IX

Ju­das of Ke­rioth, the Trai­tor, ap­peared be­fore the San­hedrin as an old scoundrel, cough­ing, smil­ing flat­ter­ingly, and con­stantly bow­ing. This was the day af­ter the killing of Je­sus, about mid­day. They were all here, his judges and his killers: there was the el­derly An­nas with his sons, fat and dis­gust­ing like the fa­ther, there was his son-in-law, Ca­iaphas, tor­mented by his love of praise, there were all the other mem­bers of the San­hedrin whose names have been stolen from mankind’s mem­ory—rich and no­table Sad­ducees, proud of their power and their knowl­edge of the law. They greeted the Trai­tor in si­lence, and their haughty faces re­mained still, as if noth­ing had en­tered. And even the one who was the small­est and most in­signif­i­cant of them, to whom the oth­ers paid no at­ten­tion, raised his bird­like face and stared as if noth­ing had en­tered. Ju­das bowed, bowed, bowed, and they kept star­ing in si­lence: as if it was not a man that had en­tered but some dirty in­sect that crawled in, which they did not see. But Ju­das of Ke­rioth was not the type of man to be­come em­bar­rassed: they re­mained silent and he kept bow­ing, and he thought to him­self that if he had to bow un­til evening, then he would keep bow­ing un­til evening. Fi­nally, the im­pa­tient Ca­iaphas asked:

“What do you want?”

Ju­das bowed once more and said loudly:

“It is I, Ju­das of Ke­rioth, the one who be­trayed Je­sus of Nazareth to you.”

“So what? You’ve re­ceived your due. Leave!” or­dered An­nas, but Ju­das kept bow­ing as if he had not heard the or­der. And, glanc­ing at him, Ca­iaphas asked An­nas:

“How much was he given?”

“Thirty sil­ver pieces.”

Ca­iaphas chuck­led, and even the gray An­nas him­self chuck­led, and a glee­ful smile slipped over every haughty face; and the one who had a bird­like face even be­gan to laugh. And, grow­ing vis­i­bly pale, Ju­das quickly picked up:

“Well, well. Of course, that’s very lit­tle, but is Ju­das dis­pleased, is Ju­das scream­ing that he had been robbed? He is pleased. Was it not a holy cause that he has served? It was holy. Don’t the wis­est of men lis­ten now to Ju­das and think: he’s ours, Ju­das of Ke­rioth, he’s our brother, our friend, Ju­das of Ke­rioth, the Trai­tor? Does not An­nas want to get on his knees and kiss Ju­das’ hand? But only Ju­das won’t give it, he’s a cow­ard, he’s afraid that he’ll be bit­ten.”

Ca­iaphas said:

“Drive out this dog. What’s he bark­ing?”

“Leave us. We don’t have time to lis­ten to your bab­ble,” An­nas said in­dif­fer­ently.

Ju­das straight­ened up and closed his eyes. That af­fec­ta­tion, which he car­ried all his life with such ease, sud­denly be­came an un­bear­able bur­den; and with one move­ment of his eye­lashes he cast it off. And when he looked again at An­nas, his gaze was sim­ple, straight, and ter­ri­ble in its hon­esty. But even this they did not no­tice.

“You want to be dri­ven out with sticks?” shouted Ca­iaphas.

Suf­fo­cat­ing un­der the weight of the ter­ri­ble words that he was lift­ing higher and higher in or­der to throw them onto the heads of the judges, Ju­das asked hoarsely:

“And do you know… do you know… who he was—the one whom you con­demned yes­ter­day and cru­ci­fied?”

“We know. Leave!”

With a sin­gle word he will now tear that thin film that cov­ers their eyes, and the whole of the earth will trem­ble un­der the weight of the ruth­less truth! They had a soul—they will lose it; they had a life—they will lose their life; they had light be­fore their eyes—eter­nal dark­ness and hor­ror will cover them. Hosanna! Hosanna!

