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The prisoner stared dubiously at the Procurator.
'I have no donkey, hegemon,' he said. ' I certainly came into
Jerusalem through the Susim Gate, but I came on foot alone except for
Matthew the Levite and nobody shouted a word to me as no one in Jerusalem
knew me then.'
'Do you happen to know,' went on Pilate without taking his eyes off
the prisoner, ' anyone called Dismas? Or Hestas? Or a third--Bar-Abba? '
'I do not know these good men,' replied the prisoner.
'Is that the truth? '
'It is.'
'And now tell me why you always use that expression " good men "? Is
that what you call everybody? '
'Yes, everybody,' answered the prisoner. ' There are no evil people on
earth.'
'That is news to me,' said Pilate with a laugh. ' But perhaps I am too
ignorant of life. You need take no further notes,' he said to the secretary,
although the man had taken none for some time. Pilate turned back to the
prisoner :
'Did you read about that in some Greek book? '
'No, I reached that conclusion in my own mind.'
'And is that what you preach? '
Yes.'
'Centurion Mark Muribellum, for instance--is he good? '
'Yes,' replied the prisoner. ' He is, it is true, an unhappy man.
Since the good people disfigured him he has become harsh and callous. It
would be interesting to know who mutilated him.'
'That I will gladly tell you,' rejoined Pilate, ' because I was a
witness to it. These good men threw themselves at him like dogs at a bear.
The Germans clung to his neck, his arms, his legs. An infantry maniple had
been ambushed and had it not been for a troop of cavalry breaking through
from the flank--a troop commanded by me--you, philosopher, would not have
been talking to Muribellum just now. It happened at the battle of Idistavizo
in the Valley of the Virgins.'
'If I were to talk to him,' the prisoner suddenly said in a reflective
voice, ' I am sure that he would change greatly.'
'I suspect,' said Pilate, ' that the Legate of the Legion would not be
best pleased if you took it into your head to talk to one of his officers or
soldiers. Fortunately for us all any such thing is forbidden and the first
person to ensure that it cannot occur would be myself.'
At that moment a swallow darted into the arcade, circled under the
gilded ceiling, flew lower, almost brushed its pointed wingtip over the face
of a bronze statue in a niche and disappeared behind the capital of a
column, perhaps with the thought of nesting there.
As it flew an idea formed itself in the Procurator's mind, which was
now bright and clear. It was thus : the hegemon had examined the case of the
vagrant philosopher Yeshua, surnamed Ha-Notsri, and could not substantiate
the criminal charge made against him. In particular he could not find the
slightest connection between Yeshua's actions and the recent disorders in
Jerusalem. The vagrant philosopher was mentally ill, as a result of which
the sentence of death pronounced on Ha-Notsri by the Lesser Sanhedrin would
not be confirmed. But in view of the danger of unrest liable to be caused by
Yeshua's mad, Utopian preaching, the Procurator would remove the man from
Jerusalem and sentence him to imprisonment in Caesarea Stratonova on the
Mediterranean--the place of the Procurator's own residence. It only remained
to dictate this to the secretary.
The swallow's wings fluttered over the hegemon's head, the bird flew
towards the fountain and out into freedom.
The Procurator raised his eyes to the prisoner and saw that a column of
dust had swirled up beside him.
'Is that all there is on this man? ' Pilate asked the secretary.
'No, unfortunately,' replied the secretary unexpectedly, and handed
Pilate another parchment.
'What else is there? ' enquired Pilate and frowned.
Having read the further evidence a change came over his expression.
Whether it was blood flowing back into his neck and face or from something
else that occurred, his skin changed from yellow to red-brown and his eyes
appeared to collapse. Probably caused by the increased blood-pressure in his
temples, something happened to the Procurator's sight. He seemed to see the
prisoner's head vanish and another appear in its place, bald and crowned
with a spiked golden diadem. The skin of the forehead was split by a round,
livid scar smeared with ointment. A sunken, toothless mouth with a
capricious, pendulous lower lip. Pilate had the sensation that the pink
columns of his balcony and the roofscape of Jerusalem below and beyond the
garden had all vanished, drowned in the thick foliage of cypress groves. His
hearing, too, was strangely affected--there was a sound as of distant
trumpets, muted and threatening, and a nasal voice could clearly be heard
arrogantly intoning the words: ' The law pertaining to high treason . . .'
Strange, rapid, disconnected thoughts passed through his mind. ' Dead!
' Then : ' They have killed him! . . .' And an absurd notion about
immortality, the thought of which aroused a sense of unbearable grief.
Pilate straightened up, banished the vision, turned his gaze back to
the balcony and again the prisoner's eyes met his.
'Listen, Ha-Notsri,' began the Procurator, giving Yeshua a strange
look. His expression was grim but his eyes betrayed anxiety. ' Have you ever
said anything about great Caesar? Answer! Did you say anything of the sort?
Or did you . . . not? ' Pilate gave the word 'not' more emphasis than was
proper in a court of law and his look seemed to be trying to project a
particular thought into the prisoner's mind. ' Telling the truth is easy and
pleasant,' remarked the prisoner.
'I do not want to know,' replied Pilate in a voice of suppressed
anger, ' whether you enjoy telling the truth or not. You are obliged to tell
me the truth. But when you speak weigh every word, if you wish to avoid a
painful death.'
No one knows what passed through the mind of the Procurator of Judaea,
but he permitted himself to raise his hand as though shading himself from a
ray of sunlight and, shielded by that hand, to throw the prisoner a glance
that conveyed a hint.
'So,' he said, ' answer this question : do you know a certain Judas of
Karioth and if you have ever spoken to him what did you say to him about
Caesar? '
'It happened thus,' began the prisoner readily. ' The day before
yesterday, in the evening, I met a young man near the temple who called
himself Judas, from the town of Karioth. He invited me to his home in the
Lower City and gave me supper...'
'Is he a good man? ' asked Pilate, a diabolical glitter in his eyes.
'A very good man and eager to learn,' affirmed the prisoner. ' He
expressed the greatest interest in my ideas and welcomed me joyfully .. . '
'Lit the candles. . . .' said Pilate through clenched teeth to the
prisoner, his eyes glittering.
'Yes,' said Yeshua, slightly astonished that the Procurator should be
so well informed, and went on : ' He asked me for my views on the
government. The question interested him very much.'
'And so what did you say? ' asked Pilate. ' Or are you going to reply
that you have forgotten what you said? ' But there was already a note of
hopelessness in Pilate's voice.
'Among other things I said,' continued the prisoner, ' that all power
is a form of violence exercised over people and that the time will come when
there will be no rule by Caesar nor any other form of rule. Man will pass
into the kingdom of truth and justice where no sort of power will be
needed.'
'Go on!'
'There is no more to tell,' said the prisoner. ' After that some men
came running in, tied me up and took me to prison.'
The secretary, straining not to miss a word, rapidly scribbled the
statement on his parchment.
'There never has been, nor yet shall be a greater and more perfect
government in this world than the rule of the emperor Tiberius!' Pilate's
voice rang out harshly and painfully. The Procurator stared at his secretary
and at the bodyguard with what seemed like hatred. ' And what business have
you, a criminal lunatic, to discuss such matters! ' Pilate shouted. ' Remove
the guards from the balcony! ' And turning to his secretary he added: '
Leave me alone with this criminal. This is a case of treason.'
The bodyguard raised their lances and with the measured tread of their
iron-shod caligae marched from the balcony towards the garden followed by
the secretary.
For a while the silence on the balcony was only disturbed bv the
splashing of the fountain. Pilate watched the water splay out at the apex of
the jet and drip downwards.
The prisoner was the first to speak :
'I see that there has been some trouble as a result of my conversation
with that young man from Karioth. I have a presentiment, hegemon, that some
misfortune will befall him and I feel very sorry for him.'
'I think,' replied the Procurator with a strange smile, ' that there
is someone else in this world for whom you should feel sorrier than for
Judas of Karioth and who is destined for a fate much worse than Judas'! ...
So Mark Muribellum, a coldblooded killer, the people who I see '--the
Procurator pointed to Yeshua's disfigured face--' beat you for what you
preached, the robbers Dismas and Hestas who with their confederates killed
four soldiers, and finally this dirty informer Judas--are they all good men?
'
'Yes,' answered the prisoner.
'And will the kingdom of truth come? ' ' It will, hegemon,' replied
Yeshua with conviction.
'It will never come! ' Pilate suddenly shouted in a voice so terrible
that Yeshua staggered back. Many years ago in the Valley of the Virgins
Pilate had shouted in that same voice to his horsemen : ' Cut them down! Cut
them down! They have caught the giant Muribellum!' And again he raised his
parade-ground voice, barking out the words so that they would be heard in
the garden : ' Criminal! Criminal! Criminal! ' Then lowering his voice he
asked : ' Yeshua Ha-Notsri, do you believe in any gods?'
'God is one,' answered Yeshua. ' I believe in Him.'
'Then pray to him! Pray hard! However,' at this Pilate's voice fell
again, ' it will do no good. Have you a wife? ' asked Pilate with a sudden
inexplicable access of depression.
'No, I am alone.'
'I hate this city,' the Procurator suddenly mumbled, hunching his
shoulders as though from cold and wiping his hands as though washing them. '
If they had murdered you before your meeting with Judas of Karioth I really
believe it would have been better.'
'You should let me go, hegemon,' was the prisoner's unexpected
request, his voice full of anxiety. ' I see now that they want to kill me.'
A spasm distorted Pilate's face as he turned his blood-shot eyes on
Yeshua and said :
'Do you imagine, you miserable creature, that a Roman Procurator could
release a man who has said what you have said to me? Oh gods, oh gods! Or do
you think I'm prepared to take your place? I don't believe in your ideas!
