomas? How art thou progressing?"
- Then Judas brought his treasure chest and loudly jingling his coins he
- commenced to count them, pretending to ignore the presence of Thomas.
- "Twenty one, twenty two, twenty three. Look, Thomas, another false
- coin. What great rogues people are, they even offer false money unto
- God. Twenty four. And then they will say Judas had stolen it. Twenty
- five. Twenty six...."
- Thomas resolutely advanced to him, (it was already towards evening) and
- said:
- "He was right, Judas. Let me kiss thee."
- "Indeed? Twenty nine. Thirty. But it is all in vain. I shall steal
- again. Thirty one...."
- "How canst thou steal if there is no more thine or anybody else's? Thou
- wilt take what thou needest, brother."
- "And didst thou require all this time merely to repeat His words? Thou
- doest not value time, Thomas?"
- "I fear thou mockest me, brother."
- "And think, dost thou act correctly in repeating His words? It was He
- who had spoken, and they were His words, not thine. It was He who had
- kissed me, but you defiled my mouth. I can still feel your moist lips
- creeping over my face. How disgusting that was, Thomas! Thirty eight.
- Thirty nine. Forty pieces of silver. Dost thou want to count it over?"
- "But He is our Teacher. How should we not repeat His words?"
- "Has Judas no longer a neck to drag him by? Is he now naked so that
- ye cannot seize him? The Teacher will leave the house, Judas may
- accidentally steal three coins, and will ye not again seize him by the
- neck?" "We know now, Judas. We understand."
- "But have not all disciples a poor memory? And do not the disciples
- deceive their teachers? The Teacher lifts the rod, the disciples cry:
- 'We know the lesson!' The teacher lies down to sleep and the disciples
- inquire: 'Is not this what our teacher taught us?' And here this
- morning thou didst call me thief, but now callest thou me brother. What
- wilt thou call me on the morrow?" Judas laughed, and picking up with
- one arm the heavy and jingling money chest he continued:
- "When the wind blows strongly it raises the dust and the stupid people
- see the dust and say: 'Behold, the wind bloweth.' But it is only dust,
- my good Thomas, the refuse of asses, trodden under foot. There it
- strikes a wall and is now humbly lying at its foot, but the wind is
- flying further, the wind is flying further, my good Thomas."
- Judas pointed in illustration over the wall and laughed again:
- "I am glad that thou art merry, Judas," replied Thomas. "Pity it is
- that in thy merriment there is so much malice."
- "How should not a man be merry who has been kissed so much and who is
- so useful? If I had not stolen three pieces of silver, how should John
- have known the exaltation of joy? Is it not pleasurable to be a hook
- whereupon John hangs his mouldy virtue to dry and thou thy moth-eaten
- wisdom?"
- "I think it is best for me to go."
- "But I am merely joking. I am jesting, Thomas. I merely wished to know
- if thou didst really long to kiss the old and repulsive Judas who had
- stolen three pieces of silver and given the money to a sinful woman."
- "A sinful woman?" echoed Thomas in surprise. "And didst thou tell our
- Teacher this also?"
- "There, doubting again, Thomas! Yes, to a sinful woman. But if thou
- only knew what a miserable woman she was. She must have gone without
- food two days."
- "Knowest that this circumstance for a certainty?" inquired Thomas in
- confusion.
- "Of course. I had been with her two days myself and saw that she had
- eaten nothing, for she merely drank wine, red wine. And she reeled with
- exhaustion and I fell with her."
- Thomas leaped to his feet and walking a short distance away, turned and
- remarked to Judas.
- "Apparently Satan has entered thy body."
- And as he departed he heard the heavy money chest jingle mournfully
- through the gloom in the hands of Judas ... And it seemed as though
- Judas were laughing.
- But the very next day Thomas had to admit that he had been mistaken in
- Judas: so gentle, simple and at the same time serious had become the
- Iscariot. He cut no more grimaces, refrained from malicious jesting,
- no longer cringed before people or insulted them, but attended to his
- household tasks quietly and unobtrusively. He was as agile as ever: as
- though he had not two legs like the rest of the people, but dozens of
- them. Now, however, he scurried about noiselessly, without squealing
- and screaming or the hyena laugh that had characterized his previous
- activity. And when Jesus now commenced to speak he sat down in a corner
- with folded hands and his large eyes assumed such a gentle expression
- that everybody noticed it. And he ceased to speak evil of people,
- keeping silence in preference, so that even the stern Matthew found it
- proper to praise him, which he did in the words of Solomon: "The fool
- speaketh scornfully of his neighbor, but the wise man is silent," and
- he raised his finger as if recalling the former proneness of Judas to
- speak evil. And the others also noted this change in Judas and rejoiced
- over it. Only Jesus still viewed him with the same look of estrangement
- although He in no manner expressed His disfavor. And John himself,
- towards whom, as the beloved disciple of Jesus and his protector,
- Judas now manifested a most deferential demeanor, even John's attitude
- towards him was softened and he occasionally held converse with him.
- "How thinkest thou, Judas," said he once condescendingly, "which of us
- twain, Peter or I, will be nearest to Christ in His heavenly kingdom?"
- Judas thought for a moment and replied:
- "I think thou wilt."
- "And Peter thinks he will," smiled John.
- "No. Peter's shouting would scatter the angels. Hearest thou him? Of
- course, he will dispute with thee t and will strive to come first
- and occupy the place, for he claims that he too loves Jesus. But he
- is growing old, while thou art young. He is slow, while thou art
- fleetfooted and thou wilt be the first to enter with Christ. Am I not
- right?"
- "Yes. I shall never leave Jesus' side," assented John.
- That same day Simon Peter addressed the very same question to Judas.
- But fearing that his loud voice would be heard by others he led Judas
- to the furthest corner of the house.
- "Well how thinkest thou?" he inquired anxiously. "Thou art wise. Even
- the Teacher praises thy wisdom. Thou wilt tell me the truth."
- "Thou, of course," the Iscariot replied without hesitation. And Peter
- indignantly exclaimed:
- "I told him so."
- "But, of course, even there he will try to dispute the first place with
- thee."
- "Of course he will."
- "But what can he do if he find the place already occupied by thee? Thou
- wilt not leave Him alone. Did he not call thee a Rock?"
- Peter laid his hand on Judas' shoulder and fervently exclaimed:
- "I tell thee, Judas, thou art the wisest among us. Pity thou art so
- malevolent and sneering. The Teacher does not like it. And thou couldst
- be a beloved disciple no less than John. But even unto thee I shall not
- yield my place by the side of Jesus, neither here on earth nor over
- there. Hearest thou me?" And he raised his hand with a threatening
- gesture.
- Thus Judas sought to please both, the while he was harboring thoughts
- of his own. And remaining the same modest, quiet and unobtrusive Judas,
- he strove to say something agreeable to all.
- Thus he said to Thomas: "The fool believeth every word, but the man of
- wisdom takes heed of his ways." But to Matthew who loved to eat and
- drink and was ashamed of this weakness he cited the words of Solomon.
- "The righteous shall eat his fill, but the seed of the lawless is in
- want."
- But such pleasant words he spoke rarely, which lent to them a special
- value. Now he remained silent for long periods and listened attentively
- to others, though he kept thinking thoughts of his own. Judas in his
- musing mood had a disagreeable and ludicrous, and at the same time a
- disconcerting appearance. While his cunning live eye was mobile he
- appeared to be genuine and gentle, but when both of his eyes assumed
- that fixed and rigid look, and the skin on his forehead gathered into
- queer wrinkles and folds, one received the disquieting impression
- that within that skull there swarmed very peculiar thoughts, utterly
- strange, quite peculiar thoughts that had no language of their own
- and they enveloped the cogitating Iscariot with a shroud of mystery
- so disturbing that the beholder longed to have him break the silence
- quickly, to stir a little or even to lie. For even a lie uttered by a
- human tongue seemed truth and light in the face of this hopelessly mute
- and unresponsive silence.
- "Lost in thought again, Judas?" rang out the sonorous voice of Peter,
- suddenly breaking through the dull silence of the Iscariot's musing.
- "What art thou thinking of?"
- "Of many things," replied the Iscariot with a quiet smile. And
- observing the unpleasant effect of his silence upon the others, he
- began more and more frequently to separate himself from the disciples,
- taking lonely walks or spending hours alone on the flat roof of the
- house. More than once Thomas collided on the roof with a grey bundle
- out of which suddenly disentangled themselves the ungainly limbs
- of Judas and was startled by the well known mocking accents of the
- Iscariot's voice.
- Only once again the man of Kerioth oddly and abruptly recalled
- to the memory of the disciples the Judas of former days, and this
- occurred during the dispute concerning the first place in the Kingdom
- of heaven. In the presence of the Teacher, Peter and John hotly
- and with mutual recriminations defended their claims to the place
- nearest to Jesus. They enumerated their merits, compared the degree
- of their love of Jesus, shouted angrily and even abused one another
- incontinently,--Peter, all flushed with wrath and thundering, John pale
- and still, with trembling hands and stinging words. Their dispute was
- fast becoming unseemly and the Teacher was commencing to frown, when
- Peter chanced to look up at Judas and laughed out exultingly. John also
- glanced at Judas and smiled contentedly. Each remembered what the wise
- Iscariot had told him. With the foretaste of certain triumph they both
- summoned Judas to be their judge, and Peter cried out: "Hey, thou wise
- Judas. Tell us who will be first and nearest to Jesus, he or I?"
- But Judas was silent. He breathed heavily and fixed his gaze longingly,
- questioningly, on the deep and calm eyes of Jesus.
- "Yes," condescendingly agreed John, "tell him who will be the first and
- nearest to Jesus."
- With his glance still fixed on Christ, Judas rose slowly to his feet
- and replied calmly and gravely:
- "I."
- Jesus slowly dropped his eyes, while the Iscariot, beating his breast
- with a bony finger sternly and solemnly repeated:
- "I! I shall be near Jesus."
- And with these words he went out leaving the disciples dumbfounded
- by this insolent outbreak. Only Peter, as if suddenly recollecting
- something, whispered to Thomas in an unexpectedly quiet tone:
- "This is then what he is thinking about. Didst thou hear him?"
- CHAPTER V.
- It was just about this time that Judas Iscariot took his first decisive
- step towards betrayal: he paid a secret visit to the high priest
- Annas. He was received very sternly, but this did not disconcert him
- and he demanded a prolonged private interview. Left alone with the
- stern ascetic old man who eyed him contemptuously from under his bushy
- eyebrows, he told him that he, Judas, was a pious man who had become
- a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth with the sole aim of exposing the
- deceiver and of betraying him into the hands of the law.
- "And who is He, this Nazarene?" slightingly inquired Annas, as if he
- had heard the name of Jesus for the first time.
- Judas for his part pretended to take this strange ignorance of the
- high priest at its face value and reported to him at length concerning
- the sermons of Jesus, His wonders, His hatred of the Pharisees and the
- Temple, the violations of the Law by Him, and His desire to snatch the
- power from the hands of the ecclesiastics and to establish His own
- kingdom. And so skillfully did he mingle truth with falsehood that
- Annas glanced at him more attentively, while he indolently observed:
- "Are there so few deceivers and madmen in Judea?"
- "No. But He is a dangerous man," hotly replied Judas. "He violates the
- Law. And it is better for one man to perish than for the whole people."
- Annas nodded approvingly.
- "But He has, methinks, many disciples."
- "Yes, many."
- "And they probably love Him devotedly?"
- "They say that they love Him; that they love Him more than themselves."
- "But if we should want to seize Him, would they not take His part? Will
- there be no uprising?"
- Judas laughed long and bitterly.
- "They? They are cowardly curs who run as soon as a man stoops to pick
- up a stone. They!"
- "Are they so bad?" coldly inquired Annas.
- "And do the bad flee from the good? Do not rather! the good flee before
- the bad? Ha! They are good and therefore they will run. They are good
- and therefore they will hide themselves. They are good and therefore
- they will only appear when Jesus is ready for burial. And they will
- bury Him themselves, do thou but put Him to death."
- "But do they not love Him? Thou saidst so."
- "Their Teacher they love always, but more in death than living. As long
- as the Teacher lives He is apt to examine the pupils, and woe then unto
- the latter. But when the Teacher is dead, they become teachers in their
- turn, and woe then unto others! Ha!"
- Annas looked searchingly at the traitor, and his shriveled lips
- wrinkled slightly: it was a sign that Annas was smiling.
- "They have injured thee. I see it."
- "Can anything remain a secret to thy insight, O wise Annas? Thou hast
- penetrated the very heart of Judas. Yes, they injured poor Judas. They
- said that I had stolen three pieces of silver, as if Judas were not
- the most honest man in Israel."
- And for a long time they spoke of Jesus, of His disciples, and of
- His pernicious influence on the people of Israel. But the cautious
- and cunning high priest Annas did not give his final answer on this
- occasion. He had been watching Jesus for a long time and had long since
- sealed the fate of the prophet of Galilee in the secret councils of his
- relatives and friends, the chiefs and the Sadducees. But he distrusted
- Judas who had been reported to him as an evil and double-dealing
- man. He did not attach much faith to his frivolous remarks on the
- cowardice of the disciples and the people. Annas had entire confidence
- in his own might, but he feared bloodshed, he feared to stir up a
- tumultuous uprising into which the stiff-necked and volatile people of
- Jerusalem could be so easily harangued; he feared finally the sternly
- repressive interference of Roman authorities. Fanned by resistance,
- fructified by the crimson blood of the people which endows with life
- all whereon it falls, the heresy might spread all the more rapidly and
- engulf Annas himself, his rule and his friends. And when the Iscariot
- sought admission for the second time, Annas was perturbed and refused
- to receive him. But a third and a fourth time the Iscariot called,
- insistent as the wind that knocks day and night against the closed door
- and breathes through the fissures.
- "I see that wise Annas has some apprehensions," said Judas when finally
- admitted to the High Priest.
- "I am strong enough to fear nothing," haughtily replied Annas, and the
- Iscariot made a servile obeisance. "What wouldst thou?"
- "I want to betray unto you the Nazarene."
- "We do not want Him."
- Judas bowed low and lingered humbly, fixing his eye upon the high
- priest.
- "Go."
- "But I must come again. Is it not so, venerable Annas?"
- "Thou wilt not be admitted. Go."
- But again and again Judas of Kerioth knocked at the high priest's
- portal and was once more admitted into the presence of the aged Annas.
- Shriveled and angry, oppressed with thought, he regarded the betrayer
- in silence and seemed to be counting the hairs on his illshaped head.
- Judas also was silent, as if, for his part, counting the hairs in the
- silvery thin beard of the high priest.
- "Well, thou art here again?" haughtily ejaculated the irritated high
- priest, as though spuing the words on his visitor's head.
- "I want to betray unto you the Nazarene."
- They both lapsed into silence, scanning intently one another's
- features, the Iscariot gazing calmly, but a feeling of subdued
- malevolence, dry and cold like the morning frost in the winter time,
- was beginning to gnaw at the heart of Annas.
- "And what askest thou for thy Jesus?"
- "And what will ye give?"
- With a feeling of quiet elation Annas insultingly retorted:
- "You are a band of rascals, all of you. Thirty pieces of silver, that
- is all we will give for Him."
- And his heart was filled with delighted gratification as he observed
- how Judas' whole body was set agog by this announcement. The Iscariot
- turned and scurried about, agile and swift, as if he had not two but a
- dozen legs.
- "For Jesus? Thirty pieces of silver?" cried Judas in a tone of wild
- amazement that rejoiced the heart of Annas. "For Jesus of Nazareth? You
- would buy Jesus for thirty pieces of silver? And you think that Jesus
- can be sold unto you for thirty pieces of silver?"
- Judas swiftly turned to the wall and laughed into its smooth and whited
- face, waving wildly arms.
- "Hearest thou? Thirty pieces of silver! For Jesus!"
- With quiet enjoyment Annas indifferently replied: "If thou wilt not
- have it, go. We shall find some man who will sell more cheaply."
- And like sellers of old raiment who shout and swear and scold, fighting
- over the price of some worthless garment, they commenced their
- monstrous and frenzied haggling.
- Thrilled with a strange ecstasy Judas ran about twisting his limbs and
- shouting, and enumerating on the fingers of his hand the merits of Him
- whom he was betraying.
- "And that He is good and heals the sick, is that nothing? Is that worth
- nothing in your estimation? Hey? No? Tell me like an honest man?"
- "If thou," interposed the high priest whose cold disfavor was rapidly
- fanned into violent wrath by the taunting words of Judas,--but the
- later interrupted him unabashed.
- "And that He is youthful and beautiful like the narcissus of Sharon,
- like the lily of the valley? Hey? Is that nothing? Perhaps you will say
- that He is aged and worthless?"
- "If thou," still strove to cry Annas, but his senile voice was drowned
- in the storm of Judas' protests.
- "Thirty pieces of silver! That makes hardly an obolus for a drop of
- blood. Less than half an obolus for a tear. Quarter an obolus for a
- groan. And the cries of pain! and convulsions! What is the stopping
- of His heart? And the closing of His eyes? Is that all for naught?"
- screamed the Iscariot towering over the high priest, encircling him
- with the frenzied whirlwind of his gestures and words.
- "For all! For all!" replied the breathless high priest.
- "And how much will you earn on the deal? Hey? Would you rob poor Judas?
- Tear the piece of bread out of his children's mouths? I shall go out
- into the market place and shout: 'Annas has robbed poor Judas. Help!'"
- Wearied and dizzy, Annas in futile frenzy stamped the floor with his
- soft slipper and waved him away: "Begone! Begone!"
- But Judas suddenly made a humble obeisance and spread out his arms:
- "And if so, why art thou angry with poor Judas who is seeking the good
- of his children? Thou too hast children, fine, handsome young men."
- "We shall get another.... We shall get another.... Begone...."
- "And did I say that I would not give in? Do I not believe thee that
- another may come and give up Jesus unto you for fifteen oboli? For two
- oboli? For one obolus?"
- Then with another low obeisance, and with ingratiating words, Judas
- submissively agreed to accept the money offered him. With a trembling
- and wrinkled hand Annas, now silent and flushed with excitement, gave
- him the money. He sat with averted face and in silence, biting his lips
- and waited until Judas had tested every silver coin between his teeth.
- Now and then Annas looked around and then, as quickly turned his
- glance to the ceiling and again bit his lips.
- "There are so many false coins about now," calmly explained Judas.
- "This is money offered up by pious people for the Temple," remarked
- Annas looking around hastily and still more quickly turning to Judas
- the back of his bald head which was now crimson with anger.
- "But can pious people distinguish false coins from the genuine? Only
- rogues can do this."
- Judas did not take home the money received from the high priest, but
- going beyond the city he buried it beneath a stone. And he returned
- with slow, heavy and cautious steps, like a wounded animal creeping to
- its lair after a cruel and mortal combat. But Judas had no lair of his
- own to which he might creep, though there was a house and in that house
- he saw Jesus. Tired, emaciated, worn out with his incessant war against
- the Pharisees who daily surrounded Him in the Temple like a wall of
- white, shining, learned foreheads, He was seated, leaning against the
- wall and was apparently fast asleep. Through the open window entered
- the restless echoes of the city, behind the wall was heard the knocking
- of Peter who was making a new table for the common meal and sang a
- Galilean ditty as he worked. He heard nothing and slept soundly and
- firmly, and this was He who had been bought for thirty pieces of silver.
- Advancing noiselessly, Judas with the gentle care of a mother fearing
- to awaken her ailing babe, with the amazement of a dumb brute that has
- crept from its lair and lingers in fascination before some pretty white
- flower, Judas touched His soft hair and precipitately withdrew his
- hand. He touched it again and as noiselessly crept out.
- "Lord!" he exclaimed. "Lord!"
- And going to a deserted spot he wept there a long time, writhing,
- twisting his limbs, scratching his breast with his nails and biting his
- shoulders. Suddenly he ceased to weep, to moan and to gnash his teeth
- and lapsed into deep thought, turning his moist face to one side in the
- attitude of listening. And thus he stood for a long time, immobile,
- determined and a stranger to all like his very fate.
- * * *
- With a calm love and tender solicitude Judas surrounded the doomed
- Jesus during these last days of His brief life. Coy and timorous like a
- maiden in her first love, strangely intuitive and keen of perception,
- he divined the slightest unexpressed wish of Jesus, penetrated into
- the hidden depths of His feelings, His fleeting instants of yearning,
- His heavy moments of weariness. And no matter where the foot of Jesus
- stepped it rested on something soft, no matter where He turned His
- glance it met something pleasant. Formerly Judas had held in disfavor
- Mary Magdalene and the other women who were near Jesus, playing rude
- jokes at their expense and causing them much annoyance. Now he became
- their friend, their ludicrous and awkward confederate. With a profound
- interest he discussed with them the little intimate and beloved traits
- of Jesus, quizzing them insistently for a long time concerning one and
- the same thing. With a great show of secrecy he thrust coins into their
- hands, and they bought ointments, the precious and fragrant myrrh so
- beloved of Jesus, and anointed His feet. Haggling desperately he bought
- expensive wine for Jesus and then growled when Peter drank it all with
- the indifference of a man to whom only quantity matters. In that rocky
- country surrounding Jerusalem and almost bare of trees and flowers,
- he managed to obtain fresh spring flowers and green herbs, and offered
- them to Jesus through the mediation of these same women. For the first
- time in his life he fetched in his arms little children, finding
- them somewhere in the neighboring homesteads or in the highways, and
- forcedly caressed them to keep them from weeping. And it frequently
- happened that there crawled on the knees of Jesus, while he sat in deep
- thought, a tiny, curly haired little fellow with a soiled little nose,
- and insistently sought His caress. And while the two rejoiced in one
- another, Judas sternly walked a short distance off with the air of a
- jailer who has admitted a butterfly into the cell of his prisoner and
- then with a show of asperity grumbles about the disorder.
- In the evenings, when darkness and fear stood guard at the door, the
- Iscariot artfully contrived to bring into the conversation Galilee,
- a land unknown to him but dear to Jesus, with its peaceful Jakes and
- green shores. And he worried the clumsy Peter until stifled memories
- awoke in his heart and before his eyes and ears appeared vivid pictures
- and sounds of the beautiful life of Galilee. Avidly attentive and with
- mouth half-opened like a child's, with the twinkling of anticipated
- laughter in His eyes, Jesus listened to Peter's impetuous, ringing and
- merry speech, and at times He so loudly laughed at his conceits that
- the disciple had to stop his recital for minutes at a time. But better
- even than Peter's was the speech of John. There was nothing ludicrous,
- nothing unexpectedly grotesque in his words, but his descriptions were
- so thoughtful, unusual and beautiful that tears appeared in the eyes of
- Jesus, and Judas nudged Mary Magdalene, whispering triumphantly into
- her ears: "How he speaks! Listen!"
- "I am listening."
- "But listen still better. You women never listen well."
- And when they all dispersed to seek their bedsides, Jesus kissed John
- with a tender gratitude and cordially patted the shoulder of Peter.
- Without envy, with a contemptuous indulgence, Judas witnessed these
- caresses. What signified all these tales, these kisses, these sighs,
- compared with that knowledge which he had, he, Judas of Kerioth,
- redhaired, repulsive Judas, born amid the rocks.
- CHAPTER VI.
- Betraying Jesus with one hand, Judas took great pains to destroy his
- own plans with the other. He did not attempt to dissuade Jesus from
- embarking on that last perilous journey to Jerusalem, as did the women,
- he even inclined to side with the relatives of Jesus and with those of
- his disciples who considered the victory over Jerusalem indispensable
- to the complete triumph of the cause. But he stubbornly and insistently
- warned them of its dangers and depicted in vivid colors the formidable
- hostility of the Pharisees, their readiness to commit any crime and
- their unflinching determination either openly or privily to slay the
- prophet of Galilee.
- Daily and hourly he spoke of it and there was not a believer whom
- Judas failed to admonish shaking his uplifted finger impressively and
- severely:
- "Jesus must be guarded! Jesus must be guarded! Jesus must be protected
- when the time comes."
- Whether it was the boundless faith of the disciples in the marvelous
- power of their Teacher, or the consciousness of the righteousness of
- their cause or sheer blindness, Judas' anxious words were met with a
- smile, and his endless warnings elicited even murmurs of remonstrance.
- Judas managed to obtain somewhere a couple of swords, but only Peter
- was pleased with his foresight, and only Peter praised Jesus and the
- swords, while the others remarked disapprovingly:
- "Are the warriors to gird ourselves with swords. And is Jesus a general
- and not a prophet?"
- "But if they will want to slay Him?"
- "They will not dare when they see that the whole people is following
- Him."
- "But if they should dare after all? What then?" And John scornfully
- retorted:
- "One might think, Judas, that thou alone lovest the Teacher."
- And, greedily clinging to these words, taking no offence, Judas began
- to question them eagerly, fervently, with a solemn impressiveness:
- "But do ye love Him? Truly?"
- And each believer who came to see Jesus he repeatedly questioned:
- "And dost thou love Him? Dost thou love Him truly?"
- And all answered saying that they truly loved Him. He frequently drew
- Thomas into conversation and warningly raising his bony forefinger
- crowned with a long and untidy finger nail he significantly admonished
- him:
- "Look to it, Thomas. A terrible time is approaching. Are ye prepared?
- Why didst thou not take the sword which I brought?"
- And Thomas sententiously replied:
- "We are men unaccustomed to the use of arms. And if we take up the
- struggle with the Roman soldiers we shall all be slain. Besides didst
- thou not bring only two swords? What can be done with two swords?" "We
- can get others. And we might take them away from the soldiers," said
- Judas with a show of impatience, and even Thomas, the serious, smiled
- through his shaggy beard.
- "Judas, Judas! What thoughts be these? And where didst thou procure
- these swords? For they resemble the swords of the Roman soldiers."
- "I stole them. I might have stolen more, but I heard voices and fled."
- Thomas answered reproachfully and sadly:
- "There again thou didst wrong. Why stealest thou, Judas?"
- "But nothing is another's property."
- "Good, but the warriors may be questioned to-morrow 'Where are your
- swords?' and not finding them they may suffer punishment innocently."
- And later, after the death of Jesus, the disciples remembered these
- words of Judas and concluded that he had purposed to destroy them
- together with their Teacher by luring them into an unequal and fatal
- combat. And once more they cursed the hateful name of Judas of Kerioth,
- the Traitor.
- And Judas, after such conversation, sought out the women in his anger
- and complained to them tearfully. And the women heard him eagerly.
- There was in his love to Jesus something feminine and tender and it
- brought him nearer to the women, making him simple, intelligible and
- even good-looking in their eyes, though there still remained a certain
- air of superiority in his attitude towards them.
- "Be these men?" he bitterly denounced the disciples, turning
- confidingly his blind and immobile eye towards Mary, "No they are not
- men. They have not an obolus' worth of blood in their veins."
- "Thou art forever speaking evil of people," replied Mary.
- "Am I ever speaking evil of people?" exclaimed Judas in surprise.
- "Well, I may sometimes say something evil of them, but could they not
- be just a trifle better? Ah Mary, stupid Mary, why art thou not a man
- to carry a sword?"
- "I fear I could not lift it, it is so heavy," smiled Mary.
- "Thou wilt wield it, if men prove too evil to draw a sword. Didst thou
- give unto Jesus the lily which I found this morn in the hills? I rose
- at dawn to seek it and the sun was so red to-day, Mary. Was He glad?
- Did He smile?"
- "Yes, He was very glad. He said that it was fragrant with the odors of
- Galilee."
- "Of course, thou didst not tell Him Judas had gotten it, Judas of
- Kerioth?"
- "Thou badest me not to tell."
- "Truly, truly", sighed Judas. "But thou mightest have mentioned it
- inadvertently, women are so prone to talk. Then thou didst not tell it
- Him by any chance? Thou wast so firm? Yes, yes, Mary, thou art a good
- woman. Thou knowest I have a wife somewhere. I should like to see her
- now: perhaps she was not a bad woman. I do not know. She used to say:
- 'Judas is a liar. Judas, son of Simon, is wicked!' And I left her. But
- it may be that she is a good woman. What thinkest thou?"
- "How can I know, who have never seen her?"
- "Truly, truly, Mary. And what thinkest thou, thirty pieces of silver
- ... is it a large sum of money?"
- "I think it is not so much."
- "Truly, truly. And what didst thou earn when thou wast a sinner? Five
- pieces of silver or ten? Wast thou high in price?"
- Mary Magdalene blushed and dropped her head till her luxuriant golden
- hair hid her entire face leaving merely the rounded white chin visible:
- "How mean art thou, Judas. I seek to forget it, but thou remindest me."
- "No, Mary, thou shouldest not forget it. Why? Let others forget that
- thou wast a sinner, but thou forget not. It is meet that others forget
- it, but why shouldest thou?"
- "I lived in sin."
- "Let him fear who has committed no sin. But he who has committed sin,
- why should he fear? Do the dead fear death and not the living? No, the
- dead mock the living and their fear of death."
- Thus cordially talking they sat together for hours, he, well on in
- years, gaunt hideous to behold, with illshaped head and weirdly
- disproportioned face, she youthful, coy, gentle, fascinated with life
- as though with some legend or strange dream.
- But the time passed heedlessly and the thirty pieces of silver were
- reposing under the stone, and the terrible day of betrayal was
- approaching inexorably. Already Jesus had entered Jerusalem riding on
- the foal of an ass, and the people had acclaimed Him, spreading their
- garments in His path, with cries of triumphant welcome:
- "Hosannah, Hosannah! Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the
- Lord."
- And so great was the jubilation, and so irrepressible was the love that
- strove heavenward in these welcoming shouts that Jesus wept and His
- disciples proudly exclaimed:
- "Is this not the Son of God who is with us?"
- And they also cried out in triumph:
- "Hosannah! Hosannah! Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord."
- And that night for a long time they remained awake thinking over the
- solemn and triumphant entry, and Peter was like unto a madman; he
- was as one possessed by the demon of merriment and pride. He shouted
- loudly, drowning the speech of others with his leonine roar, he laughed
- uproariously, flinging his laughter at the heads of others like large
- rolling boulders, he embraced John, and James and even kissed Judas.
- And he boisterously admitted that he had harbored fears concerning
- Jesus, but now feared no longer, for he saw the love the people bore
- for Him. The Iscariot's unsteady eye strayed from face to face in
- amazement. He mused for a while, listened and looked around again, and
- then led Thomas aside. Then, as if impaling him against the wall with
- his piercing glance he questioned him with wonderment and fear not
- unmixed with some dim hopefulness:
- "Thomas, and if He is right? If it be He that has the rock beneath His
- feet, and I merely shifting sand? What then?"
- "Of whom art thou speaking?" inquired Thomas.
- "What will Judas of Kerioth do then? Then I shall have to strangle Him
- myself to bring out the Truth. Who is playing Judas false, ye or Judas
- himself? Who is deceiving Judas? Who?"
- "I cannot understand thee, Judas. Thou speakest in riddles. Who is
- deceiving Judas? Who is right?"
- And shaking his head Judas repeated like an echo: "Who is deceiving
- Judas? Who is right?"
- And still more surprised was Thomas, and he felt even worried when
- during the night there rang out the loud and almost joyous voice of
- Judas:
- "Then there will be no Judas of Kerioth. Then there will be no Jesus.
- There will be only.... Thomas, stupid Thomas! Didst thou ever wish to
- seize this earth of ours and raise it in thy hands? And then perhaps
- to drop it?"
- "That were impossible, what sayest thou Judas?"
- "That is possible," replied the Iscariot with conviction. "And we shall
- seize it some day and lift it up in our hands while thou art asleep,
- stupid Thomas. Sleep. I am merry, Thomas. When thou sleepest, the
- flutes of Galilee play in thy nostrils, Thomas. Sleep."
- But already the believers had scattered throughout Jerusalem and
- disappeared within their houses, behind walls, and the faces of the
- people who still walked abroad were now inscrutable. The rejoicing had
- ceased Already dim rumors of peril crept out of some crevices. Peter
- was gloomily trying the edge of the sword given him by Judas, and ever
- sadder and sterner grew the face of the Teacher. Time was swiftly
- passing and inexorably approached the dread day of the Betrayal. Now
- also the Last Supper was over, pregnant with sadness and dim fears,
- and the vague words of Jesus of someone who would betray Him had been
- spoken.
- "Knowest thou who will betray Him?" inquired Thomas gazing at Judas
- with his straight and limpid, almost transparent eyes.
- "Yes, I know," replied Judas, sternly and resolutely. "Thou, Thomas,
- wilt betray Him. But He does not believe Himself what He is saying.
- It is time. It is time. Why does He not call to His side Judas, the
- strong and the beautiful?"
- And time, the inexorable, was now measured no longer by days but by
- fast fleeting hours. And it was even, and the stillness of even, and
- lengthy shadows gathered over the earth, the first piercing arrows of
- the impending night of great conflict, when a sad and solemn voice
- sounded through the darkness. It was Judas who spoke:
- "Thou knowest where I am going, Lord? I am going to betray Thee into
- the hands of Thine enemies."
- And there was a long silence, and the stillness of even and piercing
- black shadows.
- "Thou art silent, Lord? Thou commandest me to go?"
- And silence again.
- "Bid me stay. But Thou canst not? Or darest not? Or wilt not?"
- And again silence, immense as the eyes of Eternity.
- "But Thou knowest that I love Thee. Thou knowest all. Why lookest
- Thou thus upon Judas? Great is the -secret of Thy beautiful eyes, but
- is mine the less? Bid me stay.... But Thou art silent. Thou art ever
- silent? Lord, Lord, why in anguish and with yearning have I sought Thee
- always, sought Thee all my life and found Thee? Make Thou me free. Lift
- from me the burden; it is greater than mountains of lead. Hearest Thou
- not the bosom of Judas of Kerioth groaning beneath it?"
- And final silence, unfathomable as the last glance of Eternity.
- "I go."
- And the stillness of even was not broken, it cried not out nor wept,
- nor faintly echoed the fine and glassy air--so still was the sound of
- his departing steps. They sounded and were lost. And the stillness
- of even relapsed into musing, it stretched its lengthening shadows,
- and blushed darkly, then suddenly sighed with the yearning rustle of
- stirring foliage; it sighed and was still, lost in the embrace of Night.
- Other sounds now invaded the air, rapping, tapping, knocking: as if
- someone had opened a cornucopia of vivid sonorous noises and they were
- dropping upon the earth, not singly or in twos, but in heaps. And
- drowning them all, echoing against the trees, the shadows and the wall,
- enveloping the speaker himself roared the resolute and lordly voice of
- Peter: he swore that he would never leave his Teacher.
- "Lord!" he cried, longingly, wrathfully. "Lord! With Thee I am ready to
- go to prison and even unto death."
- And softly, like the faint echo of someone's departed steps, the
- merciless answer sounded:
- "I say unto thee, Peter, that ere the cock crow thrice to-day thou wilt
- have denied me thrice."
- CHAPTER VII.
- The moon had already risen when Jesus started towards Mount Olivet
- where he was wont of late to pass his nights. But He lagged strangely,
- and His disciples, who were ready to proceed, urged Him on. Then He
- suddenly spoke:
- "He who has a sack let him take it, likewise a staff. And He who has
- none, let him sell his raiment and buy a sword. For I say unto you that
- this day it shall happen unto me as even was written: he was counted
- among the transgressors!"
- The disciples were amazed and exchanged confused glances.
- But Peter replied:
- "Lord! Here are two swords."
- He glanced searchingly into their kindly faces, dropped His head and
- gently replied:
- "It is enough."
- Loudly echoed the steps of the wanderers through the narrow streets and
- the disciples were terrified at the sounds of their own steps. Their
- black shadows lengthened upon the white moon-illuminated walls and they
- were terrified at the sight of their own shadows. Thus silently they
- passed through the sleeping city. Now they passed out of the gates of
- Jerusalem and in a deep cleft among the hills that were filled with
- mysterious and immobile shadows the brook of Kedron met their gaze. Now
- everything terrified them. The soft gurgling and the splashing of the
- water against the stones sounded to them like voices of people lying in
- ambush. The shapeless fanciful shadows of rocks and trees obstructing
- their way worried them, and the motionless stillness of the night
- appeared to them endowed with life and movement. But as they ascended
- and neared the garden of Gethsemane where they had spent so many nights
- in security and peace they gradually gained courage. Now and then they
- cast a backward glance at the sleeping city now reposing white in the
- light of the moon and discussed their recent fright; and those who
- walked in the rear heard an occasional fragment of the Teacher's words.
- He was telling them that they would all forsake Him.
- They stopped in the very outskirts of the garden. Most of the disciples
- regained right there and with subdued voices commenced to make
- preparations for sleep, spreading their mantles in the transparent
- lacework of shadows and moonlight. But Jesus, torn with disquietude,
- with four of His nearest disciples plunged further into the depths of
- the garden. There they sat down on the ground that had not yet grown
- cold from the heat of the day, and while Jesus observed silence, Peter
- and John lazily exchanged meaningless remarks. Yawning with weariness
- they spoke of the chilly night and remarked how dear the meat was in
- Jerusalem, while fish was not to be had at all. They were guessing
- at the number of worshippers that would gather in Jerusalem during
- the holidays, and Peter, stretching his words into a prolonged yawn,
- affirmed that they would amount to twenty thousand, while John, and his
- brother Tames indolently claimed that the number would not exceed ten
- thousand. Suddenly Jesus quickly rose to His feet.
- "My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Tarry ye here and watch a
- while," He said and with swift steps He retired into the grove where He
- was lost in the impenetrable maze of light and shadows.
- "Where did He go?" wondered John raising himself on his elbow. Peter
- turned his head in the direction of the departed Teacher and wearily
- answered:
- "I don't know." And once more loudly yawning he reclined on his back
- and lay still. The others too had quieted down by this time and the
- vigorous sleep of healthy fatigue chained their stolid figures. Through
- his heavy sleep Peter dimly saw something white bending over him and
- seemed to hear some voice that sounded afar off and died leaving no
- trace in his dulled consciousness:
- "Simon Peter, sleepest thou?"
- And once more he was fast asleep, and again some still voice reached
- his ear and died away leaving no trace:
- "Could ye not watch with me one brief hour?" "Lord, if Thou knewest how
- sleepy I am," he thought in half slumber, but it seemed to him as if
- he had said it aloud. And again he slept and a long time passed when
- suddenly there stood beside him the form of Jesus and a sonorous waking
- voice roused him and the others:
- "Are ye still sleeping and resting? It is finished. The hour has come
- for the Son of Man to be betrayed into the hands of sinners."