And here they are, these ter­ri­ble words, tear­ing his throat apart:

“He was not a char­la­tan. He was in­no­cent and pure. You hear me? Ju­das has de­ceived you. He be­trayed to you an in­no­cent man.”

He waits. And he hears the in­dif­fer­ent, el­derly voice of An­nas:

“Is that all that you wanted to say to us?”

“It seems you have not un­der­stood me,” Ju­das spoke with dig­nity, grow­ing pale. “Ju­das has de­ceived you. He was in­no­cent. You have killed an in­no­cent man.”

The one with the bird­like face is smil­ing, but An­nas is in­dif­fer­ent, An­nas is bored, An­nas is yawn­ing. And in turn Ca­iaphas yawns, and he says wearily:

“What’s this I was told about the in­tel­lect of Ju­das of Ke­rioth? He’s just a fool, a very bor­ing fool.”

“What!” cried Ju­das, fill­ing up with a dark frenzy. “And who are you, clever men! Ju­das has de­ceived you—do you hear! He did not be­tray him, but you, the wise, you, the pow­er­ful, he be­trayed you to a shame­ful death, which will never end. Thirty sil­ver pieces! Well, well. But, af­ter all, that’s the price of your blood, which is as dirty as the filthy wa­ter that women pour out­side the gates of their houses. Ah, An­nas, old, gray, stu­pid An­nas, gorged on the law—why didn’t you give one sil­ver piece more, one obol more? Af­ter all, that’s the price at which you’ll go for eter­nity!”

“Out!” shouted Ca­iaphas, his face flush­ing. But An­nas stopped him with a mo­tion of his hand and with the same in­dif­fer­ence asked Ju­das:

“Are you done now?”

“If I go to the desert and cry out to the beasts: beasts, have you heard the price at which men val­ued their Je­sus? What will the beasts do? They will crawl out of their lairs, they will howl from wrath, they will for­get their fear be­fore man and will all come here to de­vour you! If I say to the sea: sea, do you know the price at which men val­ued Je­sus? If I say to the moun­tains: moun­tains, do you know the price at which men val­ued Je­sus? And both the sea and the moun­tains will leave their places, as­signed to them since the dawn of time, and will come here, and they will fall upon your heads!”

“Does Ju­das wish to be­come a prophet? He speaks so loudly!” the one with the bird­like face re­marked mock­ingly and gave Ca­iaphas an in­gra­ti­at­ing glance.

“To­day I saw a pale sun. It looked at the earth with hor­ror and said: and where is man? To­day I saw a scor­pion. It sat on a rock laugh­ing and said: and where is man? I ap­proached it and looked into its eyes. And it laughed and said: and where is man, please tell me, I don’t see him! Or has Ju­das be­come blind, poor Ju­das of Ke­rioth!”

And Is­car­iot be­gan to weep loudly. In these min­utes he looked like a mad­man, and Ca­iaphas, hav­ing turned away, con­temp­tu­ously waved him away. An­nas, how­ever, thought a lit­tle and said:

“I see, Ju­das, that you re­ally did re­ceive too lit­tle, and this trou­bles you. Here is more money, take it and give it to your chil­dren.”

He threw some­thing that made a sharp clink­ing sound. And this sound has not yet faded when an­other, sim­i­lar to it, strangely pro­longed it: this was Ju­das throw­ing hand­fuls of sil­ver pieces and obols at the faces of the high priest and the judges, re­turn­ing their pay­ment for Je­sus. The coins rained on their faces, on the table, scat­ter­ing across the floor. Some of the judges used their hands to cover their faces, palms turned out­ward, oth­ers screamed and cursed as they leapt up from their seats. Ju­das, try­ing to hit An­nas, threw the last coin, which his shak­ing hand took a long time to fish out of the bag, spat wrath­fully, and left.