And listen to me : if from this moment onward you say so much as a word or
try to talk to anybody, beware! I repeat--beware!'
'Hegemon . ..'
'Be quiet! ' shouted Pilate, his infuriated stare following the
swallow which had flown on to the balcony again. ' Here!' shouted Pilate.
The secretary and the guards returned to their places and Pilate
announced that he confirmed the sentence of death pronounced by the Lesser
Sanhedrin on the accused Yeshua Ha-Notsri and the secretary recorded
Pilate's words.
A minute later centurion Mark Muribellum stood before the Procurator.
He was ordered by the Procurator to hand the felon over to the captain of
the secret service and in doing so to transmit the Procurator's directive
that Yeshua Ha-Notsri was to be segregated from the other convicts, also
that the captain of the secret service was forbidden on pain of severe
punishment to talk to Yeshua or to answer any questions he might ask.
At a signal from Mark the guard closed ranks around Yeshua and escorted
him from the balcony.
Later the Procurator received a call from a handsome man with a blond
beard, eagles' feathers in the crest of his helmet, glittering lions'
muzzles on his breastplate, a gold-studded sword belt, triple-soled boots
laced to the knee and a purple cloak thrown over his left shoulder. He was
the commanding officer, the Legate of the Legion.
The Procurator asked him where the Sebastian cohort was stationed. The
Legate reported that the Sebastian was on cordon duty in the square in front
of the hippodrome, where the sentences on the prisoners would be announced
to the crowd.
Then the Procurator instructed the Legate to detach two centuries from
the Roman cohort. One of them, under the command of Muribellum, was to
escort the convicts, the carts transporting the executioners' equipment and
the executioners themselves to Mount Golgotha and on arrival to cordon off
the summit area. The other was to proceed at once to Mount Golgotha and to
form a cordon immediately on arrival. To assist in the task of guarding the
hill, the Procurator asked the Legate to despatch an auxiliary cavalry
regiment, the Syrian ala.
When the Legate had left the balcony, the Procurator ordered his
secretary to summon to the palace the president of the Sanhedrin, two of its
members and the captain of the Jerusalem temple guard, but added that he
wished arrangements to be made which would allow him, before conferring with
all these people, to have a private meeting with the president of the
Sanhedrin.
The Procurator's orders were carried out rapidly and precisely and the
sun, which had lately seemed to scorch Jerusalem with such particular
vehemence, had not yet reached its zenith when the meeting took place
between the Procurator and the president of the Sanhedrin, the High Priest
of Judaea, Joseph Caiaphas. They met on the upper terrace of the garden
between two white marble lions guarding the staircase.
It was quiet in the garden. But as he emerged from the arcade on to the
sun-drenched upper terrace of the garden with its palms on their monstrous
elephantine legs, the terrace from which the whole of Pilate's detested city
of Jerusalem lay spread out before the Procurator with its suspension
bridges, its fortresses and over it all that indescribable lump of marble
with a golden dragon's scale instead of a roof--the temple of Jerusalem--the
Procurator's sharp hearing detected far below, down there where a stone wall
divided the lower terraces of the palace garden from the city square, a low
rumbling broken now and again by faint sounds, half groans, half cries.
The Procurator realised that already there was assembling in the square
a numberless crowd of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, excited by the recent
disorders; that this crowd was waiting impatiently for the pronouncement of
sentence and that the water-sellers were busily shouting their wares.
The Procurator began by inviting the High Priest on to the balcony to
find some shade from the pitiless heat, but Caiaphas politely excused
himself, explaining that he could not do that on the eve of a feast-day.
Pilate pulled his cowl over his slightly balding head and began the
conversation, which was conducted in Greek.
Pilate remarked that he had examined the case of Yeshua Ha-Notsri and
had confirmed the sentence of death. Consequently those due for execution
that day were the three robbers--Hestas, Dismas and Bar-Abba--and now this
other man, Yeshua Ha- Notsri. The first two, who had tried to incite the
people to rebel against Caesar, had been forcibly apprehended by the Roman
authorities; they were therefore the Procurator's responsibility and there
was no reason to discuss their case. The last two, however, Bar-Abba and
Ha-Notsri, had been arrested by the local authorities and tried before the
Sanhedrin. In accordance with law and custom, one of these two criminals
should be released in honour of the imminent great feast of Passover. The
Procurator therefore wished to know which of these two felons the Sanhedrin
proposed to discharge--Bar-Abba or Ha-Notsri?
Caiaphas inclined his head as a sign that he understood the question
and replied:
'The Sanhedrin requests the release of Bar-Abba.' The Procurator well
knew that this would be the High Priest's reply; his problem was to show
that the request aroused his astonishment.
This Pilate did with great skill. The eyebrows rose on his proud
forehead and the Procurator looked the High Priest straight in the eye with
amazement.
'I confess that your reply surprises me,' began the Procurator softly.
' I fear there may have been some misunderstanding here.'
Pilate stressed that the Roman government wished to make no inroads
into the prerogatives of the local priestly authority, the High Priest was
well aware of that, but in this particular case an obvious error seemed to
have occurred. And the Roman government naturally had an interest in
correcting such an error. The crimes of Bar-Abba and Ha-Notsri were after
all not comparable in gravity. If the latter, a man who was clearly insane,
were guilty of making some absurd speeches in Jerusalem and various other
localities, the former stood convicted of offences that were infinitely more
serious. Not only had he permitted himself to make direct appeals to
rebellion, but he had killed a sentry while resisting arrest. Bar-Abba was
immeasurably more dangerous than Ha-Notsri. In view of all these facts, the
Procurator requested the High Priest to reconsider his decision and to
discharge the least dangerous of the two convicts and that one was
undoubtedly Ha-Notsri . . . Therefore?
Caiaphas said in a quiet but firm voice that the Sanhedrin had taken
due cognisance of the case and repeated its intention to release Bar-Abba.
'What? Even after my intervention? The intervention of the
representative of the Roman government? High Priest, say it for the third
time.'
'And for the third time I say that we shall release Bar-Abba,' said
Caiaphas softly.
It was over and there was no more to be discussed. Ha-Notsri had gone
for ever and there was no one to heal the Procurator's terrible, savage
pains ; there was no cure for them now except death. But this thought did
not strike Pilate immediately. At first his whole being was seized with the
same incomprehensible sense of grief which had come to him on the balcony.
He at once sought for its explanation and its cause was a strange one : the
Procurator was obscurely aware that he still had something to say to the
prisoner and that perhaps, too, he had more to learn from him.
Pilate banished the thought and it passed as quickly as it had come. It
passed, yet that grievous ache remained a mystery, for it could not be
explained by another thought that had flashed in and out of his mind like
lightning--' Immortality ... immortality has come . . .' Whose immortality
had come? The Procurator could not understand it, but that puzzling thought
of immortality sent a chill over him despite the sun's heat.
'Very well,' said Pilate. ' So be it.'
With that he looked round. The visible world vanished from his sight
and an astonishing change occurred. The flower-laden rosebush disappeared,
the cypresses fringing the upper terrace disappeared, as did the pomegranate
tree, the white statue among the foliage and the foliage itself. In their
place came a kind of dense purple mass in which seaweed waved and swayed and
Pilate himself was swaying with it. He was seized, suffocating and burning,
by the most terrible rage of all rage--the rage of impotence.
'I am suffocating,' said Pilate. ' Suffocating! '
With a cold damp hand he tore the buckle from the collar of his cloak
and it fell on to the sand.
'It is stifling today, there is a thunderstorm brewing,' said
Caiaphas, his gaze fixed on the Procurator's reddening face, foreseeing all
the discomfort that the weather was yet to bring. ' The month of Nisan has
been terrible this year! '
'No,' said Pilate. ' That is not why I am suffocating. I feel stifled
by your presence, Caiaphas.' Narrowing his eyes Pilate added : ' Beware,
High Priest! '
The High Priest's dark eyes flashed and--no less cunningly than the
Procurator--his face showed astonishment.
'What do I hear, Procurator? ' Caiaphas answered proudly and calmly. '
Are you threatening me--when sentence has been duly pronounced and confirmed
by yourself? Can this be so? We are accustomed to the Roman Procurator
choosing his words carefully before saying anything. I trust no one can have
overheard us, hegemon?'
With lifeless eyes Pilate gazed at the High Priest and manufactured a
smile.
'Come now. High Priest! Who can overhear us here? Do you take me for a
fool, like that crazy young vagrant who is to be executed today? Am I a
child, Caiphas? I know what I'm saying and where I'm saying it. This garden,
this whole palace is so well cordoned that there's not a crack for a mouse
to slip through. Not a mouse--and not even that man--what's his name . .?
That man from Karioth. You do know him, don't you, High Priest? Yes ... if
someone like that were to get in here, he would bitterly regret it. You
believe me when I say that, don't you? I tell you, High Priest, that from
henceforth you shall have no peace! Neither you nor your people '--Pilate
pointed to the right where the pinnacle of the temple flashed in the
distance. ' I, Pontius Pilate, knight of the Golden Lance, tell you so! ' '
I know it! ' fearlessly replied the bearded Caiaphas. His eyes flashed as he
raised his hand to the sky and went on : ' The Jewish people knows that you
hate it with a terrible hatred and that you have brought it much
suffering--but you will never destroy it! God will protect it. And he shall
hear us--mighty Caesar shall hear us and protect us from Pilate the
oppressor! '
'Oh no! ' rejoined Pilate, feeling more and more relieved with every
word that he spoke; there was no longer any need to dissemble, no need to
pick his words : ' You have complained of me to Caesar too often and now my
hour has come, Caiaphas! Now I shall send word--but not to the viceroy in
Antioch, not even to Rome but straight to Capreia, to the emperor himself,
word of how you in Jerusalem are saving convicted rebels from death. And
then it will not be water from Solomon's pool, as I once intended for your
benefit, that I shall give Jerusalem to drink--no, it will not be water!