- The disciples leaped to their feet, picking up their mantles in
- confusion and shivering with the chill of sudden awaking. Through
- the maze of trees, illuminating them with the lurid light of their
- torches, with heavy tramping of feet and loud noise, and the crack of
- breaking twigs, a crowd of warriors and temple attendants was seen
- approaching. And from the other side the rest of the disciples came
- running, trembling with the cold, with terrified, sleepy faces, failing
- to realize what had occurred and anxiously inquiring:
- "What is this? Who are these with torches?" Thomas, pale, with his
- beard awry, with chatting teeth, remarked to Peter:
- "Apparently these men are after us."
- Now the crowd of warriors surrounded them and the smoking unsteady
- glare of the torches had chased the quiet and serene radiance of the
- moon somewhere into the heights over the treetops. At the head of the
- warriors was Judas of Kerioth; scurrying hither and thither and keenly
- rolling his seeing eye he searched for Jesus. At last he found Him, and
- resting for a moment his glance on the tall and slender form for the
- Master he hurriedly whispered to the attendants: "He whom I shall kiss
- the same is the man. Take Him and lead Him carefully. But be careful,
- do you hear me?"
- Then hurriedly moving toward Jesus, who awaited him in silence, he
- plunged like a dagger a steady and piercing glance into His calm, dark
- eyes.
- "Rejoice, Rabbi," he exclaimed loudly, imbuing the words of common
- salutation with a strange and terrible significance.
- But Jesus was silent, and the disciples gazed awestricken upon the
- Traitor, unable to fathom how the soul of Man could contain so much
- wickedness. With a hasty look the Iscariot measured their confused
- ranks, noted the tremor that threatened to change into the abject
- palsy of terror, noted their pallor, the meaningless smiles, the
- nerveless movements of arms that seemed to be gripped with iron clamps
- at the shoulder; and his heart was set aflame with bitter anguish not
- unlike the agony which had oppressed Jesus a short time since. His
- soul transformed into a hundred ringing and sobbing chords, he rushed
- forward to Jesus and tenderly kissed His windchilled cheek, so softly,
- so tenderly, with such agony of love and yearning that were Jesus a
- flower upheld by a slender stem, that kiss would not have shaken from
- it one pearl of dew or dislodged one tender leaf.
- "Judas," said Jesus, and the lightning of His glance bared the
- monstrous mass of forbidding shadows that were the soul of the
- Iscariot, but did not reveal its boundless depths. "Judas! With a kiss
- betrayest thou the Son of Man?"
- And He saw that hideous chaos quivering, stirring and agog through and
- through. Speechless and stern as Death in his haughty majesty stood
- Judas of Kerioth and all of his being within him groaned, thundered
- and wailed with a myriad of stormy and fiery voices: "Yes! With a
- kiss of love we betray Thee. With a kiss of love we betray Thee unto
- mockery, torture and death. With a voice of love we summon torturers
- from their dark lairs, and rear a cross. And high above the gloom of
- the earth upon the cross we raise up love crucified by love!"
- Thus stood Judas, wordless and cold as death, and the cry of his soul
- was met by the cries and the tumult that encircled Jesus. With the rude
- indecision of armed force, with the awkwardness of a dimly grasped
- purpose the soldiers had already seized Him by the hand and were
- dragging Him somewhere, mistaking their own aimlessness for resistance,
- their own terror for their victim's mockery and scorn. Like a herd
- of frightened lambs the disciples had huddled together, offering no
- resistance, though impeding everybody including themselves; and only a
- few had any thought of going or acting for themselves, apart from the
- rest. Surrounded on every side, Peter, son of Simon, with an effort,
- as if having lost all strength, drew the sword from its sheath and
- weakly dropped it with a glancing blow upon the head of one of the
- servants,--but failed to harm him in the least. And observing this
- Jesus commanded him to drop the useless weapon. With a faint rattle the
- sword fell to the ground, a piece of metal so manifestly bereft of its
- power to pierce and to injure that none troubled to pick it up. Thus it
- lay in the mud and many days later some children found it in the same
- spot and made it their plaything.
- The soldiers were dispersing the disciples and the latter again huddled
- together stupidly getting into the soldiers' way, and this continued
- until the soldiers were seized with a contemptuous wrath. There one of
- them with a frown walked up to the shouting John, while another roughly
- brushed aside the arm of Thomas who had placed it upon his shoulder
- in an endeavor to argue with him, and in his turn shook threateningly
- a powerful balled fist before a pair of very straight-looking and
- transparent eyes. And John ran, as also did Thomas and James; and
- all the disciples, as many as were there, forsaking Jesus, ran
- helter-skelter to save themselves. Losing their mantles, running into
- the trees, stumbling against stones and falling they fled into the
- mountains, driven by terror and in the stillness of the moonlit night
- the ground resounded under their fugitive feet. Some unknown, who
- had evidently just risen from sleep, for he was covered with only a
- blanket, excitedly scurried to and fro in the crowd of warriors and
- servitors. But as they tried to seize him he cried out in fear and
- started to run, like the others, leaving his raiment in the hands of
- the soldiers. Thus perfectly nude, he ran with desperate leaps and his
- naked body gleamed oddly in the moonlight.
- When Jesus was led away Peter emerged from his hiding place behind the
- trees and from a distance followed his Teacher. And seeing ahead of him
- another man who walked in silence, he thought it was John and softly
- called to him:
- "John, is it thou?"
- "Ah, thou Peter?" replied the other stopping, and Peter recognized the
- Betrayer's voice. "Why then Peter didst thou not flee with the others?"
- Peter stopped and loathingly replied:
- "Get thee behind me, Satan."
- Judas laughed and paying no more attention to Peter walked on towards
- the place where gleamed the smoking torches and the rattle of arms
- mingled with the tramp of feet. Peter followed him cautiously and thus
- almost together they entered the court of the high priest's house and
- joined a crowd of servants warming themselves at the fire. Judas was
- sullenly warming his bony hands over the logs when he heard somewhere
- in the rear the loud voice of Peter:
- "No, I don't know Him."
- But someone evidently insisted that he was a disciple of Jesus, for
- even more loudly Peter repeated:
- "But no and no, I don't know whereof ye are speaking."
- Without looking around and smiling involuntarily Judas nodded his head
- affirmingly and murmured:
- "Just so, Peter. Yield to none thy place at the side of Jesus."
- And he did not see how the terror-stricken Peter departed from the
- court in order not to be caught again. And from that evening until the
- very death of Jesus Judas never saw near Him any of His disciples: and
- in that multitude there were only these two, inseparable unto death,
- strangely bound together by fellow-suffering,--He who was betrayed unto
- mockery and torture and he who had betrayed Him. From one chalice of
- suffering they drank like brothers, the Betrayed and the the Traitor,
- and the fiery liquid seared alike the pure and the impure lips.
- Gazing fixedly at the fire which beguiled the eye into a sensation of
- heat, holding over it his lanky and shivering hands, all tangled into a
- maze of arms and legs, trembling shadows and fitful light, the Iscariot
- groaned pitifully and hoarsely:
- "How cold! My God, how cold!"
- Thus in the night time, when the fisher folk have set out in their
- boats leaving ashore a smouldering campfire some strange denizen of the
- deep may come forth from the bowels of the sea and creeping to the fire
- gaze on it fixedly and wildly, stretching its limbs towards the flames
- and groan pitifully and hoarsely:
- "How cold! Oh, my God, how cold!"
- Suddenly behind his back the Iscariot heard a tumult of loud
- voices, cries, the sound of rude laughter, full of the familiar,
- sleepily-greedy malice, and the thud of sharp, quick, blows raining
- on a living body. He turned around, pierced through and through with
- agonized pain, aching in every limb and in every bone--they were
- beating Jesus.
- It has come then.
- He saw the soldiers lead Jesus into the guard-house. The night was
- passing, the fires were going out, ashes began to cover them, and from
- the guard-house there came still the noise of hoarse shouts, laughter
- and oaths. They were beating Jesus. As one who has lost his way the
- Iscariot scurried about the empty court, stopping himself suddenly on
- a run, raising his head and starting off again, stumbling in surprise
- against the campfires and the walls. Then he glued his face to the
- walls of the guard-house, to the cracks in the door, to the windows and
- greedily watched what was going in within. He saw a stuffy, crowded,
- dirty little room, like all the guard-houses in the world, with a floor
- that had been diligently spat on and with walls that were greasy and
- stained as if hundreds of filthy people had walked or slept upon them.
- And he saw the Man who was being beaten. They smote Him on the face
- and on the head, they flung Him from one to another across the room
- like a sack. And because He did not cry out or resist after minutes
- of strained observation it actually appeared as though it were not
- a living being but some limp manikin without bones or blood that was
- thrown about. And the figure bent over oddly, just like a manikin, and
- when in falling it struck the floor with its head the impression of the
- contact was not like that of some hard object striking another, but as
- of some thing soft and incapable of pain. And after watching it long
- it seemed like some weird and interminable game, something that almost
- amounted to an illusion. After one vigorous blow the man or the manikin
- smoothly dropped on the knees of a soldier. He pushed it away and it
- turned and fell on the next man's knees, and so on. Shouts of wild
- laughter greeted this game and Judas also smiled--as if some powerful
- hand with fingers of steel had torn open his mouth. The lips of Judas
- had played him false this time.
- The night seemed to drag and the campfires still smouldered. Judas fell
- back from the wall and slowly trudged over to one of the fires, stirred
- up the coals, revived the flames, and though now he did not feel cold,
- he held over it his slightly trembling hands. And longingly he murmured:
- "Ah, it hurts, little son, it hurts, child, child, child. It pains,
- very, very much."
- Then he walked over to the window that gleamed yellow from the dim
- lantern within the bars and once more he commenced to watch the
- chastisement of Jesus. Once before the very eyes of Judas flitted the
- vision of His dark face, now disfigured and encircled in a maze of
- tangled hair. There someone's hand seized this hair, felled the Man and
- methodically turning the head from side to side began to wipe with His
- face the filthy floor. Under the very window a soldier slept opening
- his wide-open mouth wherein two rows of teeth gleamed white and shiny.
- Now somebody's broad back with a fat bare neck shut out the view from
- the window and nothing more could be seen. And suddenly all grew still.
- "What is it? Why are they silent? What if they have comprehended?"
- Instantly the head of Judas was filled with the roaring, shouting and
- tumult of a thousand frenzied thoughts. What if they have realized?
- What if they have comprehended that this was--the very best among
- men. This is so plain, so simple. What is going on there now? Are
- they kneeling before Him, weeping softly, kissing His feet? There He
- will emerge in an instant, and behind Him will come forth in abject
- submission the others; how He will come forth and draw near to Judas,
- the conqueror, the Son of Man, the Lord of Truth, God.... Who is
- deceiving Judas? Who is right?
- But no. Shouts and uproar again. They are beating Him again. They have
- not comprehended. They have not realized and they are beating Him with
- greater violence, more cruelly. And the fires are burning low, being
- covered with ashes, and the smoke over them is as transparently blue as
- the air, and the sky is as light as the moon. It is the dawn of day.
- "What is day?" asked Judas.
- Now everything is ablaze, everything glows, everything has grown young,
- and the smoke above is no longer blue but pink. The sun is rising.
- "What is the sun?" asketh Judas.
- CHAPTER VIII.
- They pointed him out with their fingers, and some contemptuously,
- while others with hatred and terror added:
- "See, this is Judas, the Traitor."
- This was the beginning of his shameful infamy to which he condemned
- himself for all ages. Thousands of years will pass, nation will succeed
- nation, and still the words will be heard in the air, uttered with
- contempt and dread by the good and the evil:
- "Judas, the Traitor! Judas, the Traitor But he listened with
- indifference to the words spoken concerning him, absorbed in a feeling
- of a supreme curiosity. From the very morn that Jesus was led out of
- the guard-house after His chastisement Judas followed Him, his heart
- strangely free from longing, pain or joy. It was only filled with the
- unconquerable craving to see and to hear all. Though he had not slept
- all night he felt as though walking on air; where the people would
- not let him pass he elbowed his way forward and with agility gained
- a point of vantage. During the examination of Jesus by Kaiaphas he
- held his hand to his ear so as not to lose a word and nodded his head
- approvingly, whispering:
- "That's so. That's so. Hearest Thou this, Jesus?" But he was not
- free--he was like a fly tied to a thread: buzzing it flies hither and
- thither but not for an instant the pliant and obstinate thread release
- it. Thoughts that seemed hewed out of stone weighed down his head and
- he could not shake them off. He knew not what thoughts these were, he
- feared to stir them up, but he felt their presence constantly. And at
- times they threatened to overwhelm him, almost crushing him with their
- incredible weight as though the roof of some rocky vault slowly and
- terribly subsided over his head. Then he held his hand to his heart
- and shook himself as though shivering with the cold, and his glance
- straying to another and still another spot as Jesus was led out from
- the presence of Kaiaphas, he met His wearied glance at quite close
- quarters, and without rendering account to himself of his action, he
- nodded his head a few times with a show of friendliness and murmured:
- "I am here, sonny, I am here." Then he wrathfully shoved aside some
- gaping countryman who stood in his way. Now they were moving, an
- immense and noisy throng, on to Pilate, for the last examination and
- trial, and with the same insupportable curiosity Judas eagerly and
- swiftly scanned the faces of the people. Many were entirely unknown
- to him; Judas had never seen them before; but some there were who had
- shouted "Hosannah!" to Jesus, and with every step the number of such
- seemed to increase.
- "Just so!" flashed through the mind of Judas. He reeled like a drunken
- man. "It is all finished. Now they will shout: He is ours! He is our
- Jesus! What are ye doing? And everyone will see it...."
- But the believers walked in silence, with forced smiles on their
- faces, pretending that all this did not concern them in the least.
- Others discussed something in subdued tones, but in the tumult and
- commotion, in the uproar of frenzied shouts of Christ's enemies, their
- timid voices were drowned without leaving a trace. And again he felt
- relieved. Suddenly Judas noticed Thomas, who was cautiously proceeding
- not afar off, and with a sudden resolve he rushed forward intending to
- speak to him. Seeing the Traitor, Thomas was frightened and sought to
- escape, but in a narrow and dirty lane, between two walls, Judas caught
- up with him:
- "Thomas! Wait!"
- Thomas stopped and solemnly holding up both hands exclaimed:
- "Depart from me, Satan."
- With a gesture of impatience the Iscariot replied: "How stupid thou
- art, Thomas! I thought that thou hadst more sense than the others.
- Satan! Satan! This must be proved."
- Dropping his hands, Thomas inquired in surprise: "But didst thou not
- betray the Teacher? I saw with my own eyes that thou broughtest the
- soldiers. Didst thou not point out Jesus unto them? If this is not
- betrayal, what is a betrayal?"
- "Something else, something else," hastily interposed Judas. "Listen.
- There are many of you here. It behooves you to meet and to demand
- loudly: 'Give unto us Jesus. He is ours.' They will not refuse you,
- they will not dare. They will understand themselves...."
- "What art thou saying!" replied Thomas shaking his head. "Didst thou
- not see the number of armed soldiers and servants of the temple? And,
- besides, a court has not been held yet, and we must not interfere with
- the court. Will not the court understand that Jesus is innocent and
- will not the judges immediately order Him released?"
- "Dost thou think so too?" musingly inquired Judas. "Thomas, Thomas, but
- if this be the truth? What then? Who is right? Who deceived Judas?"
- "We argued all night and we decided that the judges simply could not
- condemn the Innocent one. But if they should...."
- "Well?" urged the Iscariot.
- "... then they are not true judges. And they will fare ill some day
- when they give account to the real Judge...."
- "The real Judge! Is there a real one?" laughed Judas.
- "And the brethren have all cursed thee, but as thou sayest that thou
- art not a Traitor, I think thou oughtest to be judged...."
- Without waiting to hear the end Judas abruptly turned on his heels and
- rushed off in pursuit if the departing multitude. But he slowed down
- and walked deliberately, realizing that a crowd never proceeds very
- fast and that by walking apart one can always catch up with it.
- When Pilate led Jesus out of his palace and placed Him in full view
- of the people, Judas, pinned to a column by the heavy backs of some
- soldiers, frenziedly twisted his head in order to see something between
- two shining helmets. He suddenly realized that now all was over indeed.
- The sun shone high over the heads of the multitude and under its very
- rays stood Jesus, bloodstained, pale, with a crown of thorns the sharp
- points of which had pierced His brow. He stood at the very edge of the
- elevation, visible from His head to His small sunbrowned feet, and
- so calmly expectant He was, so radiant in His sinlessness and purity
- that only a blind man unable to see the very sun could fail to see it,
- only a madman could fail to realize it. And the people were silent, so
- silent that Judas heard the breathing of the soldier in front of him,
- and the scraping of his belt as he took each breath.
- "That's it. It is all over. They will now understand," thought Judas;
- and suddenly some strange sensation not unlike the blinding joy of
- falling from an infinite altitude into the gaping abyss of blue stopped
- his heart.
- Contemptuously stretching his lip down to his clean-shaven, rotund
- chin, Pilate flings at the people dry curt words as one might cast
- bones at a horde of hungry hounds to cheat their thirst for fresh blood
- and living quivering flesh.
- "Ye have brought unto me this Man as a corrupter of the people. I
- have examined Him before you and have found the Man guilty of nothing
- whereof ye accuse Him.."
- Judas closed his eyes. He was waiting.
- And the whole people began to shout, scream and howl with a thousand
- bestial and human voices:
- "Death unto Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"
- And now, as if deriding their own souls, as if craving to taste to the
- dregs in one moment all the infinity of fall, frenzy and shame, these
- very people screaming and howling demand:
- "Release unto us Barabbas. But Him crucify! Crucify!"
- But the Roman has not yet spoken his final word. His haughty
- clean-shaven face is twitching with loathing and wrath. He
- understands.. He has comprehended. There He is speaking softly to the
- servants of the temple, but his voice is drowned in the uproar of the
- multitude. What is he saying? Does he command them to take up their
- swords and to fall upon the madmen?
- "Bring me water!"
- Water? What kind of water? What for?
- There he is washing his hands ... why is he washing his white, clean
- ringcovered hands? And now he cries out angrily raising his hands in
- the face of the amazed people:
- "I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man. See ye to it."
- The water is still dripping from these white fingers down on the marble
- slabs of the floor, but some white mass is already limply groveling
- at the feet of Pilate, someone's burning and sharp lips are kissing
- his weakly resisting hand, clinging to it like a leech, sucking at it,
- drawing the blood to the surface and almost biting it. With loathing
- and dread he looks down and sees a gigantic and writhing body, a
- wild face that looks as though it had been split in twain, two eyes
- so strangely unlike one another, as though not one creature but a
- multitude lay clutching at his feet and hands. And he hears a fervent
- and broken whisper:
- "Thou art wise! Thou art noble! Thou art wise!"
- And this savage face seems to glow with such truly satanic joy that
- Pilate cannot repress a cry as he repels him with his foot, and
- Judas falls down to the ground. And lying on the flagstones, like an
- overturned devil, he still stretches out his hand towards Pilate and
- shouts as one infatuated:
- "Thou art wise! Thou art noble! Thou art wise!"
- Then he swiftly leaps to his feet and flees accompanied by the laughter
- of the soldiers. All is not yet over. When they see the cross, when
- they see the nails, they may comprehend then.... What then? Passingly
- he notices Thomas, breathless and pale, and for some reason nods to him
- assuringly. Then he catches up with Jesus on the way to the execution.
- The path is hard; the little stones roll from under one's feet; Judas
- suddenly realizes that he is tired. He concentrates his mind on finding
- a good foothold, and as he looks about he sees Mary Magdalene weeping,
- he sees a multitude of weeping women, with dishevelled hair, red eyes,
- distorted lips, all the infinite grief of the feminine soul given over
- unto despair. Suddenly he revives and taking advantage of an opportune
- moment, he rushes forward to Jesus:
- "I am with Thee," he whispers hurriedly.
- The soldiers drive him away with stinging blows of their whips, and
- writhing to escape the leash, gnashing his teeth at the soldiers, he
- hurriedly explains:
- "I am with Thee. Thither. Understandest Thou? Thither!"
- Wiping the blood from his face he shakes his fist at the soldier who
- turns around and points him out to his comrades. He looks about for
- some reason in search of Thomas, but finds neither him nor any of
- the other disciples in the accompanying crowd. Again he feels weary
- and heavily shuffles his feet, carefully scanning the sharp little
- crumbling stones underfoot.
- When the hammer was raised to nail the left hand of Jesus to the tree
- Judas shut his eyes and for an eternity neither breathed, nor saw, nor
- lived, only listened. But now iron struck iron with a gnashing sound,
- and blow after blow followed blunt, brief, low. One could hear the
- sharp nail entering the soft wood distending its particles.
- One hand. It is not yet too late.
- Another hand. It is not yet too late.
- One foot, another. Is really all over? Irresolutely he opens his eyes
- and sees the cross rise unsteadily and take root in the ditch. He sees
- how the hands of Jesus convulse under the strain, extend agonizingly,
- how the wounds spread and suddenly the collapsing abdomen sinks below
- the ribs. The arms stretch and stretch and grow thin and white, they
- twist at the shoulders, the wounds under the nails redden and expand;
- they threaten to tear in an instant.. But, they stop. All motion
- has stopped. Only the ribs move lightly, raised by His deep quick
- breathing.
- On the very brow of the Earth rises the cross and on it hangs Jesus
- crucified. The terror and the dreams of Judas are accomplished--he
- rises from his knees (he had been kneeling for some reason) and looks
- around coldly. Thus may look some stern conqueror having purposed in
- his heart to visit ruin and death upon all as he takes one last look
- on the wealthy vanquished city, still living and noisy, but already
- spectral beneath the cold hand of death. And suddenly as clearly as his
- terrible triumph the Iscariot sees its ominous frailty. What if they
- realize? It is not yet too late. Jesus is still living. There He gazes
- with his beckoning, yearning eyes....
- What can keep from tearing the thin veil that covers the eyes of
- the people, so thin that it almost is not? What if they suddenly
- comprehend? What if they move in one immense throng of men, women
- and children, silent, without shouting, and overwhelm the soldiers,
- drowning them in their own blood, root out the accursed cross and the
- hands of the survivors raise aloft upon the brow of the Earth the
- released Jesus? Hosannah! Hosannah!
- Hosannah? No. Let Judas lie down on the ground, let him lie down and
- bare his teeth like a dog and watch and wait until they all rise.
- But what has happened to time? Now it stops and one longs to kick it
- onward, to lash it like a lazy ass, now it rushes on madly downhill,
- cutting off one's breath, and one vainly seeks to steady oneself. There
- Mary Magdalene is weeping-. There weeps the mother of Jesus. Let them
- weep. As if her tears meant anything, for that matter the tears of all
- the mothers, all the women in the universe!
- "What are tears?" asks Judas and frenziedly pushes onward the
- disobliging time, pummels it with his fists, curses it like a slave.
- It is someone else's, that is why it does not obey. If it were Judas!
- but it belongs to all these who are weeping, laughing, gossiping as if
- they were in the marketplace. It belongs to the sun, it belongs to the
- cross and to the heart of Jesus who is dying so slowly.
- What a miserable heart is that of Judas. He is holding it with his
- hands but it shouts Hosannah! so loudly that all will soon hear it. He
- presses it tightly to the ground, and it shouts Hosannah! Hosannah!
- like a poltroon scattering sacred mysteries in the street.
- Suddenly a loud broken cry.. Dull shouts, a hurried commotion around
- the cross. What is it? Have they comprehended?
- No, Jesus is dying. And can this be? Yes, Jesus is dying. The pale arms
- are limp, but the face, the breast and the legs are quivering with
- short convulsions. And can this be? Yes, He is dying. The breath comes
- less frequently. Now it has stopped. No, another sigh, Jesus is still
- upon earth. And still another? No ... No ... No ... Jesus is dead.
- It is finished. Hosannah! Hosannah!
- * * *
- The terror and the dreams are accomplished. Who will snatch the victory
- from the Iscariot's hands? It is finished. Let all nations, as many as
- there be, flock to Golgotha and cry out with their millions of throats:
- Hosannah! Hosannah! let them pour out seas of blood and tears at its
- foot,--they will only find a shameful cross and a dead Jesus.
- Calmly and coldly Judas scrutinizes the figure of the Dead, resting his
- glance an instant upon the cheek on which but the night before he had
- impressed his farewell kiss, and then deliberately walks away. Now
- the whole earth belongs to him, and he walks firmly like a commander,
- like a king, like He who in this universe is so infinitely and serenely
- alone. He notes the mother of Jesus and addresses her sternly:
- "Weepest thou, mother? Weep, weep, and a long time will weep with thee
- all the mothers of earth. Until we shall return together with Jesus and
- destroy death."
- What is he saying? Is he mad or merely mocking? But he seems serious
- and his face is solemn, and his eyes no longer scurry about with insane
- haste. There he stops and with a cold scrutiny views the earth, so
- changed and small. How little it now is, and he feels the whole of the
- orb beneath his feet. He looks at the little hills gently blushing
- under the last rays of the sun, and he feels the mountains beneath his
- feet. He gazes on the sky gaping wide with its azure mouth, he gazes
- on the round little sun futilely striving to burn and to blind, and he
- feels the sky and the sun beneath his heel. Infinitely and serenely
- alone he has proudly sensed the impotence of all the powers that are at
- work in the world and has cast them all down into the abyss.
- And he walks on with calm and masterful steps. And the time moves
- neither ahead of him nor in the rear: obediently with its invisible
- mass it keeps pace with him.
- It is finished.
- CHAPTER IX.
- Like an old hypocrite, coughing, smiling ingratiatingly, bowing
- profusely, Judas of Kerioth, the Traitor, appeared before the
- Sanhedrim. It was on the day following the murder of Jesus, towards
- noon. They were all there, His judges and murderers, the aged Annas
- with his sons, those accurate and repulsive copies of their father, and
- Kaiaphas, his son-in-law, wormeaten with ambition, and other members
- of the Sanhedrim, who had stolen their names from the memory of the
- people, wealthy and renowned Sadducees, proud of their power and their
- knowledge of the law. They received the Traitor in silence and their
- haughty faces remained unmoved as if nothing had entered the room. And
- even the very least among them, a nonentity utterly ignored by the
- others, raised to the ceiling his birdlike features and looked as if
- nothing had entered. Judas bowed, bowed and bowed, but they maintained
- their silence: as if not a human being had entered, but some unclean
- and unnoticeable insect had crept into their midst. But Judas of
- Kerioth was not a man to feel embarrassed: they were silent, but he
- kept on bowing and thought that if he had to keep on bowing until night
- he would do so.
- At last the impatient Kaiaphas inquired:
- "What dost thou want?"
- Judas bowed once more and modestly replied:
- "It is I, Judas of Kerioth, who betrayed unto you Jesus of Nazareth."
- "Well, what now? Thou hast received thy reward. Go," commanded Annas,
- but Judas kept on bowing as if he had not heard the command. And
- glancing at him Kaiaphas inquired of Annas:
- "How much was he given?"
- "Thirty pieces of silver."
- Kaiaphas smiled and even the senile Annas smiled also. A merry smile
- flitted over all the haughty faces: and he of the birdlike countenance
- even laughed. Paling perceptibly Judas broke in:
- "Quite so. Quite so. Of course, a very small sum, but is Judas
- dissatisfied? Does Judas cry out that he was robbed? He is content.
- Did he not aid a sacred cause? A sacred cause, to be sure. Do not the
- wisest of men listen now to Judas of Kerioth and think: 'He is one of
- us, Judas of Kerioth, he is our brother, our friend, Judas of Kerioth,
- the Traitor.' Does not Annas long to kneel before Judas and kiss his
- hand? Only Judas will not suffer it, for he is a coward, he fears that
- Annas might bite."
- Kaiaphas commanded:
- "Drive this dog away. Why is he barking here?"
- "Go hence. We have no time to listen to thy babbling," indifferently
- remarked Annas.
- Judas straightened up and shut his eyes. That hypocrisy which he had so
- lightly borne all his life he felt now as an insupportable burden, and
- with one movement of his eyelids he cast it off. And when he looked up
- again at Annas his glance was frank and straight and dreadful in its
- naked truthfulness. But they paid no attention even to this.
- "Wouldst thou be driven out with rods?" shouted Kaiaphas.
- Suffocating with the burden of terrible words which he sought to lift
- higher and higher as if to cast them down upon the heads of the judges
- Judas hoarsely inquired:
- "And do ye know who He was, He whom ye yesterday condemned and
- crucified?"
- "We know. Go."
- With one word he will now tear that thin veil that clouds their eyes,
- and the whole earth will shake with the impact of the merciless truth.
- They had souls--and they will lose them. They had life--and they will
- be deprived of it. Light had been before their eyes--and eternal gloom
- and terror will engulf them.
- And these are the words that rend the speaker's throat:
- "He was not a deceiver. He was innocent and pure. Hear ye? Judas
- cheated you. Judas betrayed unto you an Innocent One."
- He waited and heard the indifferent senile quaver of Annas: "And is
- that all thou wouldst tell us?"
- "Perhaps ye have not comprehended me?" Judas replied with dignity, all
- color fading from his cheeks. "Judas deceived you. You have killed an
- Innocent One." One of the judges, a man with a birdlike face, smiled,
- but Annas was unmoved. Annas was bored, Annas yawned. And Kaiaphas
- joined him in a yawn and wearily remarked: "I was told of the great
- mind of Judas of Kerioth. But he is a fool, and a great bore as well as
- a fool."
- "What?" cried Judas shaken through and through with a desperate rage.
- "And are ye wise? Judas has deceived you, do you hear me? Not Him did
- he betray, but you, ye wise ones, you, ye strong ones, he betrayed
- unto shameful death which shall not end in eternity. Thirty pieces of
- silver! Yes. Yes. That is the price of your own blood, blood that is
- filthy as the swill which the women cast out from the gates of their
- houses. Oh Annas, Annas, aged, grey-bearded, stupid Annas, choking with
- law, why didst thou not give another piece of silver, another obolus?
- For at that price thou wilt be rated forever!"
- "Begone!" shouted Kaiaphas trembling with wrath.
- But Annas stopped him with a gesture and as stolidly asked Judas:
- "Is this all now?"
- "If I shall go into the desert and cry out to the wild beasts: 'Beasts
- of the desert, have ye heard the price they have put on their Jesus?'
- What will the wild beasts do? They will creep out of their lairs, they
- will howl with wrath; they will forget the fear of man and they will
- rush here to devour you. If I tell unto the sea: 'O sea, knowest thou
- the price they have put upon their Jesus?' If I shall tell unto the
- mountains: 'Ye mountains, know ye the price they have placed upon their
- Jesus?' The sea and the mountains will leave their places appointed
- unto them since eternity and rush towards you and fall upon your heads."
- "Would not Judas like to become a prophet? He speaks so loudly,"
- remarked he of the birdlike face mockingly and ingratiatingly peering
- into the eyes of Kaiaphas.
- "To-day I saw a pallid sun. It looked down in terror upon this earth
- inquiring: 'Where, O where is man?' I saw to-day a scorpion. He sat
- upon a rock and laughing inquired: 'Where, O where is man?' I drew
- nearer and glanced into his eyes. And he laughed and repeated: 'Where,
- O where is man?' Where, oh, where is man? Tell me, I do not see. Has
- Judas become blind, poor Judas of Kerioth?"
- And the Iscariot wept loudly. And in that moment he resembled a madman.
- Kaiaphas turned away contemptuously, but Annas thought awhile and
- remarked: "I see, Judas, that thou didst really receive but a small
- reward, and this evidently agitates thee. Here is more money, take it
- and give unto thy children."
- He threw something that jingled abruptly. And hardly had that sound
- died when another oddly resembling it succeeded: it was Judas casting
- handfuls of silver coins and oboli into the faces of the high priest
- and the judges, returning his reward for Jesus. In a crazy shower the
- coins flew about, striking the faces of the judges, the tables and
- scattering on the floor. Some of the judges sought to shield themselves
- with the palms of their hands, others leaping from their seats shouted
- and cursed. Judas aiming at Annas threw the last coin for which he had
- fished a long time with his trembling hand, and wrathfully spitting
- upon the floor walked out.
- "Well. Well," he growled passing swiftly through lanes and scaring
- little children. "Methinks thou didst weep, Judas, hey? Is Kaiaphas
- really right in calling Judas of Kerioth a stupid fool? He who weepeth
- in the day of the great vengeance is not worthy of it, knowest thou
- this, Judas? Do not let thine eyes get the best of thee, do not let thy
- heart play false. Do not put out the flames with thy tears, Judas of
- Kerioth."
- The disciples of Jesus sat sadly and silently anxiously listening to
- the sounds outside. There was still danger that the vengeance of the
- foes of Jesus would not content itself with His death, and they all
- expected the intrusion of soldiers and perhaps further executions.
- Near John, who as the favorite disciple of Jesus felt the death of the
- Teacher most, sat Mary Magdalene and Matthew, gently comforted him.
- Mary, whose face was swollen with weeping softly stroked his luxuriant
- wavy hair, while Matthew instructively quoted the words of Solomon:
- "He that is longsuffering is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth
- his heart than he that taketh a city."
- At that moment loudly banging the door Judas Iscariot entered the
- room. They leaped to their feet in terror and for an instant failed to
- recognize the newcomer, but when they observed his hateful countenance
- and the redhaired illshaped head they raised an uproar. Peter lifted up
- his hands and cried out:
- "Begone, Traitor, begone lest I kill thee."
- But scanning the face and the eyes of the Traitor they lapsed into
- silence, whispering with awe:
- "Leave him. Leave him. Satan has entered his body."
- Taking advantage of the silence Judas exclaimed: "Rejoice, rejoice,
- ye eyes of Judas the Iscariot. Ye have just seen the coldblooded
- murderers, and now ye behold the cowardly traitors. Where is Jesus? I
- ask of you, where is Jesus?"
- There was something commanding in the hoarse voice of the Iscariot and
- Thomas meekly replied:
- "Thou knowest, Judas, that our Teacher was crucified yesterday."
- "How did you suffer it? Where was your love? Thou, beloved disciple,
- thou, O Rock, where were ye when they crucified your friend upon the
- tree?"
- "But what could we do, judge thyself?" replied Thomas shrugging his
- shoulders.
- "Thou askest this, Thomas? Well, well," replied Judas craning his head
- and suddenly he broke out with vehemence: "He who loves asks not what
- to do. He goes and does all. He weeps, he snaps, he strangles his foe,
- he breaks his limbs. He who loves! When thy son is drowning, goest thou
- into the marketplace and askest the passer-by: 'What am I to do? My son
- is drowning. Dost thou not leap into the water and drown with the son
- together? He who loves!"
- Peter sullenly replied to the frenzied harangue of Judas:
- "I unsheathed the sword but He himself bade me put it up."
- "He bade thee? And thou didst obey?" laughed the Iscariot. "Peter,
- Peter, was it meet to obey Him? Does He understand aught of men and of
- fighting?"
- "He who disobeys Him will go down to the Gehenna of fire."
- "Then why didst thou not go? Why didst thou not go, Peter? Gehenna of
- fire, indeed, what is Gehenna? And why didst thou not go? Why hast thou
- a soul if thou darest not throw it into the fire at will?"
- "Silence, He himself desired this sacrifice," exclaimed John rising to
- his feet. "And His sacrifice was beautiful."
- "Is there a beautiful sacrifice? What sayest thou, beloved disciple?
- Where there is a sacrifice, there is the slayer and the betrayer also.
- Sacrifice is suffering for one and shame for the others. Traitors,
- traitors, what have ye done with this earth? They are gazing upon this
- earth from above and from below with derision, saying: 'Look at this
- earth, on it they crucified Jesus.' And they spit upon it even as I do."
- Judas spat wrathfully.
- "He took upon Himself the sins of all mankind. His sacrifice is
- beautiful," insisted John.
- "Nay, but ye upon yourselves have taken all sin. Beloved disciple!
- Will there not spring up from thee a race of traitors, a brood of
- little-souled liars? Ye blinded men, what have ye done with this
- earth? Ye compassed about to destroy it. You will soon kiss the cross
- whereon ye crucified Jesus. Yes, indeed, you will kiss the cross, Judas
- promises you that."
- "Judas, do riot blaspheme," roared Peter flushing. "How could we kill
- all his foes? There were so many of them."
- "And thou, Peter," angrily retorted John. "Dost thou not see that he is
- possessed of Satan. Get thee hence, tempter. Thou art full of lies. The
- Teacher commanded not to slay."
- "But did He forbid you to die? Why are ye living whereas He is dead?
- Why do your legs walk, your tongues utter folly, your eyes wink,
- whereas He is dead, immovable, voiceless? How dare thy cheeks be red,
- John, whereas His are pale? How darest thou shout, Peter, whereas He is
- silent? What ye should have done, ye ask of Judas? And Judas replies to
- you, beautiful, daring Judas of Kerioth: ye should have died. Ye should
- have fallen on the way, clutching the soldiers' swords and hands. Ye
- should have drowned them in a sea of your own blood; ye should have
- died, died. His very Father should have called out with dread if ye all
- had entered."
- Judas paused, raised his hand, and suddenly noticed on the table the
- remains of a meal. And with a queer amazement, curiously, as if he
- were looking at food for the first time, he closely scrutinized it and
- slowly inquired: "What is this? Ye have eaten? Perhaps slept also?"
- "I have slept," curtly replied Peter, dropping his head, scenting
- already in Judas' manner a tone of command. "I have slept and eaten."
- Thomas resolutely and firmly interposed: "This is all wrong, Judas.
- Think: if we had all died, who would have been left to tell about
- Jesus? Who would carry the teachings of Jesus to the people, if all of
- us had died, John and Peter and I?"
- "And what is truth in the lips of traitors? Does it not turn to
- falsehood? Thomas, Thomas, dost thou not understand that thou art now
- a watchman at the grave of dead truth? The watchman falleth asleep, a
- thief cometh and carrieth away the truth--tell me where is the truth?
- Be thou accursed, Thomas! Fruitless and beggarly wilt thou be forever,
- and ye are accursed with Him."
- "Be thou thyself accursed, Satan," retorted John, and his words were
- repeated by James and Matthew and all the other disciples. Peter alone
- was silent.
- "I go to Him!" said Judas raising aloft his masterful hand. "Who will
- follow the Iscariot to Jesus?"
- "I! I! I am with thee," cried Peter rising. But John and the others
- stopped him with terror, saying: "Madman, dost thou forget that he
- betrayed our Teacher into the hands of His enemies?"
- Peter smote his breast with his fist and wept bitterly.
- "Whither shall I go, Lord? O Lord, whither?"
- * * *
- Long ago, during his solitary rambles, Judas had picked out the spot
- whereon he intended to kill himself after the death of Jesus. It
- was on the side of the mountain, high over Jerusalem, and only one
- tree was growing there, twisted all out of shape, knocked about by
- the wind which tore at it from all sides and half-withered. One of
- its gnarled and leafbare branches it stretched cut over Jerusalem as
- though blessing the city or perhaps threatening it, and this one Judas
- selected whereon to fasten his noose. But the path to the tree was long
- and difficult, and Judas of Kerioth was very tired. Still the same
- sharp little stones rolled from under his feet as if dragging him
- back, and the mountain was high, windswept and gloomy. And Judas sat
- down for a rest several times, breathing heavily, while from the back
- through the crevices there swept over him the chilling breath of the
- mountain.