“Well, well!” he mut­tered as he passed swiftly through the streets, scar­ing away the chil­dren. “It seems that you’ve been weep­ing, Ju­das? But is Ca­iaphas right in say­ing that Ju­das of Ke­rioth is stu­pid? He who weeps on the day of great vengeance is not wor­thy of it—do you know that, Ju­das? Don’t let your eyes de­ceive you, don’t let your heart lie, don’t pour tears over fire, Ju­das of Ke­rioth!”

Je­sus’ dis­ci­ples were sit­ting in mourn­ful si­lence, lis­ten­ing in to what was hap­pen­ing out­side the house. There was still the dan­ger that the vengeance of Je­sus’ en­e­mies was not lim­ited to him alone, and they all waited for guards to barge in, and, per­haps, more ex­e­cu­tions to fol­low. By John’s side, for whom, as Je­sus’ beloved dis­ci­ple, his death was es­pe­cially griev­ous, sat Mary Mag­da­lene and Matthew, con­sol­ing him in a low voice. Mary, whose face was swollen from tears, softly stroked his rich, curvy hair, while Matthew spoke di­dac­ti­cally, in the words of Solomon:

“He that is slow to anger is bet­ter than the mighty; and he that rules his spirit than he that takes a city.”

At that very mo­ment, loudly bang­ing the door, Ju­das Is­car­iot en­tered. Every­one jumped up in fright and at first did not even re­al­ize who he was, but, when they rec­og­nized the hated face and the bumpy, red-haired head, they started shout­ing. Pe­ter raised both of his hands and cried out:

“Go away from here! Trai­tor! Go away or I will kill you!”

But, when they took a bet­ter look at the face and eyes of the Trai­tor, they qui­eted down, whis­per­ing in fear:

“Leave him! Leave him! He is pos­sessed by Sa­tan!”

Ju­das waited un­til they grew silent, and then loudly cried out:

“Re­joice, the eyes of Ju­das of Ke­rioth! You have just seen cold-blooded mur­der­ers—and al­ready they’ve turned into cow­ardly trai­tors be­fore you! Where is Je­sus? I ask you: where is Je­sus?”

There was some­thing com­mand­ing in Is­car­iot’s hoarse voice, and Thomas obe­di­ently an­swered:

“But you your­self know, Ju­das, that our teacher was cru­ci­fied yes­ter­day evening.”

“How is it that you’ve al­lowed this? Where was your love? You, beloved dis­ci­ple, you, his rock, where were you when your friend was cru­ci­fied on a piece of wood?”

“Just think, what could we have done?” Thomas spread out his hands.

“You are ask­ing this, Thomas? Well, well!” Ju­das of Ke­rioth turned his head side­ways and then sud­denly and wrath­fully fell upon him: “He who loves does not ask, he acts! He goes and does every­thing. He weeps, he bites, he stran­gles the en­emy and breaks his bones! He who loves! When your son is drown­ing, do you go to the city and ask the passersby: ‘What should I do? My son is drown­ing!’—or do you throw your­self into the wa­ter and drown next to your son. He who loves!”

Pe­ter replied grimly to Ju­das’ in­tense speech:

“I drew my sword, but he him­self said: don’t.”

“Don’t? And you com­plied?” Ju­das laughed. “Pe­ter, Pe­ter, how could you lis­ten to him! Does he know any­thing of men, of bat­tle?”

“He who does not obey him will go to the fires of hell.”

“Why didn’t you go? Why didn’t you go, Pe­ter? The fires of hell—what is hell? So what if you go—what do you need a soul for if you don’t dare cast it into the fire when­ever you choose!”

“Be silent!” cried John, ris­ing. “He him­self wanted this sac­ri­fice. And his sac­ri­fice is sub­lime!”

