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and coarsening of his tone of voice and the furtive, shifty look in his
eyes, it was safe to say that Ivan Savye-lich Varenukha was unrecognisable.
Something even more insistent was worrying Rimsky, but he could not put
his finger on it however much he racked his brain or stared at Varenukha. He
was only sure of one thing--that there was something peculiar and unnatural
in the man's posture in that familiar chair.
'Well, finally they overpowered him and shoved him into a car,' boomed
Varenukha, peeping from under the newspaper and covering his bruise with his
hand.
Rimsky suddenly stretched out his arm and with an apparently unthinking
gesture of his palm pressed the button of an electric bell, drumming his
fingers as he did so. His heart sank. A loud ringing should have been heard
instantly throughout the building --but nothing happened, and the bell-push
merely sank lifelessly into the desktop. The warning system was out of
order.
Rimsky's cunning move did not escape Varenukha, who scowled and said
with a clear flicker of hostility in his look :
'Why did you ring? '
'Oh, I just pressed it by mistake, without thinking,' mumbled Rimsky,
pulling back his hand and asked in a shaky voice :
'What's that on your face? '
'The car braked suddenly and I hit myself on the door-handle,' replied
Varenukha, averting his eyes.
'He's lying!' said Rimsky to himself. Suddenly his eyes gaped with
utter horror and he pressed himself against the back of his chair.
On the floor behind Varenukha's chair lay two intersecting shadows, one
thicker and blacker than the other. The shadows cast by the back of the
chair and its tapering legs were clearly visible, but above the shadow of
the chairback there was no shadow or' Varenukha's head, just as there was no
shadow of his feet to be seen under the chairlegs.
'He throws no shadow! ' cried Rimsky in a silent shriek of despair. He
shuddered helplessly.
Following Rimsky's horrified stare Varenukha glanced furtively round
behind the chairback and realised that he had been found out. He got up
(Rimsky did the same) and took a pace away from the desk, clutching his
briefcase.
'You've guessed, damn you! You always were clever,' said Varenukha
smiling evilly right into Rimsky's face. Then he suddenly leaped for the
door and quickly pushed down the latch-button on the lock. The treasurer
looked round in desperation, retreated towards the window that gave on to
the garden and in that moon-flooded window he saw the face of a naked girl
pressed to the glass, her bare arm reaching through the open top pane and
trying to open the lower casement.
It seemed to Rimsky that the light of the desk-lamp was going out and
that the desk itself was tilting. A wave of icy cold washed over him, but
luckily for him he fought it off and did not fall. The remnants of his
strength were only enough for him to whisper:
'Help . . .'
Varenukha, guarding the door, was jumping up and down beside it. He
hissed and sucked, signalling to the girl in the window and pointing his
crooked fingers towards Rimsky.
The girl increased her efforts, pushed her auburn head through the
little upper pane, stretched out her arm as far as she could and began to
pluck at the lower catch with her fingernails and shake the frame. Her arm,
coloured deathly green, started to stretch as if it were made of rubber.
Finally her green cadaverous fingers caught the knob of the window-catch,
turned it and the casement opened. Rimsky gave a weak cry, pressed himself
to the wall and held his briefcase in front of himself like a shield. His
last hour, he knew, had come.
The window swung wide open, but instead of the freshness of the night
and the scent of lime-blossom the room was flooded with the stench of the
grave. The walking corpse stepped on to the window-sill. Rimsky clearly saw
patches of decay on her breast.
At that moment the sudden, joyful sound of a cock crowing rang out in
the garden from the low building behind the shooting gallery where they kept
the cage birds used on the Variety stage. With his full-throated cry the
tame cock was announcing the approach of dawn over Moscow from the east.
Wild fury distorted the girl's face as she swore hoarsely and Varenukha
by the door whimpered and collapsed to the floor.
The cock crowed again, the girl gnashed her teeth and her auburn hair
stood on end. At the third crow she turned and flew out. Behind her, flying
horizontally through the air like an oversized cupid, Varenukha floated
slowly across the desk and out of the window.
As white as snow, without a black hair left on his head, the old man
who a short while before had been Rimsky ran to the door, freed the latch
and rushed down the dark corridor. At the top of the staircase, groaning
with terror he fumbled for the switch and lit the lights on the staircase.