- "Thou too, accursed hill," contemptuously muttered Judas and breathing
- heavily he shook his benumbed head wherein all thoughts had turned to
- stone. Then suddenly he raised it, opening wide his chilled eyes and
- wrathfully growled:
- "No, they are too bad altogether for Judas. Hearest thou, Jesus? Now
- wilt thou believe me? I am coming. Meet me kindly, for I am weary. I am
- very weary. Then together, with a brother's embrace, we shall return to
- this earth. Is it well?"
- And again opening wide his eyes he murmured: "But perhaps even there
- thou wilt be angry with Judas of Kerioth? And perhaps thou wilt not
- believe? And peradventure, thou wilt send me to hell? Well, what then?
- I shall go to hell. And in the flames of thy hell I shall forge the
- iron to wreck thy heaven. Well? Wilt thou believe me then? Wilt thou
- then go back with me to this earth, O Jesus?"
- Finally Judas reached the top of the mountain and the gnarled tree
- and here the wind commenced to torture him. But when Judas had chided
- it it began to whistle soft and low; the wind started off in another
- direction and was bidding him farewell.
- "Well, well. But those others are curs," responded Judas making a
- noose. And as the rope might play him false and break he hung it
- over the abyss,--if it did break he would still find his death upon
- the rocks. And before pushing himself away from the edge and hanging
- himself over the precipice, Judas once more carefully admonished Jesus:
- "But Thou meet me kindly, for I am very weary, Jesus."
- And he leaped. The rope stretched to its limit, but sustained the
- weight. The neck of Judas grew thin, while his hands and legs folded
- and hung down limply as if wet. He died. Thus within two days, one
- after the other, departed from this earth Jesus of Nazareth and Judas
- of Kerioth, the Traitor.
- All night like some hideous fruit the body of Judas swung over
- Jerusalem; and the wind turned his face now towards the city now to the
- desert. But whichever way his death-marred face turned, its red and
- bloodshot eyes, both of which were now alike, like brothers, resolutely
- gazed upon the sky. Towards morning some observant one noticed Judas
- suspended over the city and cried out in terror. Men came and took him
- down, but learning his identity threw him into a deep ravine where they
- cast the carcases of horses, dogs, cats and other carrion.
- That same night all believers learned of the terrible death of the
- Traitor, and the next day all Jerusalem knew it. Rocky Judea heard
- it, and green-clad Galilee too; and from one sea even to another more
- distant one the news of the death of the Traitor was carried. Not
- swifter nor slower than the passing of time, but step by step with it,
- the message spread; and as there is no end to time there will be no end
- to the stories of Judas' betrayal and his terrible death. And all--the
- good and the bad alike--will curse his shameful memory, and among all
- nations, as many as there are or will ever be, he will remain alone in
- his cruel fate--Judas of Kerioth, the Traitor.
- LAZARUS.
- CHAPTER I.
- When Lazarus emerged from the grave wherein for the space of three days
- and three nights he had dwelt under the mysterious dominion of death,
- and returned living to his abode, the ominous peculiarities which later
- made his very name a thing of dread remained for a long time unnoticed.
- Rejoicing in his return to life, his friends and neighbors overwhelmed
- him with caresses and they satisfied their eager interest by
- ministering to him and caring for his food, his drink and his raiment.
- They clothed him in rich attire, bright with the hues of hope and
- merriment, and when he sat among them once more, arrayed like the
- bridegroom in his wedding garments, and ate and drank once more,
- they wept for joy and summoned the neighbors to view him, who had so
- miraculously risen from the dead. The neighbors came and rejoiced;
- strangers too came from distant cities and villages and in accents of
- tumultuous praise voiced their homage to the miracle--the house of Mary
- and Martha hummed like a beehive.
- All that seemed novel in the features of Lazarus and in his demeanor
- they explained as natural traces of his serious illness and the shock
- through which he had passed. It was manifest that the destructive
- effect of Death upon the corpse had been merely arrested by the
- miraculuous power, but not altogether undone. And what the hand of
- Death had already accomplished upon the face and the body of Lazarus
- was like an artist's unfinished sketch covered by a thin film. A deep
- earthy bluish pallor rested on the temples of Lazarus, below his eyes
- and on his hollow cheeks; his lanky fingers were of the same earthy
- blue and his nails, which had grown long during his sojourn in the
- grave had turned livid. Here and there, on the lips and elsewhere,
- his skin, swollen in the grave, had cracked open and was covered by a
- fine reddish film that glistened like transparent slime. And he had
- grown very fat. His body, inflated in the grave, retained that ominous
- obesity beneath which one scents the putrid sap of dissolution. But
- the cadaverous and fetid odor which had permeated the burial robes of
- Lazarus, and seemingly his very body, soon disappeared completely;
- in the course of weeks even the bluish tint of his hands and of his
- countenance faded, and time also smoothed out the reddish blisters
- though they never vanished altogether. Such was the appearance of
- Lazarus as he faced the world in this his second life. To those who had
- seen him buried it seemed perfectly natural.
- The manner of Lazarus also had undergone a change, but this
- circumstance surprised no one and failed to attract due attention.
- Until his death Lazarus had always been care free and merry. He had
- loved laughter and harmless jests. It was this agreeable and merry
- disposition, free from malice and gloom, that had made him so well
- beloved by the Teacher. But now he was grave and silent. He neither
- jested himself nor responded with an approving smile to the jests of
- others: and the words which he uttered on rare occasions were the
- simplest, most commonplace and indispensable words, as bare of a
- profounder meaning as the sounds with which animals express pain or
- pleasure, thirst and hunger. Such words a man may speak all his life
- and none would ever learn what grieved or pleased him in the depths of
- his soul.
- Thus he sat with the face of a corpse over which for the space of
- three days the hand of death had held sway in the gloom of the
- grave,--arrayed in solemn wedding garments that glistened with ruddy
- gold and blood-red crimson; dull and silent, ominously transformed and
- uncanny, but still undiscovered in his new character, he sat at the
- festive board among his banqueting friends and neighbors. Now tenderly,
- now tempestuously the waves of rejoicing surged around him; fervently
- affectionate glances feasted upon his face that was still numb, with
- the chill of the grave; the warm hand of a friend caressed his blue
- tipped leaden fingers. The music played. They had summoned musicians
- to play merry tunes: the cymbal, the pipe, the lute and the timbrel.
- And it sounded like the humming of bees, like the chirping of crickets,
- like the singing of birds, this rejoicing in the house of Mary and
- Martha.
- CHAPTER II.
- A reckless one lifted the veil. A reckless one, with one breath of a
- fleeting word, destroyed the sweet dreams and revealed the truth in its
- hideous nakedness. The thought was not yet clear in the questioner's
- head when his lips, parting in a smile inquired:
- "Why don't you tell us, Lazarus, what was There?" And they all paused,
- amazed at the query, as though they had just realized that Lazarus
- had been dead three days, and they glanced up curiously awaiting the
- answer. But Lazarus was silent.
- "Will you not tell us?" questioned the curious one "Was is so dreadful
- There?"
- And again the thought failed to keep pace with the words: if it had
- kept abreast with them the question would not have been put, for it
- gripped in the next instant the questioner's own heart with fear
- unutterable. And they were all perturbed, they waited eagerly for the
- reply of Lazarus; but he was dumb, looking cold and stern and downcast.
- And then they noted anew, as though for the first time, the dreadful
- bluish pallor of his countenance and his hideous obesity; his livid
- hand still reposed on the table as though forgotten there. All eyes
- were fixed on that hand in a strange fascination as though expecting
- that it might give the craved reply. The musicians had still been
- playing, but lo! now the silence reached them too, like a rivulet which
- reaches and quenches the scattered coals, and smothered were the sounds
- of merriment. The pipes were mute; the high-sounding cymbal and the
- melodious timbrel were silent; with the sound of a breaking chord, as
- though song itself were dying, tremulously, brokenly groaned the lute;
- and all was still.
- "Thou wilt not?" repeated the questioner unable to repress his prating
- tongue. Silence reigned and the bluish hand reposed on the table and
- did not stir. Then it moved a little, and all heaved a sigh of relief
- and lifted their eyes: Lazarus, the risen, was gazing straight into
- their faces with a glance that took in all,--stolid and gruesome.
- This was on the third day after he had emerged from his grave. Since
- then many had tested the pernicious power of his gaze, but neither
- those whom it wrecked forever, nor those who in the primal sources
- of life that are as mysterious as death itself found force to resist,
- could ever explain the nature of that dreadful, that invisible
- something which reposed in the depths of his black pupils. Lazarus
- looked into the world calmly and frankly without seeking to hide
- anything, without any thought of revealing anything; his gaze was as
- cold as the glance of one infinitely indifferent to all things living.
- Many thoughtless people jostled him in the street failing to recognize
- him, and only later learned the identity of that quiet corpulent man
- the edge of whose gaudy and festive apparel had brushed against them.
- The sun shone as brightly as ever, the fountains murmured their song,
- and the native sky remained as cloudless and azure as before, but
- those who had fallen under the sway of that mysterious glance neither
- felt the glow of the sun, nor heard the fountain nor recognized the
- sky. Some of these wept bitterly, others tore their hair in despair
- and madly called to their friends for help, but mostly it happened
- that they began to die, languidly, without a struggle, drooping for
- many weary years, pining away under the eyes of their friends, fading,
- withering, listless like a tree drying up silently on rocky ground. And
- the first, who cried and stormed, came sometimes back to life, but the
- others--never.
- "Then thou wilt not tell us, Lazarus, what thou hast seen There?" for
- the third time repeated the insistent inquirer. But now his voice
- was dull and weary, and deathly grey languor looked from his eyes.
- And the same deathly dull languor hid the faces of the others like a
- veil of dust: they exchanged glances of dreary wonderment as though
- at a loss to grasp why they had met around the richly laden table.
- The conversation lagged. The guests began to feel vaguely that it was
- time to go home, but they were too weak to overcome the viscous and
- paralyzing listlessness that had robbed their muscles of strength, and
- they kept their seats, each for himself, isolated like dimly flickering
- lights scattered about the field in the darkness of night.
- But the musicians were paid to play, and once more they took up their
- instruments and the air was filled with the sounds of music: but the
- notes, both merry and mournful, sounded mechanical and forced. The same
- familiar melody was unrolled before the ears of the guests, but the
- latter listened in wonderment: they could not understand why people
- found it necessary or amusing to have others pull at tightly drawn
- strings or whistle with inflated cheeks through thin reeds to produce
- the oddly discordant noises.
- "How badly they play!" someone said.
- The musicians felt hurt and departed. One after another the guests
- left too, for the night had already fallen. And when the calm of night
- surrounded them, and they had begun to breathe at ease there rose
- before each one of them the image of Lazarus: the blue cadaverous face,
- the wedding garments, gaudy and sumptuous, and the frigid stare in the
- depths of which had congealed the Horrible. As though, turned to stone
- they stood in different corners, and darkness enveloped them; and in
- that darkness more and more vividly burned the dreadful vision of him
- who for three days and for three nights had been under the mysterious
- spell of Death. Three days he had been dead; three times the sun rose
- and set, and he was dead; the children played, the brooks coursed
- babbling over the stones, the biting dust swept over the highway,--but
- he was dead. And now he was again among the living--touching them,
- looking at them--LOOKING at them! and from the black orbs of his
- pupils, as through a dark glass, there gazed upon the people the
- inscrutable Beyond.
- CHAPTER III
- No one took care of Lazarus; he had retained no neighbors or friends,
- and the great desert which enchained the Holy City had encroached to
- the very threshold of his dwelling. And it entered his house, made
- itself broad on his couch, like a spouse, and quenched the fire in his
- hearth. One after the other his sisters, Mary and Martha, forsook him;
- for a long time Martha had loathed to leave him, not knowing who would
- feed him and comfort him; she wept and prayed.
- But one night when the wind swept over the desert and whistled through
- the tops of the cypress trees bending them over the roof of his hut,
- she quietly dressed and quietly went out into the darkness. Lazarus
- might have heard the slamming door, he might have heard it banging
- against the doorposts as it failed to shut tightly. But he did not
- rise, he did not step out, he did not investigate. And all through the
- night until the morn the cypress trees rustled overhead, and the door
- piteously knocked against the posts letting in the cold, the greedy,
- the insistent desert.
- He was shunned as a leper, and as a leper they almost forced him
- to wear a bell around his neck in order to warn the people of his
- approach, but someone, with blanching cheek, suggested how dreadful it
- would be to hear the bell of Lazarus in the dead of night outside the
- windows,--and with blanching cheeks the people agreed with him.
- And as he did nothing for himself, he would probably have starved
- had not his neighbors, impelled by a strange fear, saved some food
- for him. Children carried it to him. They did not fear him, neither
- did they mock him, as, with innocent cruelty, they often laugh at
- unfortunate beings. They were indifferent to him, and Lazarus evinced
- the same indifference toward them. Given over to the ravages of time
- and the encroachments of the desert, his house was falling to wreck
- and ruin, and his flock of goats, bleating and hungry, had a long time
- since scattered among his neighbors. His wedding garments too had grown
- old. Just as he had donned them on that happy day when the musicians
- played he had worn them ever since, without change, as though unable to
- see the difference between the new and the old, the torn and the whole.
- The bright colors had faded and paled; the wicked dogs of the city and
- the sharp thorns of the desert had rent the delicate fabric into shreds.
- In the day time when the merciless sun consumed all that was living,
- and the very scorpions sought refuge under the stones writhing with
- a frenzied desire to sting he sat unmoved beneath the burning rays,
- holding aloft his blue streaked face and shaggy wild beard.
- While yet the people stopped to talk to him, someone once inquired:
- "Poor Lazarus, it evidently pleases thee to sit and look upon the sun?"
- and he replied:
- "Yes. It pleases me."
- So severe must have been the cold of those three days in the grave, so
- dense its gloom, that there was not any heat nor any light upon earth
- strong enough to warm Lazarus, bright enough to illumine the darkness
- of his eyes,--thus thought the curious as they departed sighing.
- And when the sun's luridly crimson disc descended to earth Lazarus
- retired into the desert and walked straight towards the sun as though
- striving to catch up with it. Always he walked straight towards the
- sun, and those who tried to follow him in order to learn what he did at
- night in the desert had indelibly impressed on their memory the black
- silhouette of a tall and corpulent man against the crimson back-ground
- of the mighty orb. The night with its terrors drove them back, and they
- never learned what Lazarus was doing in the desert, but the image of
- the black shadow on a crimson background burned itself on their brain
- and refused to leave them. Like an animal frenziedly rubbing its eyes
- to remove a cinder they stupidly rubbed their eyes, but the impression
- left by Lazarus was not to be blotted out, and death alone granted
- oblivion.
- But there were people afar off who had never seen Lazarus, having
- merely heard rumors of him. These with a daring curiosity that is
- stronger than fear and feeds on fear, with a secret sneer in their
- hearts, ventured to approach him as he basked in the sun, and engaged
- in conversation with him. By this time the appearance of Lazarus had
- somewhat changed for the better, and he no longer looked so terrifying.
- And in the first moment they snapped their fingers and thought
- disapprovingly of the folly of the inhabitants of the Holy City. And
- when their short conversation was over, they wended their way home, but
- their appearance was such that the inhabitants of the Holy City at once
- recognized them saying:
- "There goes another madman upon whom Lazarus has cast his glance," and
- they paused raising their hands with compassion.
- Brave warriors came rattling their arms, men who knew no fear; with
- laughter and songs came happy hearted youths; careworn traders,
- jingling their coins, ran in for a moment; and the haughty temple
- attendants left their staffs at the door of Lazarus,--but none returned
- the same as he had come. The same horrible pall sank upon their souls
- and imparted a novel appearance to the old familiar world.
- Those who still felt like talking thus described their impressions.
- "All objects visible to the eye and sensible to the touch became empty,
- light and diaphanous like unto luminous shadows flitting through the
- gloom."
- "A great darkness enveloped the universe; and was not dispelled by the
- sun, the moon or the stars, but enshrouded the earth with a boundless
- black pall, embracing it like a mother."
- "It penetrated all objects, even iron and stone, and the particles
- thereof lost their union and became lonely; it penetrated even into the
- hearts of the particles unto the severing of the very atoms."
- "For the great void that surrounds the universe was not filled by
- things visible, by sun, moon or stars, but shoreless it stretched
- penetrating all things, severing all things, body from body, particle
- from particle."
- "In emptiness the trees spread out their roots and the very trees
- seemed empty."
- "In emptiness tottering to a phantom ruin, and empty themselves, rose
- ghostly temples, palaces and houses."
- "And in that waste Man moved restlessly, and he too was empty and light
- like unto a shadow."
- "For there was no more time, and the beginning of all things and the
- end thereof met face to face."
- "The sound of the builders' hammers was still heard as they reared the
- edifice, but its downfall could be seen already, and behold, emptiness
- soon yawned over the ruins."
- "Hardly a man was born, before funeral tapers gleamed at his bier;
- these barely flickered an instant, and emptiness reigned in the place
- of the Man, the funeral tapers and the bier."
- "In the embrace of Gloom and Waste; Man trembled hopelessly with the
- dread of the Infinite."
- Thus spoke those who had still a desire to speak. But those who would
- not speak and died in silence could have probably told much more.
- IV.
- At that time there lived in Rome a celebrated sculptor. Out of clay,
- marble and bronze he fashioned the forms of gods and of men, and such
- was the beauty of his work that men proclaimed it immortal. But the
- sculptor himself was dissatisfied with it and claimed that there was
- something else to strive for, a beauty that was truly supreme, such as
- he had never yet been able to fix in marble or bronze. "I have not yet
- garnered the splendor of the moon," he was wont to say. "I have not
- yet caught the radiance of the sun. My marble lacks soul, my beautiful
- bronze lacks life." At night, beneath the moonlit sky, he roamed about
- the highways, crossing the black shadows of cypress trees, his white
- tunic gleaming in the light of the moon, and friends who chanced to
- meet him hailed him in jest: "Art thou gathering moonlight, Aurelius?
- And where be thy baskets?"
- And joining in their laughter he made reply, pointing to his eyes:
- "Behold the baskets wherein I gathered the light of the moon and the
- radiance of the sun."
- And he spoke the truth, for the light of the moon gleamed in his eyes,
- the radiance of the sun glowed in them. But he could not convert them
- into marble, and this was the radiant sorrow of his life.
- He came from an ancient patrician family, had a loving wife and dutiful
- children, and lacked nothing.
- When a dim rumor concerning Lazarus reached his ear, he consulted his
- wife and friends and undertook the long journey to Judea in order to
- see him who had so miraculously risen from the dead. The monotony of
- life weighed heavily upon him in those days and he hoped that the
- journey would awaken his interest in the world. What he had heard
- concerning the risen one did not deter him, for he had pondered much
- upon death, though he had no longing for it. Neither had he patience
- with those who would confuse death with life. "On this side life and
- its beauty," he reasoned, "and on the other, death with its mystery.
- Nothing better could one imagine than to live and enjoy life and the
- glory of living." And he even entertained a somewhat vain and glorious
- notion of convincing Lazarus that this was the true view and of
- bringing him back to life, even as his body had been brought back to
- life.
- This seemed an easy task for him, for the rumors concerning the risen
- one, fearsome and strange as they were, failed to convey the whole
- truth and only vaguely hinted at something' dreadful.
- Lazarus was rising from his rock for his journey into the desert in
- the path of the setting sun, when the rich Roman, accompanied by an
- armed slave, approached him, and in a sonorous voice called to him:
- "Lazarus!"
- Lazarus beheld a haughty and handsome man, resplendent with fame, clad
- in white apparel bearing precious gems that sparkled in the sunshine.
- The radiance of the sun lent to the head and the features a semblance
- of dull bronze. After his scrutiny Lazarus obediently resumed his seat,
- and listlessly looked to the ground.
- "Truly thou art not fair to look upon, poor Lazarus," calmly observed
- the Roman, toying with his golden chain. "Thou art even terrifying
- in appearance, poor fellow; and Death was no sluggard the day thou
- so carelessly didst fall into its clutches. But thou art as fat as a
- wine barrel, and the great Caesar says that fat people are harmless.
- I cannot see why people are so afraid of thee. Thou wilt permit me to
- stay overnight? It is already late and I have no abode."
- Nobody had ever sought permission to pass a night with Lazarus.
- "I have no couch to offer thee," said he.
- "I am somewhat of a soldier and can sleep sitting," replied the Roman.
- "We shall light a fire."
- "I have no fire."
- "In the darkness then like two comrades shall we hold our converse. I
- suppose thou hast some wine here?"
- "I have no wine."
- The Roman laughed. "Now I comprehend why thou art so morose and why
- thou takest no delight in thy second life. Thou hast no wine. Very
- well. We shall do without. Thou knowest there are words that turn one's
- head even as Falernian wine."
- With a motion of his hand he dismissed the slave and they were left
- alone. And again the sculptor spoke, but it seemed that with the
- sinking sun the glow of life had departed from his words, for they
- lost color and substance. They reeled and slipped and stumbled, as
- though unsteady of foot of drunken with the wine of anguish and dismay.
- Yawning chasms appeared between them like distant hints of a vast void
- and utter darkness.
- "I am thy guest now and thou wilt not offend me, Lazarus", he said.
- "Hospitality is a duty even for those who have been dead three days.
- For they say that thou didst pass three days in the grave. It must
- have been very chilly there, and it is thence comes thy bad habit of
- doing without wine and fire. But I love the fire. It grows dark here
- so early. The line of thy brow and forehead is quite noteworthy, even
- as the skyline of palaces ruined by an earthquake and buried beneath
- ashes. But why is thy apparel so odd and unattractive? I have seen the
- bridegrooms in thy country arrayed like this, such absurd attire, such
- repulsive garments! But art thou then a bridegroom?"
- The sun had already vanished and gigantic black shadows came hurrying
- from the east, as though the bare feet of giants came rustling over the
- sands, and the chill breath of swiftly fleeing wind blew up behind them.
- "In the darkness thou seemest even bigger oh Lazarus, as though thou
- hast grown stouter in these last few minutes. Dost thou perchance feed
- on darkness? But I should like some fire, just a little blaze the
- tiniest flame would do.... And I am a trifle cold...."
- "You have here such barbarously chilly nights If it were not pitch dark
- I should say that thou art looking at me, Lazarus. Yes, methinks thou
- ART looking at me. I feel it. Now thou art smiling!"
- The night had set in and a dense blackness filled the air.
- "How good will it be when the sun rises again on the morrow.... Thou
- knowest I am a great sculptor. My friends call me so. I create, yes I
- create things, but daylight is needed for that. I impart life unto the
- cold lifeless marble. In the fire I melt the ringing bronze, in a vivid
- and glowing fire.... Why touchest thou me with thy hand?"
- "Come", said Lazarus, "thou art my guest." And they entered the house.
- And the shadows of a long night descended upon the earth.
- The slave who had grown tired waiting for his master called for him
- when the sun had already risen high overhead. And he saw under its
- rays Lazarus and his master huddled closely together. They were gazing
- upward in silence.
- The slave wept aloud and called to his master: "Master, what troubleth
- thee? Master!"
- The same day Aurelius left for Rome. The whole way he was pensive and
- silent, scrutinizing everything, the people, the ship and the sea,
- as though struggling to commit something to memory. A fierce tempest
- overtook them, and all the while Aurelius remained on the deck gazing
- eagerly on the rising and sinking waves.
- At home the change that had taken place in him caused consternation,
- but he calmed the apprehensions of his household and observed
- significantly: "I have found it."
- In the same raiment that he had worn during the journey without change
- he went to work, and the marble obediently responded to the resounding
- blows of his hammer. He worked long and eagerly, refusing to admit any
- one; at last one morning he announced that his work was ready, and
- summoned all his friends, the severe critics and experts in art. He
- attired himself into sumptuous and festive garments that sparkled with
- gold and shone with the purple of Bysson.
- "Behold what I have created", he said musingly.
- His friends gazed on the work and the shadow of a deep sorrow clouded
- their faces. The group was simply hideous to look upon: it possessed
- none of the forms familiar to the eye, though it was not devoid of a
- dim suggestion of some novel and fanciful image. Upon a twisted thin
- little twig, or rather upon the misshapen likeness of one, crouched an
- unsightly, distorted mass of crude fragments that seemed to be weakly
- striving to flee in all directions. And casually, under a crude ridge
- they observed a wondrously wrought butterfly, with diaphanous wings
- that was all aquiver with the futile longing to soar skyward.
- "Why this wondrously wrought butterfly, Aurelius?" someone dubiously
- inquired.
- "I don't know", replied the sculptor.
- But the truth has to be told, and one of his friends (the one who loved
- him best) interposed: "My poor friend, this is a monstrosity. It must
- be destroyed. Give me the hammer."
- And with two blows of the hammer he destroyed the hideous heap, sparing
- only the wondrous butterfly.
- From that time on Aurelius created nothing. He gazed with profound
- indifference upon marble and bronze and upon his former godlike
- creations wherein beauty immortal dwelt. In the hope of inspiring him
- once more with his old zeal for work and of reviving his moribund
- soul, his friends led him to view the beautiful work of others, but he
- maintained the same lack of interest, and no warming smile ever parted
- again his tightly drawn lips. Only when they ventured to hold lengthy
- speeches on love and beauty he wearily and listlessly replied:
- "But all this is a lie."
- And in the daytime when the sun was shining he strolled into his
- luxurious garden, and seeking out some spot undimmed by the shade he
- yielded up his uncovered head and lacklustre eyes to radiance and
- warmth. Red and white butterflies flitted about the garden, from
- the contorted lips of a blissfully drunken Satyr the water splashed
- coursing down into the marble cistern, but he sat unmoved like a faint
- shadow of him who in a distant land sat as immobile at the very gates
- of the desert beneath the arid rays of the midday sun.
- CHAPTER V.
- And now Augustus himself, the great, the divine, summoned Lazarus to
- appear before him.
- They attired him in sumptuous wedding garment, for time and usage
- seemed to have prescribed these as befitting him as though he had
- remained until his death the betrothed of some unknown bride. It was as
- though an old, decaying and decrepit coffin were regilded and adorned
- with fresh gaudy tinsel. And he was conducted by a sumptuously garbed
- and gay cortege, as though in truth it were a bridal procession, and
- the heralds loudly sounded their trumpets clearing the way for the
- messengers of the emperor. But the path of Lazarus was deserted. His
- native land had learned to execrate the odious name of the miraculously
- risen one, and the mere news of his dread approach was sufficient to
- scatter the people. The blasts of the brass horns fell on the solitude
- and only the desert air responded with a melancholy echo.
- Then they took him across the sea. And it was the most gorgeous and
- the saddest ship that was ever mirrored against the azure waves of
- the Mediterranean There were many people aboard, but the vessel was
- as mute and silent as the grave and the very waves seemed to sob
- hopelessly as they laved the beautifully curved and lofty prow. Lazarus
- sat alone, holding his bared head to the sun, listening in silence to
- the murmur of the waters, and afar off the sailors and the messengers
- lounged around feebly and listlessly huddled together like a cluster
- of despondent shadows. If a clap of thunder had rent the air, if a
- sudden gale had torn the gaudy sails, the ship would have doubtlessly
- perished for there was none on board with strength or zeal enough to
- struggle for life. With a last weak effort some stepped to the rail and
- eagerly gazed into the blue and transparent abyss waiting perhaps for a
- mermaid's pink shoulder to flash from the deep or for some drunken and
- joy maddened centaur to gallop by splashing the foam of the sea with
- his hoofs.
- With stolid indifference Lazarus set foot on the streets of the
- Eternal City, as though all its wealth, the majesty of its structures
- that seemed to have been reared by giants, the splendor, the beauty,
- the music of its elegance were simply the echo of the desert wind,
- the reflex of Palestine's arid sands. Chariots sped by, crowds of
- handsome, sturdy, haughty men passed on, the builders of the Eternal
- City, the proud participants of her bustling life; the air filled
- with the notes of songs, the murmur of fountains, the pearly cadences
- of women's laughter! drunkards held pompous speeches and the sober
- listened smilingly; and the horseshoes clattered and clatterer upon
- the pavements. Caught all around by the whirlpool of noisy merriment
- there moved through the city like a blot of icy silence one fat and
- clumsy creature sowing in his path annoyance, wrath and a vaguely
- cankering grief. Who dare be sad in Rome? The citizens were indignant
- and frowned, and two days later the whole ready tongued Rome knew of
- the miraculously resurrected one and timidly avoided him.
- But there were in Rome many brave people eager to test their prowess,
- and to their thoughtless challenge Lazarus readily responded. Busy
- with the affairs of state the Emperor delayed receiving him and the
- miraculously risen one for seven days in succession paid visits to
- those who would see him.
- A merry winebibber met Lazarus and hailed him with carefree laughter on
- his ruddy lips.
- "Drink, Lazarus, drink!" he shouted. "How Augustus would laugh to see
- thee drunk!"
- And drunken women laughed at the sally, while they showered rose leaves
- on the blue-streaked hands of Lazarus. But the winebibber looked into
- his eyes--and his joy was forever ended. He remained drunken for life:
- he drank no more, yet he remained drunken but in the place of joyous
- reveries which the wine yields, horrible dreams haunted his ill-fated
- soul. Horrible dreams became the sole nourishment of his stricken
- spirit. Horrible dreams held him day and night in the spell of their
- hideous fancies, and death itself was less terrible than appeared his
- ferocious precursors.
- Lazarus called on a youth and a maiden, lovers and fair to look on in
- their love. Proudly and firmly grasping the woman he loved the youth
- remarked with gentle compassion:
- "Look on us, Lazarus, and rejoice with us. Is there aught stronger than
- love?"
- And Lazarus looked. And they ceased not from loving all their life
- long, but their love became gloomy and somber, like the cypress trees
- that grow above tombs, feeding their roots on the dissolution within
- the grave and seeking vainly in the evening hour to reach heaven with
- their dusky and pointed tops. Thrown by the unfathomable force of life
- into each other's arms they mingled their kisses with tears, their
- joy with pain, and realized their twofold bondage: the humble slaves
- of inexorable life and the helpless bondsmen of ominous and mute
- Nothingness. Ever united, ever parted, they flashed upwards like sparks
- and like sparks faded in shoreless gloom.
- Then came Lazarus to a haughty sage and the sage told him:
- "I know all the terrors that thou canst relate to me, Lazarus.
- Wherewith wilt thou terrify me?"
- But it was not long before the sage realized that the knowledge of
- the horrible is not the horrible, and that the vision of death is not
- death itself. And he realized that wisdom and folly are the equals
- in the sight of the Infinite, for the Infinite knows them not. And
- the boundaries between knowledge and ignorance, between truth and
- falsehood, between height and depth vanished, and his formless thoughts
- were suspended in emptiness. Then he seized his grey head in his hands
- and cried out in agony:
- "I cannot think! I cannot think!"
- Thus succumbed to the stolid gaze of the miraculously risen one all
- things that served to affirm life, its meaning and its joys. And it
- was said that it would be dangerous to allow him to face the Emperor,
- that it would be safer to put him to death and burying him secretly
- to spread the rumor that he had disappeared without leaving a trace.
- Swords were already sharpened and some youths devoted to the welfare
- of the nation volunteered to be his slayers, when suddenly Augustus
- demanded to have Lazarus brought before him on the morrow and upset
- their cruel plans.
- Though it was impossible to remove Lazarus, it was thought best to
- soften somewhat the dreary impression produced by his appearance.
- For this reason skilled artists were summoned, also hair arrangers
- and masters of make-up and they labored all night over the head of
- Lazarus. They trimmed his beard, curled it and made it appear neat
- and attractive. The livid coloring of his face and hands was removed
- by means of paint: his hands were bleached and his cheeks touched up
- with red. The repulsive wrinkles of suffering that furrowed his senile
- features were patched up, painted and smoothed over, and lines of
- goodnatured laughter and pleasant cheerful good humor were skillfully
- drawn in their place.
- Lazarus submitted stolidly to all they did with him and soon was
- transformed into a naturally corpulent handsome old man, who looked
- like a harmless grandfather with numerous descendants. One could almost
- see the trace of a smile on his lips with which he might have related
- to them laughable stories, one almost detected in the corner of his
- eyes the calm tenderness of old age,--such was his quiet and reassuring
- appearance. But they had not dared to take off his wedding attire, nor
- could they change his eyes,--dark and dreadful glasses through which
- there peered upon the world the unfathomable Beyond.
- CHAPTER VI.
- The magnificence of the Imperial palace failed to impress Lazarus.
- There might have been no difference between his ramshackle but at the
- threshold of the desert and the splendid and massive palace of stone,
- so stolidly indifferent was his unobserving glance. Under his feet the
- solid marble slabs seemed to turn to the sinking sand of the desert,
- and the throngs of gaily attired and haughty Romans might have been
- thin air. They avoided looking into his face as he passed, fearing
- to succumb to the baneful spell of his eyes; but when they judged
- from the sound of his footsteps that he had passed on, they paused
- and raising their heads with a little fearsome curiosity watched the
- departing figure of the tall, corpulent, slightly stooping old man who
- was slowly wending his way into the heart of the Imperial' palace. If
- Death itself had passed by they would not have glanced after it with
- greater awe. For until then Death had been known unto the dead only and
- life unto the living and there had been no bridge between the twain.
- But this strange being knew Death, and awful, ominous, accursed was his
- knowledge. "He will be the death of our great and divine Augustus",
- mused some of them anxiously and muttered curses in his wake as he
- slowly and stolidly made his way more and more deeply into the palace.
- Caesar had already learned the story of Lazarus and nerved himself to
- meet him. He was a man of daring and courage and thoroughly conscious
- of his own invincible power. In this fateful encounter with the risen
- one he chose not to lean upon the feeble aid of men. Face to face, man
- to man he met Lazarus.
- "Do not lift up thine eyes to me, Lazarus," he commanded him as the
- stranger entered. "I have heard that thy head is like Medusa's turning
- to stone him who ventures to look upon thee. But I desire to talk with
- thee and to examine thee before I am turned to stone", he added with an
- Imperial attempt at a jest that was not unmixed with a little awe.
- Approaching him he examined attentively the face and the queer apparel
- of Lazarus, and though he prided himself on his sharp and observant eye
- he was deceived by the skill of the artists.
- "Well, thou art not so terrible, worthy patriarch. But it is all the
- worse for people if the terrible assumes such a dignified and agreeable
- guise. Now let us converse."
- Augustus sat down and with a glance that was as searching as his words
- he commenced to question him.
- "Why didst thou not salute me as thou earnest in?"
- Lazarus replied:
- "I did not know that it was necessary."
- "Art thou a Christian?"
- "No."
- Augustus nodded approvingly.
- "Good. I dislike these Christians. They shake the tree of life before
- it yields its full fruitage and scatter to the wind its blossoming
- fragrance. But what art thou?"
- With an effort Lazarus replied:
- "Once I was dead."
- "So I have heard. But what art thou now?"
- Lazarus hesitated and again replied listlessly, stolidly:
- "Once I was dead."
- "Listen to me, thou enigma", resumed the Emperor, in measured and
- severe words voicing the thoughts which had been in his mind before.
- "My empire is the empire of the living, my people is a living people
- and not dead. Thou art out of place here. I do not know thee, I do not
- know what thou hast seen There. But whether thou liest--I abhor thy
- lying, and if thou be telling the truth I abhor thy truth. In my bosom
- I feel the throbbing of life. I feel vigor in my hands, and my proud
- thoughts soar like eagles through space. And there, behind me, under
- the protection of my dominion, in the shadow of laws created by me,
- people live and labor and rejoice. Hearest thou this wondrous harmony
- of life? Hearest thou this warlike challenge which men fling into the
- face of the future summoning it to a combat?"
- Augustus reverently raised his hands and solemnly exclaimed:
- "Blessed be Thou Great and Divine Life!"
- But Lazarus was silent and with added severity the Emperor continued:
- "Thou art out of place here. Thou art a pitiful remnant, a half-eaten
- scrap from the table of Death, thou breathest into people melancholy
- and hatred of life. Thou art like the locust that eateth the full ear
- of grain knitting the slime of despair and despondency. Thy truth is
- like unto the rusty sword in the hands of a murderous night prowler,
- and I shall put thee to death like an assassin. But ere I do this I
- will gaze into thine eyes. Perhaps only the cowards fear them, perhaps
- they will wake the thirst of conflict and longing for victory in the
- brave. If that be so thou meritest a reward, not death. Look then upon
- me, Lazarus."
- And at first Augustus fancied as though a friend were looking upon him,
- so gentle, so caressing, so tenderly soothing was the gaze of Lazarus.
- It boded no terrors but calm and repose, it was the gaze of a tender
- lover, of a compassionate sister: through his eyes Infinity gazed even
- as a mother. But the embrace grew stronger and stronger until his
- breath was stopped by lips that seemed to crave for kisses. And in
- the next instant he felt the iron fingers plowing through the tender
- tissues of his flesh, and cruel claws sank slowly into his heart.
- "I am in pain", moaned Divus Augustus with blanching cheek. "Yet, look
- on me still, Lazarus, look on."
- As though through slowly opening gates that had been shut for aeons
- the horror of the Infinite poured coldly and calmly out of the growing
- breach. Fathomless waste and fathomless darkness entered like twin
- shadows quenching the light of the sun, removing the ground underfoot,
- obliterating all overhead. And pain left the benumbed heart of Augustus.
- "Look, look still, Lazarus", commanded he reeling.
- Time ceased and the beginning of things faced the end thereof in an
- ominous meeting. The throne of Augustus, so recently reared, was
- overthrown; a barren waste reigned in the place of Augustus and of his
- throne. Rome herself had gone to a silent doom, and a new city rose in
- her place, only in her turn to be swallowed up by nothingness.. Like
- phantom giants cities and states and empires swiftly fell and vanished
- into emptiness, swallowed up in the insatiable maw of the Infinite.
- "Stop", commanded Caesar, and already a note of indifference sounded in
- his voice. His arms hung limply from his shoulders, and his eagle eyes
- now flashed, now grew dim in a futile struggle against the darkness
- that threatened to overwhelm him.
- "Thou hast slain me, Lazarus", he stammered listlessly.
- And these words of hopelessness saved him. He remembered his people
- whose shield he was called to be, and his moribund heart was pierced
- with a sharp and redeeming pang. He thought of them bitterly as he
- pictured them doomed to ruin. He thought of his people with anguish
- in his soul as he saw them like luminous shadows flitting through
- the gloom of the Infinite. Tenderly he thought of them as of brittle
- vessels throbbing with life blood and endowed with hearts that know
- both sorrow and joy.