“Is there such a thing as a sub­lime sac­ri­fice, what are you say­ing, beloved dis­ci­ple? Where there is a sac­ri­fice, there is an ex­e­cu­tioner, and trai­tors also! A sac­ri­fice—it is suf­fer­ing for one and dis­grace for all. Trai­tors, trai­tors, what have you done to the earth? Now they look at it from above and from be­low and laugh and shout: look at this earth, there they cru­ci­fied Je­sus! And they spit on it—as I do!” Ju­das spat fu­ri­ously on the ground.

“He took all the sins of mankind upon him­self. His sac­ri­fice is sub­lime!” John in­sisted.

“No, you took all the sins upon your­selves. Beloved dis­ci­ple! Does not the race of trai­tors be­gin with you, a breed of cravens and liars? Blind men, what have you done to the earth? You wanted to ruin it, you will soon be kiss­ing the cross upon which you cru­ci­fied Je­sus! Well, well—Ju­das promises that you will kiss the cross!”

“Ju­das, don’t in­sult us!” roared Pe­ter, his face flush­ing. “How could we have killed all of his en­e­mies? There are so many of them!”

“You too, Pe­ter!” John cried fu­ri­ously. “Don’t you see that Sa­tan has pos­sessed him? Get away from us, tempter. You are full of lies! The teacher for­bade us to kill.”

“But did he also for­bid you to die? Why are you alive, when he is dead? Why do your legs move, your tongue bab­bles non­sense, your eyes blink, when he is dead, mo­tion­less, speech­less? How dare your cheeks be red, John, when his are pale? How dare you shout, Pe­ter, when he is silent? You ask Ju­das: what should we do? And Ju­das an­swers you, the beau­ti­ful, brave Ju­das of Ke­rioth: die. You should have fallen on the road, should have grabbed the sol­diers’ swords and hands. You should have drowned them in the sea of your blood—you should have died, died! His Fa­ther him­self should have screamed from hor­ror when all of you have en­tered there!”

Ju­das raised his hand and fell silent, but then, all of a sud­den, he no­ticed on the table the re­mains of a meal. And with strange amaze­ment, in a cu­ri­ous man­ner, as if he saw food for the first time in his life, he slowly ex­am­ined it and asked:

“What’s this? You have eaten? Maybe you have also slept?”

“I slept,” Pe­ter an­swered, meekly low­er­ing his head, now sens­ing in Ju­das some­one able to com­mand. “I slept and I ate.”

Thomas said res­olutely and firmly:

“This is all wrong, Ju­das. Just think: if we had all died, who would be left to speak about Je­sus? Who would carry his teach­ing to the peo­ple, if all of us had died: Pe­ter, John, and I?”

“And what is truth it­self on the lips of trai­tors? Does it not be­come a lie? Thomas, Thomas, don’t you un­der­stand that you are now only a guard be­fore the tomb of dead truth. The guard falls asleep and a thief ar­rives, and he takes away the truth with him—tell me, where is truth? Be damned, Thomas! You’ll be fruit­less and pen­ni­less for eter­nity, and the rest of you, be damned with him!”

“You be damned, Sa­tan!” cried John, and his ex­cla­ma­tion was re­peated by Ja­cob, by Matthew, and by all the other dis­ci­ples. Only Pe­ter re­mained silent.

“I am go­ing to him!” said Ju­das, ex­tend­ing up­wards his com­mand­ing hand. “Who will fol­low Is­car­iot to Je­sus?”

“I! I will go with you!” cried Pe­ter, ris­ing. Hor­ri­fied, John and the oth­ers stopped him, say­ing:

“Mad­man! You have for­got­ten that he be­trayed the teacher into the hands of his en­e­mies!”

Pe­ter hit him­self in the chest with his fist and be­gan to weep bit­terly:

“Then where should I go? My Lord! Where should I go?”