The shattered, trembling old man fell down on the stairs, imagining that
Varenukha was gently bearing down on him from above.
At the bottom Rimsky saw die night-watchman, who had fallen asleep on a
chair in the foyer beside the box office. Rimsky tiptoed past him and
slipped out of the main door. Once in the street he felt slightly better. He
came to his senses enough to realise, as he clutched his head, that he had
left his hat in his office.
Nothing -would have induced him to go back for it and he ran panting
across the wide street to the cinema on the opposite corner, where a
solitary cab stood on the rank. In a minute he had reached it before anyone
else could snatch it from him.
'To the Leningrad Station--hurry and I'll make it worth your while/
said the old man, breathing heavily and clutching his heart.
'I'm only going to the garage,' replied the driver turning away with a
surly face.
Rimsky unfastened his briefcase, pulled out fifty roubles and thrust
them at the driver through the open window.
A few moments later the taxi, shaking like a leaf in a storm, was
flying along the ring boulevard. Bouncing up and down in his seat, Rimsky
caught occasional glimpses of the driver's delighted expression and his own
wild look in the mirror.
Jumping out of the car at the station, Rimsky shouted to the first man
he saw, who was wearing a white apron and a numbered metal disc :
'First class single--here's thirty roubles,' he said as he fumbled for
the money in his briefcase. ' If there aren't any seats left in the first
I'll take second ... if there aren't any in the second, get me " Hard "
class! '
Glancing round at the illuminated clock the man with the apron snatched
the money from Rimsky's hand.
Five minutes later the express pulled out of the glass-roofed station
and steamed into the dark. With it vanished Rimsky.
It is not hard to guess that the fat man with the purple face who was
put into room No. 119 at the clinic was Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi.
He had not, however, been put into Professor Stravinsky's care at once,
but had first spent some time in another place, of which he could remember
little except a desk, a cupboard and a sofa.
There some men had questioned Nikanor Ivanovich, but since his eyes
were clouded by a flux of blood and extreme mental anguish, the interview
was muddled and inconclusive.
'Are you Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi,' they began, ' chairman of the house
committee of No. 302a, Sadovaya Street? '
Nikanor Ivanovich gave a wild peal of laughter and replied:
'Of course I'm Nikanor! But why call me chairman? '
'What do you mean? ' they asked, frowning.
'Well,' he replied,' if I'm a chairman I would have seen at once that
he was an evil spirit, wouldn't I? I should have realised, what with his
shaky pince-nez, his tattered clothes--how could he have been an
interpreter? '
'Who are you talking about? '
'Koroviev! ' cried Nikanor Ivanovich. ' The man who's moved into No.
50. Write it down--Koroviev! You must find him and arrest him at once.
Staircase 6--write it down--that's where you'll find him.'
'Where did you get the foreign currency from? ' they asked
insinuatingly.
'As almighty God's my witness,' said Nikanor Ivanovich, ' I never
touched any and I never even suspected that it was foreign money. God will
punish me for my sin,' Nikanor Ivanovich went on feelingly, unbuttoning his
shirt, buttoning it up again and crossing himself. ' I took the money--I
admit that--but it was Soviet money. I even signed a receipt for it. Our
secretary Prolezhnov is just as bad--frankly we're all thieves in our house
committee. . . . But I never took any foreign money.'
On being told to stop playing the fool and to tell them how the dollars
found their way into his ventilation shaft, Nikanor Ivanovich fell on his
knees and rocked backwards and forwards with his mouth wide open as though
he were trying to swallow the wooden parquet blocks.
'I'll do anything you like,' he groaned, ' that'll make you believe I
didn't take the stuff. That Koroviev's nothing less than a devil!'
Everyone's patience has its limit; voices were raised behind the desk
and Nikanor Ivanovich was told that it was time he stopped talking
gibberish.
Suddenly the room was filled with a savage roar from Nikanor Ivanovich
as he jumped up from his knees:
'There he is! There--behind the cupboard! There--look at him grinning!
And his pince-nez . . . Stop him! Arrest him! Surround the building! '
The blood drained from Nikanor Ivanovich's face. Trembling, he made the
sign of the cross in the air, fled for the door, then back again, intoned a
prayer and then relapsed into complete delirium.
