VIII

Peo­ple pointed at Ju­das and said, some with con­tempt, some with ha­tred and fear:

“Look: that’s Ju­das the Trai­tor!”

This was the be­gin­ning of his in­famy, to which he doomed him­self for eter­nity. A thou­sand years will pass, peo­ples will be re­placed by peo­ples, but these words will keep re­sound­ing through the air, ut­tered with con­tempt and fear by good and bad alike:

“Ju­das the Trai­tor… Ju­das the Trai­tor!”

But he lis­tened with­out con­cern to every­thing they said about him, ab­sorbed by the burn­ing, all-con­quer­ing feel­ing of cu­rios­ity. Ever since the morn­ing, when they led a bat­tered Je­sus out of the guard­house, Ju­das walked af­ter him, and for some strange rea­son he felt nei­ther sor­row, nor pain, nor hap­pi­ness—only an un­stop­pable de­sire to see and hear every­thing. Even though he had not slept all night, his body felt light to him; when they did not let him pass, crowd­ing him out, he shoved the peo­ple aside and nim­bly moved to the front; and there was not a minute’s rest for his quick, an­i­mated eye. At Ca­iaphas’ in­ter­ro­ga­tion of Je­sus, in or­der not to miss a sin­gle word, he put his hand to his ear and shook his head af­fir­ma­tively, mut­ter­ing:

“Well! Well! You hear that, Je­sus!”

But he was not free. A fly tied to a thread may fly around buzzing this way and that, but the stub­born, obe­di­ent thread will not leave it even for a minute. Some kind of rocky thoughts lay at the back of Ju­das’ head, and he was teth­ered tightly to them; he did not seem to know what these thoughts were, he did not want to touch them, but he felt them con­tin­u­ally. And there were mo­ments when they ad­vanced on him, pressed onto him, be­gan to crush him with all their unimag­in­able weight—like a vault of a rocky cave slowly and ter­ri­bly de­scend­ing on his head. When this hap­pened, he would place his hand over his heart, he would try to keep all of his body mov­ing, as if he was freez­ing, and would has­ten to shift his eyes onto some­thing new, and then again some­place else. When Je­sus was be­ing led away from Ca­iaphas, their eyes met up close, and he un­con­sciously gave him sev­eral friendly nods of the head.

“I’m here, my son, I’m here!” he mut­tered hastily and an­grily pushed the back of some gaper block­ing his way.

Now, as one mas­sive, clam­orous mob, they set off to see Pi­late for the fi­nal in­ter­ro­ga­tion and judge­ment, and Ju­das, with the same in­tol­er­a­ble cu­rios­ity, quickly and greed­ily searched the faces of the swelling crowd. Many were com­pletely un­fa­mil­iar, Ju­das had never seen them be­fore, but there were also those who had shouted “Hosanna!” to Je­sus—and their num­bers seemed to swell with every step.

“Well, well!” Ju­das thought quickly, and his head be­gan to spin, as if he was drunk. “It’s all over. Any sec­ond now they will cry out: he’s ours, that’s Je­sus, what are you do­ing? And they will all un­der­stand and…”

But the faith­ful walked in si­lence. They pre­tended to smile, pre­tended that all of this had no ef­fect on them; oth­ers were say­ing some­thing with re­straint, but their quiet voices were drowned with­out a trace in the din of the stream, in the loud, fren­zied shouts of Je­sus’ en­e­mies. And again he felt light. Sud­denly Ju­das no­ticed Thomas care­fully mak­ing his way nearby, and, quickly think­ing of some­thing, de­cided to ap­proach him. Thomas be­came fright­ened at the sight of the trai­tor and wanted to hide, but Ju­das caught up with him in a nar­row, dirty lit­tle street, be­tween two walls.

“Thomas! Wait!”

Thomas stopped and, stretch­ing for­ward both his hands, solemnly ut­tered:

“Get away from me, Sa­tan.”

Is­car­iot im­pa­tiently waved his hand.

“How stu­pid you are, Thomas, I thought that you were smarter than the oth­ers. Sa­tan! Sa­tan! Af­ter all, that must be proved.”

Thomas low­ered his hands and asked in as­ton­ish­ment:

“But did you not be­tray our teacher? I my­self saw how you brought the sol­diers and pointed Je­sus out to them. If that is not be­trayal, then what is be­trayal?”

