VII

The moon had al­ready risen when Je­sus got ready to set off to Mount Olivet, where he spent all of his last days. But, for some un­known rea­son, he lin­gered, and his dis­ci­ples, who were ready to leave, were hur­ry­ing him; it was then that he sud­denly said:

“Those of you who have a bag, bring it, as well as some money; and if you do not have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. For I tell you, it is writ­ten and must be ful­filled in me: ‘And he was num­bered with the trans­gres­sors.’”

The dis­ci­ples were sur­prised and looked at each other in con­fu­sion. Pe­ter, how­ever, replied:

“My Lord! Here are two swords.”

He looked pierc­ingly into their kind faces, low­ered his head, and said softly:

“That is enough.”

Their foot­steps re­sounded sonorously in the nar­row streets—and the dis­ci­ples were fright­ened by their own steps; on a white wall, il­lu­mi­nated by the moon, their shad­ows kept grow­ing—and they were fright­ened by their own shad­ows. Thus they walked in si­lence across the sleep­ing Jerusalem, and now they went out­side the city gates, and in a deep val­ley, full of mys­te­ri­ously-still shad­ows, the Kidron stream was re­vealed to them. Now every­thing fright­ened them. The soft mur­murs and splashes of wa­ter over the rocks seemed to them like the voices of men sneak­ing up on them; the ugly shad­ows of rocks and trees that were cast across the road wor­ried them with their mot­ley shades, and in their night still­ness the dis­ci­ples saw move­ment. But the fur­ther they climbed up the moun­tain and the nearer they came to the gar­den of Geth­se­mane, where they had al­ready spent so many nights in safety and peace, the more their courage grew. From time to time, as they glanced back at the Jerusalem they had left, all white un­der the moon, they spoke amongst them­selves about their ear­lier fears; and those who walked at the back heard the soft, frag­men­tary words of Je­sus. Every­one de­sert­ing him is what he spoke of.

They stopped at the edge of the gar­den. A large part of the group stayed put and, lightly con­vers­ing, be­gan to pre­pare for sleep, spread­ing out cloaks in the trans­par­ent lace­work of shad­ows and moon­light. Je­sus, how­ever, per­turbed by worry, went fur­ther into the depth of the gar­den with four of his clos­est dis­ci­ples. There they sat down on the ground, which had not yet cooled from the heat of the day, and, while Je­sus re­mained silent, Pe­ter and John lazily ex­changed words, which were al­most de­void of mean­ing. Yawn­ing from tired­ness, they spoke about the cold­ness of the night, and about the high price of meat in Jerusalem, fish al­to­gether im­pos­si­ble to ob­tain. They tried to de­ter­mine the pre­cise num­ber of pil­grims who came to the city for the hol­i­day, and Pe­ter, loudly stretch­ing his words with his yawns, said that there were twenty thou­sand, and John, to­gether with his brother Ja­cob, as­sured him, in the same lazy man­ner, that there were no more than ten. All of a sud­den Je­sus quickly rose.

“My soul is over­whelmed with sor­row to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me,” he told them, and, tak­ing quick steps, he with­drew into a thicket and soon dis­ap­peared in the still­ness of shad­ows and light.

“Where is he go­ing?” said John as he propped him­self up on his el­bow. Pe­ter turned his head to­wards the de­parted and wearily an­swered:

“I don’t know.”

And, tak­ing an­other heavy yawn, he turned onto his back and grew silent. The oth­ers also grew silent, and the deep sleep of healthy tired­ness en­veloped their mo­tion­less bod­ies. Through heavy drowsi­ness Pe­ter vaguely saw some­thing white lean­ing over him, and some­one’s voice sounded and faded, with­out leav­ing a trace on his dark­ened con­scious­ness.

“Si­mon, are you sleep­ing?”

And again he slept, and again some gen­tle voice touched his ears and faded, with­out leav­ing a trace:

“Could you not keep watch with me for one hour?”

“Oh Lord, if only you knew how much I want to sleep,” he thought half-awake, but it seemed to him that he said it aloud. And he fell asleep again, and it seemed that much time had passed, when sud­denly the fig­ure of Je­sus grew near him, and a loud voice at once awak­ened him and the oth­ers:

“Are you still sleep­ing and tak­ing your rest? Enough, the hour has come—be­hold, the son of man is be­trayed into the hands of sin­ners.”