- Thus reasoning and feeling, with the balance now favoring life, now
- inclined towards death, he slowly fought his way back to life, to find
- in its sufferings and joys a shield against the emptiness and the
- terror of the Infinite.
- "No, thou hast not slain me, Lazarus", he exclaimed, with firmness,
- "but I shall slay thee, Go!"
- That night Divus Augustus partook of food and drink with a keen
- delight. But there were moments when the uplifted arm paused in mid-air
- and a shadow dimmed the lustre of his shining aquiline eyes,--it was
- like a wave of icy horror beating against his feet. Downed, but not
- utterly destroyed, coldly awaiting the appointed hour, the spirit of
- Fear cast its shadow into the Emperor's life, standing guard at the
- head of his bed as he slumbered at night and meekly yielding the sunny
- days to the joys and the sorrows of life.
- Next day, by the Emperor's command, they burned out the eyes of Lazarus
- with hot irons and sent him back to his native land. Divus Augustus
- dared not put him to death.
- * * *
- Lazarus returned to the desert, and the desert received him with the
- breath of the hissing wind and the arid welcome of the consuming sun.
- Once again he sat on the rock, raising aloft his shaggy neglected
- beard. In the place of the two burned-out eyes twin black sockets
- peered dull and gruesome at the sky. In the distance surged the
- restless roar of the Holy City, but near him all was deserted and dumb.
- No one came near the place where the miraculously risen one was passing
- the end of his days, and his neighbors had long since forsaken their
- abodes. His accursed knowledge, banished by the searing irons into the
- depths of his head, lay there concealed as though in ambush; as though
- from ambush it assailed the beholder with a myriad invisible eyes, and
- no one dared now look at Lazarus.
- And in the evening, when the sun, ruddy and swollen, was sinking in the
- west, sightless Lazarus slowly groped after it. He stumbled over stones
- and fell, fat and weak as he was, then he rose heavily and walked
- on. And against the crimson canvas of the sunset his dark form and
- outstretched arms gave him a monstrous resemblance to the cross.
- And it happened one day that he went and never returned. Thus
- apparently ended the second life of Lazarus, who had been three days
- under the dominion of Death and miraculously rose from the dead.
- LIFE OF FATHER VASSILY.
- A strange and mysterious fate pursued Vassily Feeveysky all through his
- life. As though damned by some unfathomable curse, from his youth on he
- staggered under a heavy burden of sadness, sickness and sorrow, and the
- bleeding wounds of his heart refused to heal. Among men he stood aloof,
- like a planet among planets, and a peculiar atmosphere, baneful and
- blighting, seemed to enshroud him like an invisible, diaphanous cloud.
- The son of a meek and patient parish priest, he was meek and patient
- himself, and for a long time failed to observe the ominous and
- mysterious deliberation with which misfortunes persistently broke over
- his unattractive shaggy head.
- Swiftly he fell, and slowly rose to his feet; fell again, and slowly
- rose once more, and laboriously, speck by speck, grain by grain, set to
- work restoring his frail anthill by the side of the great highway of
- life.
- But when he was ordained priest and married a good woman, begetting by
- her a son and a daughter, he commenced to feel that all was now well
- and safe with him, just as with other people, and would so remain for
- ever. And he blessed God, for he believed in Him solemnly and simply,
- as a priest and as a man in whose soul there was no guile.
- And it happened in the seventh year of his happiness, in the noon hour
- of a sultry day in July, that the village children went to the river
- to swim, and with them went Father Vassily's son, like his father
- Vassily by name, and like him swarthy of face and meek in manner. And
- little Vassily was drowned. His young mother, the Popadya,[1] came
- running to the river bank with the crowd, and the plain and appalling
- picture of human death engraved itself indelibly on her memory: the
- dull and ponderous thumping of her own heart, as though each heart beat
- threatened to be her last; and the odd transparence of the atmosphere
- in which moved hither and thither the humdrum familiar figures of
- people, though now they seemed so strangely aloof, as if severed from
- the earth; and the disconnected, confused hubbub of voices, with each
- word rounding in the air and slowly melting away as new sounds come
- into being.
- And she conceived a lifelong fear of bright and sunny days. For at such
- times she saw again the barricade of muscular backs gleaming white
- in the light of the sun, and the bare feet planted firmly among the
- trampled cabbage heads, and the rhythmic swing of something bright
- and white in the trough of which freely rolled a light little body,
- so gruesomely near, so gruesomely far, and for ever estranged. And
- long after little Vassya[2] had been buried, and the grass had grown
- over his grave, the Popadya kept repeating that prayer of all bereaved
- mothers: "Lord, take my life, but give me back my child."
- Soon Father Vassily's whole household learned to dread the bright days
- of summer time, when the sun shines too glaringly and sets ablaze
- the treacherous river until the eyes cannot bear the sight of it. On
- such days, when the people, the beasts and the fields all around were
- radiant with gladness, the members of Father Vassily's household were
- wont to watch his wife with awestricken eyes, engaging purposely in
- loud conversation and laughter, while she, sluggish and indolent, rose
- to her feet, eyeing the others so fixedly and queerly that they were
- forced to avert their gaze, and languidly lolled through the house, as
- though hunting for some needless article, a key, or a spoon or a glass.
- Whatever she needed was carefully placed in her path, but she continued
- to seek, and her search increased in intentness and agitation in the
- measure that the bright and merry orb of the sun rose higher in the
- firmament. And she approached her husband, placing her lifeless hand on
- his shoulder and kept repeating in a pleading voice.
- "Vassya! Vassya! Isay!"
- "What is it, dear?" meekly and hopelessly responded Father Vassily,
- trying to smooth her disheveled hair with trembling fingers that were
- sunburnt and black with the soil and were badly in want of trimming.
- She was still young and pretty, and her arm rested upon the shabby
- cassock of her husband as though carved of marble, white and heavy.
- "What is it, dear? Will you have some tea now? You have not had any
- yet."
- "Vassya! Vassya, I say!" she repeated pleadingly, removing her arm from
- his shoulder like some needless, superfluous object, and returned to
- her searching, only still more restlessly and excitedly. Walking all
- through the house, not a room of which had been tidied, she passed
- into the garden, from the garden into the court yard, and again into
- the house, while the sun rose higher and higher, and through the trees
- could be seen a flash of the warm sluggish river. And step after
- step, clinging tightly to her mother's skirt, Nastya, the Popadya's
- daughter, shambled after her, morose and sullen, as though the black
- shadow of impending doom had lodged itself even over her little
- six-year-old heart. She anxiously hurried her little steps to keep
- pace with the distracted big stride of her mother, casting furtively
- yearning glances upon the familiar, but ever mysterious and enticing
- garden, and she longingly stretched out her disengaged hand towards a
- bush of sour gooseberries, and stealthily plucked a few, though the
- sharp thorns cruelly scratched her. And the prick of these thorns that
- were sharp as needles, and the acid taste of the berries, intensified
- the scowl on her face, and she longed to whimper like an abandoned pup.
- When the sun reached the zenith, the Popadya closed tightly the
- shutters in the windows of her room, and in the darkness gave herself
- up to liquor until she was drunken, drawing from each drained glassful
- fresh pangs of agony and searching memories of her perished child.
- She shed bitter tears, and in the awkward drone of an ignorant person
- trying to read aloud out of a book, she kept telling over and over
- again the story of a meek and swarthy little boy who had lived, laughed
- and died; and with this bookish singsong she resurrected his eyes and
- his smile and his oldfashioned manner of speech.
- "'Vassya', I say to him, 'why do you tease kitty? Don't tease her,
- dear. God told us to be merciful to all--to the little horsies, and to
- the kittens and to the little chicks'. And he lifts up his sweet eyes
- to me, the darling, and says: 'And why isn't kittie merciful to little
- birdies? See the pigeons have raised their little ones, and kittie eats
- up the pigeons, and the little birdies are calling, calling for their
- mamma.'"
- And Father Vassily listened meekly and hopelessly, while outside,
- under the closed shutters, amid burdocks, nettles and thistles, little
- Nastya sat sprawling on the ground, and played sulkily with her doll.
- And always her play was this: dollie refused to mind and was punished
- and she twisted dollie's arms till she thought they hurt and whipped
- her with a twig of nettles.
- When Father Vassily had first found his wife in a state of inebriety,
- and from her rebelliously agitated, bitterly exulting face had realized
- that this thing had come to stay, he shriveled up and the next moment
- burst cut in a fit of subdued, senseless laughter, rubbing his hot
- dry hands. And a long time he laughed, a long time he kept rubbing
- his hands; he strove to restrain this desire to laugh, which was so
- obviously out of place, and turning aside from his sobbing wife, he
- snickered softly into his fist like a naughty school boy. Then just as
- abruptly he turned serious, his jaws snapped like metal; but not a word
- of comfort could he utter to the hysterical woman, not a caressing word
- could he find for her. But when she had fallen asleep, the priest bent
- down, making three times the sign of the cross over her. Then he went
- cut and found little Nastya in the garden, coldly patted her on the
- head and stalked out into the fields.
- For a long time he followed a little path through the rye which was
- standing fairly high in the field and looked down into the soft white
- dust which here and there retained the impress of heels and the outline
- of someone's bare feet. The sheaves nearest to the path were crushed
- to the ground, some lying across the path, and the grain was crushed,
- blackened and flattened.
- Where the path turned, Father Vassily stopped. Ahead of him and all
- around him swayed the full grain on slender stalks, overhead was the
- shoreless blazing sky of July grown white with the heat, and nothing
- more: not a tree, not a hut, not a man. Alone he stood, lost in the
- dense field of grain, alone before the face of Heaven--set high above
- him and blazing.
- Father Vassily lifted up his eyes--they were little eyes, sunken and
- black as coal; they were aglow with the bright reflection of the
- heavenly flame, and he pressed his hands to his breast and tried to
- say something. The iron jaws quivered, but did not yield. Gnashing his
- teeth the priest forced them apart, and with this movement of his lips
- that resembled a convulsive yawn, loud and distinct came the words:
- "I--believe!"
- Unechoed in the wilderness of sky and of fields was lost this wailing
- orison that so madly resembled a challenge. And as though contradicting
- some one, as though passionately pleading with some one and warning
- him, he repeated once more:
- "I--believe."
- And returning home, once more, speck by speck, grain by grain, he fell
- to the work of restoring his wrecked anthill: he watched the milking
- of cows, with his own hands he combed Nastya's long and coarse hair,
- and despite the late hour he drove ten versts into the country for
- the district physician in order to seek his advice with regard to his
- wife's ailment. And the doctor prescribed her some drops.
- II.
- No one liked Father Vassily, neither his parishioners, nor the vestry
- of the church. He intoned the service awkwardly, without decorum: his
- voice was dry and indistinct, and he either hurried so that the deacon
- had a hard time to keep up with him, or he fell behind without rime
- or reason. He was not covetous, but he accepted money and donations so
- clumsily that all believed him to be greedy and scoffed at him behind
- his back. And everybody knew that he was unlucky in his private life
- and avoided him, considering it a poor omen to meet him or to talk with
- him. His Saint's Day[5] was celebrated on November the twenty-eighth.
- He had invited many to dinner, and in compliance with his ceremonious
- invitation every one promised to come, but only the vestrymen made
- their appearance, and of the better parishioners not a soul attended.
- And he was humiliated before the vestrymen, but the Popadya felt the
- insult most keenly, for the delicacies and wines which she had ordered
- from the city had to go to waste.
- "No one even cares to come and see us," she said, sober and downcast,
- when the last of their few guests had departed, noisy and drunken,
- after a senseless gorging, having paid no regard to the rare vintage of
- wines or to the quality of the food.
- But it was the head of the vestry, Ivan Porfyritch Koprov, who treated
- the priest worse than the rest of the parishioners. He openly exhibited
- his contempt for the luckless man, and when the Popadya's periodical
- lapses into appalling inebriety had become a public scandal, he refused
- to kiss the priest's hand. And the good-natured deacon tried vainly to
- reason with him.
- "Shame on thee. It is not the man, but his holy office that must be
- respected."
- But Ivan Porfyritch stubbornly refused to dissociate the office from
- the man, and replied:
- "He is a worthless man. He can neither keep himself in order, nor
- his wife. Is it right for a spiritual adviser's wife to persist in
- drunkenness, without shame or conscience? Let my wife try and go on a
- spree, I'd stop her quickly."
- The deacon shook his head reproachfully and mentioned the
- long-suffering of Job, how God had loved him, but turned him over to
- Satan to be tried, but later rewarded him an hundredfold for all his
- sufferings. But Ivan Porfyritch smiled scornfully into his beard and
- without the slightest compunction cut short the disagreeable admonition.
- "Don't tell me, I know. Job, so to speak, was a righteous man, a holy
- man, but what is this one? Where is his righteousness? Rather remember,
- deacon, the old proverb: God marks a rogue. There is sound sense in
- that proverb."
- "Wait, the priest will get even with thee, for refusing to kiss his
- hand. He'll drive thee out of the church."
- "We'll see about that."
- "All right, we'll see."
- And they bet a gallon of cherry brandy whether the priest would expel
- him or not. The vestry man won; next Sunday he turned his back on the
- priest with an insolent air, and the hand which the priest had extended
- to be kissed, burnt brown it was from the sun--remained desolately
- suspended in midair, and Father Vassily flushed a deep purple, but did
- not say a word.
- And after this incident which was much talked about in the village,
- Ivan Porfyritch became still more firmly convinced that the priest was
- a bad and an unworthy man and began to incite the villagers to complain
- to the bishop and to ask for another parish priest. Ivan Porfyritch
- himself was a man of wealth, very fortunate in all things, and enjoyed
- general esteem. He had an impressive face, with firm round cheeks and
- an immense black beard, and his whole body was covered with a growth of
- dense black hair, particularly his legs and his chest, and he believed
- that hairiness was a sign of great good luck. He believed in his luck
- as firmly as he believed in God, and considered himself an elect among
- the people; he was proud, self-reliant and invariably in good spirits.
- In a terrible railroad wreck in which a multitude of people had
- perished, he merely lost a cap which had been trampled into the mire.
- "And it was an old one at that!" he was wont to add with much
- self-satisfaction, evidently considering this incident an eloquent
- proof of his merits.
- He regarded all men as rogues and fools, and knew no mercy towards
- either variety. It was his habit with his own hands to strangle the
- pups, of whom his black setter Gipsy presented him yearly a generous
- litter; only the strongest one among them he suffered to live for
- breeding purposes, though he willingly distributed some of the others
- to those who wanted a dog, for he considered dogs to be useful animals.
- In forming opinions Ivan Porfyritch was rash and unreasonable, but he
- easily departed from them, without noticing his inconsistencies; yet
- his actions were uniformly firm and resolute and only rarely erroneous.
- And all this made the head of the vestry a terrible and an
- extraordinary personage in the eyes of the hunted priest. When they
- met, he was the first to raise his broad-rimmed hat, which he did with
- indecorous haste, and as he walked away, he felt that his gait grew
- faster and more shuffling, revealing itself as the gait of a man who
- was scared and ashamed, and his scrawny legs were tangled in the folds
- of his cassock. It seemed as though his very fate, cruel and enigmatic,
- was personified in that immense black beard, in those hairy hands, and
- in that resolute, straight stride, and if he did not crumple up and
- slink away and hide behind his four walls, this menacing monster would
- crush him like an ant.
- And whatever pertained to Ivan Porfyritch or belonged to him, aroused
- the eager interest of the priest, so that some times for days at a
- stretch he could think of nothing else but of the churchwarden, his
- wife, his children, his wealth. Working with the peasants in the
- fields, (in his coarse, tarred boots and in his cheap working blouse he
- greatly resembled an humble peasant) Father Vassily would often turn
- his face to the village, and the first sight that greeted his eyes
- alongside of the church, was the red iron roof of the churchwarden's
- two-story house. Then behind the greying green of wind-wrecked willows
- he traced with difficulty the outline of the weather-beaten shingle
- roof of his own little home; and the sight of these two so contrasting
- roofs filled the heart of the priest with the anguish of hopelessness.
- One feast day the Popadya returned from the church in tears and told
- her husband that Ivan Porfyritch had grossly insulted her. As she was
- making her way to her place, he remarked from behind the lectern,
- loudly enough for the whole congregation to hear:
- "This drunken wench ought not to be allowed in the church at all. She's
- a disgrace!"
- As the Popadya sobbingly related this incident to her husband, Father
- Vassily observed with horrible and merciless clearness how she had aged
- and come down in the four years which had passed since Vassya's death.
- She was still young, but silver threads were running through her hair,
- the teeth once so white had turned black, and her eyes were baggy.
- She was now a confirmed smoker, and it was painful to watch her puffing
- a cigarette which she held in a clumsy, feminine fashion between
- two rigidly extended fingers. She smoked and wept and the cigarette
- trembled between her lips that were swollen with sobbing.
- "Why, oh why, oh Lord?" she kept repeating in anguish, and with the
- intentness of stupor she gazed through the window against which
- pattered the chill drops of a September rainstorm. The panes were dim
- with water, and the birch outside, heavy with rain drops, seemed to
- sway back and forth with the shadowy deliquescence of a specter. In
- their efforts to save fuel, they had not yet started heating the house,
- and the air in the room was damp and chilly and almost as uncomfortable
- as outdoors.
- "What can you do with him, Nastenka?"[5] retorted the priest rubbing
- his dry warm hands. "We must bear it."
- "Lord, Lord, is there not a soul to take my part?" wailed the Popadya,
- and in the corner gazed dry and immobile the wolfish eyes of skulking
- little Nastya through a hedge of coarse and unkempt hair.
- The Popadya was drunk before bedtime, and then ensued that appalling,
- abominable, piteous scene which Father Vassily could never thereafter
- recall without a sense of chaste horror and of consuming, unbearable
- shame. In the morbid gloom of tightly closed shutters, amid the
- monstrous visions born of alcohol, in the wake of obstinate wails
- for her lost first-born, his wife had conceived the insane notion of
- bringing a new son into the world. To resurrect his sweet smile, to
- resurrect those eyes that once had sparkled with benign radiance, 'to
- bring back his calm and sensible speech: to resurrect the lad himself,
- as he had lived in the glory of his sinless childhood, as he had
- appeared on that horrible day in July when the sun blazed so brightly
- and the treacherous river glistened so blindingly. And consumed with
- a frenzy of hope, all beauteous and hideous with the flames that had
- enwrapped her, the Popadya stormily demanded her husband's caresses,
- pleaded for them with piteous humility. She coyly primped herself, she
- coquetted with him, but the expression of horror never passed from
- his face. She strove with the energy of passionate anguish to become
- again as tender and desirable as she had been ten years back, and she
- tried to assume a shy, maidenly look, whispering coy, girlish words,
- but her liquor-lamed tongue refused to obey her, and through her shyly
- lowered eyelashes ever more luridly and obviously flashed the flame
- of passionate desire, while the swarthy face of her husband remained
- transfixed with horror. He had covered his burning head with his hands,
- weakly whispering:
- "Don't! Don't!"
- And she sank to her knees and hoarsely pleaded:
- "Have pity on me! Give me back my Vassya! Give him back to me, priest!
- I say, give him back to me, curse you!"
- And the autumnal rain gusts beat fiercely against the tightly closed
- shutters, and the stormy night heaved deep and painful sighs.
- Cut off from world and life by the walls and the curtain of night,
- they seemed to be whirling in the throes of a frenzied labyrinthic
- nightmare, and around them swirled wails and curses that would not die.
- Madness stood guard at the door; the searing air was its breath; and
- its eyes the lurid glare of the oil lamp stifling in the maw of a
- soot-grimed globe.
- "You will not? You will not?" cried the Popadya, and with maniacal
- yearning for motherhood she tore off her raiment, shamelessly baring
- her body, ardent and terrible like a Bacchante, piteous and pathetic
- like a mother mourning for her child. "You will not? Then before God I
- tell you I'll go out into the street. I will throw myself on the neck
- of the first man I meet. Give me back my Vassya, curse you!"
- And her passion vanquished the chaste-hearted priest. To the weird
- moaning of the autumnal storm, to the sound of her frenzied babble,
- life itself, the eternal liar, seemed to bare her dark and mysterious
- loins, and through his darkening consciousness flashed like a gleam of
- distant lightning a monstrous conception: of a miraculous resurrection,
- of some far-off miraculously hazardous chance. And to the demoniac
- passion of the Popadya, heart-chaste and shamefaced, he responded
- with a passion as frenzied, wherein all things blended: the glory of
- hope, and the fervor of prayer, and the boundless despair of a great
- malefactor.
- In the dead of night, when the Popadya had fallen into a heavy sleep,
- Father Vassily took his hat and his stick, and without stopping to
- dress, in a shabby nainsook cassock went out into the fields. The storm
- had subsided. The vapory drizzle had spread a moist and chilly film
- over the rainsoaked earth. The sky was as black as the earth, and the
- night of autumn breathed utter desolation. Within its gloomy maw the
- man had vanished, leaving no trace. Once his stick knocked against a
- boulder that chanced to lie in its path, then all was still, and a
- lasting silence ensued. A lifeless vapory mist stifled each timid
- sound in its icy embrace. The moribund foliage did not stir, not a
- voice, not a cry, not a groan was heard. Long lasted the silence--and
- it was the silence of death.
- And far beyond the village, away from any human habitation, an
- invisible voice pierced the gloom. It was a voice that was broken,
- choking and hoarse, like the moaning of infinite loneliness. But the
- words it spoke were as clear as celestial fire:
- "I--believe!" said the invisible voice. And in it were mingled menace
- and prayer, warning and hope.
- III.
- In the spring the Popadya knew that she would be a mother; all through
- the summer she abstained from liquor, and a peace, serene and joyous,
- was enthroned in Father Vassily's household. But the invisible foe
- still dealt his blows: now the twelve-pood[6] hog which they had
- fattened for the market took sick and died; now little Nastya broke
- out all over her body in a malignant rash and refused to respond to
- treatment. But all these blows were borne lightly, and in the innermost
- recesses of her heart the Popadya even secretly rejoiced thereat: she
- was still doubtful of her great good fortune, and all these calamities
- seemed to be a premium which she was glad to pay for its assurance. She
- felt that if the prize hog fattened at such expense had died on her
- hands, if Nastya ailed so persistently, if anything else went wrong and
- caused repining, then no one would dare to lay a finger on her coming
- son or to harm him. But as for him, why, she would give up not only
- the whole household and her little daughter Nastya, but even her own
- body and soul would she gladly yield to that relentless unseen one who
- clamored for continual sacrifices.
- She had improved in looks and ceased even to fear Ivan Porfyritch
- himself, and as she walked to her accustomed place in church she
- proudly paraded her rounded form and looked about with daring and
- selfreliant glances. And lest she should harm the babe in her womb,
- she had stopped all housework and was passing daily long hours in the
- neighboring fiscal forest, amusing herself by picking mushrooms. She
- was in mortal terror of the ordeal of birth, and resorted to fortune
- telling with mushrooms, trying to forecast whether the birth would pass
- off favorably or not; and mostly the answer was favorable. Sometimes
- under the impenetrable green dome of lofty branches, in some dark and
- fragrant bed of last season's leaves, she gathered a small family of
- little white mushrooms, all huddled together, darkheaded and naive,
- and resembling a brood of little children, and their appearance evoked
- in her keen pangs of tenderness and affection. With that saintly
- smile peculiar to people who in solitude yield themselves up to truly
- pure and noble meditation, she cautiously dug the fibrous ashen-gray
- soil around the roots, and seating herself on the ground beside her
- mushrooms, gazed at them for a long time caressingly, a little pale
- from the greenish shadows of the forest, but fair to look upon, gentle
- and serene. And then she rose and walked on with the cautious waddling
- gait of a woman on the eve of childbirth, and the ancient forest, the
- hiding place of numberless little mushrooms, seemed to her a thing of
- life, wisdom and goodness. Once she took Nastya along for company,
- but the child capered, frolicked and raced through the bushes like a
- boisterous wolf-pup and interfered with her mother's thoughts; and she
- never took her again.
- And the winter was passing quietly and happily. She spent her evenings
- busily sewing a multitude of tiny shirts and swaddling cloths, or
- pensively stroking the linen with her white fingers upon which the oil
- lamp threw its bright glow.
- She smoothed the soft fabric and stroked it with her hand, as though
- caressing it, thinking the while intimate thoughts of her own, the
- wonderful thoughts of motherhood, and in the blue reflection of the
- lampshade her beautiful face seemed to the priest as though illumined
- by some sweet and gentle radiance that came from within. Fearing by
- some incautious movement to disturb her beautiful and happy dreams,
- Father Vassily softly paced about the room, and his feet, clad in felt
- slippers, touched the floor gently and noiselessly. He let his gaze
- dwell now on the living room, cozy and agreeable like the face of a
- cherished friend, now on the figure of his wife, and all seemed well,
- just like in other people's homes, and everything about him breathed
- peace, profound and serene. And his soul was peaceful and smiling,
- for he neither saw, nor felt that from somewhere there had fallen the
- diaphanous shadow of great grief and was now silently resting on his
- forehead, somewhere between his eyebrows. For even in these days of
- rest and peace a stern and mysterious fate was hovering over his life.
- On the eve of Epiphany, the Popadya gave birth to a boy and he was
- named Vassily. His head was large and his legs were thin and little,
- and there was something strangely vacant and insensate in the immobile
- stare of his globe-shaped eyes. For the space of three years after the
- child's birth the priest and his wife lived 'twixt fears, doubts and
- hopes, but when three years had passed it became evident that little
- Vassya had been born an idiot.
- Conceived in madness, he had come into the world a madman.
- IV.
- Another year passed in the benumbed stupefaction of grief, but when
- they emerged from this comatose state and began to look about, they
- discovered that above their thoughts and their lives sat enthroned
- the monstrous image of the idiot. The household routine went on as in
- olden days; they built their fires, they discussed their daily affairs,
- but something new and dreadful had come into their lives: no one had
- any real interest in life, and all things were going to pieces. The
- farm hands loafed, refused to obey orders, and frequently gave notice
- without any apparent cause, and those who were hired in their place
- soon fell into the same queer state of indifference and restlessness
- and commenced to be insolent. Dinner was served either too late or
- too early, and someone was always missing from the table: either
- the Popadya, or little Nastya, or Father Vassily himself. From some
- unfathomable sources there appeared an abundance of tattered garments:
- the Popadya kept saying that she must darn her husband's socks, and
- she even fussed with them, but the socks remained unmended and Father
- Vassily was footsore. And at night everyone in the house tossed about
- restlessly, tormented by vermin which came crawling from all crevices,
- and shamelessly paraded upon the walls, and try as they might, nothing
- seemed able to stop their loathsome invasion.
- And wherever they went, whatever they undertook, they could not for
- a moment forget, that there in the darkened room sat one, unexpected
- and monstrous, the child of madness. When they left the house to go
- outdoors, they tried hard to keep from turning around or from glancing
- back, but something compelled them to glance back, and then it seemed
- to them that the framehouse itself in which they dwelt was conscious
- of some terrible change within: it stood there squat and huddled,
- as though in an attitude of listening, listening to that misshapen
- and dreadful thing that was contained within its depths, and all its
- bulging windows, its tightly shut doors seemed barely able to suppress
- an outcry of mortal anguish.
- The Popadya went frequently visiting and spent hours at a stretch
- in the house of the deacon's wife, but even there she failed to
- find rest, as though from the idiot's side came forth threads of
- cobweb thinness--and stretched out towards her, binding her to him
- indissolubly and for all eternity. And though she were to flee to the
- ends of the earth, though she were to hide behind the high walls of a
- nunnery, even though she were to seek escape in death, then into the
- very gloom of her grave those weblike threads would pursue her and
- enmesh her with fears and anguish.
- And even their nights lacked peace: the faces of the sleepers seemed
- stolid, but within their skulls, in their dreams and waking nightmares
- the monstrous world of madness returned to life, and its lord was this
- same mysterious and dreadful image, half-child and half-brute.
- He was four years old but had not yet learned to walk and could utter
- but one word: "give"; he was spiteful and obstinate, and if anything
- was denied him he screamed with piercing, ferocious animal cries and
- stretched out his hands with fingers that were rapaciously curved.
- And in his habits he was as filthy as an animal, performing his bodily
- functions wherever he chanced to be, and it was agonizing to attend to
- him: with the cunning of malice he awaited the moment when his mother's
- or sister's hair came within his reach, and then he tenaciously
- clutched at it, tearing it out by the roots in handfuls. Once he
- bit Nastya, but she flung him back on the bed and beat him long and
- mercilessly, as though he were not human, not a child, but a mere piece
- of spiteful flesh, and after this beating he developed a fondness for
- biting and snapped menacingly, showing his teeth like a dog.
- It was also a difficult task to feed him: greedy and impatient, he
- could not gauge his movements, and would upset the dish, choking as he
- tried to swallow and wrathfully stretching his curving fingers towards
- the feeder's hair. And his appearance was repulsive and horrible: on a
- pair of narrow, almost baby-like shoulders rested a small skull with
- an immense, immobile, broad face, the size of an adult's. There was
- something disquieting and terrifying in this monstrous incongruity
- between face and body, and it seemed as though a child had for some
- reason put on an immense and repulsive mask.
- And the tortured Popadya commenced to drink as in the days of old. She
- drank heavily, to unconsciousness and delirium, but even mighty alcohol
- could not release her from the iron circle in the centre of which
- reigned the horrible and monstrous image of the semichild, semi-beast.
- And as of yore she sought to find in liquor burning sorrowful memories
- of the perished firstborn, but the memories refused to come, and the
- lifeless insensate void yielded neither image nor sound. With every
- fibre of her inflamed brain she strove to resurrect the sweet face of
- the little gentle lad; she sang his favorite ditties; she imitated
- his smile; she pictured to herself his agony as he was choking and
- strangling in the turbid waters; and she felt his nearness, felt the
- flames of the great and passionately desired grief blaze up within
- her heart, but with abrupt swiftness--unperceived by eye or ear--the
- conjured vision, the longed for grief, vanished into nothingness, and
- out of the chilling lifeless void the monstrous, motionless mask of
- the idiot was staring into her eyes. And she felt as though she had
- just buried her little Vassya, buried him anew, interring him deeply
- in the bowels of the earth, and she longed to shatter her faithless
- head in the inmost depths of which so insolently reigned an alien and
- abominable image.
- Terror-stricken she tossed about the room, calling her husband:
- "Vassily! Vassily! Come--quick!"
- Father Vassily came and without opening his mouth sat down in a far
- corner of the room; and he was unconcerned and still, as though there
- had been no outcry, no madness, no terror. And his eyes were invisible;
- but under the heavy arch of his eyebrows yawned the immobile black of
- two sunken spots, and his haggard face resembled a skeleton's skull.
- Leaning his chin on his scrawny arm, he seemed congealed in torpid
- silence and immobility, and remained in this attitude until the Popadya
- quieted down by degrees. Then with the intense care of a maniac she
- painstakingly barricaded the door which led into the idiot's room. She
- dragged in front of it every table and chair she could find, piling
- cushions and clothing upon them, and still the barricade seemed too
- frail to suit her. And with the strength of drunkenness she wrenched
- a ponderous antique chest of drawers from its accustomed place, and
- scratching the floor in so doing she dragged it towards the door.
- "Move the chair aside," she called to her husband all out of breath,
- and he rose in silence, cleared the place for her and once more resumed
- his seat in the corner.
- For a moment the Popadya appeared to regain her composure and sank into
- a chair, breathing heavily and holding her hand to her breast, but
- in the next instant she sprang to her feet again, and flinging back
- her disheveled hair to release her ears she listened in terror to the
- sounds which her morbid imagination seemed to conjure up beyond the
- wall:
- "Hear it, Vassily? Hear it?"
- The two black spots gazed upon her unmoved and a stolid distant voice
- answered:
- "There's nothing there. He is sleeping. Calm yourself, Nastya."
- The Popadya smiled the glad and radiant smile of a comforted child, and
- irresolutely sat down on the edge cf the chair.
- "Do you mean it? Is he sleeping? Did you see it yourself? Don't lie,
- it's a sin to tell lies."
- "I saw him. He is asleep."
- "But who is talking back there?"
- "There is no one there. You only imagine it."
- And the Popadya was so pleased that she laughed out loud, shaking her
- head in amusement and warding off something with an uncertain movement
- of her hand: as though some ill-disposed joker out of deviltry had
- tried to frighten her and she had seen through the joke and was now
- laughing at him. But like a stone that falls into a fathomless abyss
- her laughter fell into space without evoking an echo and died right
- there in loneliness, and her lips were still curved in a smile while
- the chill of new terror appeared in her eyes. And such stillness
- reigned in the room that it seemed as though no one had ever uttered a
- laugh there; from the scattered pillows, from the overturned chairs, so
- queer to look upon in their upset state, from the ponderous chest of
- drawers so clumsily skulking in its unwonted position, from all sides
- there stared upon her the greedy expectancy of some dire misfortune, of
- some unknown horrors which no human had ever gone through before. She
- turned to her husband--in the dark corner she saw a dimly grey figure,
- lanky, erect and shadowy like a spectre; she leaned over: and a face
- peered at her, but it was not with its eyes that it peered; these were
- hidden by the dark shadow of the eyebrows; it seemed to peer at her
- with the white spots of its haggard cheekbones and of the forehead. She
- was breathing fast--with loud, terrified gasps, and softly she moaned:
- "Vassya, I am afraid of you! You're so strange ... Come here, come to
- the light!"
- Father Vassily obediently moved to the table, and the warm glow of
- the lamp fell upon his face, but failed to evoke a responsive warmth.
- Yet his face was calm and was free from fear, and this sufficed her.
- Bringing her lips close to his ear, she whispered:
- "Priest, do you hear me, priest? Do you remember Vassya--that other
- Vassya?"
- "No."
- "Ah!" joyously exclaimed the Popadya. "You don't? I don't either. Are
- you scared, priest? Are you? Scared?"
- "No."
- "Then why do you groan when you sleep? Why do you groan?"
- "Just so. I suppose I am sick."
- The Popadya laughed angrily.
- "You? Sick? You--sick?" with her finger she prodded his bony, but broad
- and solid chest. "Why do you lie?"
- Father Vassily was silent. The Popadya looked wrathfully into his cold
- face, with a beard that had long known no contact with the trimming
- shear and protruded from his sunken cheeks in transparent clumps, and
- she shrugged her shoulders with loathing.
- "Ugh! What a fright you have become! Hateful, mean, clammy like a frog.
- Ugh! Am I to blame that he was born like that? Tell me. What are you
- thinking about? Why are you forever thinking, thinking, thinking?"
- Father Vassily maintained silence, and with an attentive, irritating
- gaze studied the bloodless and distorted features of his wife. And when
- the last sounds of her incoherent speech died away, gruesome, unbroken
- stillness gripped her head and breast as though with iron clamps and
- seemed to squeeze from her occasional hurried and unexpected gasps:
- "And I know ... I know ... I know, priest...."
- "What do you know?"
- "I know what are you thinking about." The Popadya paused and shrunk
- from her husband in terror. "You--don't believe ... in God. That's
- what!"
- And having uttered this she realized how dreadful was what she had
- said, and a pitiful pleading smile parted her lips that were swollen
- and scarred with biting, burnt with liquor and red as blood. And she
- looked up gladly, when the priest, with blanching cheeks, sharply and
- didactically replied:
- "That is not true. I believe in God. Think before you speak."
- And silence once more, stillness once more, but now there was in this
- silence something soothing, something that seemed to envelop her like a
- wave of warm water. And lowering her eyes, she shyly pleaded:
- "May I have a little drink, Vassya? It will help me to go to sleep,
- it's getting late," and she poured out a quarter of a glassful of
- liquor, adding irresolutely more and more to it, and draining the glass
- to the bottom with little, continuous gulps, with which women drink
- liquor. And the glow of warmth returned to her breast, she now longed
- for gaiety, noise, lights and for the sound of loud, human voices.
- "Do you know what we'll do, Vassya? Let's play cards, let's play
- 'Fools'[7]. Call Nastya. That will be nice. I love to play 'Fools'.
- Call her, Vassya, dear. I'll give you a kiss for it."
- "It is late. She is sleeping."
- The Popadya stamped the floor with her foot. "Wake her. Go!"
- Nastya came in, slender and tall like her father, with large clumsy
- hands, that had grown coarse with toil. Shivering with the cold, she
- had wrapped a short shawl about her shoulders and was counting the
- greasy deck of cards without emitting a sound.
- Then silently they sat down to a boisterously funny card game--amid the
- chaos of overturned furniture, in the dead of night, when all the world
- had long sought the oblivion of sleep--men, and beasts and fields.
- The Popadya joked and laughed and pilfered trumps out of the deck,
- and it seemed to her that the whole world was laughing and jesting,
- but the moment the last sound of her words died in the air, the same
- threatening and unbroken stillness closed over her, stifling her. And
- it was terrible to look upon the two pairs of mute and scrawny arms
- that moved slowly and silently over the table, as though these arms
- alone were alive and the people who owned them did not exist. Then
- shivering, as though with a crazedly drunken expectation of something
- supernatural, she looked up above the table--two cold--pallid--sullen
- faces loomed desolately in the darkness and swayed back and forth
- in a queer and wordless whirl--two cold, two sullen faces. Mumbling
- something, the Popadya gulped down another glassful of liquor, and
- once more the scrawny hands moved noiselessly, and the stillness began
- to hum, and someone else, a fourth one made his appearance behind the
- table. Someone's rapaciously curved fingers were shuffling the cards,
- then they shifted to her body, running over her knees like spiders,
- crawling up towards her throat.
- "Who's here?" she cried out leaping to her feet and surprised to find
- the others standing up and watching her with terrified glances. Yes
- there were only two of them: her husband and Nastya.
- "Calm yourself, Nastya. We're here. There's no one else here."
- "And he?"
- "He is sleeping."
- The Popadya sat down and for a moment everything stopped rocking and
- slipped back into place. And Father Vassily's face looked kind.
- "Vassya! And what will happen to us when he starts to walk?"
- It was little Nastya who replied:
- "I was giving him his supper to-night and he was moving his legs."
- "It's not so," said the priest, but his words sounded dead and distant,
- and all at once everything started to circle in a frenzied whirl,
- lights and gloom began to dance, and eyeless spectres nodded to her
- from every side. They rocked to and fro, blindly they crept upon her,
- tapping her with curved fingers, tearing her garments, strangling her
- by the throat, plucking her hair and dragging her somewhere away. But
- she clutched the floor with broken finger nails and screamed out loud.