“Some­thing else, some­thing else,” said Ju­das hur­riedly. “Lis­ten, there are many of you here. All of you need to gather to­gether and loudly de­mand: give us Je­sus, he’s ours. They won’t refuse you, they won’t dare. They won’t dare…”

“Come now, come now,” Thomas waved him away de­cid­edly, “haven’t you seen how many armed sol­diers and ser­vants of the tem­ple there are? And be­sides, the trial had not yet taken place, and we mustn’t ob­struct the court. Surely they will un­der­stand that Je­sus is in­no­cent and will or­der his im­me­di­ate re­lease.”

“You think so too?” Ju­das asked thought­fully. “Thomas, Thomas, but what if it’s true? What then? Who is right? Who has de­ceived Ju­das?”

“We have talked all night about this and have de­cided that there is no way that the court can con­vict an in­no­cent. But if it does con­vict…”

“Well?!” Is­car­iot hur­ried him.

“…then it is not a court. And they will be sorry when they have to an­swer for this be­fore the real Judge.”

“Be­fore the real one! There’s also a real one?!” Ju­das laughed.

“And all of us have cursed you, but, as you say you are not a trai­tor, then, I think, you ought to be tried…”

Ju­das, with­out hav­ing fin­ished lis­ten­ing, turned sharply and darted quickly down the street af­ter the dis­ap­pear­ing crowd. But soon he slowed down his pace and be­gan to walk un­hur­riedly, think­ing that when­ever peo­ple walk in a large crowd they al­ways walk slowly, and the one who walks alone will un­doubt­edly over­take them.

When Pi­late led Je­sus out from his palace and pre­sented him be­fore the peo­ple, Ju­das, pressed against a col­umn by sol­diers’ heavy backs, vi­o­lently shift­ing his head in or­der to see any­thing be­tween two glint­ing hel­mets, sud­denly felt cer­tain that now every­thing was over. Un­der the sun, high above the heads of the crowd, he saw Je­sus, blood­ied, pale, wear­ing a wreath of thorns, dig­ging into his fore­head with its spikes; he stood at the edge of the el­e­va­tion, all of him in sight, from his head to his small, tanned feet, and he waited so pa­tiently, his in­tegrity and pu­rity was so plain to see that only a blind man who is un­able to see the sun could not see it, only a mad­man could not un­der­stand it. And the crowd was silent—it was so silent that Ju­das could hear the breath­ing of the sol­dier in front of him, and with every breath some­where on his body a belt would creak.

“So. It’s over. Now they’ll un­der­stand,” thought Ju­das, and sud­denly, some­thing strange stopped his heart, some­thing that felt like the blind­ing hap­pi­ness of falling from an in­fi­nitely tall moun­tain into a ra­di­ant blue abyss.

Pi­late, draw­ing his lips con­temp­tu­ously down to his round chin, is throw­ing curt, dry words at the crowd—like bones thrown to a pack of hun­gry dogs—think­ing to trick their thirst for fresh blood and liv­ing, trem­bling flesh:

“You have brought me this man as one who cor­rupts the peo­ple; and now that I have ex­am­ined this man be­fore you I do not find him guilty in that which you ac­cuse him of…”

Ju­das closed his eyes. He is wait­ing.

And all of the peo­ple be­gan shout­ing, yelling, howl­ing with a thou­sand voices of man and beast:

“Death to him! Cru­cify him! Cru­cify him!”

And, as if in self mock­ery, as if want­ing to ex­pe­ri­ence at once the full bound­less­ness of dis­grace, mad­ness, and ig­nominy, the same peo­ple shout, yell, and de­mand with a thou­sand voices of man and beast:

“Re­lease Barab­bas to us! Cru­cify him! Cru­cify!”

But the Ro­man had not yet given his fi­nal word—con­vul­sions of dis­gust and anger run across his shaved haughty face. He un­der­stands, he knows! Now he is speak­ing qui­etly to his ser­vants, but his voice can­not be heard through the roar of the crowd. What is he say­ing? Is he telling them to take their swords and strike these mad­men?

“Bring wa­ter.”

Wa­ter? What wa­ter? What for?

Now he is wash­ing his hands—for some rea­son he is wash­ing his clean, white hands, adorned with rings—and, rais­ing them, he cries out fu­ri­ously to the stunned, silent crowd:

“I am in­no­cent of the blood of this right­eous man. See to it your­selves!”