Remember how thanks to you I was made to remove the shields with the
imperial cipher from the walls, to transfer troops, to come and take charge
here myself! Remember my words. High Priest: you are going to see more than
one cohort here in Jerusalem! Under the city walls you are going to see the
Fulminata legion at full strength and Arab cavalry too. Then the weeping and
lamentation will be bitter! Then you will remember that you saved Bar-Abba
and you will regret that you sent that preacher of peace to his death!
Flecks of colour spread over the High Priest's face, his eyes burned.
Like the Procurator he grinned mirthlessly and replied:
'Do you really believe what you have just said, Procurator? No, you do
not! It was not peace that this rabble-rouser brought to Jerusalem and of
that, hegamon, you are well aware. You wanted to release him so that he
could stir up the people, curse our faith and deliver the people to your
Roman swords! But as long as I, the High Priest of Judaea, am alive I shall
not allow the faith to be defamed and I shall protect the people! Do you
hear, Pilate?' With this Caiaphas raised his arm threateningly;
'Take heed. Procurator! '
Caiaphas was silent and again the Procurator heard a murmuring as of
the sea, rolling up to the very walls of Herod the Great's garden. The sound
flowed upwards from below until it seemed to swirl round the Procurator's
legs and into his face. Behind his back, from beyond the wings of the
palace, came urgent trumpet calls, the heavy crunch of hundreds of feet, the
clank of metal. It told the Procurator that the Roman infantry was marching
out, on his orders, to the execution parade that was to strike terror into
the hearts of all thieves and rebels
'Do you hear. Procurator? ' the High Priest quietly repeated his
words. ' Surely you are not trying to tell me that all this '-- here the
High Priest raised both arms and his dark cowl slipped from his head--' can
have been evoked by that miserable thief Bar-Abba?'
With the back of his wrist the Procurator wiped his damp, cold
forehead, stared at the ground, then frowning skywards he saw that the
incandescent ball was nearly overhead, that Caiaphas' shadow had shrunk to
almost nothing and he said in a calm, expressionless voice :
'The execution will be at noon. We have enjoyed this conversation, but
matters must proceed.'
Excusing himself to the High Priest in a few artificial phrases, he
invited him to sit down on a bench in the shade of a magnolia and to wait
while he summoned the others necessary for the final short consultation and
to give one more order concerning the execution.
Caiaphas bowed politely, placing his hand on his heart, and remained in
the garden while Pilate returned to the balcony. There he ordered his
waiting secretary to call the Legate of the Legion and the Tribune of the
cohort into the garden, also the two members of the Sanhedrin and the
captain of the temple guard, who were standing grouped round the fountain on
the lower terrace awaiting his call. Pilate added that he would himself
shortly return to join them in the garden, and disappeared inside the
palace.
While the secretary convened the meeting, inside his darken-ed,
shuttered room the Procurator spoke to a man whose face, despite the
complete absence of sunlight from the room, remained half covered by a hood.
The interview was very short. The Procurator whispered a few words to the
man, who immediately departed. Pilate passed through the arcade into the
garden.
There in the presence of all the men he had asked to see, the
Procurator solemnly and curtly repeated that he confirmed the sentence of
death on Yeshua Ha-Notsri and enquired officially of the Sanhedrin members
as to which of the prisoners it had pleased them to release. On being told
that it was Bar-Abba, the Procurator said:
'Very well,' and ordered the secretary to enter it in the minutes. He
clutched the buckle which the secretary had picked up from the sand and
announced solemnly : ' It is time! '
At this all present set off down the broad marble staircase between the
lines of rose bushes, exuding their stupefying aroma, down towards the
palace wall, to a gate leading to the smoothly paved square at whose end
could be seen the columns and statues of the Jerusalem hippodrome.
As soon as the group entered the square and began climbing up to the
broad temporary wooden platform raised high above the square, Pilate
assessed the situation through narrowed eyelids.
The cleared passage that he had just crossed between the palace walls
and the scaffolding platform was empty, but in front of Pilate the square
could no longer be seen--it had been devoured by the crowd. The mob would
have poured on to the platform and the passage too if there had not been two
triple rows of soldiers, one from the Sebastian cohort on Pilate's left and
on his right another from the Ituraean auxiliary cohort, to keep it clear.
Pilate climbed the platform, mechanically clenching and unclenching his
fist on the useless buckle and frowning hard. The Procurator was not
frowning because the sun was blinding him but to somehow avoid seeing the
group of prisoners which, as he well knew, would shortly be led out on the
platform behind him.
The moment the white cloak with the blood-red lining appeared atop the
stone block at the edge of that human sea a wave of sound--' Aaahh '--struck
the unseeing Pilate's ears. It began softly, far away at the hippodrome end
of the square, then grew to thunderous volume and after a few seconds, began
to diminish again. ' They have seen me,' thought the Procurator. The wave of
sound did not recede altogether and began unexpectedly to grow again and
waveringly rose to a higher pitch than the first and on top of the second
surge of noise, like foam on the crest of a wave at sea, could be heard
whistles and the shrieks of several women audible above the roar. ' That
means they have led them out on to the platform,' thought Pilate, ' and
those screams are from women who were crushed when the crowd surged
forward.'
He waited for a while, knowing that nothing could silence the crowd
until it had let loose its pent-up feelings and quietened of its own accord.
When that moment came tlie Procurator threw up his right hand and the
last murmurings of the crowd expired. Then Pilate took as deep a breath as
he could of the hot air and his cracked voice rang out over the thousands of
heads :
'In the name of imperial Caesar! . . .'
At once his ears were struck by a clipped, metallic chorus as the
cohorts, raising lances and standards, roared out their fearful response:
'Hail, Caesar! '
Pilate jerked his head up straight at the sun. He had a sensation of
green fire piercing his eyelids, his brain seemed to burn. In hoarse Aramaic
he flung his words out over the crowd :
'Four criminals, arrested in Jerusalem for murder, incitement to
rebellion, contempt of the law and blasphemy, have been condemned to the
most shameful form of execution--crucifixion! Their execution will be
carried out shortly on Mount Golgotha The names of these felons are Dismas,
Hestas, Bar-Abba and Ha-Notsri and there they stand before you! '
Pilate pointed to the right, unable to see the prisoners but knowing
that they were standing where they should be.
The crowd responded with a long rumble that could have been surprise or
relief. When it had subsided Pilate went on :
'But only three of them are to be executed for, in accordance with law
and custom, in honour of the great feast of Passover the emperor Caesar in
his magnanimity will, at the choice of the Lesser Sanhedrin and with the
approval of the Roman government, render back to one of these convicted men
his contemptible life!'
As Pilate rasped out his words he noticed that the rumbling had given
way to a great silence. Now not a sigh, not a rustle reached his ears and
there even came a moment when it seemed to Pilate that the people around him
had vanished altogether. The city he so hated might have died and only he
alone stood there, scorched by the vertical rays of the sun, his face
craning skywards. Pilate allowed the silence to continue and then began to
shout again: ' The name of the man who is about to be released before you .
. .'
He paused once more, holding back the name, mentally confirming that he
had said everything, because he knew that as soon as he pronounced the name
of the fortunate man the lifeless city would awaken and nothing more that he
might say would be audible.
'Is that everything? ' Pilate whispered soundlessly to himself. ' Yes,
it is. Now the name! ' And rolling his ' r 's over the heads of the silent
populace he roared : ' Bar-Abba! '
It was as though the sun detonated above him and drowned his ears in
fire, a fire that roared, shrieked, groaned, laughed and whistled.
Pilate turned and walked back along the platform towards the steps,
glancing only at the parti-coloured wooden blocks of the steps beneath his
feet to save himself from stumbling. He knew that behind his back a hail of
bronze coins and dates was showering the platform, that people in the
whooping crowd, elbowing each other aside, were climbing on to shoulders to
see a miracle with their own eyes--a man already in the arms of death and
torn from their grasp! They watched the legionaries as they untied his
bonds, involuntarily causing him searing pain in his swollen arms, watched
as grimacing and complaining he nevertheless smiled an insane, senseless
smile.
Pilate knew that the escort was now marching the three bound prisoners
to the side steps of the platform to lead them off on the road westward, out
of the city, towards Mount Golgotha. Only when he stood beneath and behind
the platform did Pilate open his eyes, knowing that he was now safe--he
could no longer see the convicted men.
As the roar of the crowd began to die down the separate, piercing
voices of the heralds could be heard repeating, one in Aramaic, the others
in Greek, the announcement that the Procurator had just made from the
platform. Besides that his ears caught the approaching irregular clatter of
horses' hoofs and the sharp, bright call of a trumpet. This sound was echoed
by the piercing whistles of boys from the rooftops and by shouts of ' Look
out! '
A lone soldier, standing in the space cleared in the square, waved his
standard in warning, at which the Procurator, the Legate of the Legion and
their escort halted.
A squadron of cavalry entered the square at a fast trot, cutting across
it diagonally, past a knot of people, then down a side-street along a
vine-covered stone wall in order to gallop on to Mount Golgotha by the
shortest route.