- The Popadya was beating her head against the floor, striving
- impetuously to flee somewhere and tearing her clothes. And so powerful
- was she in the raging frenzy which seized her that Father Vassily and
- Nastya could not handle her unaided, and they were forced to summon the
- cook and a laborer. It required the combined efforts of all four to
- overpower her; then they tied her arms and legs with towels and laid
- her on the bed, and Father Vassily remained with her alone. He stood
- motionless by the bedside and watched the convulsive writhings and
- twitchings of her body and the tears that were flowing from beneath the
- tightly shut eyelids. In a voice that was hoarse with screaming she
- pleaded: "Help! Help!"
- Wildly piteous and terrible was this desolate cry for help, and
- there was no response. Darkness, dull and dispassionate, enveloped
- it like a shroud, and in this garment of the dead the cry was dead.
- The overturned stools were kicking up their legs absurdly, and their
- bottoms blushed with shame. The ancient chest of drawers stood awry
- and distracted, and the night was silent. And ever fainter, ever more
- pitiful sounded this lonely cry for help:
- "Help! I suffer! Help! Vassya, my darling Vassya...."
- Father Vassily never stirred from the spot, but with a cool and oddly
- calm gesture, he raised up his hands and clasped his head even as his
- wife had done a half hour before, and as calmly and deliberately he
- brought them down again, and between his fingers trembled threads of
- black and greying hair.
- V.
- Among people, mid their affairs and conversations, Father Vassily was
- so evidently a man apart, so unfathomably alien to all, that he did
- not seem human at all, but a moving cerement. He did whatever others
- did, he talked, he worked, he ate and drank, but it seemed at times
- as though he merely imitated others, while he personally lived in a
- different world that was inaccessible to any. And all who saw him asked
- themselves: what is this man thinking about? so manifest on his every
- movement was the impress of deep thought. It was seen in his ponderous
- gait, in the deliberateness of his halting speech, when between two
- spoken words yawned black chasms of hidden and distant thought; it hung
- like a heavy film over his eyes, and nebulous was his distant gaze
- that faintly glowed beneath his shaggy overhanging eyebrows. Sometimes
- it was necessary to speak to him twice before he heard and responded.
- And sometimes he neglected to greet others, and because of this some
- accounted him haughty. Thus once he failed to greet Ivan Porfyritch.
- The churchwarden was astounded for a moment, then hurried back and
- overtook the priest who was walking slowly.
- "You've grown proud, Father! Won't even greet a man!" he said
- mockingly. Father Vassily looked up at him in surprise, blushed a
- little and apologized:
- "Pardon me, Ivan Porfyritch, I did not notice you." The churchwarden
- attempted to look down upon him, measuring him with a look of censure,
- but for the first time he realized that the priest was the taller of
- the two, although the churchwarden was reputed to be the tallest man
- in the parish. And the churchwarden found something agreeable in this
- discovery, for unexpectedly to himself he invited the priest to call on
- him:
- "Come and see me some day, Father."
- And several times he glanced back, in order to size up the receding
- figure of the priest. Even Father Vassily was pleased, but only for a
- moment. He had hardly taken two steps, when the burden of persistent
- thought, heavy and hard like a millstone, succeeded in stifling the
- memory of the churchwarden's kindly words and crushed the quiet and
- bashful smile that was on its way to his lips. And he lapsed again into
- thought--thinking of God and of people and of the mysterious fate of
- human life.
- And it happened during confession; fettered by his immovable thoughts
- Father Vassily was coldly putting the customary queries to some old
- woman, when he was suddenly struck by an odd thing which he had never
- noticed before: there he stood calmly prying into the innermost secret
- thoughts and feelings of another, and that other looked up to him with
- awe and told him the truth--that truth which it is not given to anyone
- else to know. And the wrinkled countenance of the old woman assumed a
- peculiar expression, it became brightly radiant, as though the darkness
- of night reigned all around, but the light of day was falling on that
- face alone. And suddenly he interrupted her and asked:
- "Art thou telling the truth, woman?"
- But what the old woman answered he heard not. The mist had departed
- from before his face, with flushing eyes--as though a bandage had
- fallen from them--he was gazing in amazement upon the face of the
- woman, and it seemed to him to bear a peculiar expression: clearly
- outlined upon it was some mysterious truth of God and of life. On the
- old woman's head, beneath an openwork kerchief, Father Vassily noticed
- a parting line, a narrow grey strip of skin running through hair that
- was carefully combed on either side of it. And this parting line, this
- absurd care for an ugly, aged head that nobody else had any use for,
- was likewise a truth: the sorrowful truth of the ever lonely, ever
- sorrowful human existence. And it was then, for the first time in his
- life of forty years, that Father Vassily became aware with his eyes and
- with his hearing and with every one of his senses that beside him there
- were other creatures on earth'--creatures that were like him, having
- their own lives, their own sorrows, their own fates.
- "And hast thou children?" hurriedly he inquired, interrupting the old
- woman again.
- "They're all dead, Father!"
- "All dead?" inquired the priest in surprise.
- "All dead," she repeated and her eyes became bloodshot.
- "And how dost thou live?" inquired Father Vassily in amazement.
- "How should I live?" cried the woman. "I live by alms."
- Stretching out his neck, Father Vassily from the height of his immense
- stature riveted his gaze upon the old woman but did not utter a sound.
- And his long, scraggy face, fringed by his disheveled hair, seemed so
- strange and terrible to the woman that she was chilled to the tips of
- the fingers which she was holding clasped before her breast.
- "Go now," sounded a stern voice above her.
- Strange days commenced now for Father Vassily, and something unwonted
- was going on in his mind; hitherto only this had been; there had
- existed a tiny earth whereon lived only the enormous figure of Father
- Vassily. Other people did not seem to exist. But now the earth had
- grown, had become unfathomably big, peopled all over with creatures
- like Father Vassily. There was a multitude of them, each living an
- individual existence, suffering individual sufferings, hoping and
- doubting individually, and among them Father Vassily felt like a lonely
- tree in a field about which suddenly an immense and trackless forest
- had grown. Gone was the solitude; and with it the sun and the bright
- desert distances, and the gloom of the night had grown in intensity.
- All the people gave him truth. When he did not hear their truthful
- utterances, he saw their homes and their faces: and upon homes and
- faces was engraved the inexorable truth of life. He sensed this
- truth, but he was unable to grasp and name it and he eagerly sought
- new faces and new words. Few came to confession during the fast days
- of Advent, but he kept them in the confessional for hours at a time,
- examining each one searchingly, insistently, stealing himself into
- the most intimate nooks of the soul where man himself looks in but
- rarely and with awe. He did not know what he was searching for and he
- mercilessly plowed up everything--that the soul rests on and lives by.
- In his questions he was pitiless and shameless, and each thought which
- he conceived was a stranger to fear. But it did not take him long to
- realize that all these people who were telling him the whole truth, as
- though he were God, were themselves ignorant of the truth of life. Back
- of their myriads of trifling, severed, hostile truths he dimly saw the
- shadowy outlines of the one great and all-solving truth. Everyone was
- conscious of it, everyone longed for it, yet none could define it with
- a human word--that overwhelming truth of God and of people, and of the
- mysterious fates cf human life.
- And Father Vassily himself began to sense it, and he sensed it now
- a despair and frenzied fear, now as pity, wrath and hope. And as
- heretofore, he was stern and cold to look upon, while his, mind and his
- heart were already melting in the fire of unknown truth and a new life
- was entering his old body.
- On the Tuesday of the week preceding Christmas, Father Vassily had
- returned from the church rather late. In the dark cold vestibule
- someone's hand arrested him and a hoarse voice whispered:
- "Vassily, don't go inside."
- By the note of terror in her voice he recognized his wife and stopped.
- "I've been waiting an hour for you, I'm all frozen," and her teeth
- chattered with the cold.
- "What has happened? Come."
- "No. No. Listen, Nastya! I came in and found her standing before the
- mirror, making faces just like him, waving her hands like him."
- "Come."
- By main force he dragged the resisting Popadya into the living room,
- and there, looking around in fear, she told him more. While on her way
- into the living room to water the plants she had found Nastya, standing
- still before the mirror, and in the mirror she had seen the reflection
- of her face, not as it always looked, but oddly idiotic, with a
- savagely contorted mouth and squinting eyes. Then, still in silence,
- Nastya raised up her hands, and curving her fingers convulsively like
- the idiot, she stretched them out towards her own reflection in the
- mirror--and everything was so still, and all this was so terrible and
- unreal that the Popadya screamed and dropped her water pot. And Nastya
- ran away. And row she did not know whether it had really happened or
- her own imagination had been playing a trick on her.
- "Call Nastya and step out!" ordered the priest.
- Nastya came and stopped on the threshold. Her face was long and scraggy
- like her father's, and when she was talking she copied his posture: her
- neck extended, inclined a little to one side, looking sullenly askance
- from beneath her eyebrows. And she held her hands behind her back just
- as he was in the habit of doing.
- "Nastya, why do you do these things?" firmly, but calmly inquired
- Father Vassily.
- "What things?"
- "Mother saw you near the mirror. Why did you do that? He is sick."
- "No, he is not sick, he pulls my hair."
- "Why do you imitate him? Do you like a face like his?"
- Nastya stood sullenly with downcast eyes.
- "I don't know," she answered. And then with a queer look of candor she
- looked into her father's eyes and resolutely added: "Yes, I like it."
- Father Vassily looked at her searchingly but did not say a word.
- "Don't you like it?" semi-affirmatively inquired Nastya.
- "No."
- "Then why do you keep thinking about him? I would kill him if I were
- you."
- And it seemed to Father Vassily that even then she was making a face
- like the idiot: something dull and brutish flitted over her cheeks and
- drew her eyes together.
- "Go!" he sternly commanded. But Nastya did not move and with the same
- queerly candid expression she kept on gazing straight into her father's
- eyes. And her face no longer resembled the repulsive mask of the idiot.
- "But you never think of me," she observed simply, as though expressing
- an abstract truth.
- And then, in the gathering gloom of the wintry dusk, there occurred
- between these two--who were so like, yet so unlike one another--a brief
- and curious dialog:
- "You are my daughter. Why did I know nothing about it? Do you know?"
- "No."
- "Come and kiss me."
- "I don't want to."
- "Don't you love me?"
- "No, I love nobody."
- "Even as I," and the priest's nostrils extended with repressed laughter.
- "Don't you love anybody either? And how about mama? She drinks so much.
- I'd kill her too."
- "And me?"
- "No, not you. You talk to me at least. I feel sorry for you sometimes.
- It must be very hard, don't you know, when your son is a silly. He is
- terribly mean."
- "You don't begin to know how mean he is. He eats cockroaches alive. I
- gave him a dozen and he ate them all up."
- Without moving away from the door she sat down on the corner of a
- chair, cautiously, like a scullery maid, folded her hands on her knees
- and waited.
- "It's a weary life, Nastya," pensively said the priest.
- Unhurriedly and importantly she agreed with him:
- "It certainly is."
- "And do you pray to God?"
- "Of course I do. Only at night, in the morning there is too much work,
- I have no time. I must sweep, make up beds, put things in order, wash
- the dishes, get tea for Vasska[8], serve it to him, you know yourself
- how much work that is."
- "Just like a servant maid," said Father Vassily indefinitely.
- "What did you say?" said Nastya uncomprehendingly.
- Father Vassily bowed low his head and maintained silence. Immense and
- black he loomed against the dull white background of the window, and
- his words seemed to Nastya round and shiny like glass beads. She waited
- long, but her father was silent and she called out timidly:
- "Papa!"
- Without raising his head Father Vassily commandingly waived his hand,
- once, then the second time. Nastya sighed and rose, but hardly had
- she turned in the doorway when something rustled behind her and two
- powerful, sinewy arms raised her up in the air and a mocking voice
- whispered in her very ear:
- "Put your arms around my neck. I'll carry you."
- "Why? I am big."
- "No matter. Hold fast."
- It was hard work breathing in the embrace of two arms that were holding
- her like hoops of iron, and she had to duck her head in the doorway
- in order not to knock against the transom; she did not know whether
- she was pleased or merely surprised. And she did not know whether she
- merely imagined it or her father had really whispered into her ear:
- "You must be sorry for mama."
- But after she had said her prayers and was getting ready for bed,
- Nastya sat for a long while on her bed, lost in musing. Her slim
- little back with the pointed shoulder blades and the distinctly marked
- vertebrae was almost humped; the soiled nightshirt had slipped from the
- angular shoulder; folding her hands about her knees and rocking back
- and forth, she resembled a ruffled bird that was overtaken in the field
- by the frost. She was staring straight ahead with unblinking eyes that
- were plain and enigmatic like the eyes of a beast. And with pensive
- obstinacy she whispered:
- "And still I'd kill her."
- Late at night, when everyone was asleep, Father Vassily silently stole
- into the room, and his face was cold and austere. Without casting a
- glance at Nastya, he set the lamp down on the table and bent over the
- calmly sleeping idiot. He was lying on his back, his misshapen chest
- stretched out, his arms spread out; his little shriveled head had
- fallen back, and its receding chin gleamed white. As he lay sleeping,
- under the pale reflected light which was falling upon him from the
- ceiling, his face, with the closed eyelids hiding his witless eyes, did
- not seem as horrible as in the daytime.
- It seemed wearied, like the face of an actor exhausted after playing
- a difficult part, and around his tightly shut enormous mouth lay the
- shadow of stern grief. It was as though there were in him two souls,
- and while one was sleeping, the other was wakeful--all-knowing and
- sorrowful.
- Father Vassily straightened up slowly, and maintaining an austere
- and stolid expression, walked out and proceeded to his room without
- casting a glance at Nastya. He was walking slowly and calmly, with the
- ponderous and lifeless stride of profound meditation, and the darkness
- scattered before him, hiding behind him in deep shadows and cunningly
- pursuing him at his heels. His face was shining brightly in the light
- of the lamp and his eyes were gazing fixedly into the distance, far
- ahead, into the very depths of fathomless space, while his feet slowly
- and clumsily pursued their automatic march.
- It was late at night and the second cocks had crowed.
- VI.
- Lent had arrived. The muffled church-bell commenced its monotonous
- tinkle, but its wan, melancholy, modest sounds of summons could not
- dispel the wintry stillness which was lying over snow-covered fields.
- Timidly they leaped from the belfry into the misty air below, and sank
- and died, and for a long time nobody came to the little church in
- response to its appeal--faint at first, but persistent and growing more
- imperious every day.
- Towards the end of the first week of Lent two old women came to
- church--hoary they were, hazy and deaf like the very air of the dying
- winter, and for a long time they mumbled with toothless mouths,
- repeating, forever over and over repeating their dull, uncouth plaints
- which had no beginning and knew no end. Their very words and tears
- seemed to have grown aged in service and ready for rest. They had
- received absolution, but they failed to realize it, and were still
- praying for something, deaf and hazy like fragments of a vapid dream.
- But in their wake came a throng of people, and many youthful, fervid
- tears, many youthful words, pointed and gleaming, cut their way into
- Father Vassily's heart.
- When Semen Mossyagin, a peasant, had thrice bowed to the ground, and
- cautiously advanced towards the priest, the latter gazed upon him
- sharply and fixedly, but the pose which he maintained did not seem to
- befit the occasion.
- With his neck extended, his hands folded across his chest, he was
- tugging at the end of his beard with the fingers of one hand. Mossyagin
- walked up to the priest and was astounded: the priest was watching him
- and smiling softly with nostrils distended like a horse.
- "I have been waiting for thee for a long time," said the priest with a
- snicker. "Why hast thou come, Mossyagin?"
- "For confession," quickly and eagerly replied Mossyagin and with a
- friendly grin exposed his white teeth--they were white and even like a
- string of pearls.
- "Wilt thou feel better after confession?" continued the priest,
- smiling, as it seemed to the peasant, in a merry and friendly fashion.
- "Of course I will."
- "And is it true that thou hast sold thy horse and the last sheep and
- mortgaged thy wagon?"
- Mossyagin looked at the priest seriously and with a show of annoyance:
- the priest's face was stolid, his eyes were downcast. Neither broke the
- silence. Father Vassily turned slowly towards the lectern and commanded:
- "Tell thy sins."
- Mossyagin coughed, assumed a devotional expression, and cautiously
- inclining his head and his chest towards the priest began to speak in
- a loud whisper. And while he spoke, the priest's face became more and
- more forbidding and solemn, as though it had turned to stone under the
- hail of the peasant's painful and constraining words. His breath came
- fast and heavy as though choking in that senseless, dull and savage
- something which was called the life of Semen Mossyagin and which
- seemed to grip him as though in the black coils of some mysterious
- serpent. It was as though the stern law of causality had no dominion
- over this humble but phantastic existence: so unexpectedly, with such
- clownish absurdity there were linked in it trivial transgressions and
- unmeasured suffering, a mighty, an elemental will to a mighty elemental
- creativeness and a monstrously vegetating existence somewhere in
- No-man's land between life and death. Endowed with a fine mind that
- slightly inclined to sarcasm, strong in body like a ferocious beast,
- enduring as though fully three hearts beat in his breast, so that
- when one of the three died, the ethers gave life to a new one,--he
- seemed capable of overturning the very earth upon which firmly, though
- clumsily were planted his feet. But in reality what happened? He was
- forever on the verge of starvation, as were his wife, his children,
- his cattle; and his bedimmed mind reeled drunkenly as though unable
- to find the door of its own abode. Desperately straining every effort
- in an endeavor to build up something, to create something, he merely
- fell sprawling into the dust, and his work collapsed and disintegrated,
- rewarding him with a mock and a sneer. He was a man of compassion, and
- had adopted an orphan, and everybody scolded him; and the orphan lived
- awhile and died of constant malnutrition and illness, and then he began
- to scold himself and ceased to understand whether it was the right
- thing to be compassionate or not. It seemed as though the tears should
- never dry in the eyes of so unfortunate a man, or that the outcries of
- wrath and resentment should never die upon his lips, but strange to
- say he was always goodnatured and cheerful, and even his beard seemed
- somehow absurdly gay; blazing red it was, with each hair seemingly
- awhirl and agog in an interminable whimsical dance. And he even took
- part in the village choral dances with the young lads and lassies,
- singing the melancholy folksongs with a high tremolo voice that brought
- tears to the eyes of the hearers, while on his own lips played a smile
- of gentle sarcasm.
- And his sins were so trivial and formal: a surveyor whom he had driven
- to the nearest village--Petrovki--had offered him a meatpie on a fast
- day, and he had eaten of it; and in confessing he dwelt as long upon
- this transgression as though he had committed a murder; and the year
- before, just before communion, he had smoked a cigarette and this too
- he described at great length and with agonized anguish.
- "That's all!" finally said Mossyagin, in a cheery voice, and wiped the
- perspiration from his brow.
- Father Vassily slowly turned his haggard face to him:
- "And who helpeth thee?"
- "Who helps me?" repeated Mossyagin. "Nobody. It's a scant fare for us
- villagers, you know that yourself. Still Ivan Porfyritch helped me out
- once," the peasant winked slyly at the priest: "he gave me three poods
- of flour, and promised four more towards fall."
- "And God?"
- Semen sighed and his face grew sad.
- "God? I daresay I'm undeserving."
- The priest's superfluous questions were beginning to annoy Mossyagin.
- He glanced back over his shoulder at the empty church, carefully
- counted the hairs in the priest's sparse beard, surveyed his
- half-rotted teeth and it occurred to him that the priest might have
- spoilt them by eating too much sugar. And he heaved a sigh.
- "What art thou waiting for?"
- "What I am waiting for? What should I be waiting for?"
- And silence again. It was dark and cold in the church, and the chilly
- air was stealing under the peasant's blouse.
- "And must it go on like this always?" asked the priest, and his words
- sounded listless and distant like the thud of the earth thrown into the
- grave upon the lowered coffin.
- "And must it go on like this always?" repeated Mossyagin listening to
- the sound of his own words. And all that had passed in his life rose
- before him again: the hungry faces of the children, the reproaches,
- the killing toil, the dull heartache that makes one long to drink and
- fight; and so it must go on, for a long time, all through life--until
- death steps in. Blinking his white eyelashes, Mossyagin cast a
- teardimmed misty glance upon the priest and met his sharp and blazing
- gaze--and in this exchange of glances they recognized an intimate
- sorrowful kinship. An instinctive movement drew them together, and
- Father Vassily laid his hand on the peasant's shoulder: lightly and
- gently it rested upon it like a cobweb in autumn time. Mossyagin's
- shoulder quivered affectionately, he lifted up his eyes trustingly, and
- pitifully smiling with a corner of his mouth he said:
- "But like as not it may ease up!"
- The priest removed his hand imperceptibly and was silent. The peasant's
- white eyelashes blinked faster and faster, the little hairs in the
- blazing red beard danced ever more merrily, while his tongue babbled
- something unintelligible and incoherent:
- "No. I dare say it won't ease up. You're right."
- But the priest did not suffer him to finish. He stamped his foot with
- repressed emotion, scared the peasant with a wrathful, hostile glance,
- and hissed at him like an angry adder:
- "Don't weep! Don't dare to weep. Oh, why do they blubber like senseless
- calves? What can I do?" he prodded his chest with his finger. "What can
- I do? Am I God, am I? Ask HIM! Ask HIM! Ask HIM! I tell thee."
- He pushed the peasant's shoulder.
- "Down on thy knees."
- Mossyagin knelt.
- "Pray."
- Behind him loomed the walls of the deserted and gloomy church, above
- him rang the angered voice of the priest: "Pray! Pray!", and without
- rendering account to himself of his actions, Mossyagin commenced to
- cross himself swiftly, touching the ground with his forehead. And the
- swift and monotonous movements of his head, the extraordinary nature of
- the penance, the consciousness of being at that very instant subject to
- some powerful and mysterious will--filled the mind of the peasant with
- awe and at the same time with a peculiar sense of relief.
- For in this very awe before something mighty and austere was born
- the hope of intercession and mercy. And ever more frantically he
- was pressing his brow to the cold floor, when the priest abruptly
- commanded:
- "Arise!"
- Mossyagin arose, made his obeisance to the nearest images, and
- the fiery-red hairs of his beard whirled and danced willingly and
- cheerfully when he again approached the priest. Now he was sure that he
- would find relief and he calmly awaited further commands.
- But Father Vassily merely measured him with a sternly curious glance
- and pronounced the absolution. On his way out of the church Mossyagin
- looked back: still in the same spot stood the nebulous figure of the
- priest, the faint glimmer of a wax taper could not fully outline it,
- and it loomed black and immense as though it had no definite contours
- and limits but was merely a particle of the gloom which was filling the
- church.
- Communicants were now flocking daily in increasing numbers to the
- confessional and numberless faces, both wrinkled and youthful,
- alternated before Father Vassily in wearisome procession. He quizzed
- them all insistently and severely, and timid, incoherent speeches were
- poured into his ears by the hour, and the purport of each speech was
- suffering, terror and a great expectation. All united in condemning
- life, but none seemed anxious to die, and everybody appeared to be
- waiting for something, and this expectation seemed to have been handed
- down as an inheritance from the father of the race. It had passed
- through minds and hearts long since vanished from the world, and for
- this reason it was so imperious and potent. And it had become bitter,
- for on its way it had absorbed all the grief of hope unrealized, all
- the bitterness of faith deceived, all the consuming anguish of infinite
- desolation. The blood of all hearts, living and dead, had nourished its
- roots, and it had branched out over the whole of life like a great and
- mighty tree. And losing himself among these souls like a wanderer in
- the forest primeval, he was also forgetting his own pent-up sufferings
- which had crowned his head with a stern sorrow, and he too began to
- wait for something with a stern impatience.
- He did not wish now for human tears, but they were flowing
- irrepressibly, overruling his will, and every tear was a demand, and
- they all penetrated his heart like poisoned arrows. And with the dim
- sense of approaching horror he began to comprehend that he was not the
- master of men, not even their neighbor, but their servant, their slave,
- that the eyes of a great expectation were seeking him, were commanding
- him, were summoning him. And ever oftener he admonished, them with
- repressed wrath:
- "'Ask HIM! Ask HIM!"
- And he turned his back upon them.
- But at night the living people took on the guise of diaphanous shadows
- and walked by his side in a silent throng, invading his very thoughts,
- and they made a transparency of the walls of his house and a mock of
- the locks and the bars on its doors. And agonized, weirdly phantastic
- were the dreams that unrolled like a flaming band beneath his skull.
- It was in the fifth week of Lent, when the breath of spring wafted
- its fragrance over the fields and the dusk was blue and diaphanous,
- that the Popadya had started on another drunken debauch. She had been
- drinking heavily for four days at a stretch, screaming with terror and
- struggling, and on the fifth day--it was Saturday--towards evening,
- she put out the little oil lamp before the saint's image in her room,
- twisted a towel into a noose and tried to strangle herself. But the
- moment the noose had begun to stifle her she became frightened and
- cried out, and Father Vassily came running with little Nastya and
- released her. It all ended in mere fright. Nor, indeed, had there been
- any danger, for the noose was clumsily tied and it was impossible
- to be strangled in it. But more frightened than all was the Popadya
- herself. She wept and pleaded to be forgiven; her arms and legs were
- trembling, her head shook as with palsy; the whole evening she kept
- her husband by her side and clung closely to him. The extinguished oil
- lamp in her room was lighted again at her own request, and other oil
- lamps before each holy image, and it looked like the eve of some great
- church festival. After the first moment of excitement Father Vassily
- had regained his composure and was now coldly amiable, even jocular.
- He related a very amusing incident of his seminary days, and then
- his memory strolled back into the dim past of his early boyhood and
- he told about his escapades in stealing apples in company with other
- youngsters. And it was so difficult to imagine a watchman leading him
- away by the ear, that Nastya refused to believe or laugh, although
- Father Vassily himself was laughing with a gentle, childlike laughter
- and his face looked truthful and good.
- Little by little the Popadya also regained her composure and ceased to
- look askance into obscure nooks, and when Nastya had been sent to bed,
- she smiled gently at her husband and inquired:
- "Were you scared?"
- Father Vassily's face lost its truthful and kindly expression, and only
- his lips were smiling as he replied:
- "Of course. What had come into your head anyway?"
- The Popadya trembled as though chilled by a sudden draught, and
- picking with shaking fingers at the fringe of her warm shawl she said
- irresolutely:
- "I don't know, Vassya. My heart is so heavy. And I'm so afraid of
- everything. Afraid of everything. Things go on and I can't make out how
- and why. There we have spring, and summer will follow. Then again the
- fall and the winter. And we shall still sit as we are sitting now, you
- in your corner and I in mine. Don't be angry with me, Vassya. I realize
- that it can't be different. And yet...."
- She sighed and continued without taking her eyes off the shawl.
- "There was a time when I did not fear death, I thought when things went
- very badly with me, I should die. And now I even fear death. What's to
- become of me, Vassya, dear? Must it be--drink again."
- Perplexed she raised her sorrowful eyes to his face, and in them he
- read the pangs of mortal anguish and of boundless despair, and a dull
- and humble plea for mercy. In the town where Feeveysky spent his
- student days, he had seen on one occasion a greasy Tartar leading a
- horse to the flaying yeard: it had broken its hoof which was hanging
- by a shred and the horse was stepping up on the pavement with the
- mutilated stump of the crippled foot; it was a cold day and a cloud of
- white steam enveloped the horse, but it walked on staring ahead with an
- immobile gaze, and its eyes were horrible in their meekness. Even such
- were the eyes of the Popadya. And he thought that if someone were to
- dig a grave, and fling this woman into its depths burying her alive,
- he would be committing a kindly deed.
- The Popadya with trembling lips tried to puff into life the cigarette
- which had long since gone out and continued:
- "And then again he. You know whom I mean. Of course he's a child, and I
- feel sorry for him. But soon he'll commence to walk and he will be the
- death for me. And not a soul to help. Now I've complained to you, but
- what good is it? I don't know what to do?"
- She heaved a sigh and threw up her hands in despair. And in unison with
- her the low squat room itself seemed to sigh, and the shades of night
- whose silent throng surrounded Father Vassily whirled about him in
- agony. They were sobbing in frenzied anguish, they were extending their
- nerveless hands, they were pleading for mercy, for pardon, for truth.
- "Ah!" responded a hoarse groan from the depths of the priest's bony
- chest. He jumped to his feet, upsetting the chair with an abrupt
- movement, and began to pace the floor with a swift stride, shaking his
- folded hands, mumbling something, stumbling like a blind or an insane
- man against chairs and against walls. And when colliding with a wall,
- he hastily touched it with his scrawny fingers and turned back in
- his flight, and so he circled in the narrow cage of the room's mute
- walls like a phantastic shade that had assumed a gruesome and weird
- materialization. But in an odd contrast to the frantic mobility of his
- body, immobile like the eyes of a blind man were his eyes, and in them
- glistened tears, the first tears which he had shed since Vassya's death.
- Forgetting her own self, the Popadya's awestricken eyes followed the
- priest and she cried:
- "Vassya, what's the matter with you? What is the matter?"
- Father Vassily turned around abruptly, hastily gained his wife's side,
- as though rushing over to trample upon her, and he laid his heavy and
- shaking hand on her head. And for a long, long time he silently held
- his hand above her head, as though in benediction, as though warding
- off the powers of evil. And he spoke and each resonant sound that
- composed his words was a ringing metallic tear:
- "Poor little woman; poor little woman."
- And once more he resumed his pacing, towering and awe-inspiring in his
- despair, like a tigress who had been robbed of her young one. His face
- was frantically convulsed, and his shaking lips jerked out half-formed,
- fragmentary, infinitely sorrowing words:
- "Poor woman. Poor woman.... Poor people all. All weeping.... No help
- ... Oh-oh-oh!"
- He stopped and raising aloft his immobile eyes, with his gaze
- transfixing the ceiling and the misty gloom of the vernal night beyond
- it, he cried out in a piercing, frenzied voice:
- "And THOU sufferest it! THOU sufferest it! Then take...." and he
- clenched his fist and shook it aloft, but at his feet, with her hands
- wrapt about her knees, the Popadya lay writhing in hysterics, and
- mumbled, choking mid tears and laughter:
- "Don't! Don't! Darling, precious! I'll never do it again!"
- The idiot woke up and was howling; Nastya came running into the room in
- wild affright and the jaws of the priest set with a metallic snap.
- Silently, and with seeming indifference, he tended his wife, laying
- her down on her bed, and when she had fallen asleep he was still
- holding her hand between his two palms, and thus he sat until morning
- by her bedside.. And all through the night, until morning, oil lamps
- were burning before each image, as though on the eve of a great and
- glorious festival.
- The next day Father Vassily was the same as usual--cool and calm,
- nor did he by a word recall the incidents of the day before. But in
- his voice, whenever he exchanged words with his wife, in the glance
- with which he regarded her was a gentle tenderness which only her
- own tormented heart could appreciate. And so mighty was this manly,
- silent tenderness that the tormented heart smiled a timid smile in
- return and retained the memory of this smile in its depths like a
- cherished treasure. They conversed but little, and their sparing speech
- was simple and commonplace; they were rarely together--torn asunder
- by life's vicissitudes--but with hearts full of suffering they were
- constantly seeking one another; nor could any human being, nor cruel
- fate itself divine with what hopeless anguish and tenderness they loved
- one another. Long ago, since the birth of the idiot, they had ceased
- living as man and wife, and they resembled a pair of devoted unhappy
- lovers deprived even of a hope of happiness, dreaming dreams that dared
- not assume a definite shape. And shame, once abandoned, returned again
- into the heart of the wife, and with it a desire to appear attractive;
- she blushed when her husband saw her bare arms and she did something
- to her face and her hair that made both look fresh and youthful and
- strangely beautiful in spite of the sadness of her expression. But
- when the periodic spells of drunkenness came on again, the Popadya
- disappeared in the seclusion of her darkened room, even as dogs are
- wont to hide when they feel the approach of madness, and in silence and
- solitude she fought out her battle with madness and with the monstrous
- visions born of it.
- But every night, when all were asleep, the Popadya stole to the bedside
- of her husband and made a sign of the cross over his head as though
- to dispel from his brow all grief and evil thoughts. And she longed
- to kiss his hand, but dared not, and silently retired to her room,
- vanishing in the darkness like a dim white vision similar to the
- nebulous and melancholy apparitions which hover at night over swamps
- and over the graves of deceased and forgotten people.
- VII.
- The Lenten bell continued to send abroad its monotonous and somber
- summons, and it seemed as though with each muffled knell it
- gathered fresh power over the consciences of the village folk. In
- ever increasing numbers silent figures, somber as the sound of the
- tolling church bell, wended their way to the little church from every
- direction. Night still reigned over the denuded fields and a thin crust
- of ice still spanned the murmuring brook, when from every road and side
- path human figures appeared marching one by one, but united by some
- common bond into one solemnly chastened procession moving to the same
- invisible goal.
- And every day, from early morn until late in the evening, Father
- Vassily was confronted with a succession of human faces, some with
- every wrinkle brightly outlined by the yellow glow of wax tapers,
- others dimly emerging out of obscure nooks as though the very
- atmosphere of the church had taken on the shape of a human being
- thirsting for mercy and truth. The people crowded and pushed, clumsily
- elbowing one another; they shuffled their feet heavily as they dropped
- to their knees with discordant and asymmetric movements; and heaving
- deep sighs, with relentless insistence they laid their sins and their
- sorrows before the priest.
- Each one had enough suffering and grief for a dozen human existences,
- and it seemed to the overwhelmed and distracted priest, as though the
- entire living world had brought its tears and its pangs before him
- seeking his aid, meekly pleading for it, imperiously clamoring for it.
- Once he had been searching for truth, but now I he was drowning in it,
- in this merciless truth of suffering; in the agonized consciousness of
- impotence he longed to die,--merely in order to escape seeing, hearing
- and knowing. He had summoned the woe of humanity and lo! it came to
- him. His soul was afire like the sacrificial altar, and he longed to
- put his arms about every one of them with a fraternal embrace, saying:
- "poor friend, let us struggle on side by side, let us together weep and
- seek. For there is no help for man from anywhere."
- But this was not what the people, worn out with the struggle of life,
- were expecting from him, and with anguish, with wrath, with despair he
- kept repeating:
- "Ask of HIM! Ask of HIM!"
- Sorrowing they believed him and departed, and in their place came
- others in fresh and serried ranks, and again he frantically repeated
- the terrible and relentless words:
- "Ask of HIM! Ask of HIM!"
- And the hours in the course of which he listened to truth seemed to
- him as years, and that which had passed in the morning before the
- confession, appeared dim and faint like all images of a distant past.
- When finally he came out of the church, being the last to leave,
- darkness had already set in, the stars sparkled sweetly, and the
- silent air of the vernal night seemed like a tender caress. But he had
- no faith in the peace of the stars; he fancied that even from these
- distant worlds, groans and cries and broken pleas for mercy descended
- upon him. And he felt crushed with a sense of personal shame as though
- he himself had perpetrated all the wickedness that reigned in the
- world, as though he himself had caused all these tears to flow, had
- mangled and torn into shreds all these human hearts. He was overwhelmed
- with shame because of these downtrodden homes which he passed on his
- way, he was ashamed to enter his own house where by virtue of sin and
- of madness the dreadful image of the semi-idiot, semi-beast, held its
- autocratic insolent sway.
- And in the mornings he walked to the church as men walk to the
- scaffold to meet a shameful and agonizing death, with the whole world
- as executioners: the dispassionate sky, the hurrying, thoughtlessly
- laughing mob and his own relentless inner thoughts. Every suffering
- person was his executioner, a helpless tool of an all-powerful God, and
- there were as many hangmen as there were people, and as many lashes
- as there were trusting and expectant hearts. They were all inexorably
- insistent. No man thought of ridiculing the priest, but at any moment
- he tremblingly expected the outburst of some horrible satanic laughter
- and he feared to turn his back upon the people. All that is brutal and
- evil is born behind a man's back, but while he is looking, no one dare
- attack him face to face. And that is why he looked at them, worrying
- them with his glance, and frequently turned his eyes to the place
- behind the lectern occupied by Ivan Porfyritch Koprov, the churchwarden.
- The latter alone talked loudly in the church as he calmly sold his
- tapers; and twice during the service he sent up the verger and some
- boys to take up collections. Then noisily rattling his copper coins, he
- piled them up in little heaps, and frequently clicked the lock of his
- cash box; when others knelt, he merely inclined his head and crossed
- himself. And it was obvious that he regarded himself as a man needful
- to God, knowing that without him God would be at no small difficulty to
- arrange things as well as they were going and to keep them in proper
- order.
- Since the beginning of Lent he had been very angry with Father Vassily
- because of the interminable time he took up in the confessional. He
- could not understand what great and interesting sins these people could
- have that could make it worth while to devote so much time to them. It
- was all due, he claimed, to the fact that Father Vassily knew neither
- how to live himself nor how to handle people.
- "Dost thou think they appreciate it?" he said to the good-natured
- deacon who like the rest of the church officials was worn out with the
- heavy burden of Lenten duties. "Not a bit of it. They will only laugh
- at him."
- Father Vassily's stern demeanor, on the contrary, pleased him, just
- as he had been pleasantly impressed when he had first observed his
- towering height. A genuine priest and a servant of God seemed to him
- akin to an honest and efficient steward who requires an exact and
- accurate accounting from those with whom he deals. Ivan Porfyritch
- himself went to confession the last week in Lent, and he made long
- preparations for it, trying to remember and to classify all his small
- transgressions. And he was inordinately proud to know that he kept his
- sins in the same good order as his business affairs.
- On Wednesday of Holy week, when Father Vassily was fast losing his
- physical strength, an unusually numerous throng had gathered to
- confess. The last man in the confessional was a worthless scamp named
- Trifon, a cripple, who hobbled on crutches from village to village
- in the vicinity. Instead of legs which he had lost in some factory
- accident and which had been trimmed down to his loins, he had a pair
- of short little stumps around which a bag of skin had formed. His
- shoulders, raised up through the constant use of crutches supported a
- filthy head that seemed to be covered with a growth of coarse hemp,
- and he had an equally filthy and neglected beard; his eyes were the
- insolent eyes of a mendicant, drunkard and thief. He was repulsive and
- dirty, groveling in filth and dust like a reptile, and his soul was as
- dark and mysterious as the soul of a savage beast. It was difficult to
- understand how he managed to live and yet he lived and even had women,
- as phantastic and unreal and as unlike a human being as himself.
- Father Vassily was forced to bend down low in order to hear the
- cripple's confession. The impudently serene stench of his body, the
- parasites crawling about his head and neck--even as he himself crawled
- over the face of the earth--revealed to the priest in a flash the utter
- destitution of his crippled soul--horrible, shameful, unfathomable
- to conscience. And with a terrible clearness he realized how
- dreadfully, how irrevocably this man had been deprived of all the human
- characteristics, of all the things to which he was as fully entitled as
- the kings in their palaces, as the saints in their cloistered cells,
- and he shuddered.