The dis­ci­ples quickly jumped to their feet, grab­bing their cloaks in con­fu­sion and shiv­er­ing from the cold of the sud­den awak­en­ing. Through a tree thicket, il­lu­mi­nated with the fire of run­ning torches, with tramp and noise, fol­lowed by clank­ing weapons and crunch­ing branches, a crowd of sol­diers and ser­vants of the tem­ple was ap­proach­ing. And from the other side, shiv­er­ing from cold, the dis­ci­ples came run­ning up with sleepy faces and, not yet un­der­stand­ing what was hap­pen­ing, they hastily whis­pered:

“What is this? Who are these men with torches?”

Thomas, pale, with one end of his straight mus­tache bent to the side and his teeth chat­ter­ing, said to Pe­ter:

“It ap­pears they have come for us.”

The crowd of sol­diers sur­rounded them, and the smoky, alarm­ing gleam of fires drove off the soft ra­di­ance of the moon some­place aside and up­wards. At the head of the sol­diers Ju­das of Ke­rioth was hur­riedly mak­ing way and, sharply shift­ing his an­i­mated eye, was search­ing for Je­sus.

He found him, for a mo­ment he paused his gaze at the other’s thin, tall fig­ure, and then quickly whis­pered to the priests:

“The one I kiss, that’s him. Take him and lead him gen­tly. But be gen­tle, you hear me?”

Then he swiftly ap­proached Je­sus, who was silently wait­ing for him, and, like a knife, thrust his straight, sharp gaze into the other’s calm, dark­ened eyes.

“Re­joice, rabbi!” he said loudly, giv­ing the words of an or­di­nary greet­ing a strange and ter­ri­ble mean­ing.

But Je­sus was silent, and the dis­ci­ples looked on with hor­ror at the be­trayer, un­able to com­pre­hend how a man’s soul could con­tain so much evil. Is­car­iot quickly scanned their con­fused ranks, he saw the shiv­er­ing, which was ready to trans­form into the vi­o­lent trem­bling of fear, he saw paled faces, mean­ing­less smiles, slug­gish arm move­ments, as if their fore­arms were tight­ened with iron—and a mor­tal sor­row was ig­nited in his heart, much like that which Christ had ex­pe­ri­enced ear­lier. Stretch­ing him­self into a hun­dred loudly ring­ing, wail­ing strings, he dashed swiftly to­wards Je­sus and gen­tly kissed his cold cheek. So softly, so gen­tly, with such ex­cru­ci­at­ing love and an­guish that, if Je­sus were a flower on a thin stalk, he would not have shaken it with that kiss, and he would not have dropped the pearly dew from its pure petals.

“Ju­das,” said Je­sus, and with the light­ning of his gaze il­lu­mi­nated that hideous mass of tensed up shad­ows that made up the soul of Is­car­iot—but he could not pen­e­trate into its bot­tom­less abyss. “Ju­das! Is it with a kiss that you be­tray the son of man?”

And he saw how the whole of that mon­strous chaos trem­bled and be­gan to move. Is­car­iot stood speech­less and stern, like death in its proud majesty, but within him every­thing screamed, clat­tered, and howled with a thou­sand vi­o­lent and fiery voices:

“Yes! With a kiss of love we be­tray you. With a kiss of love we be­tray you to abuse, to tor­ture, to death! With a voice of love we sum­mon ex­e­cu­tion­ers from their dark holes, and we place a cross—and we raise love cru­ci­fied by love high above the crown of the earth.”

Thus Ju­das stood, speech­less and cold, like death, and to the screams of his soul replied the cries and tu­mult ris­ing up around Je­sus. With the rude in­de­ci­sive­ness of an armed force, with the awk­ward­ness of vaguely un­der­stood ob­jec­tives, the sol­diers grabbed him by the arms and dragged him some­where, mis­tak­ing their own in­de­ci­sive­ness for re­sis­tance, their own fear—for mock­ery and de­ri­sion. The dis­ci­ples crowded to­gether like a bunch of fright­ened lambs, ob­struct­ing noth­ing but get­ting in the way of every­thing—even them­selves; and only a few of them dared to move and act sep­a­rately from the rest. Pushed from every side, Pe­ter Si­mon, with dif­fi­culty, as if he had lost all his strength, drew his sword from its sheath and low­ered it weakly onto the head of one of the priests, strik­ing him awry—but he did not cause any dam­age. And Je­sus, see­ing this, or­dered him to throw down the use­less sword, and, with a faint clink, the iron fell at his feet, and it ap­peared so de­void of its stab­bing and killing power that the idea of lift­ing it never en­tered any­one’s mind. Thus it lay un­der their feet, and, many days later, it was found in the same spot by play­ing chil­dren, who made a toy of it.