It was plain that Nikanor Ivanovich was incapable of talking
rationally. He was removed and put in a room by himself, where he calmed
down slightly and only prayed and sobbed.
Men were sent to the house on Sadovaya Street and inspected flat No.
50, but they found no Koroviev and no one in the building who had seen him
or heard of him. The flat belonging to Berlioz and Likhodeyev was empty and
the wax seals, quite intact, hung on all the cupboards and drawers in the
study. The men left the building, taking with them the bewildered and
crushed Prolezhnev, secretary of the house committee.
That evening Nikanor Ivanovich was delivered to Stravinsky's clinic.
There he behaved so violently that he had to be given one of Stravinsky's
special injections and it was midnight before Nikanor Ivanovich tell asleep
in room No. 119, uttering an occasional deep, tormented groan.
But the longer he slept the calmer he grew. He stopped tossing and
moaning, his breathing grew light and even, until finally the doctors left
him alone.
Nikanor Ivanovich then had a dream, which was undoubtedly influenced by
his recent experiences. It began with some men carrying golden trumpets
leading him, with great solemnity, to a pair of huge painted doors, where
his companions blew a fanfare in Nikanor Ivanovich's honour. Then a bass
voice boomed at him from the sky :
'Welcome, Nikanor Ivanovich! Hand over your foreign currency! ' Amazed
beyond words, Nikanor Ivanovich saw in front of him a black loudspeaker.
Soon he found himself in an auditorium lit by crystal candelabra beneath a
gilded ceiling and by sconces on the walls. Everything resembled a small but
luxurious theatre. There was a stage, closed by a velvet curtain whose dark
cerise background was strewn with enlargements of gold ten-rouble pieces;
there was a prompter's box and even an audience.
Nikanor Ivanovich was surprised to notice that the audience was an
all-male one and that its members all wore beards. An odd feature of the
auditorium was that it had no seats and the entire assembly was sitting on
the beautifully polished and extremely slippery floor.
Embarrassed at finding himself in this large and unexpected company,
after some hesitation Nikanor Ivanovich followed the general example and sat
down Turkish-fashion on the parquet, wedging himself between a stout
redbeard and a pale and extremely hirsute citizen. None of the audience paid
any attention to the newcomer.
There came the gentle sound of a bell, the house-lights went out, the
curtains parted and revealed a lighted stage set with an armchair, a small
table on which was a little golden bell, and a heavy black velvet backdrop.
On to the stage came an actor, dinner-jacketed, clean-shaven, his hair
parted in the middle above a young, charming face. The audience grew lively
and everybody turned to look at the stage. The actor advanced to the
footlights and rubbed his hands.
'Are you sitting down? ' he enquired in a soft baritone and smiled at
the audience.
'We are, we are,' chorused the tenors and basses.
'H'mm . . .' said the actor thoughtfully, ' I realise, of course, how
bored you must be. Everybody else is out of doors now, enjoying the warm
spring sunshine, while you have to squat on the floor in this stuffy
auditorium. Is the programme really worth while? Ah well, chacun a son
gout,' said the actor philosophically.
At this he changed the tone of his voice and announced gaily :
'And the next number on our programme is--Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi,
tenants' committee chairman and manager of a diabetic restaurant. This way
please, Nikanor Ivanovich! '
At the sound of the friendly applause which greeted his name, Nikanor
Ivanovich's eyes bulged with astonishment and the compere, shading his eyes
against the glare of the footlights, located him among the audience and
beckoned him to the stage. Without knowing how, Nikanor Ivanovich found
himself on stage. His eyes were dazzled from above and below by the glare of
coloured lighting which blotted out the audience from his sight.
'Now Nikanor Ivanovich, set us an example,' said the young actor
gently and confidingly, ' and hand over your foreign currency.'
Silence. Nikanor Ivanovich took a deep breath and said in a low voice :
' I swear to God, I . . .'
Before he could finish, the whole audience had burst into shouts of
disapproval. Nikanor Ivanovich relapsed into uncomfortable silence. ' Am I
right,' said the compere, ' in thinking that you were about to swear by God
that you had no foreign currency?' He gave Nikanov Ivanovich a sympathetic
look.