- "Go. God absolveth thee of thy sins," he said.
- "Wait. I have more to confess," hoarsely croaked the beggar, raising up
- his purpling face. And he related how ten years back he had in a forest
- violated a little girl, giving her three copper coins when she cried,
- and how later begrudging her this money, he strangled her to death
- and buried her in the woods. And there no one ever found her. A dozen
- times, to a dozen different priests he had related the same story, and
- because of this repetition it appeared to him simple and ordinary and
- unrelated to himself, as though it were a mere fairy tale which he had
- learned by heart. Sometimes he varied this story: instead of summer
- time he pictured the event as having occurred late in the fall; now
- the little girl was a blonde, now darkhaired; but the three copper
- coins never varied. Some priests refused to believe him and laughed at
- him, pointing out that for ten years past not one little girl had been
- killed or missed in the entire region; he was caught in numberless and
- crude contradictions, and it was demonstrated to him that the whole
- story was an obvious fabrication, born of his diseased brain while he
- drunkenly roamed through the woods. And this aroused him to frenzy:
- he shouted, he swore by the name of God, calling as frequently upon
- the devil as upon God to bear him witness, and began to recite such
- repulsive and obscene details that the oldest priests were made to
- blush with indignation. Now he was waiting to see if this priest of the
- Snamenskoye village would believe him or not, and he was content to
- note that the priest believed him: for the priest had shrunk back, with
- bloodless cheeks and raised his hand as though to strike him:
- "Is this true?" hoarsely asked Father Vassily.
- The beggar began to cross himself energetically.
- "I swear by God it is true. Let me sink into the ground if it ain't...."
- "But that means HELL!" cried the priest. "Dost thou grasp it: HELL?"
- "God is merciful," mumbled the beggar, with a sullen and injured tone.
- But from his wicked and frightened eyes it was plainly seen that he
- expected to go to hell and had become accustomed to that thought even
- as to his queer tale of the strangled little girl.
- "Hell on earth, hell beyond. Where is thy paradise? Wert thou a worm, I
- would crush thee with my foot, but thou art a man. A man? Or art thou
- truly a worm? What art thou, speak?" cried the priest and his hair
- shook as though fanned by a breeze. "And where is thy God? Why has He
- left thee?"
- "I made him believe it," gleefully thought the beggar, feeling the
- words of the priest strike his head like a hail of molten metal.
- Father Vassily sat down on his haunches and drawing from the
- degradingly unusual pose a strange and an agonizing store of pride, he
- passionately whispered:
- "Listen. Don't be afraid. There will be no hell. I am telling thee
- truly. I too have killed a human being. A little girl. Her name
- is Nastya. And there will be no hell. Thou wilt be in paradise.
- Understand? With the saints, with the righteous! Higher than all....
- Higher than all, I tell thee."
- That evening Father Vassily returned home very late, after his family
- had finished supper. He was very tired and haggard, wet to his knees
- and covered with dirt, as though he had tramped for a long time over
- pathless and rainsodden fields. In the household preparations were
- being made for the Easter festival. Though very busy, the Popadya
- from time to time ran in for a moment out of the kitchen, anxiously
- scanning her husband's features. And she tried to appear gay and to
- conceal her anxiety.
- But at night, when according to her custom she came into his bedroom on
- tiptoe and having made a threefold sign of the cross over his head, was
- about to depart, she was stopped by a gentle and timid voice--so unlike
- the voice of the austere Father Vassily:
- "Nastya, I cannot go to church."
- There was terror in that voice, and also something pleading and
- childlike. As though unhappiness was so immense that it was no longer
- any use to put on the mask of pride and of slippery, lying words behind
- which people are wont to conceal their feelings. The Popadya fell to
- her knees by the bedside of her husband and peered into his face: in
- the faint bluish light of the oil lamp it seemed as pale as the face
- of a corpse and as immobile, and only his black eyes were open and
- squinted in her direction. He lay still and flat on his back like a man
- stricken with a painful disease, or like a child frightened by an evil
- dream and afraid to move.
- "Pray, Vassya!" whispered the Popadya, stroking his clammy hands which
- were crossed upon his breast like the hands of a corpse.
- "I cannot. I am afraid. Light the lamp, Nastya."
- While she was lighting the lamp, Father Vassily began to dress, slowly
- and awkwardly, like an invalid who had been long chained to his bed.
- He could not unaided fasten the hooks of his cassock, and he asked his
- wife:
- "Hook the cassock."
- "Where are you going?" inquired the Popadya in surprise.
- "Nowhere. Just so."
- And he began to pace the floor slowly and diffidently with faint
- and shaking limbs. His head was trembling with a measured and hardly
- perceptible palpitation, and his lower jaw had dropped impotently.
- With an effort he attempted to draw it up into its proper place,
- licking his dry and flabby lips, but in the next moment it dropped back
- again; exposing the dark gap of his mouth. Something vast, something
- inexpressibly horrible seemed to be impending--like boundless waste and
- boundless silence. And there was neither earth nor people nor any world
- beyond the walls of the house, there was only the yawning bottomless
- abyss and eternal silence.
- "Vassya, is it really true?" asked the Popadya, her heart sinking with
- the fear within her.
- Father Vassily looked at her with dim, lack-lustre eyes, and with a
- momentary access of energy waved his hand:
- "Don't. Don't. Be silent."
- And once more he fell to pacing the floor, and once more dropped
- the strengthless jaw. And thus he paced the room, with the slow
- deliberateness of Time itself, while the pale-cheeked woman sat
- terror-stricken on the bed, only with the slow deliberateness of Time
- itself her eyes moved and followed him in his walk. And something vast
- was impending. There it came and stood still and gripped them with a
- vacant and all-embracing stare--vast as the boundless waste, terrible
- as the eternal silence.
- Father Vassily stopped in front of his wife, regarding her with
- unseeing eyes and said:
- "It is dark. Light another light."
- "He is dying," thought the Popadya and with shaking hands, scattering
- matches on the floor, she lighted a candle. And once more he begged:
- "Light still another."
- And she kept lighting and lighting them. Many candles and lamps were
- now ablaze. Like a tiny faintly bluish star the little oil lamp before
- the holy image lost itself in the vivid and daring glare of the many
- lights, and it seemed as though the great and glorious festival had
- already set in. Meanwhile, with the deliberateness of Time itself he
- softly paced through the brilliant waste. Now, when the waste was
- ablaze with lights, the Popadya saw, and for one brief, terrible
- instant realized how lone he was, for he neither belonged to her nor
- to anyone else; she realized that she could never alter the fact. If
- all the good and strong people had gathered from the ends of the world,
- putting their arms about him, with words of caress and comfort, still
- he would stand in solitude.
- And once more, with sinking heart, she thought: "He is dying."
- Thus passed the night. And as it neared its end, the stride of Father
- Vassily grew firm, he straightened himself, looked at the Popadya
- several times and said:
- "Why so many lights? Put them out."
- The Popadya put out the candles and the lamps and diffidently commenced:
- "Vassya!"
- "We'll talk to-morrow. Go to your room. Time for you to go to sleep."
- But the Popadya did not go, and her eyes seemed to be pleading for
- something. And once again strong and stalwart he walked over to her and
- patted her head as though she were a child.
- "So, Popadya!" he said with a smile. His face was pallid with the
- diaphanous pallor of death, and black circles had gathered about his
- eyes: as though night itself had lodged there and refused to depart.
- In the morning Father Vassily announced to his wife that he would
- resign from the priesthood, that he meant to get together some money
- in the fall and then to go away with her, somewhere afar off, he knew
- not yet where. But the idiot they would leave behind, they would give
- him to someone to bring up. And the Popadya wept and laughed and for
- the first time after the birth of the idiot she kissed her husband full
- upon his lips, blushing in confusion.
- And at that time Vassily Feeveysky was forty years old, and his wife
- was thirty four.
- VIII.
- For the three months that followed their souls were resting; gladness
- and hope, long strangers to their hearts, returned to their home once
- again. Strong through suffering endured was the Popadya's faith in the
- new life to come,--in an altogether novel and different life elsewhere,
- unlike the life that anybody else had lived or could live. She sensed
- but vaguely what was going on in her husband's heart, though she saw
- that he bore himself with a peculiar cheeriness, serene even like the
- flame of the candle. She saw the strange glow in his eyes such as he
- had lacked before, and she had an abiding faith in his power. Father
- Vassily attempted to talk to her at times with regard to his plans for
- the future, whither they would go and how they would live, but she
- refused to listen: words, exact and positive, seemed to frighten away
- her vague and formless vision and to drag the future with a strangely
- horrible perverseness into the power of a cruel past. Only one thing
- she craved: that it might be far away, far beyond the bounds of that
- familiar world which was still so terrible to her. As heretofore,
- periodically she succumbed to attacks of drunkenness, but these passed
- quickly and she no longer feared them: she believed that she would soon
- cease to drink altogether. "It will be different there, I shall have no
- need of liquor," she thought all transfigured with the radiance of an
- indefinite and glorious vision.
- With the coming of summer she once more began to stroll for days at a
- time through the fields and the woods; coming back at dusk she waited
- at the gate for Father Vassily's return from haying. Softly and slowly
- gathered the shadows of the brief summer night; and it seemed as
- though night would never come to blot out the light of day; only when
- she glanced upon the dim outlines of her hands which she held folded
- upon her lap she felt that there was something between those hands
- and herself and that it was night with the diaphanous and mysterious
- dusk. And before vague fears had time to fill her heart, Father Vassily
- was back--stalwart, vigorous, cheery, bringing with him the acrid and
- pleasant fragrance of grassy fields. His face was dark with the dusk of
- night, but his eyes were shining brightly, and in his suppressed voice
- seemed to lurk the vast expanse of the fields and the fragrance of
- grass and the joy of persistent toil.
- "It is beautiful out in the fields," he said with laughter that sounded
- subdued, enigmatic and somber, as though he derided some one, perhaps
- himself.
- "Of course, Vassya, of course. Of course, it's beautiful," retorted the
- Popadya with conviction and they went in to supper. After the vastness
- of the fields Father Vassily felt crowded in the tiny living room; with
- embarrassment he became conscious of the length of his arms and of
- his legs and moved them about so clumsily and ridiculously that the
- Popadya teased him:
- "You ought to be made to write a sermon right now, why you could hardly
- hold a pen in your hands," she said.
- And they laughed.
- But left alone, Father Vassily's face assumed a serious and solemn
- expression. Alone with his thoughts he dared not laugh or jest. And his
- eyes gazed forward sternly and with a haughty expectancy--for he felt
- that even in these days of hope and peace the same inexorably cruel and
- impenetrable fate was hovering over his head.
- On the twenty seventh day of July--it was in the evening--Father
- Vassily and a laborer were carting sheaves from the field.
- From the nearby forest a lengthy shadow had fallen obliquely across
- the field; other lengthy and oblique shadows were falling all over the
- field from every side. Suddenly from the direction of the village there
- came the faint, barely audible sound of a tolling bell, uncanny in its
- untimeliness. Father Vassily turned around sharply: there where through
- the willows he had been wont to see the dim outlines of his shingled
- roof, an immobile column of smoke--black and resinous--had reared
- itself up in the air, and beneath it writhed, at though crushed down by
- a gigantic weight, darkly lurid flames. By the time they had cleared
- the cart of sheaves and had reached the village at a gallop, darkness
- had set in and the fire had died down: only the black,-charred corner
- posts were glowing their last like dying candles, and faintly gleamed
- the tiles of the stripped fireplace, while a pall cf whitish smoke that
- resembled a cloud of steam was hanging low over the ruins, wrapping
- itself about the legs of the peasants who were stamping out the fire,
- and against the background of the fading glow of sunset it seemed
- suspended in the air in the shape of fiat, dark shadows.
- The whole street was thronged with people; the villagers trampled
- through the liquid mud formed by water that had been spilled in
- fighting the blaze, they were conversing loudly and in agitation,
- peering intently into one another's faces, as though failing to
- recognize immediately their neighbors' familiar faces and voices.
- The village herd had been meanwhile driven in from the fields, and
- the animals were straying about forlorn and excited. The cows were
- lowing, the sheep stared ahead with immobile, glassy, bulging eyes, and
- distractedly rubbed against the legs of people, or startled into an
- unreasoning panic madly rushed from place to place pattering with their
- hoofs over the ground. The village women tried to chase them home, and
- all over the village was heard their monotonous summons "kit-kit-kit."
- And these dark figures, with their dark bronze-like faces, this queer
- and monotonous calling of sheep, the sight of these human beings and
- helpless animals fused into one mass by a common, primal sense of fear
- created the impression of something chaotic and primordial.
- It had been a windless day, and the priest's house was the only one
- consumed by the blaze. It was said that the fire had started in a room
- where the drunken Popadya had lain down to rest, and that it had been
- caused by a burning cigarette or a carelessly thrown match. All the
- villagers were in the fields at the time, and the rescuers succeeded
- in saving the idiot who was badly frightened but unhurt, while the
- Popadya herself was discovered in a horribly burnt condition and was
- dragged out unconscious, though still alive. When Father Vassily who
- had come galloping with his cart received the report of the disaster,
- the villagers were prepared to witness an outburst of grief and tears,
- but they were astounded: he had stretched out his neck in the attitude
- of listening with concentrated attention, his lips were tightly
- compressed, and to judge from his appearance it seemed as though he
- had been fully apprized of the happenings and was now merely trying to
- check up the report; as though in that brief mad hour, while with his
- locks fluttering in the breeze, with his gaze riveted to the column
- of smoke and fire, he stood on his cart and urged on his horse to a
- frenzied gallop, he had divined everything: that it had been ordained
- that a fire should occur and that his wife and all he owned should
- perish, while the idiot and the little girl Nastya should be saved and
- remain alive.
- For a moment he stood still with downcast eyes, then he threw back his
- head and resolutely made his way through the crowd, straight to the
- deacon's house where the dying Popadya had found shelter.
- "Where is she?" he loudly asked of the silent people within. And
- silently they showed him. He came close to her bedside, bent low over
- the shapeless feebly groaning mass and seeing one great white blister
- which had taken the place of the face once cherished and beloved, he
- shrank back in horror and covered his face with his hands.
- The Popadya was in a flutter; doubtless she had regained consciousness
- and was trying to say something, but instead of words she emitted a
- hoarse and inarticulate bark. Father Vassily withdrew his hands from
- his face; not the faintest trace of a tear was to be seen thereon; it
- was inspired and austere like the countenance of a prophet. And when
- he spoke, with the loud articulation of one addressing a deaf person,
- his voice rang with an unshakeable and terrible faith. There was in it
- nothing human, vacillating or based on self-strength; thus could speak
- only he who had felt the unfathomable and awful nearness of God.
- "In the name of God--hearest thou me?" he exclaimed. "I am here,
- Nastya, I am near thee. And the children are here. Here is Vassily.
- Here is Nastya."
- From the immobile and terrible face of the Popadya it could not be
- gathered whether she had heard or not. And raising his voice to
- a higher pitch Father Vassily once more addressed himself to the
- shapeless mass of charred flesh:
- "Forgive me, Nastya. For I have destroyed thee, and thou wast not to
- blame. Forgive me--my one--and--only love. And bless the children in
- thy heart. Here they are: here is Nastya, here is Vassily. Bless them
- and depart in peace. Have no fear of death. God hath pardoned thee. God
- loveth thee. He will give thee rest. Depart in peace. There wilt thou
- see Vassya. Depart thou in peace."
- Everyone had now withdrawn with tearful eyes, and the idiot who had
- fallen asleep, was taken away. Father Vassily remained alone with the
- dying woman, to spend with her that last fleeting summer night the
- coming of which she had so dreaded. He knelt down, pillowed his head
- near the dying woman, and with the faint and dreadful odor of burnt
- human flesh in his nostrils, he shed profuse soft tears of infinite
- compassion. He wept for her in her youth and beauty, trustingly longing
- for joy and caresses; he wept for her in the loss of her son; frenzied
- and pitiful, a plaything of fears, haunted by visions; he wept for her
- in those latter clays, awaiting his coming in the dusk of the summer
- eve, humble and radiant. It was her body--that tender body so thirsting
- for caresses that the flames had devoured, and now it reeked with
- the odor of burning. Had she been crying? struggling? calling for her
- husband?
- With tear dimmed eyes Father Vassily looked about wildly and rose to
- his feet. All was still with a stillness such as reigns only in the
- presence of death. He looked at his wife. She was motionless with
- that peculiar immobility of a corpse, when every fold of garment and
- bedding seems to be carved of lifeless stone, when the glowing tints
- of life have faded from raiment, yielding to shades that seem drab and
- unnatural. The Popadya was dead.
- Through the opened window poured the warm breath of the summer night
- and from somewhere in the distance, accentuating the stillness in
- the room, came the harmonious chirping of crickets. About the lamp
- noiselessly circled the moths of the night which had come flying
- through the window; striking the light some fell, others with sickly
- spiral movements strove anew towards the light, and either lost
- themselves in the darkness or gleamed white about the flame like little
- flakes of whirling snow. The Popadya was dead.
- "No! No!" shouted the priest in a loud and frightened voice. "No! No! I
- believe! Thou art right! I believe."
- He fell to his knees, and pressed his face to the drenched floor, amid
- fragments of soiled cotton and dripping bandages, as though thirsting
- to be changed into dust and to mingle with dust; and with the rapture
- of boundless humility he eliminated from his outcry the very pronoun
- "I" and added brokenly: "... believe!"
- Once more he prayed, without words, without thoughts, but straining
- taut every fibre of his mortal body that in fire and death had
- realized the inexplicable nearness of God. He had ceased to sense his
- own life as such,--as though the intimate bond between body and spirit
- has been cut, and freed from all that is earthy, freed from itself, the
- spirit had soared to unfathomed and mysterious heights. The terrors
- of doubt and of tempting thoughts, the passionate wrath and the bold
- outcries of resentful human pride--all had crumbled into dust with the
- abasement of the body; only the spirit alone, having torn the hampering
- fetters of its "I" was living the mysterious life of contemplation.
- When Father Vassily had risen to his feet it was already light, and a
- ray of sunshine, long and ruddy, clung like a bright colored blotch to
- the petrified raiment of the deceased. And this surprised him, for the
- last thing that he remembered was the darkened window and the moths
- that circled about the light. A number of these frail creatures were
- scattered in charred clusters about the base of the lamp, which was
- still burning with an invisible yellowish flame; one grey and shaggy
- moth, with a big misshapen head, was still alive, but had no strength
- to fly away and was helplessly crawling about the table. The moth was
- doubtless in great pain, and was groping for the shelter of night and
- of darkness, but the merciless light of day streamed upon it from
- everywhere burning its tiny ugly body that was created for darkness.
- Despairingly it attempted to shake into activity its pair of short and
- singed wings, but it failed to rise up in the air, and once more, with
- oblique and angular movements, it fell over on its side and continued
- to crawl and grope.
- Father Vassily put out the lamp and threw the palpitating moth out
- of the window; then vigorously fresh, as though after a long and
- refreshing sleep, filled with the sense of strength of restoration and
- of a supernatural peace, he made his way into the deacon's garden.
- There for a long time he paced up and down the straight foot path, with
- his hands behind his back, his head brushing against the lower branches
- of apple and cherry trees; and he walked and he thought. Finding a path
- between the branches the sun had commenced to warm his head, and as he
- turned back it beat down upon him like a current of fire and blinded
- his eyes; here and there a worm eaten apple fell to the ground with a
- dull thud, and under a cherry tree, in the loose, dry earth a hen was
- fussing around, cackling and tending her brood of a dozen downy yellow
- chicks; but he was oblivious to the light of the sun and to the falling
- apples and kept on thinking. And wondrous were his thoughts--clear
- and pure they were as the air of the early morn, and strangely new;
- such thoughts had never before flashed through his head where sad and
- painful thoughts were wont to dwell. He was thinking that where he
- had seen chaos and the absurdity of malice, there a mighty hand had
- traced out a true and straight path. Through the furnace of calamity,
- violently snatching him from home and family and from the vain cares
- of life, a mighty hand was leading him to a mighty martyrdom, a great
- sacrifice. God had transformed his life into a desert, but only so that
- he might cease to stray over old and beaten paths, over winding and
- deceitful roads where people err, but might seek a new and daring way
- in the trackless waste. The column of smoke which he had seen the night
- before, was it not that pillar of fire which had marked for the Hebrews
- a path through the pathless desert? He thought: "Lord, will my feeble
- strength be equal to the task?" but the answer came in the flames that
- illumined his soul like a new sun.
- He had been chosen.
- For an unknown martyrdom, for an unknown sacrifice he had been chosen
- by God, he, Vassily Feeveysky, who so blasphemously and madly had cried
- out in bitter complaint against his fate. He had been chosen. Let the
- earth open at his feet, let hell itself look at him with its red and
- cunning eyes, he will disbelieve hell itself. He had been chosen. And
- was he not standing on solid ground?
- Father Vassily stopped and stamped his foot. The frightened hen emitted
- an anxious cackle and calling her brood together stood on guard. One of
- the little chicks had strayed afar and hurried to answer his maternal
- call, but halfway to his goal two hands, hot, strong and bony seized
- him and raised him up in the air. Smiling, Father Vassily breathed upon
- the tiny yellowish chick with his hot and moist breath, then gently
- folding his hands into the semblance of a nest he tenderly pressed him
- to his breast and continued to pace up and down the long and straight
- walk.
- "What martyrdom? I don't know. But dare I want to know? Didn't I once
- know my fate? And I called it cruel, and my knowledge was a lie. Did
- I not think of bringing a son into the world? And a monster, without
- form or mind, entered into my home. And again I thought to multiply
- my goods and to leave my house, but it had left me first, consumed
- by a fire from heaven. That was what my knowledge amounted to. And
- she--an infinitely unfortunate woman, wronged in her very womb, who had
- exhausted all tears, who had lived through all horrors. She was waiting
- for a new life on earth, and this life would have been sorrowful,
- but now she is reclining in death, and her soul is laughing and is
- branding the old knowledge a lie. HE knows. He has given me much. He
- has granted to me to see life and to experience sufferings and with
- the sharpness of my sorrow to penetrate into the sufferings of other
- people. He has granted to me to apprehend their great expectation and
- has given me love towards them. And are they not expecting? And do I
- not love? Dear brethren! God has shown mercy to us, the hour of the
- mercy of God has come."
- He kissed the downy head of the chick and continued:
- "My path? Docs the arrow think of its path when sent forth by a mighty
- hand? It flies and plunges through to its goal subservient to the will
- of him who sent it on its way. It is given to me to see, it is given to
- me to love, but what will come of this vision, of this love, that will
- be His holy will--my martyrdom, my sacrifice."
- Coddled in the hollow of his warm hand the little chick closed his eyes
- and fell asleep. And the priest smiled.
- "There--I need only close my hand and he will die. Yet he is lying in
- the hollow of my hand, upon my bosom, and sleeping trustingly. And am I
- not in His hand? And dare I disbelieve the mercy of God when this chick
- believes in my human kindness, in my human heart?"
- He smiled softly, opening his black, half-rotted teeth and over his
- austere, forbidding face the smile scattered into a thousand radiant
- wrinkles as though a ray of sunlight suddenly set a-sparkle a pool
- of deep and dark waters. And the great, grave thoughts fled away
- scared off by human gladness, and for a long time only gladness, only
- laughter remained, and the light of the sun and the gently slumbering
- downy little chick.
- But now the wrinkles smoothed, the face became once more austere and
- grave, and the eyes sparkled with inspiration. The greatest, the most
- significant arose be< fore him--and its name was Miracle. Thither
- his still human, all too human thought had not yet dared to stray.
- There was the boundary line of thought. There in the fathomless solar
- depths were the dim contours of a new world--and it was no longer the
- earth. A world of love, a world of divine justice, a world of radiant
- and fearless countenances, undisgraced by lines of suffering, famine
- and pain. Like a gigantic, monstrous diamond sparkled this world in
- the fathomless solar depths, and the human eye could not dwell upon
- it without blinding pain and awe. And humbly bowing his head Father
- Vassily exclaimed:
- "Thy holy will be done!"
- People made their appearance in the garden: the deacon and his wife
- and many others. They had seen the priest from afar and with cordial
- nods hastened towards him, but as they approached him they paused and
- stopped as though transfixed, as people pause before a conflagration,
- before a turbulent flood, before the calmly enigmatic gaze of a madman.
- "Why do you look at me in this manner?" inquired Father Vassily in
- surprise.
- But they never stirred from the spot and continued to look. Before them
- stood a tall man, entirely unknown to them, an utter stranger, whose
- very calm made him all the more distant from them. Dark he was and
- terrible to look upon like a shade from another world, but a sparkling
- smile played on his face in a myriad radiant wrinkles, as though the
- sun was sparkling in a deep black pool of stagnant water. And in his
- large gnarled hands he was holding a downy yellow little chick.
- "Why are you looking at me in this manner?" he repeated smiling. "Am I
- a miracle?"
- IX.
- It was obvious to all that Father Vassily was hastening to sever the
- last ties that still bound him to the past and to the vain cares of
- this life. He had written his sister in the city and made hurried
- arrangements with her concerning Nastya, leaving the girl in her
- charge, nor did he delay a day in despatching her to her aunt, as
- though fearing that fatherly love might rise up within him and prevent
- this arrangement to the detriment of his ministry. Nastya departed
- without exhibiting either pleasure or disappointment: she was content
- that her mother had died and merely regretted that the idiot had not
- also burnt to death. Seated in the wagon, in an oldfashioned dress
- which had been re-made from an old gown of her mother's, with a child's
- hat sitting awry on her head, she resembled a queerly attired and
- homely old maid rather than a girl in her early teens. With her wolfish
- eyes she coldly watched the fussy deacon and protested in a dry voice
- that was much like the voice of her father:
- "Don't bother, Father Deacon. I am comfortable. Good-bye, papa."
- "Good-bye, Nastya dear. Mind your studies, don't be lazy."
- The wagon started off, shaking up the girl with its jolting, but in
- the next moment she sat up erect like a stick, swaying no longer from
- side to side, but merely bobbing up and down. The deacon pulled out a
- handkerchief in order to wave the little traveler good-bye, but Nastya
- never turned around; and shaking his head reprovingly the deacon heaved
- a deep sigh, blew his nose and put the handkerchief back into his
- pocket. Thus she departed never to return to the village of Snamenskoye.
- "Why don't you, Father Vassily, send the little boy away as well? It
- will be hard on you to take care of him with only the cook to help you.
- She's a stupid wench and deaf into the bargain," said the deacon when
- the wagon was out of sight and the dust which it had raised had settled.
- Father Vassily eyed him pensively:
- "Shirk the consequences of my own sin, and burden others with them?
- No, deacon, my sin is with me and must remain with me. We'll manage
- somehow, the old and the young one, what do you think, Father Deacon?"
- He smiled a pleasant and cordial smile, as though in stingless raillery
- at something known to himself alone, and patted the deacon's portly
- shoulder.
- Father Vassily transferred the rights to his land to the vestry,
- providing a small sum for his support, which he called his "dowry."
- "And perhaps I might not take even that," he said enigmatically,
- smiling pleasantly, with the same stingless raillery that was a riddle
- to all but himself.
- And he made it his business to look after another matter: he induced
- Ivan Porfyritch to give employment to Mossyagin who had been turning
- black in the face from slow starvation. When Mossyagin had first
- called on Ivan Porfyritch asking him for work, the churchwarden drove
- him away, but after a talk with the priest, he not only gave him
- employment, but even sent over a load of shingles for Father Vassily's
- new house. And he said to his wife, a woman who never opened her mouth
- and was always in the family way:
- "Mark my word, this priest will raise ructions."
- "What ructions?" coldly inquired the wife.
- "Just plain ructions. Only as how in a manner of speaking it is none of
- my business.... So I keep my mouth shut. Otherwise...." and he looked
- vaguely through the window in the direction of the capital city of the
- province.
- And no one knew whence, whether as the result of the churchwarden's
- mysterious words or from other sources, vague and disquieting rumors
- gained currency in the village and in the vicinity with regard to the
- priest of Snamenskoye. Like the odor of smoke from a distant forest
- fire these rumors moved slowly and scattered widely, no one knowing
- whence and how they had originated, and only as the people exchanged
- glances and saw the sun grow pallid behind a hazy film they began to
- realize that something new, unusual and disquieting had come to dwell
- among them.
- Towards the middle of October the new house was ready for occupancy,
- save that only one wing was all finished and covered with a roof;
- the other wing still lacked roof beams and rafters, and gaping with
- empty and frameless window openings, clung to the finished portion
- like a skeleton strapped to a living person, and at night looked
- grimly desolate and forbidding. Father Vassily had not troubled to
- buy new furniture: within the four bare walls of crude logs on which
- the amber sap had not yet hardened, the sole furniture in the four
- rooms consisted of two wooden stools, a table and two beds. The deaf
- and stupid cook was a poor hand at building fires and the rooms were
- always full of smoke which gave headaches to the inmates and hung
- like a low grey cloud over the dirty floor with its imprint of muddy
- boots. And the house was cold. During the severe cold spell of early
- winter the widow panes had gathered a layer of downy frost on the
- inside and a bleak chilling twilight reigned within. The window sills
- had been encrusted since the early frost with a thick coating of ice
- which constantly dribbling, formed rivulets on the floor. Even the
- unpretentious peasants who came to the priest for ministrations looked
- askance, in guilty embarrassment, upon the penurious furnishings of
- the priestly abode, and the deacon referred to it wrathfully as the
- "abomination of desolation."
- When Father Vassily first entered his new house, he paced for a long
- time in joyful agitation through rooms that were as cold and barren as
- a barn and merrily called to the idiot:
- "We'll live like lords here, Vassily, hey?"
- The idiot licked his lips with his long brutish tongue and loudly
- barked with jerky, monotonous bellows: "Huh-huh-huh!"
- He was pleased and he laughed. But soon he began to feel the cold and
- the loneliness and the gloom of the abandoned abode, and this made him
- angry; he screamed, slapped his own cheeks and tried to slide down
- on the floor, but he fell from the chair painfully hurting himself.
- Sometimes he lapsed into a state of heavy stupor not unlike a grotesque
- pensive day dream. Supporting his head with his thin long fingers he
- stared into space from beneath his narrow, beastlike eyelids and never
- stirred. And it seemed at times that he was not an idiot, but some
- strange creature lost in meditation, thinking peculiar thoughts of his
- own that were totally unlike the thoughts of other people: as though
- he knew something that was peculiar, simple and mysterious, something
- that no one else could know of. And to look at his flattened nose with
- the widely distended nostrils, at the slanting back of his head which
- in a brutish slope merged straight into his back--it seemed that if one
- were only to lend him a pair of swift and sturdy legs he would scurry
- away into the woods there to live out his mysterious forest life filled
- with savage play and obscure forest lore.
- And side by side with him, always the two together, always alone, now
- deafened by his impudent and malignant screaming, now haunted by his
- stony enigmatic stare, Father Vassily lived the equally mysterious
- life of the spirit, that had renounced the flesh. He longed to purge
- himself for the great martyrdom and the great sacrifice yet unrevealed,
- and his days and his nights became one ceaseless prayer, one wordless
- effusion. Since the death of the Popadya he had imposed upon himself an
- ascetic regime: he drank no tea, he tasted neither meat nor fish, and
- on days of abstinence, Wednesday and Friday, his food consisted merely
- of bread soaked in water. And with a puzzling cruelty that seemed to be
- akin to vindictiveness he had imposed the same strict abstinence upon
- the idiot, and the latter suffered like a starving beast. He screamed
- and scratched and even shed floods of greedy, doglike tears, but he
- could not procure an additional bite of food. The priest saw but few
- people, and these only when absolutely compelled to receive them, and
- he assiduously shortened all interviews, devoting every hour, with
- brief intervals for rest and sleep, to prayer on bended knee. And when
- he grew tired he sat down and read the Gospels and the Acts of the
- Apostles and the Lives of the Saints. It had been the village custom to
- hold services only on Sundays and holidays, but now he celebrated the
- early liturgy every morning. The aged deacon had refused to officiate
- with him, and he was assisted by the lay-reader, a filthy and lonely
- old man who had been once deposed from the diaconate for drunkenness,
- and was now acting as verger.
- Long before daybreak, shivering with the cold of the early winter
- morning, Father Vassily wended his way to the church. He did not have
- far to go, but the walk consumed much time. Frequently a snow drift
- covered the road at night and his feet sank and stuck fast in the dry
- grainy snow and each step required the effort of ten ordinary steps.
- The church was not properly heated and it was bitterly cold inside,
- with that peculiar penetrating cold which in winter time clings to
- public places left vacant for days at a time. Human breath turned
- into dense clouds of vapor, the touch of metal felt like a burn. The
- lay-reader, who was also the verger, built a small fire in a tiny
- stove, back of the altar, just for the priest's comfort, and by its
- opened gate, Father Vassily, squatting on his haunches, warmed his
- hands before the modest blaze, for otherwise he could not have clasped
- the cross with his numb and unbending fingers. And during the ten
- minutes thus spent he joked with the old lay-reader about the cold
- and the gipsy sweat, and the lay-reader listened to him with sullen
- condescension; constant drink and cold had colored the lay-reader's
- nose a deep purple, and his bristling chin (after his deposition he had
- shaved off his beard) moved rhythmically as though chewing a cud.
- Then Father Vassily donned his tattered vestments, once embroidered
- with gold, of which a few ragged thread ends were the sole remaining
- trace. A pinch of incense was dropped into the censer and they began to
- officiate in semi-darkness, barely able to distinguish one another's
- outlines, like a couple of blind men moving by instinct in a familiar
- spot. Two stumps of wax tapers, one near the lay-reader, the other on
- the altar near the image of the Saviour, merely served to intensify
- the gloom; and their sharp flames slowly swayed from side to side
- responding to the movements of these unhurrying men.
- The service was long, and it was slow and solemn. Every word trembled
- and deliquesced in its outlines, being caught up by the echo of the
- deserted church. And there was nothing within but the echo, the
- darkness and the two men serving God; and little by little something
- began to glow and blaze in the lay-reader's heart. Pricking up his
- ears, he cautiously strove to catch every word of the priest and moved
- his chin in quick succession. And his lonely, filthy decrepit old age
- seemed to vanish somewhere into distance, and with it the whole of
- his luckless and weary existence, and that which came in the place
- thereof was strange and joyous to the verge of tears. Frequently to the
- lay-reader's allocution there came no response; silence, protracted and
- solemn, ensued, and the sharp tongues of wax tapers blazed straight up
- without stirring. Then from the distance came a voice that was sated
- with tears and with gladness. And once more through the semi-darkness
- moved sure-footedly the two unhurrying celebrants, and the flames
- swayed to one side and to the other in response to their deliberate
- measured movements.
- The daylight was commencing to break when the service was finished, and
- Father Vassily said:
- "Look, Nicon, how warm it is getting."
- A spiral of steam was issuing from his mouth. The wrinkles on Nicon's
- cheeks had grown pink, he scanned the priest's face with a severely
- searching expression and diffidently inquired:
- "And to-morrow--again? Or perhaps not?"
- "Of course, Nicon, again, of course."
- Reverently he conducted the priest to the door and then returned to
- his watchman's booth. There, yelping and barking, a dozen dogs came
- running towards him--grown up dogs they were and pups. Surrounded by
- them as though by a family of children, he fed them and caressed them,
- with his thoughts dwelling constantly on the priest. And as he thought
- of the priest he wondered. He thought of the priest--and smiled,
- without opening his lips, and averting his face from his dogs so that
- they might not see his smile. And he thought, and he thought until
- nightfall. But in the morning he waited to see if the priest would not
- fool him, if the priest would not back down in the face of the darkness
- and the frost. But the priest came despite the cold and the darkness,
- shivering, yet cheerful, and once more from the gaping mouth of the
- little stove into the very depths of the vacant church stretched a
- ribbon of a ruddy glow and along it the black and melting shadow.
- At first hearing of the eccentricities of the priest many people came
- to the early liturgy just to see him officiate and they marveled. Some
- of those who came to watch him pronounced him a madman; others were
- edified and wept, but there were others, too, and these were many, in
- whose hearts was born a keen and unconquerable disquietude. For in
- the steady, in the fearlessly frank and luminous glance of the priest
- they had caught a glimmer of mystery, of the most profound and hidden
- mystery, full of ineffable threats, full of ominous promises. But soon
- the merely curious began to drop off, and for a long time the church
- remained vacant in these early morning hours, none disturbing the peace
- of the two praying men. But after a lapse of time in response to the
- words of the priest there had begun to come from the darkness timid,
- subdued sighs, someone's knees struck the flags of the stone floor
- with a dull thud; someone's lips were whispering, someone's hands were
- holding a tiny fresh taper, and between the two stumps it looked like a
- stately young birch in a forest clearing.
- And rumor, dull, disquieting, impersonal, grew apace. It crept
- everywhere where people assembled, leaving behind some sediment of
- fear, hope and expectancy. Little was said, and what was said was
- vague; for the most part it was the wagging of heads, followed by
- sighs, but in the neighboring province, a hundred miles away, someone,
- grey and taciturn, began to whisper of a "new faith" and was lost again
- in silence. And rumor kept spreading, like the wind, like the clouds,
- like the smoky odor of a distant forest fire.
- Last of all the rumors reached the provincial capital, as though
- they found it hard and painful to make their way through stone
- walls, through the noisy and populous city streets. And like naked,
- ragged thieves they finally showed themselves, claiming that someone
- had burned himself alive, that a new fanatical sect had sprung up
- in Snamenskoye. And people in uniform made their appearance in the
- village, but they found nothing, for neither the village houses nor the
- stolid faces of the villagers revealed anything to them, and they drove
- back to town tinkling with their sleigh bells.
- But after this visit the rumors became still more persistent and
- malicious, while Father Vassily continued to serve mass every morning
- as heretofore.
- X.
- The long evenings of winter time Father Vassily passed in solitude with
- the idiot, imprisoned together with him in the white cage of pine log
- walls and ceiling, as though locked in a shell.
- From the past he had retained a love for bright lights--and on the
- table, warming the room, blazed a large oil lamp with a big-bellied
- globe. The window panes frozen outside and frosted within reflected
- the light of the lamp and sparkled, but were impenetrably opaque like
- the walls and cut off the people from the greying night outside. Like
- a boundless sphere the night enveloped the house, crushing it from
- above, seeking some crevice through which to plunge its greyish claws,
- but finding none. It raged about the doors, tapped the walls with its
- lifeless hands, exhaling a murderous cold, wrathfully raised a myriad
- of dry and spiteful snowflakes, flinging them frenziedly against the
- windowpanes, and frantically ran back into the fields, cavorting,
- singing and leaping headlong into snowbanks, clutching the stiffened
- earth in its crosslike embrace. Then it rose and squatted on its
- haunches and silently gazed into the illuminated windows gnashing its
- teeth. And once more shrilly shrieking it flung itself against the
- house, bellowing into the chimney with a greedy howl of insatiable
- hatred and longing, and it lied: it had no children, it had devoured
- them all and buried them out in the field in the field--in the field.