The wa­ter was still rolling down his fin­gers onto the mar­ble slabs when some­thing spread it­self out be­fore Pi­late’s feet, and hot, sharp lips kissed his im­po­tently re­sist­ing hand—suck­ing onto it, like ten­ta­cles, draw­ing blood, al­most bit­ing it. He looks down with fear and dis­gust—he sees a large writhing body, a vi­o­lently di­vided face with two enor­mous eyes, so strangely un­like each other that it seemed like a mul­ti­tude of crea­tures were cling­ing to his hands and legs. And he hears a poi­so­nous whis­per, bro­ken and fevered:

“You are wise!… You are no­ble!… You are wise, wise!…”

His wild face is aglow with such sa­tanic glee that Pi­late screams and kicks him away, and Ju­das falls onto his back. And, ly­ing on the stone slabs, look­ing like an over­turned devil, he con­tin­ues to stretch out his hand to­wards the de­part­ing Pi­late, and he shouts, as if pas­sion­ately in love:

“You are wise! You are wise! You are no­ble!”

He then nim­bly rises and runs, es­corted by sol­diers’ laugh­ter. Af­ter all, it is not over yet. When they see the cross, when they see the nails, they might un­der­stand, and then… What then? He catches a glimpse of a stu­pe­fied, pale Thomas, and for some rea­son gives him a calm­ing nod of the head, then catches up with Je­sus on his way to the ex­e­cu­tion. It is dif­fi­cult to walk, small stones are rolling un­der the feet, and sud­denly Ju­das senses that he is tired. All of his en­er­gies are now fo­cused on how to best plant his feet, he looks around dully and sees Mary Mag­da­lene weep­ing, sees a mul­ti­tude of women weep­ing—loose hair, red eyes, twisted lips—all of the im­mea­sur­able sad­ness of a woman’s gen­tle soul sur­ren­dered to out­rage. He is sud­denly re­an­i­mated and, seiz­ing the mo­ment, runs up to Je­sus:

“I am with you,” he whis­pers hur­riedly.

The sol­diers try to drive him away with the blows of their whips and, writhing in or­der slip away from the strikes, show­ing the sol­diers his bared teeth, he hur­riedly ex­plains:

“I am with you. Thither. You un­der­stand, thither!”

He wipes the blood off his face and threat­ens a sol­dier with his fist, who turns around and laughs as he points him out to the oth­ers. For some rea­son he looks for Thomas—but nei­ther he nor any of the dis­ci­ples are pre­sent in the crowd. Again he feels tired­ness, he ar­du­ously shifts his legs, care­fully look­ing at the sharp, lit­tle, white stones.

When they lifted the ham­mer in or­der to nail Je­sus’ left hand to the wood, Ju­das closed his eyes and held his breath for an eter­nity, he did not see, he did not live, he only lis­tened. Now a grat­ing strike of iron against iron, and then one by one a se­ries of short, dull, low strikes—one can hear the sharp nail en­ter­ing the soft wood, sep­a­rat­ing its fibers…

One hand. It is not too late.

The other hand. It is not too late.

A foot, the other foot—is it re­ally all over? He opens his eyes re­luc­tantly and sees the cross be­ing lifted, sway­ing, be­ing in­stalled in the hole. He sees Je­sus’ arms painfully stretch­ing, tensely con­vuls­ing, widen­ing his wounds—and sud­denly his ex­hausted ab­domen pulls back be­hind the ribs. The arms keep stretch­ing, keep stretch­ing, be­com­ing thin, be­com­ing pale, they twist at the shoul­ders, and his wounds grow red un­der the nails, creep­ing—they’ll tear at any mo­ment… No, it stopped. It all stopped. Only the ribs move, lift­ing up­wards from short, deep breaths.

On the very crown of the hill a cross is raised—and on it the cru­ci­fied Je­sus. Is­car­iot’s hor­rors and dreams have been re­al­ized—he rises from his knees, on which, for some rea­son, he was kneel­ing, and coldly looks around. Thus gazes a vic­tor who has al­ready de­cided in his heart to sur­ren­der every­thing to death and de­struc­tion, scan­ning for the last time a rich for­eign city, still alive and bustling, but al­ready ghost­like un­der the cold hand of death. And sud­denly, as clearly as his ter­ri­ble vic­tory, Is­car­iot sees its sin­is­ter pre­car­i­ous­ness. But what if they fig­ure it out? It is not too late. Je­sus is still alive. There, he is gaz­ing with his en­treat­ing, mourn­ful eyes…

What can pre­vent the thin film that cov­ers man’s eyes from tear­ing, so thin that it is al­most nonex­is­tent? What if… they fig­ure it out? What if they de­cide to press for­ward with the whole of their thun­der­ous mass of men, women, and chil­dren, in si­lence, with­out shout­ing, wipe out the sol­diers, sub­merge them up to their ears in their own blood, rip that damned cross out from the earth, and with the hands of those who are still left alive lift the freed Je­sus up high above the crown of the earth! Hosanna! Hosanna!