'That's right. I haven't any.'
'I see,' said the actor. ' But ... if you'll forgive the indelicacy .
. . where did those four hundred dollars come from that were found in the
lavatory of your flat, of which you and your wife are the sole occupants? '
'They were magic ones! ' said a sarcastic voice somewhere in the dark
auditorium.
'That's right, they were magic ones,' said Nikanor Ivanovich timidly,
addressing no one in particular but adding : ' an evil spirit, that
interpreter in a check suit planted them on me.'
Again the audience roared in protest. When calm was restored, the actor
said:
'This is better than Lafontaine's fables! Planted four hundred
dollars! Listen, you're all in the currency racket--I ask you now, as
experts : is that possible? '
'We're not currency racketeers,' cried a number of offended voices
from the audience, ' but it's impossible! '
'I entirely agree,' said the actor firmly, ' and now I'd like to ask
you : what sort of things do people plant on other people? '
'Babies! ' cried someone at the back.
'Quite right,' agreed the compere. ' Babies, anonymous letters,
manifestos, time bombs and God knows what else, but no one would ever plant
four hundred dollars on a person because there just isn't anyone idiotic
enough to try.' Turning to Nikanor Ivanovich the artist added sadly and
reproachfully: ' You've disappointed me, Nikanor Ivanovich. I was relying on
you. Well, that number was a flop, I'm afraid.'
The audience began to boo Nikanor Ivanovich.
'He's in the currency black market all right,' came a shout from the
crowd, ' and innocent people like us have to suffer because of the likes of
him.'
'Don't shout at him,' said the compere gently. ' He'll repent.'
Turning his blue eyes, brimming with tears, towards Nikanor Ivanovich, he
said : ' Go back to your place Nikanor Ivanovich.'
After this the actor rang the bell and loudly announced:
'Interval! '
Shattered by his involuntary debut in the theatre, Nikanor Ivanovich
found himself back at his place on the floor. Then he began dreaming that
the auditorium was plunged into total darkness and fiery red words leaped
out from the walls ' Hand over all foreign cirrency! '
After a while the curtains opened again and the compere announced:
'Sergei Gerardovich Dunchill on stage, please! '
Dunchill was a good-looking though very stout man of about fifty.
'Sergei Gerardovich,' the compere addressed him, ' you have been
sitting here for six weeks now, firmly refusing to give up your remaining
foreign currency, at a time when your country has desperate need of it. You
are extremely obstinate. You're an intelligent man, you understand all this
perfectly well, yet you refuse to come forward.'
'I'm sorry, but how can I, when I have no more currency? ' was
Dunchill's calm reply.
'Not even any diamonds, perhaps? ' asked the actor.
'No diamonds either.'
The actor hung his head, reflected for a moment, then clapped his
hands. From the wings emerged a fashionably dressed middle-aged woman. The
woman looked worried as Dunchill stared at her without the flicker of an
eyelid.
'Who is this lady? ' the compere enquired of Dunchill.
'She is my wife,' replied Dunchill with dignity, looking at the woman
with a faint expression of repugnance.
'We regret the inconvenience to you, madame Dunchill,' said the
compere, ' but we have invited you here to ask you whether your husband has
surrendered all his foreign currency? '
'He handed it all in when he was told to,' replied madame Dunchill
anxiously.
'I see,' said the actor, ' well, if you say so, it must be true. If he
really has handed it all in, we must regretfully deprive ourselves of the
pleasure of Sergei Gerardovich's company. You may leave the theatre if you
wish, Sergei Gerardovich,' announced the compere with a regal gesture.
Calmly and with dignity Dunchill turned and walked towards the wings.
'Just a minute! ' The compere stopped him. ' Before you go just let me
show you one more number from our programme.' Again he clapped his hands.
The dark backdrop parted and a beautiful young woman in a ball gown
stepped on stage. She was holding a golden salver on which lay a thick
parcel tied with coloured ribbon, and round her neck she wore a diamond
necklace that flashed blue, yellow and red fire.
Dunchill took a step back and his face turned pale. Complete silence
gripped the audience.