- "A snowstorm," said Father Vassily stopping to listen for a moment and
- turning his eyes back to his reading.
- But it found them. The flame of the big lamp melted a circle in the
- frosty armor, and the damp window pane glistened and it glued its grey
- wan eye to the exposed spot. "Two of them--two--two--just two." Rough,
- bare walls with the shining drops of amber sap, the radiant emptiness
- of air and the humans--two of them.
- With the narrow little skull bending over his work the idiot sat at
- the table pasting little boxes out of cardboard: he was spreading on
- the paste, holding the tip of the brush in his long narrow hand, or
- else he was cutting up the cardboard and the click of the scissors
- resounded noisily through the barren house. The boxes came out all
- askew and dirty, with overlapping bands that refused to stick, but the
- idiot was unconscious of these defects and continued to work. Now and
- then he raised his head and with a motionless glance from beneath his
- narrow brutish eyelids he gazed into the radiant emptiness of the room,
- wherein a riot of sounds was fighting, whirling and circling. Rustling,
- rattling, crackling, booming, explosive sounds they were, mingling with
- someone's laughter and long drawn out, protracted sighing. They were
- hovering over him, running over his face like invisible cobwebs, and
- penetrating into his head--those rustling, crackling, sighing sounds.
- And the man on the other side of the table was motionless and silent.
- "Bang!" crackled the drying wood, and Father Vassily shivered and tore
- his eyes from the white page before him. And then he saw the bare
- rough walls, and the desolate windows and the grey eye of the night,
- and the idiot frozen in a listening attitude with a pair of shears
- in his hands. All this flitted past him like a vision, and once more
- before his lowered eyes spread the unfathomable world of the marvelous,
- the world of love, the world of gentle compassion and of beautiful
- sacrifices.
- "Pa-pa," the idiot mumbled the word which he had recently learned, and
- looked at his father askance, angrily, worriedly. But the man heard not
- and was silent, and his luminous face seemed inspired. He was dreaming
- the wondrous dreams of a madness that was brilliant as the sun. He
- believed with the faith of those martyrs who enter upon the stake as
- upon a couch of joy and die with a doxology on their lips. And he loved
- with the mighty and unrestrained love of the master who rules life and
- death and knows not the torture of the tragic impotence of human love.
- "Glory--glory--glory!"
- "Pa-pa, Pa-pa!" once more mumbled the idiot, and receiving no reply
- took up his shears again. But he soon dropped them again, staring with
- motionless eyes and pricking up his outstanding ears to catch the
- sounds as they flitted past him. Hissing and rustling, laughter and
- whistling. And laughter. The night was in a playful mood. It squatted
- on the beams of the unfinished framework, rocking on the rafters and
- tumbling into the snow; it quietly stole into nooks and crannies, and
- there dug graves for those strangers, those strangers. And joyously
- it whirled up aloft, spreading its grey, wide wings, peering; then it
- tumbled again like a rock, or circling whizzed through the darkened
- window openings of the frosty framework, hissing and screaming. It was
- chasing the snowflakes--pallid with fear they silently sped onward in
- headlong flight.
- "Pa-pa," the idiot shouted loudly. "Pa-pa!"
- The man heard and raised his head with the long, black, greying
- locks that encircled his face like the night and the snow. For a
- moment before him rose again the bare, rough walls and the spiteful
- and frightened face of the idiot and the screaming of the rioting
- snowstorm, filling his heart with agonized elation. It is done--it is
- done.
- "What is it, Vassily? Paste your boxes."
- "Papa!"
- "Be calm. The snowstorm? Yes, yes, the snowstorm!"
- Father Vassily clung to the window--eye to eye with the greying night.
- He peered. And he whispered in terrified wonderment:
- "Why doesn't he ring the bell?[9] What if some one is lost in the
- fields?"
- The night is sobbing. In the field--in the field--in the field.
- "Wait, Vassily. I'll walk over to Nicon's. I'll return at once."
- "Pa-pa!"
- The door rattles, letting in a flood of new sounds. They first timidly
- edge their way near the door--no one is there. It is bright and empty.
- One by one they steal towards the idiot, groping along the ceiling,
- along the floor, along the walls. They peer into his brutish eyes, they
- whisper, they laugh, they commence to play with growing glee, with
- growing abandon. They chase one another, leaping and stumbling. They
- are doing something in the adjoining room, fighting and screaming. No
- one there. Light and emptiness. No one there.
- "Boom!" somewhere overhead falls the first heavy note of the church
- bell scattering the myriad of frightened sounds into flight. "Boom!"
- goes the bell once more, with a second, muffled, viscid, scattered
- sound, as though an onrush of wind had caught the broad maw of the
- bell, and it choked and groaned. And the tiny sounds flee precipitously.
- "And here am I again," says Father Vassily. He is all white and
- shivering. The stiff, red fingers cannot turn the page. He blows on
- them, rubs them together, and once more the pages rustle and all
- disappears, the bare rough walls, the repulsive mask of the idiot and
- the measured knell of the church bell. Once more his face is ablaze
- with joyous madness. "Glory, glory!"
- "Boom!"
- The night is playing with the bell. Catching its thickly reverberating
- notes, weaving about them a network of whizzing and whistling
- sounds, tearing them to pieces, scattering them abroad, rolling them
- ponderously over the fields, burying them in the snow, and listening
- with the head askew. And once more it rushes to meet the new clangor,
- tireless, spiteful and cunning like Satan.
- "Pa-pa!" cried the idiot throwing to the ground the shears with a bang.
- "What is it? Be quiet!"
- "Pa-pa!"
- Silence in the room, the whizzing and wrathful his-, sing of the
- snowstorm outside, and the dull, viscid sounds of the bell. The idiot
- is slowly turning his head, and his thin, lifeless legs, with the
- curving toes and the tender soles that have never known contact with
- firm ground stir feebly and impotently strive to flee. And he calls
- again:
- "Pa-pa!"
- "All right. Stop.... Listen, I will read you something."
- Father Vassily turned back the page and began with a grave and severe
- voice, as though reading in church:
- "And as He passed by He saw a man who was blind from birth. He raised
- his hand and with blanched cheeks looked up at Vassya.
- "Understand: BLIND FROM BIRTH. Had never seen the light of the sun, the
- face of his near ones and dear ones. He had come into the world and
- darkness had enveloped him. Poor man! Blind man!"
- The voice of the priest resounds with the firmness of faith and with
- the transport of sated compassion. He is silent, he is staring ahead
- with a softly smiling gaze as though he cannot part with this poor
- man who was blind from birth and had never seen the face of a friend
- and had never thought that the grace of God was so nigh. Grace--and
- mercy--and mercy.
- "Boom!"
- "But listen, son. 'His disciples asked Him: Master who did sin, this
- man or his parents that he was born blind? Jesus answered: neither hath
- this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be
- made manifest in him.'"
- The voice of the priest gathers strength and fills the barren room with
- its reverberations. And its sonorous sounds pierce the soft purring and
- hissing and whistling and the lingering cracked tolling of the choking
- church bell. The idiot is filled with glee over the flaming voice and
- the brilliant eyes and the noise and the whistling and the booming. He
- slaps his outstanding ears, he hums, and two streams of viscid saliva
- flow in two dirty currents to his receding chin.
- "Pa-pa! Pa-pa!"
- "Listen, listen: 'I must work the work of Him that sent me while it is
- day; the night cometh when no man can work. As long as I am in the
- world, I am the light of the world.' Forever and ever for ever and
- ever!" into the teeth of the night and of the snowstorm he flings a
- passionately ringing challenge. "For ever and ever!" The church-bell is
- calling to the wanderers, and impotently weeps its aged broken voice.
- And the night is swinging on its black, blind notes: "Two of them, two
- of them, two-two-two!"
- Dimly Father Vassily hears it and with a stern reproof he turns to the
- idiot:
- "Stop that mumbling!"
- But the idiot is silent, and once more eyeing him dubiously Father
- Vassily continues:
- "I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the
- ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the
- blind man with the clay. And said unto him, Go wash in the pool of
- Siloam. He went his way therefore,--and washed, and came seeing."
- "SEEING! Vassya, SEEING!" menacingly cried the priest and leaping from
- his seat he began to pace the floor swiftly. Then he stopped in the
- center of the room and loudly cried:
- "I believe, O Lord, I believe."
- And all was still. But a loud galloping peal of laughter broke the
- silence, striking the priest's back. And he turned about terrified.
- "What sayest thou?" he asked in fear, stepping back. The idiot was
- laughing. The senseless, ominous laughter had torn his immense immobile
- mask from ear to ear and out of the wide chasm of his mouth rushed
- unrestrained, galloping peals of oddly vacant laughter. "Ha-ha-ha-ha!"
- XI.
- On the eve of Whitsunday, the bright and happy festival of spring time,
- the peasants were digging sand to strew over the village roadways.
- The peasants of Snamenskoye had for several years past carted huge
- supplies of rich red sand from pits located a distance of two versts
- from their village, in a clearing which they had made in a dense
- wood of low birch, pine and young oak trees. It was in the beginning
- of June, but the grass was already waist high, hiding half-way the
- luxuriant and mighty verdure of the riotous bushes and their humid,
- green, broad foliage. And there were many flowers that year, with a
- multitude of bees flitting from blossom to blossom. The bees poured
- their rhythmical, ardent humming, the flowers shed their sweetly plain
- fragrance down the crumbling, sliding slopes of the excavation. For
- several days the air had been heavy with the threat of a storm. It
- was felt in the heated, windless atmosphere, in the dewless, stifling
- nights; the anguished cattle called for it, pleadingly lowed for it
- with stretched-out heads. And the people were gasping for breath, but
- abnormally elated. The motionless air crushed and depressed them, but
- something restless was urging them on to movement, to loud, abrupt
- conversation, to causeless laughter.
- Two men were at work in the pits, Nicon, the verger, who was taking
- sand for the church, and the village elder's laborer, Semen Mossyagin.
- Ivan Porfyritch loved an abundance of sand both in the street in f-out
- of his house and all over his cobblestone yard, and Semen had taken
- away one cartload in the morning and was now loading another wagon,
- briskly throwing up shovelfuls of golden, ruddy sand. He rejoiced in
- the heat and in the humming, in the fragrance and in the pleasure of
- toil: he looked up with a challenge into the face of the morose verger
- who was lazily scratching up the surface of the sand with a toothless
- scraper, and he mocked him:
- "Well, old friend, Nicon Ivanytch, we're doomed to blush unseen."
- "Say that again," replied the verger with a lazy and indefinite menace,
- and as he spoke the pipe which he was smoking dropped from his mouth
- into the grey undergrowth of his beard and threatened to fall.
- "Look out, you'll lose your pipe," Semen warned him.
- Nicon did not reply, and Semen, unabashed, continued to dig. During
- the six months which he had spent in the service of Ivan Porfyritch
- he had grown smooth and round like a cucumber, and his simple tasks
- came nowhere near exhausting his overabundance of vigor and energy.
- He alertly attacked the sand, digging in and throwing it up with the
- agility and swiftness of a hen scratching for grain; he gathered the
- golden gleaming sand, shaking up the spade like a wide and garrulous
- tongue. But the pit from which many cartloads had been taken the day
- before seemed exhausted and Semen resolutely spat out.
- "Can't dig much here. Shall I try yonder?" he glanced up at a low
- little cave which had been dug in the crumbling sloping side of the pit
- and in which he saw a motley series of red and greenish grey layers,
- and he determinedly walked towards it.
- The verger looked at the little cave and thought: "It might slide," yet
- he did not say a word. But Semen sensed the peril in the instinctive
- onrush of a vague anxiety which overcame him like a sudden attack of
- passing nausea and he stopped:
- "Do you think it will slide on me?" he asked as he turned around.
- "How should I know?" replied the verger.
- In the deep recesses of the cave--which resembled a yawning mouth,
- there was something treacherous, something traplike, and Semen wavered.
- But from above, where the leaves of a young oak tree were sharply
- outlined against the azure sky, he caught the stimulating whiff of
- fresh foliage and blossoms, and this stimulating fragrance incited to
- gay and daring deeds. Semen spat rut into his palm, seized his shovel,
- but after the second thrust a faint crunch was heard, and the whole
- slope of the excavation slid down without a sound and buried him. And
- only the young tree which barely hung on by its roots feebly moved its
- leaves, while a round lump of dried sand looking so bland and innocent
- rolled over to the feet of the verger from whose cheeks all color had
- fled. Two hours later Semen was taken out dead. His broad open mouth,
- with the clean and pearly teeth, was stuffed tight with the golden
- gleaming sand. And all over his face, amid the white eyelashes of his
- hollow eyes, mingled with his sunny hair and the flaming red beard
- glistened the gold of the beautiful sand. And still the tangled mass of
- his auburn hair was whirling and dancing, and the gay absurdity, the
- daredevil merriment v of that dance around the pallid face that had
- settled into the rigor of death created the impression of a fiendish
- mockery.
- With the curious throng attracted by the news of the accident, Senka,
- the little son of the perished man, had come on the run. No one thought
- of giving him a lift, and he had run the whole way in the rear of the
- village wagons; while his father's body was being released from the
- slide, he was standing aside on a mound of clay, motionless, breathing
- heavily, and as immobile were his eyes with which he devoured the
- melting avalanche of sand.
- The dead man was laid on a wagon, atop of the golden load of sand which
- he himself had thrown upon it; they covered the body with a mat, and
- drove away at a slow pace over the rutty forest road. In the rear of
- the funeral wagon stolidly strode the villagers scattering in groups
- among trees, and their blouses struck by the rays of the sun flashed
- crimson through the wood. When the cortege passed the two-story house
- of Ivan Porfyritch the verger suggested that the corpse be taken to his
- house:
- "He was his farmhand, let him bury him."
- But not a soul was to be seen either in the windows or about the house
- and the shop was locked with a ponderous iron padlock. For a long time
- they knocked against the massive gates decorated with black flatheaded
- nails, then they rang the sonorous doorbell, and its reverberating
- echoes resounded sharply and loudly somewhere around the corner, but
- though the court dogs yelled themselves hoarse, for a long time no
- one came. Finally an old scullery woman came out and announced that
- her master ordered the body to be taken to the dead man's home, and
- promised to donate the sum of ten roubles towards funeral expenses,
- without deducting the gift from the earnings of the deceased. While
- she was arguing with the throng outside, Ivan Porfyritch himself,
- frightened to death and wrathful, was standing behind the curtains,
- gazing with a shudder upon the mat that covered the corpse and he
- whispered to his wife:
- "Remember, if that priest offers me a million roubles I shall not shake
- hands with him, I'd sooner see it wither away. He is a terrible man."
- And no one knew why, whether because of the churchwarden's mysterious
- words or from some other source, confused and ominous rumors swiftly
- appeared in the village and crept back and forth like hissing snakes.
- The villagers talked of Semen, of his sudden and terrible death, and
- they thought of the priest, not knowing what they were expecting of
- him. When Father Vassily started on his way to the requiem mass, pale
- and burdened by vague musings, but cheery and smiling, the people in
- his path stepped aside giving him a wide berth, and for a long time
- wavered before they dared to step upon a spot where his heavy footsteps
- had burned an invisible trace. They remembered the fire in his house
- and talked of it at great length. They recalled the Popadya who had
- burned to death and her son, the crippled idiot, and back of plain,
- clear words scurried the sharp thorns of fear. Some woman sobbed out
- aloud with a vague, overwhelming compassion, and went away. Those who
- stayed back for a long time watched her departing sobshaken back,
- then in silence, avoiding to look at one another, they dispersed. The
- youngsters, reflecting the agitation of their elders, gathered at
- dusk on the threshing floor and were exchanging fanciful tales of the
- dead man, while their bulging eyes sparkled darkly. Cozily familiar
- irritated parental voices had been calling them to their homes for
- a long time, but their bare feet were loth to make a homeward dash
- through the gruesome diaphanous dusk of evening. And during the two
- days which preceded the funeral there was a ceaseless stream of
- villagers wending their way to view the corpse that was puffed-up and
- rapidly turning blue.
- The two nights before the funeral the earth had been exhaling a breath
- of the most intense torridity, and the dry meadows consumed beneath
- the merciless heat of the sun were bare of vegetation. The sky was
- clear and dark, few stars were out and these shone dimly. And above all
- reigned on all sides the ceaseless chatter of the crickets. When after
- the memorial vesper service Father Vassily emerged from the hut, it was
- dark already, and the sleepy street was unlighted. Stifled with the
- close atmosphere, the priest had taken off his broad-rimmed hat and was
- walking with a noiseless stride as though over a soft and downy carpet.
- And it was rather from a vague sense of instinctive anxiety than from
- the sense of hearing that he realized that someone was following him,
- evidently suiting his stride to his own deliberate gait. The priest
- stopped, the pursuer who had not expected this, advanced a few steps
- and also stopped rather abruptly.
- "Who is this?" asked Father Vassily.
- The man was silent. Then he suddenly veered around, and swiftly retired
- without decreasing his pace, and a moment later he was lost in the
- trackless gloom of the night.
- The same thing happened the following night; a tall, dark man followed
- the priest to the very gate or Ids house, and something in the bearing
- and in the stride of the heavily built stranger reminded the priest of
- Ivan Porfyritch, the churchwarden.
- "Ivan Porfyritch, is it you?" he called. But the stranger did not reply
- and departed. And as Father Vassily was retiring for the night someone
- tapped softly at his window. The priest looked out, but not a soul was
- to be seen. "Why#is he roaming about like an evil spirit?" thought the
- priest in annoyance, making ready to kneel down for his protracted
- devotions. And lost in prayer he forgot the churchwarden and the night
- that was restlessly spreading over the earth, and himself; he was
- praying for the deceased, for his wife and children, for the bestowal
- of the great mercy of God upon the earth and its inhabitants. And in
- fathomless sunny depths a new world was assuming vague outlines, and
- this world was earth no more.
- While he was praying the idiot had slipped from his bed, noisily
- shuffling his reviving but still feeble legs. He had learned to crawl
- in the beginning of the spring, and frequently on returning home Father
- Vassily found him on the threshold, sitting motionless like a dog
- before the locked door. Now he had started towards the open window,
- moving slowly, with much effort, and shaking his head intently. He had
- reached it, and hooking his powerful prehensile hands in the window
- sill he raised himself up and peered sullenly, greedily into the
- darkness. He was listening to something.
- Mossyagin was to be buried on Whitmonday, and the day dawned
- ominous and uncertain, as though the confusion of people had found
- its counterpart in the formless confusion of nature. It had been
- oppressively hot since morning, the very grass seemed to curl'up and
- wither before one's eyes as though seared by a merciless fire. And the
- dense opaque sky impended threateningly ever the earth, and its filmy
- blue seemed to be zigzagged with thin veins of bloody red, so ruddy
- it was, so sonorous with metallic nuances and shades. The enormous
- sun was blazing with heat, and it was so strange to see it shine so
- brightly, while nowhere the sharply defined and restful shadows of a
- sunny day were to be found, as though between sun and earth hung some
- invisible but none the less solid curtain intercepting its rays.
- And over all reigned a stillness that was mute and ponderous, as
- though an invalid had lost himself in a labyrinth of musing, and with
- drooping eyelids had lapsed into silence. Grey rows of young birches
- with withered leaves, cut down with the roots, stretched through the
- village in serried ranks, and this aimless procession of young grey
- trees, perishing from thirst and fire and spectrelike refusing to cast
- shadows, filled the mind with sadness and vague forebodings. The golden
- grains of sand that had been scattered over the roadways had long since
- turned into yellow dust, and the refuse of festive sunflower pips of
- the day before surprised the eye: it babbled of something peaceful,
- simple and pleasant, while all that had remained in paralyzed nature
- seemed so stern, so morbid, so pensive, so menacing.
- While Father Vassily was donning his raiments Ivan Porfyritch entered
- into the altar enclosure. Through the sweat and the purpling flush
- of heat that covered his face timidly peered a grey earthy pallor.
- His eyes were swollen, and burning feverishly. His hurriedly combed
- hair, matted with cider, had dried in spots and stuck out in confused
- thickets, as though the man had not slept for several nights, wallowing
- in the throes of superhuman terror. He seemed somehow unkempt and
- distracted; he had forgotten the niceties of human intercourse, failing
- to ask the priest's blessing or even to salute him.
- "What is the matter with you, Ivan Porfyritch? Are you ill?" Father
- Vassily inquired sympathetically, adjusting his flowing hair that had
- caught in the stiff neckpiece of his chasuble; in spite of the heat his
- face was pale and concentrated.
- The churchwarden made an attempt at a smile.
- "Just so. Nothing important. I wanted to have a talk with you, Father."
- "Was it you--last night?"
- "Yes, and the night before, too. Pardon me, I had no intention...."
- He heaved a deep sigh and once more oblivious of niceties, he openly
- blurted out trembling with fear:
- "I am scared. I have never been scared before in my life. And now I am
- scared. I am scared."
- "Of what?" asked the priest in amazement.
- Ivan Porfyritch looked over the priest's shoulder as though someone,
- silent and dreadful, were hiding behind him, and continued:
- "Death."
- They were regarding one another in silence.
- "Death. It's got to my household. Without rime or reason it will carry
- off all of us. All of us! Why in my home not a hen dare die without
- cause: if I order chicken soup, a hen dies, not otherwise. And what Is
- this now? Is that proper order? Pardon me, but at first I had not even
- guessed it. Pardon me."
- "You mean Semen?"
- "Whom else? Sidor or Yevstigney?[10] Say, you listen to me, lad,"
- coarsely continued the churchwarden, out of his mind with terror and
- wrath. "Leave these tricks be. We're no fools here. Get out of here
- while the going is good. Away with you."
- He swung his head with an energetic nod in the direction of the door
- and added:
- "And be lively about it."
- "What's the matter with you? Have you lost your mind?"
- "We'll see who's lost his mind, you or I. What devil's tricks is this
- you carry on here every morning? 'I'm praying! I'm praying!'"--he
- nasally mimicked the liturgical intonation. "This is no way to pray.
- Bide your time, bear up patiently, don't come with your I'm praying.
- You're a pagan, a self-willed rebel, bending things to suit yourself.
- And now you're bent in return: what's become of Semen? Where is Semen?
- I ask. Why have you destroyed him? Where is Semen, tell me."
- He roughly rushed towards the priest and heard a curt, stern warning:
- "Away form the altar, blasphemer!"
- Purple with wrath Ivan Porfyritch looked down upon the priest from his
- towering height and froze rigid with his mouth wide-open. Upon him
- gazed abysmally a pair of deep eyes, black and dreadful like the ooze
- of a sucking swamp, and some strange and abundant life was throbbing
- behind them, some one's menacing will issued forth from behind them
- like a sharpened sword. Eyes alone. Neither face nor body saw Ivan
- Porfyritch, but only eyes, immense like a house wall, high as the
- altar; gaping, mysterious, commanding eyes were gazing upon him, and as
- though seared by a consuming flame he unconsciously wrung his hands and
- fled knocking his massive shoulder against the partition. And in his
- fear-chilled spine, through the thick masonry of the church walls, he
- still felt the piercing sting of those black and dreadful eyes.
- XII.
- They were entering the church with cautious steps and took up their
- stations wherever they chanced to be, not where they usually stood at
- service, where they liked or where they were accustomed to stand, as
- though finding it improper or wicked on a day of such awe and anguish
- to stick to trifling habits or to take thought of trivial comforts.
- And they took up their stations, hesitating a long time ere daring to
- turn their heads in order to look around. The church was crowded to
- suffocation, yet ever fresh rows of silent newcomers pressed from the
- rear. And all were silent, all were gloomily, anxiously expectant, and
- the crowded nearness of fellow-creatures gave no sense of security.
- Elbow was touching upon elbow and yet it seemed to each one that he was
- standing alone in a boundless waste. Drawn by strange rumors men from
- distant villages, from strange parishes had come to the little church;
- these were bolder and spoke at first in loud tones, but they too soon
- lapsed into silence, with resentful amazement, but impotent like the
- rest to break through the invisible chains of leaden stillness. Every
- one of the lofty stained windows was opened to admit air, and through
- them gazed the threatening coppery sky. It seemed to be sulkily peering
- from window to window, casting over all a dry, metallic reflection. And
- in this scattered and depressing, but none the less glaring light the
- old gilt of the image stand shone with a dull and irresolute lustre,
- irritating the eye with the chaotic haziness of the saints' features.
- Back of one of the windows a young maple tree greened motionless
- and dry, and many eyes were riveted upon its broad leaves that were
- slightly curled with the heat. They seemed like friends, old, restful
- friends in this oppressive silence, in this repressed hubbub of
- feelings, amid these yellow mocking images.
- And above all the familiar, restful odors of church, above the sweet
- fragrance of incense and wax reigned the pronounced, repulsive and
- terrible smell of corruption. The corpse had been rapidly decomposing,
- and it was nauseatingly terrible to approach the black coffin which
- contained the decaying mass of rotting and stinking flesh. It was
- terrible merely to approach it, but around it four persons stood
- motionless like the coffin itself: the widow and the three now
- fatherless children. Perhaps they too smelt the stench, but they
- refused to believe in it. Or perhaps they smelt nothing and fancied
- that they were burying their dear one alive, even as most folks think
- when death swiftly and unexpectedly snatches away one who is near and
- dear and is so inseparable from their very life. But they were silent,
- and all was still, and the threatening coppery sky peered from window
- to window over the heads of the crowd scattering about its dry and
- distracted glances.
- When the requiem mass had begun, with its wonted solemn simplicity,
- and the portly and kindhearted deacon had swung his censer into the
- throng--all breathed freely with the relief of elation. Some exchanged
- whispers; others more resolute heavily shuffled their benumbed feet;
- still others, who were nearest to the doors slipped out to the church
- steps for a rest and a smoke. But smoking and calmly exchanging small
- talk about harvests, the threatening drouth and money matters, they
- suddenly bethought themselves and fearing lest something momentous and
- unexpected might occur within while they were away, they flung aside
- the stubs of their cigarettes and rushed back into the church, using
- their shoulders as a wedge to break through the crowd. And then they
- stopped. The service was proceeding with a solemn simplicity; the aged
- deacon was coughing and clearing his throat before each sentence and
- warningly shaking a stubby fat forefinger whenever his gaze discovered
- a whispering pair in the throng. Those who had stepped outside before
- the close of the requiem mass had observed that over the forest,
- towards the sun, a hazily blue cloud had risen up in the sky, gradually
- growing dark under the rays of the sun, and they crossed themselves
- joyfully. Among them was also Ivan Porfyritch; pale and ailing he
- looked, but he also made the sign of the cross when he saw the cloud,
- but immediately lowered his eyes with a sullen air.
- In the brief interval between the mass and the allocution to the
- corpse, while Father Vassily was donning his black velvet cassock, the
- deacon smacked his lips and said:
- "A little ice would come in handy, for he smells rather strong. But
- where can you get ice? In my opinion it is well to keep a supply in the
- church for such cases. You might tell the churchwarden."
- "He smells?" dully said the priest.
- "Don't you notice it? You must have a fine nose! I'm simply done for.
- It will take a week in this hot spell to get the stench out of the
- church. Just take notice. I've got the smell in my beard, I swear."
- He held the tip of his grey beard to his nose, smelt it and said
- reproachfully:
- "Such people!"
- Then commenced the chanting. And once more the leaden silence oppressed
- the crowd and chained each one to his place, cutting him off from among
- his fellow-men, surrendering him a prey to agonizing expectancy. The
- old verger was chanting. He had seen the coming of death to him who was
- now reposing in the black coffin and frightening the attending throng.
- He clearly recalled the innocent lump of dried earth and the young
- oak tree that trembled with its finely carved leaves, and the old,
- familiar, lugubrious words came to life in his mumbling mouth and hit
- the mark surely and painfully. And he was thinking of the priest with
- anxiety and sorrow, for in these impending hours of horror he alone of
- all other people loved Father Vassily with a shy and tender affection
- and he was close to his great rebellious soul.
- "Verily all is vanity, and life is shadow and dreams; for whoso is born
- of earth striveth for all things, but the Scripture sayeth that when
- we gain the world we gain the grave, where together dwelleth the king
- and the beggar. O Lord Christ, give peace to thy servant, for Thou art
- a lover of mankind Darkness was falling upon the church, the purpling
- blue ominous darkness of an eclipse, and all had sensed it long before
- any eye had discovered it. And only those whose eyes were riveted
- upon the friendly foliage of the maple tree outside had noticed that
- something cast-iron grey and shaggy had crept up behind it, peered into
- the church with lifeless eyes and resumed it climb to the cross of the
- steeple.
- "... where there are worldly passions, where there are the dreams of
- timeservers, where there is gold and silver, where there is a multitude
- of slaves and fame, all is dust and ashes and shadows," quivered the
- bitter words on senile trembling lips.
- Everyone had now noticed the gathering gloom and turned to the window.
- Back of the maple tree the sky v was black and the broad leaves looked
- no longer green. They had grown pale, and in their frightened rigid
- appearance there was nothing left that was friendly and reassuring.
- Seeking comfort the people looked into their neighbors' faces, and
- all faces were ashen-grey, all faces were pale and unfamiliar. And it
- seemed that the whole of that darkness--pouring through the opened
- windows in broad and silent streams, had concentrated itself in the
- blackness of that coffin and in the black-garbed priest: so black was
- the silent coffin, so black was that man--tall, frigid and stem. Surely
- and calmly he moved about, and the blackness of his garb seemed like
- the source of light amid the lack-lustre gilt, the ashen-grey faces
- and the lofty windows that disseminated gloom. But moment by moment a
- puzzling hesitancy and irresoluteness seemed to take hold of him; he
- slowed down his steps and extending his neck regarded the throng in
- surprise, as though he was startled to find this transfixed multitude
- in the church where he was wont to worship in solitude; then forgetting
- the multitude, forgetting that he was the celebrant he made his way
- distractedly into the altar enclosure; he seemed to be inwardly torn in
- two; he seemed to be waiting a word, a command or a mighty, all-solving
- sensation--and neither would come.
- "I weep and I sob as I contemplate death and see reclining in coffins
- our beauty that was created in the image of God and is now become
- formless, inglorious and unsightly. O marvel! What is this mystery that
- surroundeth us? How are we surrendered unto corruption? How are we
- subjugated unto death? Verily by the word of God...."
- Brightly gleamed the tapers in the gathering gloom as though in the
- dusk of eve, casting ruddy reflections upon the faces of the people,
- and many had noticed this sudden transition from day to night while
- it was high noon. Father Vassily too had sensed the darkness without
- comprehending it; the queer notion had entered his head that it was the
- dark of the early winter morning when he remained alone with God, and
- one great and mighty feeling had given wings to his soul--like a bird,
- like an arrow flying unerringly towards its goal. And he trembled,
- unseeing like a blind man, but on the point of receiving sight. Myriads
- of fugitive and tangled thoughts, myriads of undefined sensations
- slowed up their frenzied flight--stopped--died away--a moment of
- terrible nothingness, precipitous falling, death, and something rose
- up within his breast, something immense, something undreamt of in its
- joyous glory, in its wondrous beauty. The heart that had stood still
- was thumping forth its first beats, painfully, laboriously, but he
- already knew. It had come! It, the mighty, all-solving sensation,
- master over life and death, able to command to the mountains: "Move
- from your place!" and the hoary and cranky mountains must move. Glory,
- ineffable glory! He is gazing upon the coffin, into the church, upon
- the faces of people and he comprehends--he comprehends everything with
- that wonderful penetration into the depth of things which is possible
- only in dreams and which disappears without a trace at the approach of
- light. So that was it! That was the great solution! Glory! Glory! Glory!
- He laughs out loudly and hoarsely, he sees the frightened expression of
- the deacon who had warningly raised his finger, he sees the crouching
- backs of the people who having heard his laughter burrow gangways
- through the crowd like worms, and he claps his hand over his mouth like
- a guilty schoolboy.
- "I won't any more," he whispers into the deacon's ear, while insane
- rejoicing is fairly splashing fire from every pore of his face. And he
- weeps, covering his face with his hands.
- "Take some drops, some drops, Father Vassily," the distracted deacon
- whispers into his ear and desperately exclaims: "Lord, Lord, how out of
- place! Listen, Father Vassily!"
- The priest moves his folded hands an inch or two from his face, and
- looks from behind their shelter askance at the deacon. The deacon with
- a shiver, edges away on tiptoe, feels his way to the gate with his
- belly, and groping for the door emerges out of the altar enclosure.
- "Come, let us give our last kiss, brethren, to the departed one, giving
- thanks unto God...." A commotion ensues in the church; some depart
- stealthily without exchanging any words with those who remain, and the
- darkened church is now only comfortably filled. Only about the black
- coffin is the surge of I a silent throng, people are making the sign of
- the cross, bending their heads over something dreadful and repulsive
- and moving away with wry countenances. The widow is parting from her
- husband. She now believes in his death and she is conscious of the
- nauseating odor, but her eyes are locked to tears and there is no voice
- in her throat. And the children are watching her with three pairs of
- silent eyes.
- And while the people watched the deacon plunging worriedly through the
- congregation, Father Vassily had come out into the chancel and stood
- eyeing the crowd. And those who saw him in that moment had indelibly
- engraved in their memory his striking appearance. He was holding on
- with his hands to the railing so convulsively that the tips of his
- fingers turned livid; with I neck outstretched, the whole of his body
- bent over the railing, and pouring himself into one immense glance he
- riveted it upon the spot where the widow stood beside her children. And
- it was queer to see him, for it seemed as though he delighted in her
- boundless anguish, so cheerful, so radiant, so daringly happy was his
- impetuous glance.
- "What partings, O brethren, what weepings, what sobbing in this present
- hour; come hither, imprint a kiss upon the brow of him who from his
- early youth hath dwelt among you, for he is now to be consigned to his
- grave, surmounted by a stone, to take up his dwelling in the darkness,
- being buried with the dead, parting from his kin and his friends...."
- "Stop, thou madman!" an agonized voice came from the chancel. "Canst
- thou not see there is none dead among us?"
- And here occurred that mad and great event for which all had been
- waiting with such dread and such mystery. Father Vassily flung open the
- clanging gate, and strode through the crowd cutting its motley array;
- of colors with the solemn black of his attire and made! his way to
- the black, silently waiting coffin. He stopped, raised his right hand
- commandingly and hurriedly said to the decomposing corpse:
- "I say unto thee: Arise."
- In the wake of these words came confusion, noise, screams, cries of
- mortal terror. In a panic of fear the people rushed to the doors,
- transformed into a herd of frightened beasts. They clutched at one
- another, threatened one another with gnashing teeth, choking and
- roaring. And they poured out of the door with the slowness of water
- trickling out of an overturned bottle. There remained only the verger
- who had dropped his book, the widow with her children, and Ivan
- Porfyritch. The latter glanced a moment at the priest and leaping from
- his place cut his way into the rear of the departing throng, bellowing
- with wrath and fear.
- With the radiant and benign smile of compassion towards their unbelief
- and fear--all aglow with the might of limitless faith, Father Vassily
- repeated for the second time with solemn and regal simplicity:
- "I say unto thee, Arise!"
- But still is the corpse and its tightly locked lips are
- dispassionately guarding the secret of Eternity. And silence. Not a
- sound is heard in the deserted church. But now the resonant clatter
- of scattered frightened footsteps over the flagstones of the church:
- the widow and the orphans are going. In their wake flees the verger,
- stopping for an instant in the doorway he wrings his hands, and silence
- once more.
- "It is better so. How can he rise in this state before his wife and
- children swiftly flits through Father Vassily's mind, and for the third
- and last time he commands, softly and sternly:
- "Simeon, I say unto thee: Arise!"
- Slowly sinks his hand, he is waiting. Someone's footsteps rustle in the
- sand just outside of the window and the sound seems so near as though
- it came from the coffin. He is waiting. The footsteps come nearer and
- nearer, pass the window and die away. And stillness, and a protracted
- agonized sigh. Who is sighing? He is bending over the coffin, seeking
- a movement of life in the puffed up and formless face; he commands to
- the eyes: "But open ye, I say," bends still lower, closer and closer,
- clutches the edges of the coffin with his hands, almost touching the
- livid lips and trying to breathe the breath of life into them, and the
- shaken corpse replies with the coldly ferocious fetid exhalation of
- death.
- He reels back in silence and for an instant sees and comprehends all.
- He smells the terrible odor; he realizes that the people had fled in
- terror, that in the church there are only he and the corpse; he sees
- the darkness beyond the window, but does not comprehend its nature. A
- memory of something horribly distant flashes through' his mind, of some
- vernal laughter that had been ringing in a dim past and then died away.
- He remembers the snowstorm. The church bell and the snowstorm. And
- the immobile mask of the idiot. Two of them.... Two of them.... Two of
- them....
- And once more all is gone. The lacklustre eyes are once again ablaze
- with cold and leaping fires, the sinewy body is bursting once more
- with a sense of power and of iron firmness. Hiding his eyes beneath
- the stony arch of his brows, he says calmly, calmly, softly, softly as
- though fearing to wake a sleeper:
- "Wouldst thou cheat me?"
- And he lapses into silence, with downcast eyes, as though waiting for
- an answer. And once more he speaks softly, softly, with that ominous
- distinctness of a storm when all nature has bowed to its power and it
- is dillydallying, tenderly, regally rocking a tiny flake in the air.
- "Then why did I believe?"
- "Then why didst Thou give me love towards people and compassion? To
- mock me?"
- "Then why hast Thou kept me all my life in captivity, in servitude, in
- fetters? Not a free thought! Not a feeling! Not a sigh! THOU alone, all
- for THEE! THOU only. Come then, I am waiting for Thee!"
- And in the posture of haughty humility he waits an answer--alone before
- the black and malignantly triumphant coffin, alone before the menacing
- face of fathomless and majestic stillness. Alone. The lights of the
- tapers pierce the darkness like immobile spears, and somewhere in the
- distance the fleeing storm mockingly chants: "Two of them.. Two of
- them.." Stillness.
- "Thou wilt not?" he asks still softly and humbly, but suddenly cries
- out with a frenzied scream, rolling his eyes, imparting to his face
- that candor of expression which is characteristic of insanity or of
- profound slumber. He cries out, drowning with his cry the menacing
- stillness and the ultimate horror of the dying human soul:
- "Thou must! Give him back his life! Take it from others, but give it
- back to him! I beg of Thee!" Then he turns to the silent corruption of
- the corpse and commands it wrathfully, scornfully:
- "THOU! THOU ask Him! Ask Him!"
