V

And now Lazarus was sum­moned by the great, di­vine Au­gus­tus him­self.

They dressed Lazarus in lav­ish, cer­e­mo­nial wed­ding gar­ments—as if time has rat­i­fied them and un­til his very death he was to re­main the groom of an un­known bride. It looked like an old, rot­ting cof­fin, al­ready be­gin­ning to fall apart, was gilded anew and dec­o­rated with fresh, merry tas­sels. And they car­ried him in a cer­e­mo­ni­ous fash­ion, all dressed up and bright, as if it re­ally was a wed­ding pro­ces­sion, and those at the head loudly sounded their pipes so that the peo­ple would clear the road for the em­peror’s en­voys. But the paths Lazarus took were de­serted: the whole of his na­tive coun­try al­ready cursed the hated name of the mirac­u­lously res­ur­rected, and the peo­ple scat­tered from the first word of his dread ap­proach. The cop­per pipes sounded alone, and only the desert replied with its lin­ger­ing echo.

Then he was car­ried by sea. And this was the most dec­o­rated and most un­happy ship that was ever re­flected in the azure waves of the Mediter­ranean. There were many peo­ple on it but it was quiet and mute, like a tomb, and it was as if the hope­less wa­ter, skirt­ing around the beau­ti­fully curved bow, was it­self weep­ing. Lazarus sat there alone, of­fer­ing the sun his un­cov­ered head, and silently lis­tened to the mur­mur of the streams, and, some dis­tance away, the sailors and en­voys fee­bly sat and lay like a hazy crowd of mourn­ful shad­ows. It is likely that the ship would have per­ished if at that mo­ment thun­der struck and wind tore their sails since no one on board had ei­ther the strength or the will to fight for his life. With the last of their strength some ap­proached the side of the ship and peered greed­ily into the deep, translu­cent abyss: would not a pink shoul­der of a na­iad flash in the waves, would not a merry, mad cen­taur rush past, hooves splash­ing? But the sea was empty, and the ma­rine abyss was mute and de­serted.

With in­dif­fer­ence Lazarus stepped onto the streets of the Eter­nal City. It was as if all its riches, all the great­ness of its build­ings, erected by gi­ants, all the glit­ter and beauty and mu­sic of re­fined life were but a wind’s echo in a desert, were but a glim­mer of shift­ing sands. Char­i­ots raced, crowds of strong, beau­ti­ful, haughty men moved about, builders of the Eter­nal City and the par­tic­i­pants of its life; songs played, foun­tains and women laughed with their pearly laugh­ter, the drunks phi­los­o­phized, the sober lis­tened to them with a smile, and hooves pounded, hooves pounded the cob­ble­stones. And, sur­rounded on all sides by merry noise, in a cold patch of si­lence moved a fat, heavy man, sow­ing wrath, sor­row, and murky, drain­ing melan­choly in his path. “Who dares be sad in Rome?” the cit­i­zens frowned in­dig­nantly, and al­ready two days later the whole of the chat­ter­ing Rome knew about the mirac­u­lously res­ur­rected and fear­fully avoided him.

But there were also many brave peo­ple here who wished to try their strength, and Lazarus obe­di­ently an­swered their thought­less calls. Busy with af­fairs of state, the em­peror de­layed his re­cep­tion, and for seven whole days the mirac­u­lously res­ur­rected called on peo­ple.

Now Lazarus vis­ited a jolly drunk, and the drunk greeted him with the laugh­ter of his red lips.

“Drink, Lazarus, drink!” he shouted. “Oh how Au­gus­tus will laugh when he sees you drunk!”

And the naked drunk women laughed, and rose petals fell upon Lazarus’ blue hands. But the drunk looked into his eyes—and his joy was for­ever ended. He re­mained drunk for the rest of his life; he no longer drank any­thing, but he re­mained drunk—but, in­stead of the happy rever­ies fur­nished by wine, ter­ri­ble dreams over­shad­owed his un­for­tu­nate head. Ter­ri­ble dreams be­came the only nour­ish­ment for his af­flicted soul. Day and night ter­ri­ble dreams held him in a daze of their mon­strous cre­ations, and death it­self was no more fright­en­ing than the man­i­fes­ta­tions of its har­bin­gers.