The sol­diers shoved the dis­ci­ples aside but they kept gath­er­ing up again, fool­ishly try­ing to get in the sol­diers’ way, and this con­tin­ued un­til a sud­den rage took over the sol­diers. One of them, frown­ing his brows, moved to­wards a scream­ing John; an­other rudely brushed Thomas’ hand off his shoul­der, who was try­ing to con­vince him of some­thing, and he brought a mas­sive fist to those most straight and trans­par­ent eyes—and John ran, and Thomas ran, and so did Ja­cob, and all the other dis­ci­ples, how­ever many of them there were, they all ran, de­sert­ing Je­sus. Los­ing their cloaks, run­ning into trees, trip­ping on rocks and falling down, they ran to the moun­tains, per­se­cuted by fear, and in the still­ness of the moon­lit night the ground boomed sonorously un­der the tramp of count­less feet. A stranger, who ap­peared to have only just got out of bed, for he was cov­ered only by his blan­ket, scur­ried anx­iously through the crowd of sol­diers and priests. But, when they de­cided to de­tain him and grabbed him by the blan­ket, he let out a fright­ened scream and took flight, just like the oth­ers, leav­ing his gar­ment in the hands of the sol­diers. Thus he ran, com­pletely naked, tak­ing des­per­ate leaps, and his nude body was flash­ing strangely un­der the moon.

When Je­sus was taken away, Pe­ter emerged from be­hind the trees where he was lurk­ing and, keep­ing a dis­tance, went af­ter the teacher. And, notic­ing ahead of him an­other per­son walk­ing in si­lence, he thought that it might be John, and he qui­etly called out to him:

“John, is that you?”

“And is that you, Pe­ter?” replied the other, stop­ping, and by his voice Pe­ter rec­og­nized him as the trai­tor. “Pe­ter, why didn’t you run away with the oth­ers?”

Pe­ter stopped and with re­vul­sion ut­tered:

“Get away from me, Sa­tan!”

Ju­das laughed and, not pay­ing any fur­ther at­ten­tion to Pe­ter, walked on­ward, to­wards where the smoky glim­mer of torches and the clank­ing of weapons were mixed with the promi­nent sound of foot­steps. Pe­ter too moved care­fully af­ter him, and so, al­most si­mul­ta­ne­ously, they en­tered the court­yard of the high priest and blended into the crowd of the ser­vants who were warm­ing up by the fires. Ju­das was gloomily warm­ing his bony hands above a fire when he heard Pe­ter’s loud voice some­where be­hind him:

“No, I don’t know him.”

But it seems they were in­sis­tent on him be­ing one of Je­sus’ dis­ci­ples be­cause Pe­ter re­peated again, even louder: “Cer­tainly not, I don’t know what you are talk­ing about!”

With­out turn­ing around and fail­ing to re­strain a smile, Ju­das shook his head af­fir­ma­tively and mut­tered:

“Well, well, Pe­ter! Don’t let any­one take your place be­side Je­sus!”

And he did not see how the fright­ened Pe­ter left the court­yard so as to not re­veal him­self. And from that evening on un­til the death of Je­sus, Ju­das did not see any of the dis­ci­ples up close; and amid the whole of that crowd there were only the two of them, in­sep­a­ra­ble un­til death it­self, sav­agely bound to­gether by their shared suf­fer­ing—the one who was be­trayed to abuse and tor­ture, and the one who had be­trayed him. They drunk from the same cup of suf­fer­ing, like broth­ers, the be­trayed and the be­trayer, and lips both pure and im­pure were scorched by its fiery liq­uid.

Star­ing fixedly at the fire, which filled the eyes with a feel­ing of heat, stretch­ing out his long, shiv­er­ing hands to­wards the flame, com­pletely form­less in the con­fu­sion of hands and legs, trem­bling shad­ows and light, Is­car­iot mut­tered, hoarsely and piti­fully:

“So cold! My God, it’s so cold!”

Thus, prob­a­bly, when fish­er­men de­part at night, leav­ing on the shore a smol­der­ing fire, some­thing rises from the dark depths of the sea, it crawls up to the fire, stares at it fixedly and sav­agely, stretches out all its limbs to­wards it, and mut­ters hoarsely and piti­fully:

“So cold! My God, it’s so cold!”