Hosanna? No, it is bet­ter for Ju­das to lay down on the ground. No, it is bet­ter to watch and wait, while ly­ing on the ground, gnash­ing one’s teeth like a dog, un­til they all rise up. But what has hap­pened to time? Now it seems to al­most stop, to the point where one wants to shove it for­ward with one’s hands, kick it, beat it with a whip, like a lazy don­key—now it rushes down sense­lessly from some moun­tain, takes one’s breath away, and one’s hands seek in vain to grab onto some­thing. There weeps Mary Mag­da­lene. There weeps the mother of Je­sus. Let them weep. Do her tears have any mean­ing now? The tears of all moth­ers, all women in the world!

“What are tears?” asks Ju­das and fran­ti­cally tries to push for­ward the mo­tion­less time, strikes it with his fists, curses it, as if it was a slave. It is some­one else’s, that is why it is so dis­obe­di­ent. Oh, if only it be­longed to Ju­das—but it be­longs to all those who are weep­ing, laugh­ing, chat­ting, like at a bazaar; it be­longs to the sun; it be­longs to the cross and to the heart of Je­sus, who is dy­ing so slowly.

What a mean heart Ju­das has! He holds it with his hand, but it screams “Hosanna!” so loudly that any mo­ment now every­one will hear it. He presses it to the ground, but it screams: “Hosanna! Hosanna!”—like a chat­ter­box who scat­ters di­vine se­crets onto the street… Be silent! Be silent!

Sud­denly there is a loud, bro­ken wail, dull shouts, hasty move­ment to­wards the cross. What is this? Have they un­der­stood?

No, Je­sus is dy­ing. And this is pos­si­ble? Yes, Je­sus is dy­ing. His pale hands are mo­tion­less, but short con­vul­sions run across his face, across his chest and legs. And this is pos­si­ble? Yes, he is dy­ing. His breath­ing has be­come less fre­quent. It stopped… No, an­other breath, Je­sus is still on the earth. And an­other? No… No… No… Je­sus has died.

It hap­pened. Hosanna! Hosanna!

Hor­rors and dreams have been re­al­ized. Who will now snatch vic­tory from Is­car­iot’s hands? It hap­pened. Let all the peo­ples that ex­ist on the earth flow to Gol­go­tha and scream with mil­lions of their throats: “Hosanna, Hosanna!”—and they will spill a sea of blood and tears at its foot—and they will find only the shame­ful cross and a dead Je­sus.

Is­car­iot in­spects the de­ceased calmly and coldly, pauses his gaze for a mo­ment on the cheek, which he had kissed only yes­ter­day with his farewell kiss, and slowly walks away. Now all of time be­longs to him, and he walks un­hur­riedly; now all of the earth be­longs to him, and he treads firmly, like a lord, like a tsar, like one who is in­fi­nitely and hap­pily alone in this world. He sees Je­sus’ mother and tells her se­verely:

“You weep, mother? Weep, weep, and for a long time to come will moth­ers of this earth weep with you. Un­til the time when we re­turn to­gether with Je­sus and de­stroy death.”

What—is he in­sane or is he mock­ing, this trai­tor? But he is se­ri­ous, and his face is stern, and his eyes no longer dash around in a mad hurry. Now he pauses and with cold at­ten­tive­ness ex­am­ines this small new earth. It be­came small, and he can feel the whole of it un­der his feet; he looks at the small moun­tains, softly red­den­ing in the sun’s last rays, and he feels the moun­tains un­der his feet; he looks at the sky, its blue mouth wide open, he looks at the lit­tle round sun, try­ing in vain to blind and burn—and he feels both the sky and the sun un­der his feet. In­fi­nitely and hap­pily alone, he proudly senses the pow­er­less­ness of every force that acts in the world, and he casts them all into the abyss.

And he con­tin­ues walk­ing, tak­ing calm, com­mand­ing steps. And time moves nei­ther in front nor be­hind him; obe­di­ent, it moves with him with all of its in­vis­i­ble im­men­sity.

It hap­pened.