Now Lazarus vis­ited a young man and a girl who loved each other and were beau­ti­ful in their love. The young man, hug­ging his beloved proudly and firmly, spoke with a soft com­pas­sion:

“Look at us, Lazarus, and be happy with us. Is there any­thing more pow­er­ful than love?”

And Lazarus looked at them. And for the rest of their lives they con­tin­ued to love each other, but their love be­came gloomy and melan­choly, like those cy­press trees that grow atop graves, nour­ish­ing their roots with de­cay­ing coffins, in vain seek­ing the sky with the points of their black peaks in the quiet evening hour. With the mys­te­ri­ous force of life they threw them­selves into each other’s grasp, mix­ing kisses with tears, plea­sure with pain, and twice felt them­selves slaves: as obe­di­ent slaves to the ne­ces­si­ties of life, and as com­pli­ant ser­vants of the silent Noth­ing­ness. For­ever com­ing to­gether, for­ever draw­ing apart, they flashed, like sparks, and, like sparks, were ex­tin­guished in the bound­less dark­ness.

Now Lazarus vis­ited a proud sage, and the sage said to him:

“I al­ready know of all the ter­ri­ble things you can tell me Lazarus. What else can you frighten me with?”

Only a lit­tle time had passed, but al­ready the sage could feel that the knowl­edge of what is ter­ri­ble is not the ter­ri­ble thing it­self, and that the vi­sion of death is not death it­self. And he felt that wis­dom and folly are equal be­fore the face of the In­fi­nite, for the In­fi­nite knows them not. And the bound­ary be­tween knowl­edge and ig­no­rance, be­tween truth and false­hood, be­tween top and bot­tom, has dis­ap­peared, and his form­less thoughts were left hang­ing in empti­ness. He then gripped his gray head and cried deliri­ously:

“I can­not think! I can­not think!”

Thus every­thing that af­firms life, its mean­ing and its joys, died un­der the in­dif­fer­ent gaze of the mirac­u­lously res­ur­rected. And peo­ple started say­ing that it would be dan­ger­ous to let him see the em­peror, that it would be bet­ter to kill him and, hav­ing buried him in se­cret, say that he fled no one knows where. Swords were al­ready be­ing sharp­ened and self­less young men, ded­i­cated to the com­mon good, were prepar­ing them­selves for the as­sas­si­na­tion, when Au­gus­tus or­dered that Lazarus was to come see him next morn­ing, thus up­set­ting their cruel plans.

If they could not elim­i­nate Lazarus then they wanted to at least soften a lit­tle that heavy im­pres­sion pro­duced by his face. And with this aim they gath­ered skilled painters, bar­bers, and artists, and they spent the whole of the night la­bor­ing over Lazarus’ head. They trimmed his beard, curled it and gave it an at­trac­tive ap­pear­ance. The deathly blue hue of his hands and face was un­pleas­ant, and so they re­moved it with paint: whitened his hands and rosied his cheeks. The wrin­kles of mis­ery that plowed across his old face were re­pul­sive, so they were cov­ered up, painted over, com­pletely smoothed out, and with a fine brush over the clean back­ground they traced out the wrin­kles of good-na­tured laugh­ter and pleas­ant, am­i­ca­ble mirth.

In­dif­fer­ently Lazarus sub­mit­ted to all that they did to him and he soon turned into a nat­u­rally fat, hand­some old man, a calm and good-na­tured grand­fa­ther of nu­mer­ous grand­chil­dren. The smile, with which he told funny tales, had not yet left his lips, the quiet soft­ness of an old man still lin­gered in the cor­ner of his eyes—thus he ap­peared. But they did not dare re­move his wed­ding gar­ments, and they could not change his eyes—dark and ter­ri­ble panes of glass through which the un­gras­pable Be­yond gazed upon men.