'Eighteen thousand dollars and a necklace worth forty thousand gold
roubles,' the compere solemnly announced, ' belonging to Sergei Gerardovich
and kept for him in Kharkov in the flat of his mistress, Ida Herkulanovna
Vors, whom you have the pleasure of seeing before you now and who has kindly
consented to help in displaying these treasures which, priceless as they
are, are useless in private hands. Thank you very much, Ida Herkulanovna.'
The beauty flashed her teeth and fluttered her long eyelashes. ' And as
for you,' the actor said to Dunchill, ' we now know that beneath that
dignified mask lurks a vicious spider, a liar and a disgrace to our society.
For six weeks you have worn us all out with your stupid obstinacy. Go home
now and may the hell which your wife is preparing for you be your
punishment.'
Dunchill staggered and was about to collapse when a sympathetic pair of
arms supported him. The curtain then fell and bid the occupants of the stage
from sight.
Furious applause shook the auditorium until Nikanor Ivanovich thought
the lamps were going to jump out of the candelabra. When the curtain rose
again there was no one on stage except the actor. To another salvo of
applause he bowed and said :
'We have just shown you a typically stubborn case. Only yesterday I
was saying how senseless it was to try and conceal a secret hoard of foreign
currency. No one who has one can make use of it. Take Dunchill for example.
He is well paid and never short of anything. He has a splendid flat, a wife
and a beautiful mistress. Yet instead of acting like a law-abiding citizen
and handing in his currency and jewellery, all that this incorrigible rogue
has achieved is public exposure and a family scandal. So who wants to hand
in his currency? Nobody? In that case, the next number on our programme will
be that famous actor Savva Potapovich Kurolesov in excerpts from " The
Covetous Knight" by the poet Pushkin.'
Kurolesov entered, a tall, fleshy, clean-shaven man in tails and white
tie. Without a word of introduction he scowled, frowned and began, squinting
at the golden bell, to recite in an unnatural voice :
'Hastening to meet Ills courtesan, the young gallant. . .'
Kurolesov's recital described a tale of evil. He confessed how an
unhappy widow had knelt weeping before him in the rain, but the actor's hard
heart had remained untouched.
Until this dream, Nikanor Ivanovich knew nothing of the works of
Pushkin, although he knew his name well enough and almost every day he used
to make remarks like ' Who's going to pay the rent--Pushkin? ', or ' I
suppose Pushkin stole the light bulb on the staircase', or ' Who's going to
buy the fuel-oil for the boilers--Pushkin, I suppose? ' Now as he listened
to one of Pushkin's dramatic poems for the first time Nikanor Ivanovich felt
miserable, imagining the woman on her knees in the rain with her orphaned
children and he could not help thinking what a beast this fellow Kurolesov
must be.
The actor himself, his voice constantly rising, poured out his
repentance and finally he completely muddled Nikanor Ivanovich by talking to
someone who wasn't on the stage at all, then answered for the invisible man,
all the time calling himself first ' king ', then ' baron ', then ' father
', then ' son ' until the confusion was total. Nikanor Ivanovich only
managed to understand that the actor died a horrible death shouting ' My
keys! My keys! ', at which he fell croaking to the ground, having first
taken care to pull off his white tie.
Having died, Kurolesov got up, brushed the dust from his trousers,
bowed, smiled an insincere smile and walked off to faint applause. The
compere then said :
'In Sawa Potapovich's masterly interpretation we have just heard the
story of " The Covetous Knight". That knight saw himself as a Casanova; but
as you saw, nothing came of his efforts, no nymphs threw themselves at him,
the muses refused him their tribute, he built no palaces and instead he
finished miserably after an attack on his hoard of money and jewels. I warn
you that something of the kind will happen to you, if not worse, unless you
hand over your foreign currency! '
It may have been Pushkin's verse or it may have been the compere's
prosaic remarks which had such an effect; at all events a timid voice was
heard from the audience :
'I'll hand over my currency.'
'Please come up on stage,' was the compere's welcoming response as he
peered into the dark auditorium.
A short blond man, three weeks unshaven, appeared on stage.
'What is your name, please? ' enquired the compere.
'Nikolai Kanavkin ' was the shy answer.
'Ah! Delighted, citizen Kanavkin. Well? '
'I'll hand it over.'
'How much? '
'A thousand dollars and twenty gold ten-rouble pieces.'