As the squadron commander, a Syrian as small as a boy and as dark as a
mulatto, trotted past Pilate he gave a high-pitched cry and drew his sword
from its scabbard. His sweating, ugly-tempered black horse snorted and
reared up on its hind legs. Sheathing his sword the commander struck the
horse's neck with his whip, brought its forelegs down and moved off down the
side street, breaking into a gallop. Behind him in columns of three galloped
the horsemen in a ha2e of dust, the tips of their bamboo lances bobbing
rhythmically. They swept past the Procurator, their faces unnaturally dark
in contrast with their white turbans, grinning cheerfully, teeth flashing.
Raising a cloud of dust the squadron surged down the street, the last
trooper to pass Pilate carrying a glinting trumpet slung across his back.
Shielding his face from the dust with his hand and frowning with
annoyance Pilate walked on, hurrying towards the gate of the palace garden
followed by the Legate, the secretary and the escort.
It was about ten o'clock in the morning.
'Yes, it was about ten o'clock in the morning, my dear Ivan
Nikolayich,' said the professor.
The poet drew his hand across his face like a man who has just woken up
and noticed that it was now evening. The water in the pond had turned black,
a little boat was gliding across it and he could hear the splash of an oar
and a girl's laughter in the boat. People were beginning to appear in the
avenues and were sitting on the benches on all sides of the square except on
the side where our friends were talking.
Over Moscow it was as if the sky had blossomed : a clear, full moon had
risen, still white and not yet golden. It was much less stuffy and the
voices under the lime trees now had an even-tide softness.
'Why didn't I notice what a long story he's been telling us? ' thought
Bezdomny in amazement. ' It's evening already! Perhaps he hasn't told it at
all but I simply fell asleep and dreamed it?'
But if the professor had not told the story Berlioz must have been
having the identical dream because he said, gazing attentively into the
stranger's face :
'Your story is extremely interesting, professor, but it diners
completely from the accounts in the gospels.'
'But surely,' replied the professor with a condescending smile, ' you
of all people must realise that absolutely nothing written in the gospels
actually happened. If you want to regard the gospels as a proper historical
source . . .' He smiled again and Berlioz was silenced. He had just been
saying exactly the same thing to Bezdomny on their walk from Bronnaya Street
to Patriarch's Ponds.
'I agree,' answered Berlioz, ' but I'm afraid that no one is in a
position to prove the authenticity of your version either.'
'Oh yes! I can easily confirm it! ' rejoined the professor with great
confidence, lapsing into his foreign accent and mysteriously beckoning the
two friends closer. They bent towards him from both sides and he began, this
time without a trace of his accent which seemed to come and go without rhyme
or reason :
'The fact is . . .' here the professor glanced round nervously and
dropped his voice to a whisper, ' I was there myself. On the balcony with
Pontius Pilate, in the garden when he talked to Caiaphas and on the
platform, but secretly, incognito so to speak, so don't breathe a word of it
to anyone and please keep it an absolute secret, sshhh . . .'
There was silence. Berlioz went pale.
'How . . . how long did you say you'd been in Moscow? ' he asked in a
shaky voice.
'I have just this minute arrived in Moscow,' replied the professor,
slightly disconcerted. Only then did it occur to the two friends to look him
properly in the eyes. They saw that his green left eye was completely mad,
his right eye black, expressionless and dead.
'That explains it all,' thought Berlioz perplexedly. ' He's some mad
German who's just arrived or else he's suddenly gone out of his mind here at
Patriarch's. What an extraordinary business! ' This really seemed to account
for everything--the mysterious breakfast with the philosopher Kant, the
idiotic ramblings about sunflower-seed oil and Anna, the prediction about
Berlioz's head being cut off and all the rest: the professor was a lunatic.
Berlioz at once started to think what they ought to do. Leaning back on
the bench he winked at Bezdomny behind the professor's back, meaning '
Humour him! ' But the poet, now thoroughly confused, failed to understand
the signal.
'Yes, yes, yes,' said Berlioz with great animation. ' It's quite
possible, of course. Even probable--Pontius Pilate, the balcony, and so on.
. . . Have you come here alone or with your wife? '
'Alone, alone, I am always alone,' replied the professor bitterly.
'But where is your luggage, professor?' asked Berlioz cunningly. ' At
the Metropole? Where are you staying? '
'Where am I staying? Nowhere. . . .' answered the mad German, staring
moodily around Patriarch's Ponds with his g:reen eye
'What! . . . But . . . where are you going to live? '
'In your flat,' the lunatic suddenly replied casually and winked.
'I'm ... I should be delighted . . .' stuttered Berlioz, : but I'm
afraid you wouldn't be very comfortable at my place . . - the rooms at the
Metropole are excellent, it's a first-class hotel . . .'
'And the devil doesn't exist either, I suppose? ' the madman suddenly
enquired cheerfully of Ivan Nikolayich.
'And the devil . . .'
'Don't contradict him,' mouthed Berlioz silently, leaning back and
grimacing behind the professor's back.
'There's no such thing as the devil! ' Ivan Nikolayich burst out,
hopelessly muddled by all this dumb show, ruining all Berlioz's plans by
shouting: ' And stop playing the amateur psychologist! '
At this the lunatic gave such a laugh that it startled the sparrows out
of the tree above them.
'Well now, that is interesting,' said the professor, quaking with
laughter. ' Whatever I ask you about--it doesn't exist! ' He suddenly
stopped laughing and with a typical madman's reaction he immediately went to
the other extreme, shouting angrily and harshly : ' So you think the devil
doesn't exist? '
'Calm down, calm down, calm down, professor,' stammered Berlioz,
frightened of exciting this lunatic. ' You stay here a minute with comrade
Bezdomny while I run round the corner and make a 'phone call and then we'll
take you where you want to go. You don't know your way around town, sitter
all... .' Berlioz's plan was obviously right--to run to the nearest
telephone box and tell the Aliens' Bureau that there was a foreign professor
sitting at Patriarch's Ponds who was clearly insane. Something had to be
done or there might be a nasty scene.
'Telephone? Of course, go and telephone if you want to,' agreed the
lunatic sadly, and then suddenly begged with passion :
'But please--as a farewell request--at least say you believe in the
devil! I won't ask anything more of you. Don't forget that there's still the
seventh proof--the soundest! And it's just about to be demonstrated to you!
'
'All right, all right,' said Berlioz pretending to agree. With a wink
to the wretched Bezdomny, who by no means relished the thought of keeping
watch on this crazy German, he rushed towards the park gates at the corner
of Bronnaya and Yermolay-evsky Streets.
At once the professor seemed to recover his reason and good spirits.
'Mikhail Alexandrovich! ' he shouted after Berlioz, who shuddered as
he turned round and then remembered that the professor could have learned
his name from a newspaper.
The professor, cupping his hands into a trumpet, shouted :
'Wouldn't you like me to send a telegram to your uncle in Kiev? '
Another shock--how did this madman know that he had an uncle in Kiev?
Nobody had ever put that in any newspaper. Could Bezdomny be right about him
after all? And what about those phoney-looking documents of his? Definitely
a weird character . . . ring up, ring up the Bureau at once . . . they'll
come and sort it all out in no time.
Without waiting to hear any more, Berlioz ran on.
At the park gates leading into Bronnaya Street, the identical man, whom
a short while ago the editor had seen materialise out of a mirage, got up
from a bench and walked toward him. This time, however, he was not made of
air but of flesh and blood. In the early twilight Berlioz could clearly
distinguish his feathery little moustache, his little eyes, mocking and half
drunk, his check trousers pulled up so tight that his dirty white socks were
showing.
Mikhail Alexandrovich stopped, but dismissed it as a ridiculous
coincidence. He had in any case no time to stop and puzzle it out now.
'Are you looking for the turnstile, sir? ' enquired the check-clad man
in a quavering tenor. ' This way, please! Straight on for the exit. How
about the price of a drink for showing you the way, sir? ... church
choirmaster out of work, sir ... need a helping hand, sir. . . .' Bending
double, the weird creature pulled off his jockey cap in a sweeping gesture.
Without stopping to listen to the choirmaster's begging and whining,
Berlioz ran to the turnstile and pushed it. Having passed through he was
just about to step off the pavement and cross the tramlines when a white and
red light flashed in his face and the pedestrian signal lit up with the
words ' Stop! Tramway!' A tram rolled into view, rocking slightly along the
newly-laid track that ran down Yermolayevsky Street and into Bronnaya. As it
turned to join the main line it suddenly switched its inside lights on,
hooted and accelerated.
Although he was standing in safety, the cautious Berlioz decided to
retreat behind the railings. He put his hand on the turnstile and took a
step backwards. He missed his grip and his foot slipped on the cobbles as
inexorably as though on ice. As it slid towards the tramlines his other leg
gave way and Berlioz was thrown across the track. Grabbing wildly, Berlioz
fell prone. He struck his head violently on the cobblestones and the gilded
moon flashed hazily across his vision. He just had time to turn on his back,
drawing his legs up to his stomach with a frenzied movement and as he turned
over he saw the woman tram-driver's face, white with horror above her red
necktie, as she bore down on him with irresistible force and speed. Berlioz
made no sound, but all round him the street rang with the desperate shrieks
of women's voices. The driver grabbed the electric brake, the car pitched
forward, jumped the rails and with a tinkling crash the glass broke in all
its windows. At this moment Berlioz heard a despairing voice: ' Oh, no . .
.! ' Once more and for the last time the moon flashed before his eyes but it
split into fragments and then went black.
Berlioz vanished from sight under the tramcar and a round, dark object
rolled across the cobbles, over the kerbstone and bounced along the
pavement.
It was a severed head.