Long ago, dur­ing his walks, Ju­das had picked the spot where he would kill him­self af­ter the death of Je­sus. It was on a moun­tain, high above Jerusalem, and upon it stood only a sin­gle tree, crooked, half with­ered, tor­mented by wind, which tore at it from every side. It stretched out one of its twisted branches to­wards Jerusalem, as if bless­ing it or threat­en­ing it with some­thing, and Ju­das chose it for the pur­pose of ty­ing on it a noose. But the road to the tree was long and ar­du­ous, and Ju­das of Ke­rioth was greatly tired. Those same sharp lit­tle stones were slid­ing un­der his feet and seemed to pull him back­wards, and the moun­tain was tall, en­veloped by wind, gloomy and malev­o­lent. And al­ready Ju­das had to sit down sev­eral times to rest, and he breathed heav­ily, and be­hind him, through clefts in the rocks, the moun­tain breathed cold onto his back.

“And now you, damn thing!” Ju­das said con­temp­tu­ously and breathed heav­ily, shak­ing his heavy head in which all thoughts have now pet­ri­fied. He would then raise it sud­denly, open his frozen eyes, and fu­ri­ously mut­ter:

“No, they are too bad for Ju­das. You hear that, Je­sus? Will you be­lieve me now? I am go­ing to you. Meet me kindly, I am tired. I am very tired. Then, to­gether, em­brac­ing like broth­ers, we will re­turn to the earth. All right?”

Again he shook his pet­ri­fy­ing head and again he opened his eyes wide, mut­ter­ing:

“But, maybe you’ll be up­set with Ju­das of Ke­rioth even there? And you won’t be­lieve me? And you’ll send me to hell? Well then! I’ll go to hell! And I will use the fires of your hell to forge iron, and I will de­stroy your heaven. All right? Will you be­lieve me then? Will you then re­turn with me to the earth, Je­sus?”

Fi­nally Ju­das made it to the top and to the crooked tree, and here the wind be­gan to tor­ment him. But af­ter Ju­das had scolded it, it be­gan to sing softly and qui­etly—the wind was fly­ing away some­where and it was say­ing its good­bye.

“All right, all right! But they’re dogs!”—Ju­das replied to it as he tied the knot. And, be­cause the rope might de­ceive him and break, he hung it over the precipice—if it breaks then he will still find his death atop the rocks. And, be­fore he pushed him­self off with his leg and hanged him­self, Ju­das of Ke­rioth warned Je­sus at­ten­tively one more time:

“Please meet me kindly, I am very tired, Je­sus.”

And he jumped. The rope tight­ened, but held. Ju­das’ neck be­came thin, and his arms and legs came to­gether and hung down, as if they were wet. He died. Thus in two days, one af­ter an­other, they left the earth: Je­sus of Nazareth and Ju­das of Ke­rioth, the Trai­tor.

Ju­das swayed all night above Jerusalem, like some kind of mon­strous fruit; some­times the wind turned him to face the city, at other times to­wards the desert—it was as if it wanted to show Ju­das both to the city and to the desert. But whichever way the death dis­fig­ured face turned, the red eyes, filled with blood and now alike, like broth­ers, gazed un­fal­ter­ingly at the sky. And when morn­ing came, some­one with keen eye­sight saw Ju­das hang­ing above the city and cried out in fear. Peo­ple came, and they took him down, and, dis­cov­er­ing who it was, threw him into a des­o­late ravine into which they threw dead horses, cats, and other car­rion.

Al­ready that evening all the be­liev­ers re­ceived word of the ter­ri­ble death of the Trai­tor, and on the next day the whole of Jerusalem heard about it. The rocky Ju­daea heard about it, and the green Galilee heard about it; and the news of the Trai­tor’s death spread from one sea to the other, which is even far­ther away. Nei­ther faster nor slower, it trav­eled in con­cord with time, and just as time has no end, nei­ther will there be an end to the tales of Ju­das’ be­trayal and his ter­ri­ble death. And every­one—the good and the bad—will damn his mem­ory in equal mea­sure; and for all the peo­ples that ever were and that still are, he will re­main alone in his cruel fate—Ju­das of Ke­rioth, the Trai­tor.