'Bravo! Is that all you have? '
The compere stared straight into Kanavkin's eyes and it seemed to
Nikanor Ivanovich that those eyes emitted rays which saw through Kanavkin
like X-rays. The audience held its breath.
'I believe you! ' cried the actor at last and extinguished his gaze. '
I believe you! Those eyes are not lying! How many
times have I said that your fundamental error is to underestimate the
significance of the human eye. The tongue may hide the truth but the
eyes--never! If somebody springs a question you may not even flinch ; in a
second you are in control of yourself and you know what to say in order to
conceal the truth. You can be very convincing and not a wrinkle will flicker
in your expression, but alas! The truth will start forth in a flash from the
depths of your soul to your eyes and the game's up! You're caught!'
Having made this highly persuasive speech, the actor politely asked
Kanavkin:
'Where are they hidden? '
'At my aunt's, in Prechistenka.'
'Ah! That will be ... wait . . . yes, that's Claudia Ilyinishna
Porokhovnikova, isn't it? ' ' Yes.'
'Yes, yes, of course. A little bungalow, isn't it? Opposite a high
fence? Of course, I know it. And where have you put them? '
'In a box in the cellar.'
The actor clasped his hands.
'Oh, no! Really! ' he cried angrily. ' Its so damp there-- they'll
grow mouldy! People like that aren't to be trusted with money! What
child-like innocence. What will they do next?'
Kanavkin, realising that he was doubly at fault, hung his curly head.
'Money,' the actor went on, ' should be kept in the State Bank, in dry
and specially guarded strongrooms, but never in your aunt's cellar where
apart from anything else, the rats may get at it. Really, Kanavkin, you
should be ashamed : you--a grown man! '
Kanavkin did not know which way to look and could only twist the hem of
his jacket with his finger.
'All right,' the artist relented slightly, ' since you have owned up
we'll be lenient. . .' Suddenly he added unexpectedly : ' By the way . . .
we might as well kill two birds with one stone and not waste a car journey
... I expect your aunt has some of her own hidden away, hasn't she? '
Not expecting the conversation to take this turn, Kanavkin gave a start
and silence settled again on the audience.
'Ah, now, Kanavkin,' said the compere in a tone of kindly reproach, '
I was just going to say what a good boy you were I And now you have to go
and upset it all! That wasn't very clever, Kanavkin! Remember what I said
just now about your eyes? Well, I can see from your eyes that your aunt has
something hidden. Come on--don't tantalise us! '
'Yes, she has! ' shouted Kanavkin boldly.
'Bravo! ' cried the compere.
'Bravo! ' roared the audience.
When the noise had died down the compere congratulated Kanavkin, shook
him by the hand, offered him a car to take him home and ordered somebody in
the wings to go and see the aunt in the same car and invite her to appear in
the ladies' section of the programme.
'Oh yes, I nearly forgot to ask you--did your aunt tell you where she
has hidden hers? ' enquired the compere, offering Kanavkin a cigarette and a
lighted match. His cigarette lit, the wretched man gave an apologetic sort
of grin.
'Of course, I believe you. You don't know,' said the actor with a
sigh. ' I suppose the old skinflint wouldn't tell her nephew. Ah well, we
shall just have to try and appeal to her better nature. Perhaps we can still
touch a chord in her miserly old heart. Goodbye, Kanavkin--and good luck! '
Kanavkin departed relieved and happy. The actor then enquired whether
anyone else wished to surrender his foreign currency, but there was no
response.
'Funny, I must say! ' said the compere with a shrug of his shoulders
and the curtain fell.
The lights went out, there was darkness for a while, broken only by the
sound of a quavering tenor voice singing :
'Heaps of gold--and mine, all mine ...'
After a burst of applause, Nikanor Ivanovich's red-bearded neighbour
suddenly announced :
'There's bound to be a confession or two in the ladies' programme.'
Then with a sigh he added: ' oh, if only they don't get my geese! I have a
flock of geese at Lianozov, you see. They're savage birds, but I'm afraid
they'll die if I'm not there. They need a lot of looking after . . . Oh, if
only they don't take my geese! They don't impress me by quoting Pushkin . .
.' and he sighed again.