Sud­denly Ju­das heard an ex­plo­sion of loud voices be­hind him, sol­diers’ shouts and laugh­ter, full of the fa­mil­iar, lan­guorously greedy mal­ice, and short, bit­ing strikes upon a liv­ing body. He turned around, pierced by a sud­den pain af­fect­ing the whole of his body, af­fect­ing his every bone—it was Je­sus they were beat­ing.

So this is it!

He saw the sol­diers tak­ing Je­sus to their guard­room. The night was pass­ing, the fires were ex­tin­guished and were cov­ered in ashes, and from the guard­room one could still hear muf­fled shouts, laugh­ter, and curses. It was Je­sus they were beat­ing.

Is­car­iot hastily dashed around the empty court­yard, he would some­times pause, lift up his head, and again start run­ning, and he would run with sur­prise into the fires, into walls. He then glued him­self to the wall of the guard­house and, stretch­ing him­self, stuck him­self to the win­dow, to the cracks in the door­ways, and greed­ily ob­served what was hap­pen­ing in­side. He saw a crowded, stuffy room, dirty, like all the guard­houses in the world, the floor was cov­ered in spit, and the walls were so greasy, so stained, as if they were trod­den or rolled upon. And he saw the man whom they were beat­ing. They struck him across the face, on his head, they threw him back and forth like a soft bun­dle, from one end to the other; and, be­cause he did not scream and did not re­sist, af­ter some time of in­tense ob­ser­va­tion it re­ally did be­gin to seem that this was not a liv­ing man, that this was some kind of soft doll, with­out blood or bones. And it would bend strangely, like a doll, and, when it hit the stone floor as it fell, it did not look like a col­li­sion of some­thing hard against some­thing hard but in­stead it was that same soft thing, soft and pain­less. And, if one watched for a while, it be­gan to seem like some strange, end­less game—at times be­com­ing a com­plete il­lu­sion. Af­ter one pow­er­ful strike, the man, or the doll, fell down in a smooth move­ment onto the knees of a sit­ting sol­dier; in turn, the sol­dier shoved it away, and it, hav­ing turned around, landed onto the next one, and like that again and again. A vi­o­lent laugh­ter erupted, and Ju­das also smiled—as if some­one’s strong hand tore his mouth apart with its iron fin­gers. It was Ju­das’ mouth be­ing de­ceived.

The night dragged on, and the fires were still smol­der­ing. Ju­das fell away from the wall and slowly wan­dered up to one of the fires, dug the ashes, rekin­dled it, and, even though he no longer felt the cold, he stretched out his slightly shak­ing hands over the flame. And he mut­tered mourn­fully:

“Ah, it hurts, it hurts so much, my child, my child, my child. It hurts, it hurts so much!…”

Then he went back to the win­dow, yel­lowed by a dim fire com­ing through the open­ings in the black lat­tice, and again watched them beat­ing Je­sus. Once, be­fore Ju­das’ very eyes, his swarthy face flew past, now dis­fig­ured be­neath a mess of tan­gled hair. Now some­one’s hand dug into his hair, brought down the man, and, turn­ing the head from one side to the other in equal mea­sure, be­gan to wipe the spit cov­ered floor with his face. A sol­dier was sleep­ing right un­der the win­dow, his mouth agape with white, glis­ter­ing teeth; now some­one’s wide back with a fat, naked neck blocked the win­dow, and one could see noth­ing more. Sud­denly every­thing grew silent.

What is this? Why are they silent? Did they fig­ure it out?

Sud­denly the whole of Ju­das’ head, every part of it, be­gan fill­ing up with the buzzing, shout­ing, and roar­ing of a thou­sand fren­zied thoughts. They have fig­ured it out? They have un­der­stood that this—this is the best of men?—it is so sim­ple, so clear. They stand be­fore him on their knees and weep softly, kiss­ing his feet. Now he comes out here, and they crawl obe­di­ently af­ter him—he comes out here, to Ju­das, comes out a vic­tor, a lord of truth, a god…

“Who is de­ceiv­ing Ju­das? Who is right?”

But no. Again the noise and shout­ing. They are beat­ing him again. They have not un­der­stood, they have not fig­ured it out, and they are beat­ing him even harder, in­flict­ing even more pain. The fires are burn­ing out, be­com­ing cov­ered in ash, and the smoke above them is just as trans­par­ently blue as the air, and the sky is as bright as the moon. It is the day ap­proach­ing.

“What is day?” asks Ju­das. Now all is il­lu­mi­nated, gleam­ing, re­ju­ve­nated, and the smoke above is no longer blue, but pink. It is the sun ris­ing.

“What is the sun?” asks Ju­das.