The women's hysterical shrieks and the sound, of police whistles died
'I have no donkey, hegemon,' he said. ' I certainly came into
Jerusalem through the Susim Gate, but I came on foot alone except for
Matthew the Levite and nobody shouted a word to me as no one in Jerusalem
knew me then.'
'Do you happen to know,' went on Pilate without taking his eyes off
the prisoner, ' anyone called Dismas? Or Hestas? Or a third--Bar-Abba? '
'I do not know these good men,' replied the prisoner.
'Is that the truth? '
'It is.'
'And now tell me why you always use that expression " good men "? Is
that what you call everybody? '
'Yes, everybody,' answered the prisoner. ' There are no evil people on
earth.'
'That is news to me,' said Pilate with a laugh. ' But perhaps I am too
ignorant of life. You need take no further notes,' he said to the secretary,
although the man had taken none for some time. Pilate turned back to the
prisoner :
'Did you read about that in some Greek book? '
'No, I reached that conclusion in my own mind.'
'And is that what you preach? '
Yes.'
'Centurion Mark Muribellum, for instance--is he good? '
'Yes,' replied the prisoner. ' He is, it is true, an unhappy man.
Since the good people disfigured him he has become harsh and callous. It
would be interesting to know who mutilated him.'
'That I will gladly tell you,' rejoined Pilate, ' because I was a
witness to it. These good men threw themselves at him like dogs at a bear.
The Germans clung to his neck, his arms, his legs. An infantry maniple had
been ambushed and had it not been for a troop of cavalry breaking through
from the flank--a troop commanded by me--you, philosopher, would not have
been talking to Muribellum just now. It happened at the battle of Idistavizo
in the Valley of the Virgins.'
'If I were to talk to him,' the prisoner suddenly said in a reflective
voice, ' I am sure that he would change greatly.'
'I suspect,' said Pilate, ' that the Legate of the Legion would not be
best pleased if you took it into your head to talk to one of his officers or
soldiers. Fortunately for us all any such thing is forbidden and the first
person to ensure that it cannot occur would be myself.'
At that moment a swallow darted into the arcade, circled under the
gilded ceiling, flew lower, almost brushed its pointed wingtip over the face
of a bronze statue in a niche and disappeared behind the capital of a
column, perhaps with the thought of nesting there.
As it flew an idea formed itself in the Procurator's mind, which was
now bright and clear. It was thus : the hegemon had examined the case of the
vagrant philosopher Yeshua, surnamed Ha-Notsri, and could not substantiate
the criminal charge made against him. In particular he could not find the
slightest connection between Yeshua's actions and the recent disorders in
Jerusalem. The vagrant philosopher was mentally ill, as a result of which
the sentence of death pronounced on Ha-Notsri by the Lesser Sanhedrin would
not be confirmed. But in view of the danger of unrest liable to be caused by
Yeshua's mad, Utopian preaching, the Procurator would remove the man from
Jerusalem and sentence him to imprisonment in Caesarea Stratonova on the
Mediterranean--the place of the Procurator's own residence. It only remained
to dictate this to the secretary.
The swallow's wings fluttered over the hegemon's head, the bird flew
towards the fountain and out into freedom.
The Procurator raised his eyes to the prisoner and saw that a column of
dust had swirled up beside him.
'Is that all there is on this man? ' Pilate asked the secretary.
'No, unfortunately,' replied the secretary unexpectedly, and handed
Pilate another parchment.
'What else is there? ' enquired Pilate and frowned.
Having read the further evidence a change came over his expression.
Whether it was blood flowing back into his neck and face or from something
else that occurred, his skin changed from yellow to red-brown and his eyes
appeared to collapse. Probably caused by the increased blood-pressure in his
temples, something happened to the Procurator's sight. He seemed to see the
prisoner's head vanish and another appear in its place, bald and crowned
with a spiked golden diadem. The skin of the forehead was split by a round,
livid scar smeared with ointment. A sunken, toothless mouth with a
capricious, pendulous lower lip. Pilate had the sensation that the pink
columns of his balcony and the roofscape of Jerusalem below and beyond the
garden had all vanished, drowned in the thick foliage of cypress groves. His
hearing, too, was strangely affected--there was a sound as of distant
trumpets, muted and threatening, and a nasal voice could clearly be heard
arrogantly intoning the words: ' The law pertaining to high treason . . .'
Strange, rapid, disconnected thoughts passed through his mind. ' Dead!
' Then : ' They have killed him! . . .' And an absurd notion about
immortality, the thought of which aroused a sense of unbearable grief.
Pilate straightened up, banished the vision, turned his gaze back to
the balcony and again the prisoner's eyes met his.
'Listen, Ha-Notsri,' began the Procurator, giving Yeshua a strange
look. His expression was grim but his eyes betrayed anxiety. ' Have you ever
said anything about great Caesar? Answer! Did you say anything of the sort?
Or did you . . . not? ' Pilate gave the word 'not' more emphasis than was
proper in a court of law and his look seemed to be trying to project a
particular thought into the prisoner's mind. ' Telling the truth is easy and
pleasant,' remarked the prisoner.
'I do not want to know,' replied Pilate in a voice of suppressed
anger, ' whether you enjoy telling the truth or not. You are obliged to tell
me the truth. But when you speak weigh every word, if you wish to avoid a
painful death.'
No one knows what passed through the mind of the Procurator of Judaea,
but he permitted himself to raise his hand as though shading himself from a
ray of sunlight and, shielded by that hand, to throw the prisoner a glance
that conveyed a hint.
'So,' he said, ' answer this question : do you know a certain Judas of
Karioth and if you have ever spoken to him what did you say to him about
Caesar? '
'It happened thus,' began the prisoner readily. ' The day before
yesterday, in the evening, I met a young man near the temple who called
himself Judas, from the town of Karioth. He invited me to his home in the
Lower City and gave me supper...'
'Is he a good man? ' asked Pilate, a diabolical glitter in his eyes.
'A very good man and eager to learn,' affirmed the prisoner. ' He
expressed the greatest interest in my ideas and welcomed me joyfully .. . '
'Lit the candles. . . .' said Pilate through clenched teeth to the
prisoner, his eyes glittering.
'Yes,' said Yeshua, slightly astonished that the Procurator should be
so well informed, and went on : ' He asked me for my views on the
government. The question interested him very much.'
'And so what did you say? ' asked Pilate. ' Or are you going to reply
that you have forgotten what you said? ' But there was already a note of
hopelessness in Pilate's voice.
'Among other things I said,' continued the prisoner, ' that all power
is a form of violence exercised over people and that the time will come when
there will be no rule by Caesar nor any other form of rule. Man will pass
into the kingdom of truth and justice where no sort of power will be
needed.'
'Go on!'
'There is no more to tell,' said the prisoner. ' After that some men
came running in, tied me up and took me to prison.'
The secretary, straining not to miss a word, rapidly scribbled the
statement on his parchment.
'There never has been, nor yet shall be a greater and more perfect
government in this world than the rule of the emperor Tiberius!' Pilate's
voice rang out harshly and painfully. The Procurator stared at his secretary
and at the bodyguard with what seemed like hatred. ' And what business have
you, a criminal lunatic, to discuss such matters! ' Pilate shouted. ' Remove
the guards from the balcony! ' And turning to his secretary he added: '
Leave me alone with this criminal. This is a case of treason.'
The bodyguard raised their lances and with the measured tread of their
iron-shod caligae marched from the balcony towards the garden followed by
the secretary.
For a while the silence on the balcony was only disturbed bv the
splashing of the fountain. Pilate watched the water splay out at the apex of
the jet and drip downwards.
The prisoner was the first to speak :
'I see that there has been some trouble as a result of my conversation
with that young man from Karioth. I have a presentiment, hegemon, that some
misfortune will befall him and I feel very sorry for him.'
'I think,' replied the Procurator with a strange smile, ' that there
is someone else in this world for whom you should feel sorrier than for
Judas of Karioth and who is destined for a fate much worse than Judas'! ...
So Mark Muribellum, a coldblooded killer, the people who I see '--the
Procurator pointed to Yeshua's disfigured face--' beat you for what you
preached, the robbers Dismas and Hestas who with their confederates killed
four soldiers, and finally this dirty informer Judas--are they all good men?
'
'Yes,' answered the prisoner.
'And will the kingdom of truth come? ' ' It will, hegemon,' replied
Yeshua with conviction.
'It will never come! ' Pilate suddenly shouted in a voice so terrible
that Yeshua staggered back. Many years ago in the Valley of the Virgins
Pilate had shouted in that same voice to his horsemen : ' Cut them down! Cut
them down! They have caught the giant Muribellum!' And again he raised his
parade-ground voice, barking out the words so that they would be heard in
the garden : ' Criminal! Criminal! Criminal! ' Then lowering his voice he
asked : ' Yeshua Ha-Notsri, do you believe in any gods?'
'God is one,' answered Yeshua. ' I believe in Him.'
'Then pray to him! Pray hard! However,' at this Pilate's voice fell
again, ' it will do no good. Have you a wife? ' asked Pilate with a sudden
inexplicable access of depression.
'No, I am alone.'
'I hate this city,' the Procurator suddenly mumbled, hunching his
shoulders as though from cold and wiping his hands as though washing them. '
If they had murdered you before your meeting with Judas of Karioth I really
believe it would have been better.'
'You should let me go, hegemon,' was the prisoner's unexpected
request, his voice full of anxiety. ' I see now that they want to kill me.'
A spasm distorted Pilate's face as he turned his blood-shot eyes on
Yeshua and said :
'Do you imagine, you miserable creature, that a Roman Procurator could
release a man who has said what you have said to me? Oh gods, oh gods! Or do
you think I'm prepared to take your place? I don't believe in your ideas!