The auditorium was suddenly flooded with light and Nikanor Ivanovich
began dreaming that a gang of cooks started pouring through all the doors
into the auditorium. They wore white chef's hats, carried ladles and they
dragged into the theatre a vat full of soup and a tray of sliced black
bread. The audience livened up as the cheerful cooks pushed their way down
the aisle pouring the soup into bowls and handing out bread.
'Eat up, lads,' shouted the cooks, ' and hand over your currency! Why
waste your time sitting here? Own up and you can all go home! '
'What are you doing here, old man?' said a fat, red-necked cook to
Nikanor Ivanovich as he handed him a bowl of soup with a lone cabbage leaf
floating in it.
'I haven't got any! I haven't, I swear it,' shouted Nikanor Ivanovich
in a terrified voice.
'Haven't you? ' growled the cook in a fierce bass. ' Haven't you? ' he
enquired in a feminine soprano. ' No, I'm sure you haven't,' he muttered
gently as he turned into the nurse Praskovya Fyodorovna.
She gently shook Nikanor Ivanovich by the shoulder as he groaned in his
sleep. Cooks, theatre, curtain and stage dissolved. Through the tears in his
eyes Nikanor Ivanovich stared round at his hospital room and at two men in
white overalls. They turned out not to be cooks but doctors, standing beside
Praskovya Fyodorovna who instead of a soup-bowl was holding a gauze-covered
white enamelled dish containing a hypodermic syringe.
'What are you doing? ' said Nikanor Ivanovich bitterly as they gave
him an injection. ' I haven't any I tell you! Why doesn't Pushkin hand over
his foreign currency? I haven't got any! '
'No, of course you haven't,' said kind Praskovya Fyodorovna, ' and no
one is going to take you to court, so you can forget it and relax.'
After Ms injection Nikanor Ivanovich calmed down and fell into a
dreamless sleep.
His unrest, however, had communicated itself to No. 120 where the
patient woke up and began looking for his head; No. 118 where the nameless
master wrung his hands as he gazed at the moon, remembering that last bitter
autumn night, the patch of light under the door in his basement and the
girl's hair blown loose.
The anxiety from No. 118 flew along the balcony to Ivan, who woke up
and burst into tears.
The doctor soon calmed all his distraught patients and they went back
to sleep. Last of all was Ivan, who only dozed off as dawn began to break
over the river. As the sedative spread through his body, tranquillity
covered him like a slow wave. His body relaxed and his head was filled with
the warm breeze of slumber. As he fell asleep the last thing that he heard
was the dawn chorus of birds in the wood. But they were soon silent again
and he began dreaming that the sun had already set over Mount Golgotha and
that the hill was ringed by a double cordon. ...
The sun had already set over Mount Golgotha and the hill was ringed by
a double cordon.
The cavalry ala that had held up the Procurator that morning had left
the city at a trot by the Hebron Gate, its route cleared ahead of it.
Infantrymen of the Cappadocian cohort pressed back a crowd of people, mules
and camels, and the ala, throwing up pillars of white dust, trotted towards
the crossroads where two ways met--one southward to Bethlehem, the other
northwestward to Jaffa. The ala took the north-westward route. More of the
Cappadocians had been posted along the edge of the road in time to clear the
route of all the caravans moving into Jerusalem for Passover. Crowds of
pilgrims stood behind the line of troops, leaving the temporary shelter of
their tents pitched on the grass. After about a kilometre the ala overtook
the second cohort of the Lightning legion and having gone a further
kilometre arrived first at the foot of Mount Golgotha. There the commander
hastily divided the ala into troops and cordoned off the base of the low
hill, leaving only a small gap where a path led from the Jaffa road to the
hilltop.
After a while the second cohort arrived, climbed up and formed another
cordon round the hill.
Last on the scene was the century under the command of Mark Muribellum.
It marched in two single files, one along each edge of the road, and between
them, escorted by a secret service detachment, drove the cart carrying the
three prisoners. Each wore a white board hung round his neck on which were
written the words ' Robber & Rebel' in Aramaic and Greek. Behind the
prisoners' cart came others, loaded with freshly sawn posts and
cross-pieces, ropes, spades, buckets and axes. They also carried six
executioners. Last in the convoy rode Mark the centurion, the captain of the
temple guard and the same hooded man with whom Pilate had briefly conferred
in a darkened room of the palace.