- And he cries out blasphemously, madly:
- "He needs no paradise. His children are here below. They will call for
- him: 'Father!' And he will say to Thee: 'Take from my head my heavenly
- crown, for there below the heads of my children are covered with dust
- and dirt. Thus he will speak!"
- Wrathfully he shakes the heavy black coffin and cries:
- "But speak thou, speak, accursed flesh!"
- He looks with amazement, intently. And in mute horror he reels backward
- throwing up his swelling arms in self-defence. Semen is not in the
- coffin. There is no corpse in the coffin. The idiot is lying there.
- Clutching with his rapacious fingers at its edges, he has slightly
- raised his monstrous head, looking askance at the priest with eyes
- screwed up, and all about the distended nostrils, all about the
- enormous tightly compressed mouth' plays the silent dawn of coming
- laughter. Not a sound he utters, but keeps gazing and slowly creeping
- out of the coffin--inexpressibly terrible in the incomprehensible
- fusion of eternal life with eternal death.
- "Back!" cries Father Vassily and his head swells to enormous
- proportions as he feels his hair stand on end. "Back!"
- And once more the motionless corpse. And again the idiot. And the
- rotting mass madly alternates this monstrous play and breathes out
- horrors. And in maniacal anger he shrieks:
- "Wouldst scare me? Then take...."
- But his words are unheard. Suddenly, all aglow with blinding light, the
- immobile mask is rent from ear to ear and peals of laughter mighty as
- the peals of thunder fill the whole silent church. With a loud roar the
- mad laughter splits the arching masonry, flinging the stones about like
- chips and engulfing in its reverberations the lone man within.
- Father Vassily opens his blinded eyes, raises his Lead and sees all
- about him crumble. Slowly and ponderously reel the walls and close
- together, the vaults slide, the lofty cupola noiselessly collapses, the
- stone floor sways and bends, the whole world is being wrecked in its
- foundations and disintegrates.
- And then with a shrill scream he rushes to the doors, but failing to
- find them he whirls and stumbles against walls and sharp corners and
- shrieks and shrieks. The door suddenly opens, precipitating him on the
- flags outside, but he leaps to his feet with the joy of relief, only
- to be caught and held in someone's trembling, prehensile embrace. He
- struggles and whines, freeing his hand with maniacal strength; he rains
- savage blows upon the head of the verger who is attempting to hold him,
- and casting his body aside he rushes into the roadway.
- The sky is ablaze with fire. Shaggy clouds are whirling and circling
- in the firmament and their combined masses fall down upon the shaken
- earth, the universe is crumbling in its foundations. And then from the
- fiery whirlpool of chaos the thunderous peals of laughter, the cackle
- and cries of savage merriment. In the west a tiny ribbon or azure
- is still to be seen, and towards that rift of blue he is rushing in
- headlong flight. His legs are caught in the long hairy cassock, he
- falls and writhes on the ground, bleeding and terrible to look upon,
- and rises and flees once more. The street is desolate as though at
- night, not a man, not a creature, neither beast, nor fowl to be seen
- near house or window.
- "They're all dead," flashes through his mind--his last conscious
- thought. He runs out of the village limits into the broad highway. Over
- his head the black whirling cloud throws out three lengthy tentacles,
- like rapaciously curved fingers; behind him something is roaring with
- a dull and threatening bellow. The universe is collapsing in its
- foundations.
- Ahead in the distance, a peasant and two women who had been to the
- village church are wending their homeward way on their wagon. They
- notice the figure of a black-garbed man in precipitous flight; they
- stop for a moment, but recognizing the priest they whip up their horse
- and gallop away. The wagon leaps high on its springs, with two wheels
- up in the air, but the three silently crouching terror-stricken people
- desperately whip up the horse and gallop and gallop.
- Father Vassily fell about three versts away from the village in the
- center of the broad highway. He fell prone, his haggard face buried
- in the grey dust which had been ground fine by the wheels of traffic,
- trampled by the feet of men and beasts. And in his pose he had retained
- the impetuousness of his flight: the white dead hands outstretched, one
- leg curled up under the body, the other--clad in an old tattered boot
- with the sole worn through long, straight and sinewy, thrown back tense
- and taut, as though even in death he still continued his flight.
- [Footnote 1: Popadya, the wife of a Russian village priest or "pope,"
- is a distinct type in the social world of the Russian village.]
- [Footnote 2: Pet name for Vassily.]
- [Footnote 3: Diminutive of Anastasia.]
- [Footnote 4: The day in the church calendar dedicated to the saint for
- whom a Bussian child is named. It is celebrated with more solemnity
- than the birthday.]
- [Footnote 5: Diminutive of Anastasia.]
- [Footnote 6: 1 pood = 36 lbs.]
- [Footnote 7: A Russian card game, similar to "Old Maid."]
- [Footnote 8: Contemptuous diminutive for Vassily.]
- [Footnote 9: The village church bell is rung during a snowstorm to
- guide any team or wanderer that may be seeking the road.]
- [Footnote 10: Equivalent to "Tom, Dick and Harry."]
- BEN-TOBITH.
- On that dread day, when the cosmic injustice was perpetrated, and Jesus
- Christ was crucified in the midst of robbers on Golgotha, Ben-Tobith, a
- tradesman of Jerusalem, had been suffering since the early hours of the
- morning the agonies of an excruciating toothache.
- It had started the day before, toward evening; at first his right jaw
- had commenced to ache slightly, and one tooth, the extreme tooth next
- to the wisdom tooth, seemed to rise a little, and felt painful when
- coming in contact with the tongue. After the evening meal, however, the
- pain had entirely subsided; Ben-Tobith had forgotten it altogether and
- felt no worry about it; that day he had profitably traded his old ass
- for a young and strong animal, at a profit, and he was in a merry mood
- and did not attach any significance to an evil omen.
- And he had slept well and soundly, but before the dawn of day something
- commenced to disturb him, as if someone sought to rouse him to attend
- to an important matter, and when Ben-Tobith woke up wrathfully, his
- teeth were aching, aching defiantly and fiercely, with the excruciating
- fury of sharp and throbbing pain. And now it was impossible to tell
- whether it was still the tooth of the day before, or whether others had
- joined it as well; his mouth and his head were wholly filled with the
- dreadful agonizing pain, as though someone forced him to masticate a
- thousand red-hot sharply pointed nails.
- He took in his mouth a swallow of water from an earthern pitcher; for
- an instant the fury of the pain subsided; the teeth twitched with
- undulating throbs, and this new sensation seemed even agreeable in
- comparison with the pain that had preceded it.
- Ben-Tobith lay down again; he bethought himself of his newly purchased
- ass; he mused how happy he would it be if it were not for his teeth,
- and tried to sleep. But the water was warm; within five minutes the
- pain returned, with greater fury than ever, and Ben-Tobith sat up in
- his bed, rocking back and forth like a pendulum.
- His face was all wrinkles, and something seemed to draw it toward his
- huge nose--and from his nose, that had turned livid with agony, hung
- a drop of cold perspiration. Thus, rocking back and forth, groaning
- with agony, he faced the first rays of that sun which was fated to see
- Golgotha with its three crosses and then to be dimmed with horror and
- grief.
- Ben-Tobith was a good and kindly man, who disliked injustice, but when
- his wife woke up, he said to her many disagreeable things, barely able
- to open his mouth, and complained that he had been left alone like a
- jackal to howl and to writhe in pain. His wife bore the undeserved
- reproaches with patience, for she knew that they came not from an angry
- heart, and she brought him many good remedies: some purified rat dung
- to be applied to his cheek, a sharp elixir of scorpion, and a genuine
- fragment of the tablets of the law broken by Moses.
- A little improvement followed the application of rat dung, though it
- did not last long, and the same happened after the use of the elixir
- and the stone, but each time the pain returned with added vigor. But
- in the brief moments of respite Ben-Tobith comforted himself with the
- thoughts of the ass, and mused about him; and when the pain grew worse,
- he groaned, scolded his wife and swore that he would dash his brains
- out against a stone if the pain did not subside. And all the time he
- walked back and forth upon the flat roof of his house, from one corner
- to another, ashamed to come close to the edge because his head was all
- tied up in a kerchief like a woman's.
- Several times during the morning his children came to him on the run
- telling him something with hurried voices about Jesus the Nazarene.
- Ben-Tobith stopped and listened to them for a moment, with wrinkled
- face, but then angrily stamped his foot and drove them away. He was a
- kindly man, fond of children, but now it annoyed him to be pestered
- with all sorts of trivial things.
- It was also annoying to him that the streets and the neighboring roofs
- were crowded with people who seemed to have nothing to do but gaze
- curiously upon Ben-Tobith whose head was tied with a kerchief like a
- woman's. And he was already on the point of going downstairs, when his
- wife said to him:
- "Look, they are leading the robbers. Perhaps this might take your mind
- away from your pain."
- "Leave me alone, please. Don't you see how I suffer?" angrily retorted
- Ben-Tobith. But the words of his wife held out a vague promise that his
- toothache might pass, and he reluctantly walked over to the edge of the
- roof. Inclining his head to one side, he shut one eye, held a hand to
- his cheek, made a wry, sniveling grimace and looked down.
- Up the steep ascent of the narrow street moved a confused and enormous
- mob of people in a cloud of dust and with a ceaseless uproar. In the
- midst of it, bowed under the burden of their crosses, marched the
- evildoers, and over their heads swished the whips of the Roman soldiers
- like sinuous dark-skinned serpents. One of them, he with the long,
- light locks, in a torn and blood-stained cloak, stumbled over a stone
- which someone had thrown before his feet and fell. The shouts increased
- in loudness, and the crowd closed in about the fallen man like a sea
- of motley waves.
- Ben-Tobith suddenly shuddered with the pain; it seemed as though
- someone had pierced his tooth with a red-hot needle and twisted it
- around; he groaned "oo-oo-oo," and walked away from the edge of the
- roof, wryly indifferent and wrathful.
- "How they yell!" he enviously muttered, picturing to himself their
- wide-opened mouths with strong and pain-free teeth, and thinking how
- he might yell himself if he were only well. This mental picture added
- fury to his pain, and he shook his bandaged head vehemently and howled
- "moo-moo-moo."
- "They say that he healed the blind," observed his wife clinging to the
- edge of the roof and casting a stone at the spot where Jesus was slowly
- moving onward, having been raised to his feet by the soldiers' whips.
- "Or course! Of course! He might have cured my toothache," replied
- Ben-Tobith sarcastically and with irritation, adding bitterly: "Just
- look at the dust they are raising Like a herd of cattle. They should be
- scattered with rods. Lead me downstairs, Sarah!"
- The wife was right; the spectacle had diverted him somewhat, or perhaps
- the rat dung remedy finally proved its efficacy, and he managed to
- go to sleep. And when he woke up, the pain was almost gone, only a
- swelling had formed on his right cheek, so slight a swelling, in fact,
- as to be hardly noticeable. His wife said that it could not be seen at
- all, but Ben-Tobith smiled craftily, he knew what a good wife he had
- and how ready she was to say agreeable things. His neighbor, Samuel,
- the tanner, had come meanwhile, and Ben-Tobith took him to see the new
- ass; he proudly listened to his neighbor's words of praise for the
- animal and for its master.
- Then, at the suggestion of his curious wife Sarah, the three of them
- walked over to Golgotha to see the crucified. On the way Ben-Tobith
- related to Samuel about his toothache from its very beginning, how
- the day before he had felt a twitch of pain in his right jaw, and how
- during the night he had been awakened by an agonizing pain. By way of
- illustration he made a wry face, shutting his eyes, shook his head and
- groaned, and the grey-bearded Samuel sympathizingly nodded and said:
- "Tss-tss-tss, what suffering!"
- Ben-Tobith was gratified by this expression of sympathy and he repeated
- his tale and reverted to that distant past when his first tooth had
- commenced to turn bad, the left tooth in the lower jaw. In such
- animated conversation they reached Golgotha. The sun which was fated
- to shine upon the world on that dread day had meanwhile set behind
- the distant hillocks, and in the west glowed like a bloody stain a
- narrow band of ruddy crimson. Against this background dimly darkled
- the crosses, and kneeling at the foot of the cross in the center some
- white-garbed figures glistened vaguely in the gathering dusk.
- The people had long since dispersed; it was growing cold; casting a
- fleeting glance upon the crucified figures, Ben-Tobith took Samuel by
- his arm and cautiously turned him in the direction of their homes.
- He felt unusually eloquent and he was anxious to tell him more about
- the toothache. Thus they walked homeward, and Ben-Tobith, to the
- accompaniment of Samuel's sympathizing nods and exclamations, made once
- more a wry face, shook his head and moaned artfully, while from the
- deep crevices and the distant arid plains rose the blackness of night.
- As though it sought to cover from the sight of heaven the great misdeed
- of the earth.
- THE MARSEILLAISE.
- He was a nonentity: the spirit of a rabbit and the shameless patience
- of a beast of burden. When fate, with malicious mockery, had cast
- him into our somber ranks, we laughed with insane merriment. What
- ridiculous, absurd mistakes will happen! But he--he, of course, wept.
- Never in my life have I seen a man who could shed so many tears, and
- these tears seemed to flow so readily--from the eyes, from the nose,
- from the mouth, every bit like a water-soaked sponge compressed by a
- fist. And even in our ranks have I seen weeping men, but their tears
- were like a consuming flame from which savage beasts flee in terror.
- These manly tears aged the countenance and rejuvenated the eyes: like
- lava disgorged from the inflamed bowels of the earth they burned
- ineradicable traces and buried beneath their flow world upon world of
- trivial cravings and of petty cares. But he, when he wept, showed only
- a flushed nose, and a damp handkerchief. He doubtless later dried this
- handkerchief on a line, for otherwise where could he have procured so
- many?
- And all through the days of his exile he made pilgrimages to the
- officials, to all the officials that counted, and even to such as he
- endowed with fancied authority. He bowed, he wept, he swore that he was
- innocent, he implored them to pity his youth, he promised on his oath
- never to open his mouth again excepting in prayer and praise. And they
- laughed at him even as we, and they called him "poor luckless little
- piggy" and yelled at him:
- "Hey there, piggy!"
- And he obediently responded to their call; he thought every time that
- he would hear a summons to return to his home, but they were only
- mocking him. They knew, even as we that he was innocent, but with his
- sufferings they meant to intimidate other "piggies," as though they
- were not sufficiently cowardly.
- He used to come among us impelled by the animal terror of solitude, but
- stem and shut were our lips and in vain he sought the key. In confusion
- he called us dear comrades and friends, but we shook our heads and said:
- "Look out! Someone might hear you!"
- And he would permit himself to throw a glance at the door--the little
- pig that he was. Was it possible to remain serious? And we laughed,
- with voices that had long been strangers to laughter, while he,
- encouraged and comforted, sat down near us and spoke, weeping about his
- dear little books that were left on his table, about his mamma and his
- brothers, of whom he could not tell whether they were still living or
- had died with terror and anguish.
- In the end we would drive him away.
- When the hunger strike had started he was seized with terror, an
- inexpressibly comical terror. He was very fond of food, poor little
- piggy, and he was very much afraid of his dear comrades, and he was
- very much afraid of the authorities. Distractedly he wandered in our
- midst, and frequently wiped his brow with his handkerchief, and it was
- hard to tell whether the moisture was perspiration or tears.
- And irresolutely he asked me:
- "Will you starve a long time?"
- "Yes, a long time," I answered sternly.
- "And on the sly, will you not eat something?"
- "Our mammas will send us cookies," I assented seriously. He looked at
- me suspiciously, shook his head and departed with a sigh.
- The next day he declared, green with fear like a parrot:
- "Dear comrades, I, too, will starve with you."
- And we replied in unison:
- "Starve alone."
- And he starved. We did not believe it, even as you would not; we all
- thought that he was eating something on the sly, and even so thought
- the jailers. And when towards the end of the hunger strike he fell ill
- with starvation typhus, we only shrugged our shoulders: "Poor little
- piggy!" But one of us, he who never laughed, sullenly said:
- "He is our comrade! Let us go to him."
- He was delirious. And pitiful even as all of his life was this
- disconnected delirium. He spoke of his beloved books, of his mamma and
- of his brothers; he asked for cookies, icy cold, tasty cookies, and he
- swore that he was innocent and pleaded for pardon. And he called for
- his country, he called for dear France. Cursed be the weak heart of
- man, he tore our hearts into shreds by this call: dear France.
- We were all in the ward as he was breathing his last. Consciousness
- returned to him before the moment of death. He was lying still, frail
- and feeble as he was; and still were we too, his comrades, standing by
- his side. And we, every one of us, heard him say:
- "When I die, sing over me the Marseillaise!"
- "What are you saying?" we exclaimed shuddering with joy and with
- gathering frenzy.
- "When I die, sing over me the Marseillaise!"
- And for the first time it happened that his eyes were dry and we wept;
- we wept, every one of us, and our tears glowed like the consuming fire
- before which savage beasts flee in terror.
- He died, and we sang over him the Marseillaise. With voices young and
- mighty we sang the great hymn of freedom, and the ocean chanted a stem
- accompaniment, upon the crest of his mighty waves bearing back to dear
- France the pallor of dread and the bloody crimson of hope. And forever
- he became our guerdon--that nonentity with the body of a rabbit and
- of a beast of burden and with the great spirit of Man. On your knees
- before a hero, comrades and friends!
- We were singing. Down upon us gazed the barrels of rifles; ominously
- clicked their triggers; menacingly stretched the points of bayonets
- towards our hearts--and ever more loudly, ever more joyously rang out
- the stern hymn, while in the tender hands of fighters gently rocked the
- black coffin.
- We were singing the Marseillaise.
- DIES IRAE.
- CHANT THE FIRST.
- 1.
- This free song of the stern days of justice and retribution I have
- composed myself, as well as I could, I, Geronimo Pascagna, a Sicilian
- bandit, murderer, highwayman, criminal.
- Having composed it to the best of my ability, I meant to sing it
- loudly, as good songs should be sung, but my jailer would not allow it.
- My jailer's ear is overgrown with hair; it has a strait and a narrow
- channel: fit for words that are untruthful, sly, words that can crawl
- upon their bellies like reptiles. But my words walk erect, they have
- deep chests, broad backs--ah, how painfully they tore at the tender ear
- of the jailer which was overgrown with hair!
- "If the ear is shut, seek another entrance, Geronimo," I said to myself
- amicably; and I pondered, and I sought, and finally I succeeded and
- found it, for Geronimo is no fool, let me tell you. And this is what I
- found: I found a stone. And this is what I did: I chiseled my song into
- the stone, and with the blows of my wrath I set aflame its icy heart.
- And when the stone came to life and glanced at me with the fiery eyes
- of wrath, I cautiously took it away and placed it at the very edge of
- the prison wall.
- Can you not see what I have in mind? I am wise, I figure that a
- friendly quake will soon again set the earth aquiver, and once again
- it will destroy your city; and the walls will crumble, and my stone
- will drop and shatter the jailer's head. And having shattered it,
- it will leave upon his soft waxy blood-grey brain the impress of my
- song of freedom, like the seal of a king, like a new commandment of
- wrath--and thus will the jailer go down to his grave.
- I say, jailer, shut not your ear, for I shall enter through your skull!
- 2.
- If I am then alive, I shall laugh with joy; and if I chance to be dead,
- my bones shall dance in their insecure grave. That will be a merry
- Tarantella!
- Can you say upon your oath that such things can never be? The same
- quake might cast me back upon the face of the earth: my rotting coffin,
- my decayed flesh, my whole body, dead and buried for keeps, tightly
- clamped down. For such things have happened upon great days: the earth
- opening up about the cemeteries, the still coffins crawling out into
- the light.
- Those still coffins, uninvited guests at the banquet!
- 3.
- These be the names of the comrades with whom I made friends in those
- fleeting hours: Pascale, a professor; Giuseppe, Pincio, Alba. They were
- shot by firing squads. There was also another one, young, obliging,
- and so handsome. It was a pity to look at him. I esteemed him as a
- son, he reverenced me as a father, but I did not know his name. I
- had not chanced to ask him, or perhaps I have forgotten it. He, too,
- was shot by the soldiers. There may have been one or two more, also
- friends, I do not remember them. When the youngster was being put to
- death, I did not run far away, I hid right here, back of the wall--now
- crumbled--near the trampled cactus. I saw and heard everything. And
- when I started to leave, the trampled cactus pierced me with its thorn.
- Was it not planted near the wall to keep away the thieves? How faithful
- are the servants of the rich!
- 4.
- The firing squad put them to death. Remember the names which I have
- mentioned; and with regard to those whom I have not mentioned by name,
- remember merely that they were put to death. But don't go and make a
- sign of the cross upon your brow, or worse than that--don't go and
- order a requiem mass--they did not like such things. Honor the dead
- with the silence of truth, and if you must lie, lie in some merrier
- fashion, but never by saying mass: they did not like that.
- 5.
- That first quake that destroyed the prison and the city had a voice of
- rare power and of queer, superhuman dignity: it roared from below, from
- beneath the ground, it was vast and hoarse and menacing; and everything
- shook and crumbled. And ere I grasped what was going on, I knew that
- all was over, that it was perhaps the end of the earth. But I was not
- particularly frightened: why should I be especially frightened even if
- it were the end of the world? Long did he roar, that deaf subterranean
- trumpeter.
- And all at once politely opened the door.
- 6.
- I had sat a long time in prison, without hope. I had tried to flee and
- failed. Nor could you have managed to escape, for that accursed prison
- was very well built.
- And I had become accustomed to the iron of the bars and to the stone
- of the walls, and they seemed to me eternal, and he who had built them
- the strongest in the world. And it was no use to think whether he was
- just or not, so strong and eternal he was. Even in my dreams I saw no
- freedom--I did not believe, expect or feel it. And I feared to call it.
- It is perilous to call freedom; while you keep still, you may live; but
- call freedom once, ever so softly, you must either gain it or die. This
- is true, so said Pascale, the professor.
- And thus without hope I sat in prison, and suddenly opened the door.
- Politely and of its own accord. At any rate it was no human hand that
- opened it.
- 7.
- The streets were in ruins, in a terrible chaos. All the material of
- which people build was resolved to its elements and lay as it had been
- in the beginning. The houses were crumbling, bursting, reeling like
- drunken, squatting down upon the ground, on their own crushed legs.
- Others were sulkily casting themselves down upon the ground, with their
- heads upon the pavement--crash! And opened were the little boxes in
- which human beings live--pretty little boxes, all plastered with paper.
- The pictures still hung on the walls, but the people were no more;
- they had been thrown out, they were lying beneath masses of stone.
- And the earth was twitching convulsively--for, you must know that the
- subterranean trumpeter had started to roar again, that deaf devil who
- can never have enough noise because he is so deaf. Sweet, painstaking,
- gigantic devil!
- But I was free and I did not understand it yet. I hesitated to walk
- away from that accursed prison. I was standing there, blinking stupidly
- at the ruins. And the comrades had also assembled, none attempting to
- leave, crowding distractedly, like the children about the figure of
- a dissipated, drunken mother that had fallen to the ground. A fine
- mother, indeed!
- Suddenly Pascale, the professor, said:
- "Look!"
- One of the walls which we had deemed eternal had burst in two; and
- the window, with its iron bars, had split in two as well. The iron
- was twisted and torn like a rotten rag--think of it, the iron! In my
- hands it had not even rattled, it had pretended to be eternal, the most
- powerful thing on earth, and now it was not worth to be spat upon,--the
- iron, think of it!
- Then I, and the rest of us, understood that we were free.
- 8.
- Free!
- 9.
- It is harder for you to bend a grass blade than for him to bend three
- iron rails one atop the other. Three or a hundred, it is all the same
- to him. It is more difficult for you to raise a cup of water to your
- lips than for him to raise a sea of water, to shake it up, to lift the
- dregs thereof and to cast them out upon the shore; to bring the cold
- to boiling. It is harder for you to gnaw through a piece of sugar
- than for him to gnaw through a mountain. It is more difficult for you
- to tear a thin and rotting thread than for him to break three wire
- ropes twisted into one braid. You will perspire and flush with exertion
- before you manage to stir up an anthill with your stick--and he with
- one push destroys your city. He has picked up an iron steamship as you
- with your hand pick up a tiny pebble, and has cast it ashore--have you
- ever seen the like of such strength?
- 10.
- All that had been open he has shut; the door of your house has grown
- into its walls, and together they have choked you: your door, your
- walls, your ceiling. And he likewise has opened the doors of the prison
- which you had shut so carefully.
- You, rich man, whom I hate!
- 11.
- If I gather from all over the world all the good words which people
- use, all the tender sayings, all the ringing songs and fling them all
- into the joyous air;
- If I gather all the smiles of children, the laughter of women whom
- none has yet wronged, the caresses of greyhaired mothers, the faithful
- handshakes of a friend--and weave of them all an incorruptible wreath
- for some one beautiful head;
- If I pass over the face of the earth and garner all the flowers that
- grow upon it: in the forests and in the fields, in the meadows and in
- the gardens of the rich, in the depths of the waters, upon the azure
- bottom of the ocean; if I gather all the precious sparkling stones,
- bringing them forth out of hidden crevices, out of the gloomy depths of
- mines, tearing them from the crowns of kings and from the ears of the
- rich--and pile them all, the stones and the flowers, into one radiant
- mountain;
- If I gather all the fires that burn in the universe, all the lights,
- all the rays, all the flashes, flares and silent glows, and in the
- glare of one mighty conflagration illumine the quaking worlds;
- Even then I shall be unable to name thee, to crown thee, to laud
- thee--O Freedom!
- 12.
- Freedom!
- 13.
- Over my head was the sky, and the sky is always free, always open to
- the winds and to the movement of the clouds; under my feet was the
- road, and the road is always free; it was made to walk on, it was made
- for the feet to move over its surface, going back and forth, leaving
- one spot and finding another. The road is the sweetheart of him who is
- free; you have to kiss it on meeting, to weep over it on parting.
- And when my feet began to move upon the road, I thought that a miracle
- had occurred. I looked, and Pascale's feet were also moving, the
- professor! I looked, and the youngster was also moving with youthful
- feet, hurrying, stumbling, and suddenly he ran.
- "Whither?"
- But Pascale sternly reproved me.
- "Don't throw questions at him; you'll break his limbs. For you and I
- are old, Geronimo."
- And we wept. And suddenly the deaf trumpeter roared out anew.
- CHANT THE SECOND.
- 1.
- A long time we walked about the city and saw much that was striking,
- strange and sinister.
- 2.
- Neither can you shut in the fire--I was saying this, I, Geronimo
- Pascagna. If you would be at peace, put it out altogether, but do not
- lock it up in stone, in iron or in glass; it will escape, and your
- strongly built house will come to a bad end. When your mighty house is
- fallen, and your life is extinct, it alone will burn, retaining the
- heat and the blazing ruddiness and all the force of the flame. It may
- lie awhile on the ground, it may pretend even to be dead; then it will
- lift its head upon a slender neck and look about--to the right and to
- the left, forward and backward. And it will leap. And it will hide
- again, and will look again, it will straighten up, throw back its head,
- and suddenly it will grow terribly stout.
- And it will no longer have one head upon one slender neck: it will have
- thousands. And it will no longer crawl slowly, it will run, it will
- make gigantic bounds. It had been silent, now it is singing, whistling,
- yelling, giving orders to stone and to iron, driving all from its path.
- And suddenly it will begin to circle.
- 3.
- We saw more dead people than living; and the dead were calm; they did
- not know what had happened to them, and they were calm. But what about
- the living? Just think what a ridiculous thing was told us by a madman
- for whom, too, in those days of stern equality the door had opened!
- Do you think he was amazed? He looked on attentively and benignly, and
- the grey stubble on his yellow face bristled with proud joy--as though
- he had done it all himself. I do not like madmen, and was going to walk
- past him, but Pascale, the professor, stopped me, and respectfully
- asked the proud madman:
- "What makes you so pleased, signor?"
- Pascale was far from being short of stature, but the madman searched
- for him a long time with his eyes, like for a grain of sand that has
- suddenly spoken out aloud from amidst of a sand heap, and finally
- he discovered him. And hardly parting his lips--so proud was he--he
- repeated the question:
- "What makes me so pleased?"
- And he waved his hand majestically and said:
- "This is perfect order. We have so long craved for order."
- He called that order! I laughed out aloud, but just at that moment a
- corpulent and altogether insane monk came up, and proved even more
- ridiculous.
- 4.
- For a long time they played their comedy among the ruins, the
- lunatic and the monk, while we sat on a heap of stones, laughing and
- encouraging them, shouting "bravo."
- "Fraud! I have been deceived!" cried the fat monk.
- He was so fat, I don't think you've ever seen any one as fat. It was
- repulsive to watch him, the yellow fat of his cheeks and of his belly
- quivered and shook so with wrath and fear.
- "There's perfect order for you!" cried the lunatic approvingly, hardly
- deigning to part his lips.
- "Fraud!" yelled the monk.
- And suddenly he commenced to curse God. The monk! Think of it!
- 5.
- /$
- ......................................................
- ......................................................
- $/
- 6.
- He assured us all that God had deceived him and he wept. He swore like
- a crooked gambler that this was poor recompense for his prayers and his
- faith. He stamped his feet and he cursed like a mule driver who comes
- out of a gin mill and suddenly discovers that his mules had scattered
- to the four winds.
- And suddenly Pascale, the professor, lost his temper. He demanded that
- I give him my knife and said to the monk who had sat down for a rest
- after his outburst of curses:
- "Listen, in a minute I will slit your belly, and if I find there but
- one drop of wine or one atom of a pullet...."
- "And if you don't?" angrily retorted the monk.
- "Then we shall count you among the saints. Hold his legs, Geronimo!"
- The monk was frightened and departed mumbling:
- "And I thought you were Christians! Blasphemy! Blasphemy!"
- But the lunatic gazed after him benignly and spoke approvingly:
- "This is what I call perfect order. We have been so long waiting for
- perfect order."
- 7.
- And we walked a long time about the city and saw many odd things. But
- the day was short, and the night fell upon earth earlier than ever
- before; and when the firing squad was killing Pascale, the soldiers had
- lighted their torches.
- 8.
- When Pascale was put against the wall, against the portion of it which
- had remained uninjured, and the soldiers raised their rifles, the
- officer said to him:
- "You will die in a moment. Tell me why are you not afraid? That which
- has happened is terrible, and we are all pale with horror, but you are
- not. Why is that?" Pascale was silent; he waited for the officer to ask
- him more questions so that he might reply to all of them in one.
- "And whence comes your boldness: to stoop and to take that which
- belongs to others at a time when people in terror forget even
- themselves and their children? And are you not sorry for those women
- and children who have perished? We have seen cats that have lost their
- mind through terror, and you are a human being. I will have you shot
- instantly."
- This was well spoken, but our Pascale could speak every bit as well. He
- has been shot dead. He is dead, but some day when all the dead arise
- you will hear his speech, and you will shed tears, if by that time all
- the tears are not exhausted, O Man.
- He said:
- "I take that which is another's because I have Nothing that is my own.
- I took the raiment off a dead man in order to clothe my living flesh,
- but you have seen me do it, and so you have stripped me; and now I
- stand naked in front of your rifles. Soldiers, fire!"
- But the officer did not suffer them to fire and asked him to speak
- further.
- 9.
- "Naked I stand in front of your rifles and fear nothing, not even your
- rifles. But you are pale with fear, and you fear everything, even your
- own rifles, even my naked body. When the quake was heard, it destroyed
- and killed your city, your fortunes, your children and wives--but it
- opened a prison for me. What then shall I fear? I have nothing of my
- own upon the face of the earth. I am, naked.
- 10.
- "And if the whole earth crumbled into ruin, and the very beasts howled
- with horror, and the fish found a voice to express their grief, and the
- birds fell to the ground with dread, even then I would not fear. For
- all others it means the ruin of the earth, for me it opens the doors of
- a prison. What then shall I fear? I am naked.
- 11.
- "And if the universe crumbled, with heaven and hell, and horror were
- enthroned over the infinity of living creatures, even then I would
- know no fear. For all it would be the end of the universe, for me the
- opening of a prison. What then shall I fear? I am naked.
- 12.
- "And now, when with one salvo of your rifles you will destroy for me
- the earth and the universe, even now I know no fear. For all of you
- it will be the destruction and the fall of a human body, but for me a
- prison will open its gates. Soldiers, fire! I am naked."
- 13.
- The torches blazed. It was the shortest day which I had ever seen.
- Night fell upon the earth more quickly than ever before.
- "It is your turn now," ordered the officer, when Pascale, the
- professor, had fallen.
- True, I had not been caught in any wrongdoing, and there was nothing
- to kill me for. But can you argue with them? And so I stood up. And I
- lamented the night. Do you understand me? the night! Here the torches
- and the fires were ruining it, and there, behind the torches and the
- fire, it stood out strong, and firm, and dark as the nights of my
- youth. I love the night, for then I do not see myself and can think
- what I will. The day reaches my garments, but can go no further. It
- stops at the darkness of my body and turns blind. But the night reaches
- my very heart. That is why it is so easy to love at night; anybody
- will tell you that. Ah, to spend only one hour in the shade of the
- faithful, of the black and beautiful night, only one hour. But can you
- argue with them? So I stood up.
- But it is well to love also in the day time, when the sun is shining.
- Love itself is like the night, it reaches the heart, don't you see. And
- in love you fail to see your own self, even as in the midst of night.
- And if you only look into its eyes--straight into its black eyes--and
- look without tearing your gaze away....
- Suddenly for some reason the officer shouted angrily at the soldier and
- snapped at me:
- "Get out of here!"
- 14.
- Another day passed. And on that day the soldiers shot that youngster
- who had called me father.
- 15.
- Night sank upon the earth and I departed from that city of the dead.
- 16.
- Dies irae--the day of wrath, the day of vengeance and of stem
- retribution, the day of Horror and of Death.
- 17.
- That procession which I had watched from behind the wall was a strange
- and a terrible sight. They were bearing the statues of their saints,
- but did not know whether to raise them still higher over their heads or
- to cast them upon the ground, trampling the fragments underfoot. Some
- were still cursing, while others were already saying their prayers,
- but they walked on together, the children of the same father and the
- same mother, or Horror and of Death. They leaped over the crevices and
- disappeared in abysses. And the saints reeled like drunkards.
- Dies irae.... Some were singing, others were weeping, and still others
- were laughing. Some howled like lunatics. And they were waving their
- hands, and all were in a hurry. The fat-bellied monks were running.
- From whom were they running away? Not a soul was seen behind them.
- Meekly lolled the ruins in the warm glow of the sun, and the fire was
- disappearing into the ground, smoking wearily.
- 18.
- From whom were they fleeing? There was not a soul behind them.
- 19.
- You barely touched a tree, and a ripe orange fell at your feet. First
- one, then another, a third.... The crop bids fair to be fine. A good
- orange is like a little sun, and when there is an abundance of them,
- you feel like smiling, as though the sun shone brightly. And the leaves
- are so dark, just like the night back of the sun. No, they are green,
- dark green. Why are you telling untruths, Geronimo?
- But how cautious is that deaf devil, that subterranean trumpeter, who
- is never content because of his deafness: he has destroyed a city, but
- has left an orange suspended on a branch, to wait for Geronimo. You
- barely touch the tree, and a ripe orange drops at your feet. First one,
- then another, then a third.... They will be taken overseas to strange
- lands. And in those lands, where reign the cold and the fogs, people
- will look at them and say: "Yes, there is a sun for you!"
- 20.
- Pascale, the professor,--we called him _"il professore"_ because he was
- so wise, he could write verses, and he discoursed so nobly on all sorts
- of subjects. He is dead.
- 21.
- Why am I terrified? Why do I walk faster and faster? I had been afraid
- there....
- 22.
- I never knew that my feet so loved to walk. They love every step which
- they make. They part so sadly with every step; they seem to want to
- turn back. And so greedy are they that the longest road seems short
- to them, that the widest road seems narrow. They regret--fancy!--that
- they cannot at once walk backward and forward, to the right and to the
- left. Let them have their will and they will cover the earth with their
- traces, not leaving a patch: and still they would seek more.
- And another thing I did not know: I did not know about my eyes that
- they can breathe.
- Afar off I see the ocean.
- 23.
- What else can I tell you? I was seized by the gendarmes.
- 24.
- Once more thou hast locked the doors of my prison, O Man! When didst
- thou have time to build it? Still in ruins lies thy house, the bones
- of thy children are not yet bare in the grave, but thou art already
- at work, tapping with thy hammer, patching together with cement the
- obedient stone, rearing before thy face the obedient iron. How fast
- dost thou build thy prisons, O Man!
- Still in ruins are thy churches, bu thy prison is all finished.
- Still shaking with terror are thy hands, but already they grasp the
- key, and rattle the lock, and slip the bolt. Thou art a musician:
- to the jingle of gold thou requirest the accompanying rattle of
- fetters--let that be the bass.
- Grim death is still in thy blanched nostrils, and already thou art
- sniffing at something, turning thy nose this way and that way. How fast
- buildest thou thy prisons, O Man!
- 25.
- The iron does not even rattle--so strong it is. And it is cold to
- the touch like someone's icy heart. Silent is also the stone of the
- walls--so proud it is, so everlasting and mighty. At the appointed time
- comes the jailer and flings at me my food like at a savage beast. And I
- show my teeth--why should I not show my teeth? I am starved and naked.
- And the clock is striking.
- Art thou content, O Man, my master?
- 26.
- But I do not believe in thy prison, O Man, my master!
- I do not believe in thy iron; I do not believe in thy stone, in thy
- power, O Man, my master! That which I have once seen destroyed, shall
- never be knit together again.
- Thus would have spoken even Pascale, the professor.
- 27.
- Set thy clock a-going, it marks well the time until it stops. Rattle
- thy keys, for even thy paradise thou hast shut with lock and key.
- Rattle thy keys and shut the door, they shut well while there is a
- door. And walk around cautiously.
- And when all is still, thou wilt say: it is well now, it is quite still
- now. And thou wilt lie down to sleep. It is quite still now, thou wilt
- say, but I hear how he is gnawing at the iron with his teeth. But thou
- wilt say that the iron is too strong for him, and thou wilt lie down to
- sleep. And when thou hast fallen asleep, holding tight thy keys in thy
- happy hands, suddenly the subterranean trumpeter will roar out loudly,
- awaking thee with his thunder, raising thee to thy feet with the force
- of terror, holding thee erect with a mighty arm: so that dying thou
- shalt see death. Wide as the day will open thy eyes; terror will tear
- them wide open. Ears will come to thy heart, so that dying thou shalt
- hear death.
- And thy clock will stop.
- 28.
- Freedom!
- End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of When the King Loses His Head and Other
- Stories, by Leonid Andreyev
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