And listen to me : if from this moment onward you say so much as a word or
try to talk to anybody, beware! I repeat--beware!'
'Hegemon . ..'
'Be quiet! ' shouted Pilate, his infuriated stare following the
swallow which had flown on to the balcony again. ' Here!' shouted Pilate.
The secretary and the guards returned to their places and Pilate
announced that he confirmed the sentence of death pronounced by the Lesser
Sanhedrin on the accused Yeshua Ha-Notsri and the secretary recorded
Pilate's words.
A minute later centurion Mark Muribellum stood before the Procurator.
He was ordered by the Procurator to hand the felon over to the captain of
the secret service and in doing so to transmit the Procurator's directive
that Yeshua Ha-Notsri was to be segregated from the other convicts, also
that the captain of the secret service was forbidden on pain of severe
punishment to talk to Yeshua or to answer any questions he might ask.
At a signal from Mark the guard closed ranks around Yeshua and escorted
him from the balcony.
Later the Procurator received a call from a handsome man with a blond
beard, eagles' feathers in the crest of his helmet, glittering lions'
muzzles on his breastplate, a gold-studded sword belt, triple-soled boots
laced to the knee and a purple cloak thrown over his left shoulder. He was
the commanding officer, the Legate of the Legion.
The Procurator asked him where the Sebastian cohort was stationed. The
Legate reported that the Sebastian was on cordon duty in the square in front
of the hippodrome, where the sentences on the prisoners would be announced
to the crowd.
Then the Procurator instructed the Legate to detach two centuries from
the Roman cohort. One of them, under the command of Muribellum, was to
escort the convicts, the carts transporting the executioners' equipment and
the executioners themselves to Mount Golgotha and on arrival to cordon off
the summit area. The other was to proceed at once to Mount Golgotha and to
form a cordon immediately on arrival. To assist in the task of guarding the
hill, the Procurator asked the Legate to despatch an auxiliary cavalry
regiment, the Syrian ala.
When the Legate had left the balcony, the Procurator ordered his
secretary to summon to the palace the president of the Sanhedrin, two of its
members and the captain of the Jerusalem temple guard, but added that he
wished arrangements to be made which would allow him, before conferring with
all these people, to have a private meeting with the president of the
Sanhedrin.
The Procurator's orders were carried out rapidly and precisely and the
sun, which had lately seemed to scorch Jerusalem with such particular
vehemence, had not yet reached its zenith when the meeting took place
between the Procurator and the president of the Sanhedrin, the High Priest
of Judaea, Joseph Caiaphas. They met on the upper terrace of the garden
between two white marble lions guarding the staircase.
It was quiet in the garden. But as he emerged from the arcade on to the
sun-drenched upper terrace of the garden with its palms on their monstrous
elephantine legs, the terrace from which the whole of Pilate's detested city
of Jerusalem lay spread out before the Procurator with its suspension
bridges, its fortresses and over it all that indescribable lump of marble
with a golden dragon's scale instead of a roof--the temple of Jerusalem--the
Procurator's sharp hearing detected far below, down there where a stone wall
divided the lower terraces of the palace garden from the city square, a low
rumbling broken now and again by faint sounds, half groans, half cries.
The Procurator realised that already there was assembling in the square
a numberless crowd of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, excited by the recent
disorders; that this crowd was waiting impatiently for the pronouncement of
sentence and that the water-sellers were busily shouting their wares.
The Procurator began by inviting the High Priest on to the balcony to
find some shade from the pitiless heat, but Caiaphas politely excused
himself, explaining that he could not do that on the eve of a feast-day.
Pilate pulled his cowl over his slightly balding head and began the
conversation, which was conducted in Greek.
Pilate remarked that he had examined the case of Yeshua Ha-Notsri and
had confirmed the sentence of death. Consequently those due for execution
that day were the three robbers--Hestas, Dismas and Bar-Abba--and now this
other man, Yeshua Ha- Notsri. The first two, who had tried to incite the
people to rebel against Caesar, had been forcibly apprehended by the Roman
authorities; they were therefore the Procurator's responsibility and there
was no reason to discuss their case. The last two, however, Bar-Abba and
Ha-Notsri, had been arrested by the local authorities and tried before the
Sanhedrin. In accordance with law and custom, one of these two criminals
should be released in honour of the imminent great feast of Passover. The
Procurator therefore wished to know which of these two felons the Sanhedrin
proposed to discharge--Bar-Abba or Ha-Notsri?
Caiaphas inclined his head as a sign that he understood the question
and replied:
'The Sanhedrin requests the release of Bar-Abba.' The Procurator well
knew that this would be the High Priest's reply; his problem was to show
that the request aroused his astonishment.
This Pilate did with great skill. The eyebrows rose on his proud
forehead and the Procurator looked the High Priest straight in the eye with
amazement.
'I confess that your reply surprises me,' began the Procurator softly.
' I fear there may have been some misunderstanding here.'
Pilate stressed that the Roman government wished to make no inroads
into the prerogatives of the local priestly authority, the High Priest was
well aware of that, but in this particular case an obvious error seemed to
have occurred. And the Roman government naturally had an interest in
correcting such an error. The crimes of Bar-Abba and Ha-Notsri were after
all not comparable in gravity. If the latter, a man who was clearly insane,
were guilty of making some absurd speeches in Jerusalem and various other
localities, the former stood convicted of offences that were infinitely more
serious. Not only had he permitted himself to make direct appeals to
rebellion, but he had killed a sentry while resisting arrest. Bar-Abba was
immeasurably more dangerous than Ha-Notsri. In view of all these facts, the
Procurator requested the High Priest to reconsider his decision and to
discharge the least dangerous of the two convicts and that one was
undoubtedly Ha-Notsri . . . Therefore?
Caiaphas said in a quiet but firm voice that the Sanhedrin had taken
due cognisance of the case and repeated its intention to release Bar-Abba.
'What? Even after my intervention? The intervention of the
representative of the Roman government? High Priest, say it for the third
time.'
'And for the third time I say that we shall release Bar-Abba,' said
Caiaphas softly.
It was over and there was no more to be discussed. Ha-Notsri had gone
for ever and there was no one to heal the Procurator's terrible, savage
pains ; there was no cure for them now except death. But this thought did
not strike Pilate immediately. At first his whole being was seized with the
same incomprehensible sense of grief which had come to him on the balcony.
He at once sought for its explanation and its cause was a strange one : the
Procurator was obscurely aware that he still had something to say to the
prisoner and that perhaps, too, he had more to learn from him.
Pilate banished the thought and it passed as quickly as it had come. It
passed, yet that grievous ache remained a mystery, for it could not be
explained by another thought that had flashed in and out of his mind like
lightning--' Immortality ... immortality has come . . .' Whose immortality
had come? The Procurator could not understand it, but that puzzling thought
of immortality sent a chill over him despite the sun's heat.
'Very well,' said Pilate. ' So be it.'
With that he looked round. The visible world vanished from his sight
and an astonishing change occurred. The flower-laden rosebush disappeared,
the cypresses fringing the upper terrace disappeared, as did the pomegranate
tree, the white statue among the foliage and the foliage itself. In their
place came a kind of dense purple mass in which seaweed waved and swayed and
Pilate himself was swaying with it. He was seized, suffocating and burning,
by the most terrible rage of all rage--the rage of impotence.
'I am suffocating,' said Pilate. ' Suffocating! '
With a cold damp hand he tore the buckle from the collar of his cloak
and it fell on to the sand.
'It is stifling today, there is a thunderstorm brewing,' said
Caiaphas, his gaze fixed on the Procurator's reddening face, foreseeing all
the discomfort that the weather was yet to bring. ' The month of Nisan has
been terrible this year! '
'No,' said Pilate. ' That is not why I am suffocating. I feel stifled
by your presence, Caiaphas.' Narrowing his eyes Pilate added : ' Beware,
High Priest! '
The High Priest's dark eyes flashed and--no less cunningly than the
Procurator--his face showed astonishment.
'What do I hear, Procurator? ' Caiaphas answered proudly and calmly. '
Are you threatening me--when sentence has been duly pronounced and confirmed
by yourself? Can this be so? We are accustomed to the Roman Procurator
choosing his words carefully before saying anything. I trust no one can have
overheard us, hegemon?'
With lifeless eyes Pilate gazed at the High Priest and manufactured a
smile.
'Come now. High Priest! Who can overhear us here? Do you take me for a
fool, like that crazy young vagrant who is to be executed today? Am I a
child, Caiphas? I know what I'm saying and where I'm saying it. This garden,
this whole palace is so well cordoned that there's not a crack for a mouse
to slip through. Not a mouse--and not even that man--what's his name . .?
That man from Karioth. You do know him, don't you, High Priest? Yes ... if
someone like that were to get in here, he would bitterly regret it. You
believe me when I say that, don't you? I tell you, High Priest, that from
henceforth you shall have no peace! Neither you nor your people '--Pilate
pointed to the right where the pinnacle of the temple flashed in the
distance. ' I, Pontius Pilate, knight of the Golden Lance, tell you so! ' '
I know it! ' fearlessly replied the bearded Caiaphas. His eyes flashed as he
raised his hand to the sky and went on : ' The Jewish people knows that you
hate it with a terrible hatred and that you have brought it much
suffering--but you will never destroy it! God will protect it. And he shall
hear us--mighty Caesar shall hear us and protect us from Pilate the
oppressor! '
'Oh no! ' rejoined Pilate, feeling more and more relieved with every
word that he spoke; there was no longer any need to dissemble, no need to
pick his words : ' You have complained of me to Caesar too often and now my
hour has come, Caiaphas! Now I shall send word--but not to the viceroy in
Antioch, not even to Rome but straight to Capreia, to the emperor himself,
word of how you in Jerusalem are saving convicted rebels from death. And
then it will not be water from Solomon's pool, as I once intended for your
benefit, that I shall give Jerusalem to drink--no, it will not be water!
Remember how thanks to you I was made to remove the shields with the
imperial cipher from the walls, to transfer troops, to come and take charge
here myself! Remember my words. High Priest: you are going to see more than
one cohort here in Jerusalem! Under the city walls you are going to see the
Fulminata legion at full strength and Arab cavalry too. Then the weeping and
lamentation will be bitter! Then you will remember that you saved Bar-Abba
and you will regret that you sent that preacher of peace to his death!
Flecks of colour spread over the High Priest's face, his eyes burned.
Like the Procurator he grinned mirthlessly and replied:
'Do you really believe what you have just said, Procurator? No, you do
not! It was not peace that this rabble-rouser brought to Jerusalem and of
that, hegamon, you are well aware. You wanted to release him so that he
could stir up the people, curse our faith and deliver the people to your
Roman swords! But as long as I, the High Priest of Judaea, am alive I shall
not allow the faith to be defamed and I shall protect the people! Do you
hear, Pilate?' With this Caiaphas raised his arm threateningly;
'Take heed. Procurator! '
Caiaphas was silent and again the Procurator heard a murmuring as of
the sea, rolling up to the very walls of Herod the Great's garden. The sound
flowed upwards from below until it seemed to swirl round the Procurator's
legs and into his face. Behind his back, from beyond the wings of the
palace, came urgent trumpet calls, the heavy crunch of hundreds of feet, the
clank of metal. It told the Procurator that the Roman infantry was marching
out, on his orders, to the execution parade that was to strike terror into
the hearts of all thieves and rebels
'Do you hear. Procurator? ' the High Priest quietly repeated his
words. ' Surely you are not trying to tell me that all this '-- here the
High Priest raised both arms and his dark cowl slipped from his head--' can
have been evoked by that miserable thief Bar-Abba?'
With the back of his wrist the Procurator wiped his damp, cold
forehead, stared at the ground, then frowning skywards he saw that the
incandescent ball was nearly overhead, that Caiaphas' shadow had shrunk to
almost nothing and he said in a calm, expressionless voice :
'The execution will be at noon. We have enjoyed this conversation, but
matters must proceed.'
Excusing himself to the High Priest in a few artificial phrases, he
invited him to sit down on a bench in the shade of a magnolia and to wait
while he summoned the others necessary for the final short consultation and
to give one more order concerning the execution.
Caiaphas bowed politely, placing his hand on his heart, and remained in
the garden while Pilate returned to the balcony. There he ordered his
waiting secretary to call the Legate of the Legion and the Tribune of the
cohort into the garden, also the two members of the Sanhedrin and the
captain of the temple guard, who were standing grouped round the fountain on
the lower terrace awaiting his call. Pilate added that he would himself
shortly return to join them in the garden, and disappeared inside the
palace.
While the secretary convened the meeting, inside his darken-ed,
shuttered room the Procurator spoke to a man whose face, despite the
complete absence of sunlight from the room, remained half covered by a hood.
The interview was very short. The Procurator whispered a few words to the
man, who immediately departed. Pilate passed through the arcade into the
garden.
There in the presence of all the men he had asked to see, the
Procurator solemnly and curtly repeated that he confirmed the sentence of
death on Yeshua Ha-Notsri and enquired officially of the Sanhedrin members
as to which of the prisoners it had pleased them to release. On being told
that it was Bar-Abba, the Procurator said:
'Very well,' and ordered the secretary to enter it in the minutes. He
clutched the buckle which the secretary had picked up from the sand and
announced solemnly : ' It is time! '
At this all present set off down the broad marble staircase between the
lines of rose bushes, exuding their stupefying aroma, down towards the
palace wall, to a gate leading to the smoothly paved square at whose end
could be seen the columns and statues of the Jerusalem hippodrome.
As soon as the group entered the square and began climbing up to the
broad temporary wooden platform raised high above the square, Pilate
assessed the situation through narrowed eyelids.
The cleared passage that he had just crossed between the palace walls
and the scaffolding platform was empty, but in front of Pilate the square
could no longer be seen--it had been devoured by the crowd. The mob would
have poured on to the platform and the passage too if there had not been two
triple rows of soldiers, one from the Sebastian cohort on Pilate's left and
on his right another from the Ituraean auxiliary cohort, to keep it clear.
Pilate climbed the platform, mechanically clenching and unclenching his
fist on the useless buckle and frowning hard. The Procurator was not
frowning because the sun was blinding him but to somehow avoid seeing the
group of prisoners which, as he well knew, would shortly be led out on the
platform behind him.
The moment the white cloak with the blood-red lining appeared atop the
stone block at the edge of that human sea a wave of sound--' Aaahh '--struck
the unseeing Pilate's ears. It began softly, far away at the hippodrome end
of the square, then grew to thunderous volume and after a few seconds, began
to diminish again. ' They have seen me,' thought the Procurator. The wave of
sound did not recede altogether and began unexpectedly to grow again and
waveringly rose to a higher pitch than the first and on top of the second
surge of noise, like foam on the crest of a wave at sea, could be heard
whistles and the shrieks of several women audible above the roar. ' That
means they have led them out on to the platform,' thought Pilate, ' and
those screams are from women who were crushed when the crowd surged
forward.'
He waited for a while, knowing that nothing could silence the crowd
until it had let loose its pent-up feelings and quietened of its own accord.
When that moment came tlie Procurator threw up his right hand and the
last murmurings of the crowd expired. Then Pilate took as deep a breath as
he could of the hot air and his cracked voice rang out over the thousands of
heads :
'In the name of imperial Caesar! . . .'
At once his ears were struck by a clipped, metallic chorus as the
cohorts, raising lances and standards, roared out their fearful response:
'Hail, Caesar! '
Pilate jerked his head up straight at the sun. He had a sensation of
green fire piercing his eyelids, his brain seemed to burn. In hoarse Aramaic
he flung his words out over the crowd :
'Four criminals, arrested in Jerusalem for murder, incitement to
rebellion, contempt of the law and blasphemy, have been condemned to the
most shameful form of execution--crucifixion! Their execution will be
carried out shortly on Mount Golgotha The names of these felons are Dismas,
Hestas, Bar-Abba and Ha-Notsri and there they stand before you! '
Pilate pointed to the right, unable to see the prisoners but knowing
that they were standing where they should be.
The crowd responded with a long rumble that could have been surprise or
relief. When it had subsided Pilate went on :
'But only three of them are to be executed for, in accordance with law
and custom, in honour of the great feast of Passover the emperor Caesar in
his magnanimity will, at the choice of the Lesser Sanhedrin and with the
approval of the Roman government, render back to one of these convicted men
his contemptible life!'
As Pilate rasped out his words he noticed that the rumbling had given
way to a great silence. Now not a sigh, not a rustle reached his ears and
there even came a moment when it seemed to Pilate that the people around him
had vanished altogether. The city he so hated might have died and only he
alone stood there, scorched by the vertical rays of the sun, his face
craning skywards. Pilate allowed the silence to continue and then began to
shout again: ' The name of the man who is about to be released before you .
. .'
He paused once more, holding back the name, mentally confirming that he
had said everything, because he knew that as soon as he pronounced the name
of the fortunate man the lifeless city would awaken and nothing more that he
might say would be audible.
'Is that everything? ' Pilate whispered soundlessly to himself. ' Yes,
it is. Now the name! ' And rolling his ' r 's over the heads of the silent
populace he roared : ' Bar-Abba! '
It was as though the sun detonated above him and drowned his ears in
fire, a fire that roared, shrieked, groaned, laughed and whistled.
Pilate turned and walked back along the platform towards the steps,
glancing only at the parti-coloured wooden blocks of the steps beneath his
feet to save himself from stumbling. He knew that behind his back a hail of
bronze coins and dates was showering the platform, that people in the
whooping crowd, elbowing each other aside, were climbing on to shoulders to
see a miracle with their own eyes--a man already in the arms of death and
torn from their grasp! They watched the legionaries as they untied his
bonds, involuntarily causing him searing pain in his swollen arms, watched
as grimacing and complaining he nevertheless smiled an insane, senseless
smile.
Pilate knew that the escort was now marching the three bound prisoners
to the side steps of the platform to lead them off on the road westward, out
of the city, towards Mount Golgotha. Only when he stood beneath and behind
the platform did Pilate open his eyes, knowing that he was now safe--he
could no longer see the convicted men.
As the roar of the crowd began to die down the separate, piercing
voices of the heralds could be heard repeating, one in Aramaic, the others
in Greek, the announcement that the Procurator had just made from the
platform. Besides that his ears caught the approaching irregular clatter of
horses' hoofs and the sharp, bright call of a trumpet. This sound was echoed
by the piercing whistles of boys from the rooftops and by shouts of ' Look
out! '
A lone soldier, standing in the space cleared in the square, waved his
standard in warning, at which the Procurator, the Legate of the Legion and
their escort halted.
A squadron of cavalry entered the square at a fast trot, cutting across
it diagonally, past a knot of people, then down a side-street along a
vine-covered stone wall in order to gallop on to Mount Golgotha by the
shortest route.
As the squadron commander, a Syrian as small as a boy and as dark as a
mulatto, trotted past Pilate he gave a high-pitched cry and drew his sword
from its scabbard. His sweating, ugly-tempered black horse snorted and
reared up on its hind legs. Sheathing his sword the commander struck the
horse's neck with his whip, brought its forelegs down and moved off down the
side street, breaking into a gallop. Behind him in columns of three galloped
the horsemen in a ha2e of dust, the tips of their bamboo lances bobbing
rhythmically. They swept past the Procurator, their faces unnaturally dark
in contrast with their white turbans, grinning cheerfully, teeth flashing.
Raising a cloud of dust the squadron surged down the street, the last
trooper to pass Pilate carrying a glinting trumpet slung across his back.
Shielding his face from the dust with his hand and frowning with
annoyance Pilate walked on, hurrying towards the gate of the palace garden
followed by the Legate, the secretary and the escort.
It was about ten o'clock in the morning.
'Yes, it was about ten o'clock in the morning, my dear Ivan
Nikolayich,' said the professor.
The poet drew his hand across his face like a man who has just woken up
and noticed that it was now evening. The water in the pond had turned black,
a little boat was gliding across it and he could hear the splash of an oar
and a girl's laughter in the boat. People were beginning to appear in the
avenues and were sitting on the benches on all sides of the square except on
the side where our friends were talking.
Over Moscow it was as if the sky had blossomed : a clear, full moon had
risen, still white and not yet golden. It was much less stuffy and the
voices under the lime trees now had an even-tide softness.
'Why didn't I notice what a long story he's been telling us? ' thought
Bezdomny in amazement. ' It's evening already! Perhaps he hasn't told it at
all but I simply fell asleep and dreamed it?'
But if the professor had not told the story Berlioz must have been
having the identical dream because he said, gazing attentively into the
stranger's face :
'Your story is extremely interesting, professor, but it diners
completely from the accounts in the gospels.'
'But surely,' replied the professor with a condescending smile, ' you
of all people must realise that absolutely nothing written in the gospels
actually happened. If you want to regard the gospels as a proper historical
source . . .' He smiled again and Berlioz was silenced. He had just been
saying exactly the same thing to Bezdomny on their walk from Bronnaya Street
to Patriarch's Ponds.
'I agree,' answered Berlioz, ' but I'm afraid that no one is in a
position to prove the authenticity of your version either.'
'Oh yes! I can easily confirm it! ' rejoined the professor with great
confidence, lapsing into his foreign accent and mysteriously beckoning the
two friends closer. They bent towards him from both sides and he began, this
time without a trace of his accent which seemed to come and go without rhyme
or reason :
'The fact is . . .' here the professor glanced round nervously and
dropped his voice to a whisper, ' I was there myself. On the balcony with
Pontius Pilate, in the garden when he talked to Caiaphas and on the
platform, but secretly, incognito so to speak, so don't breathe a word of it
to anyone and please keep it an absolute secret, sshhh . . .'
There was silence. Berlioz went pale.
'How . . . how long did you say you'd been in Moscow? ' he asked in a
shaky voice.
'I have just this minute arrived in Moscow,' replied the professor,
slightly disconcerted. Only then did it occur to the two friends to look him
properly in the eyes. They saw that his green left eye was completely mad,
his right eye black, expressionless and dead.
'That explains it all,' thought Berlioz perplexedly. ' He's some mad
German who's just arrived or else he's suddenly gone out of his mind here at
Patriarch's. What an extraordinary business! ' This really seemed to account
for everything--the mysterious breakfast with the philosopher Kant, the
idiotic ramblings about sunflower-seed oil and Anna, the prediction about
Berlioz's head being cut off and all the rest: the professor was a lunatic.
Berlioz at once started to think what they ought to do. Leaning back on
the bench he winked at Bezdomny behind the professor's back, meaning '
Humour him! ' But the poet, now thoroughly confused, failed to understand
the signal.
'Yes, yes, yes,' said Berlioz with great animation. ' It's quite
possible, of course. Even probable--Pontius Pilate, the balcony, and so on.
. . . Have you come here alone or with your wife? '
'Alone, alone, I am always alone,' replied the professor bitterly.
'But where is your luggage, professor?' asked Berlioz cunningly. ' At
the Metropole? Where are you staying? '
'Where am I staying? Nowhere. . . .' answered the mad German, staring
moodily around Patriarch's Ponds with his g:reen eye
'What! . . . But . . . where are you going to live? '
'In your flat,' the lunatic suddenly replied casually and winked.
'I'm ... I should be delighted . . .' stuttered Berlioz, : but I'm
afraid you wouldn't be very comfortable at my place . . - the rooms at the
Metropole are excellent, it's a first-class hotel . . .'
'And the devil doesn't exist either, I suppose? ' the madman suddenly
enquired cheerfully of Ivan Nikolayich.
'And the devil . . .'
'Don't contradict him,' mouthed Berlioz silently, leaning back and
grimacing behind the professor's back.
'There's no such thing as the devil! ' Ivan Nikolayich burst out,
hopelessly muddled by all this dumb show, ruining all Berlioz's plans by
shouting: ' And stop playing the amateur psychologist! '
At this the lunatic gave such a laugh that it startled the sparrows out
of the tree above them.
'Well now, that is interesting,' said the professor, quaking with
laughter. ' Whatever I ask you about--it doesn't exist! ' He suddenly
stopped laughing and with a typical madman's reaction he immediately went to
the other extreme, shouting angrily and harshly : ' So you think the devil
doesn't exist? '
'Calm down, calm down, calm down, professor,' stammered Berlioz,
frightened of exciting this lunatic. ' You stay here a minute with comrade
Bezdomny while I run round the corner and make a 'phone call and then we'll
take you where you want to go. You don't know your way around town, sitter
all... .' Berlioz's plan was obviously right--to run to the nearest
telephone box and tell the Aliens' Bureau that there was a foreign professor
sitting at Patriarch's Ponds who was clearly insane. Something had to be
done or there might be a nasty scene.
'Telephone? Of course, go and telephone if you want to,' agreed the
lunatic sadly, and then suddenly begged with passion :
'But please--as a farewell request--at least say you believe in the
devil! I won't ask anything more of you. Don't forget that there's still the
seventh proof--the soundest! And it's just about to be demonstrated to you!
'
'All right, all right,' said Berlioz pretending to agree. With a wink
to the wretched Bezdomny, who by no means relished the thought of keeping
watch on this crazy German, he rushed towards the park gates at the corner
of Bronnaya and Yermolay-evsky Streets.
At once the professor seemed to recover his reason and good spirits.
'Mikhail Alexandrovich! ' he shouted after Berlioz, who shuddered as
he turned round and then remembered that the professor could have learned
his name from a newspaper.
The professor, cupping his hands into a trumpet, shouted :
'Wouldn't you like me to send a telegram to your uncle in Kiev? '
Another shock--how did this madman know that he had an uncle in Kiev?
Nobody had ever put that in any newspaper. Could Bezdomny be right about him
after all? And what about those phoney-looking documents of his? Definitely
a weird character . . . ring up, ring up the Bureau at once . . . they'll
come and sort it all out in no time.
Without waiting to hear any more, Berlioz ran on.
At the park gates leading into Bronnaya Street, the identical man, whom
a short while ago the editor had seen materialise out of a mirage, got up
from a bench and walked toward him. This time, however, he was not made of
air but of flesh and blood. In the early twilight Berlioz could clearly
distinguish his feathery little moustache, his little eyes, mocking and half
drunk, his check trousers pulled up so tight that his dirty white socks were
showing.
Mikhail Alexandrovich stopped, but dismissed it as a ridiculous
coincidence. He had in any case no time to stop and puzzle it out now.
'Are you looking for the turnstile, sir? ' enquired the check-clad man
in a quavering tenor. ' This way, please! Straight on for the exit. How
about the price of a drink for showing you the way, sir? ... church
choirmaster out of work, sir ... need a helping hand, sir. . . .' Bending
double, the weird creature pulled off his jockey cap in a sweeping gesture.
Without stopping to listen to the choirmaster's begging and whining,
Berlioz ran to the turnstile and pushed it. Having passed through he was
just about to step off the pavement and cross the tramlines when a white and
red light flashed in his face and the pedestrian signal lit up with the
words ' Stop! Tramway!' A tram rolled into view, rocking slightly along the
newly-laid track that ran down Yermolayevsky Street and into Bronnaya. As it
turned to join the main line it suddenly switched its inside lights on,
hooted and accelerated.
Although he was standing in safety, the cautious Berlioz decided to
retreat behind the railings. He put his hand on the turnstile and took a
step backwards. He missed his grip and his foot slipped on the cobbles as
inexorably as though on ice. As it slid towards the tramlines his other leg
gave way and Berlioz was thrown across the track. Grabbing wildly, Berlioz
fell prone. He struck his head violently on the cobblestones and the gilded
moon flashed hazily across his vision. He just had time to turn on his back,
drawing his legs up to his stomach with a frenzied movement and as he turned
over he saw the woman tram-driver's face, white with horror above her red
necktie, as she bore down on him with irresistible force and speed. Berlioz
made no sound, but all round him the street rang with the desperate shrieks
of women's voices. The driver grabbed the electric brake, the car pitched
forward, jumped the rails and with a tinkling crash the glass broke in all
its windows. At this moment Berlioz heard a despairing voice: ' Oh, no . .
.! ' Once more and for the last time the moon flashed before his eyes but it
split into fragments and then went black.
Berlioz vanished from sight under the tramcar and a round, dark object
rolled across the cobbles, over the kerbstone and bounced along the
pavement.
It was a severed head.
The women's hysterical shrieks and the sound, of police whistles died