Although the procession was completely enclosed by troops, it was
followed by about two thousand curious sightseers determined to watch this
interesting spectacle despite the infernal heat. These spectators from the
city were now being joined by crowds of pilgrims, who were allowed to follow
the tail of the procession unhindered, as it made its way towards Mount
Golgotha to the bark of the heralds' voices as they repeated Pilate's
announcement.
The ala allowed them through as far as the second cordon, where the
century admitted only those concerned with the execution and then, with a
brisk manoeuvre, spread the crowd round the hill between the mounted cordon
below and the upper ring formed by the infantry, allowing the spectators to
watch the execution through a thin line of soldiery.
More than three hours had gone by since the procession had reached the
hill and although the sun over Mount Golgotha had already begun its descent,
the heat was still unbearable. The troops in both cordons were suffering
from it; stupefied with boredom, they cursed the three robbers and sincerely
wished them a quick death.
At the gap in the lower cordon the diminutive commander of the ala, his
forehead damp and his white tunic soaked with the sweat of his back,
occasionally walked over to the leather bucket in No. I. Troop's lines,
scooped up the water in handfuls, drank and moistened his turban. With this
slight relief from the heat he would return and recommence pacing up and
down the dusty path leading to the top. His long sword bumped against his
laced leather boot. As commander he had to set an example of endurance to
his men, but he considerately allowed them to stick their lances into the
ground and drape their white cloaks over the tops of the shafts. The Syrians
then sheltered from the pitiless sun under these makeshift tents. The
buckets emptied quickly and a rota of troopers was kept busy fetching water
from a ravine at the foot of the hill, where a muddy stream flowed in the
shade of a clump of gaunt mulberry trees. There, making the most of the
inadequate shade, the bored grooms lounged beside the horse-lines.
The troops were exhausted and their resentment of the victims was
understandable. Fortunately, however, Pilate's fears that disorders might
occur in Jerusalem during the execution were unjustified. When the fourth
hour of the execution had passed, against all expectation not a man remained
between the two cordons. The sun had scorched the crowd and driven it back
to Jerusalem. Beyond the ring formed by the two Roman centuries there were
only a couple of stray dogs. The heat had exhausted them too and they lay
panting with their tongues out, too weary even to chase the green-backed
lizards, the only creatures unafraid of the sun, which darted between the
broken stones and the spiny, ground-creeping cactus plants.
No one had tried to attack the prisoners, neither in Jerusalem, which
was packed with troops, nor on the cordoned hill. The crowd had drifted back
into town, bored by this dull execution and eager to join in the
preparations for the feast which were already under way in the city.
The Roman infantry forming the second tier was suffering even more
acutely than the cavalrymen. Centurion Muribellum's only concession to his
men was to allow them to take off their helmets and put on white headbands
soaked in water, but he kept them standing, lance in hand. The centurion
himself, also wearing a headband though a dry one, walked up and down a
short distance from a group of executioners without even removing his heavy
silver badges of rank, his sword or his dagger. The sun beat straight down
on the centurion without causing him the least distress and such was the
glitter from the silver of his lions' muzzles that a glance at them was
almost blinding.
Muribellum's disfigured face showed neither exhaustion nor displeasure
and the giant centurion seemed strong enough to keep pacing all day, all
night and all the next day. For as long as might be necessary he would go on
walking with his hands on his heavy bronze-studded belt, he would keep his
stern gaze either on the crucified victims or on the line of troops, or just
kick at the rubble on the ground with the toe of his rough hide boot,
indifferent to whether it was a whitened human bone or a small flint.
The hooded man had placed himself a short way from the gibbets on a
three-legged stool and sat in calm immobility, occasionally poking the sand
with a stick out of boredom.
It was not quite true that no one was left of the crowd between the
cordons. There was one man, but he was partly hidden. He was not near the
path, which was the best place from which to see the execution, but on the
northern side, where the hill was not smooth and passable but rough and
jagged with gulleys and fissures, at a spot where a sickly fig tree
struggled to keep alive on that arid soil by rooting itself in a crevice.
Although the fig tree gave no shade, this sole remaining spectator had
been sitting beneath it on a stone since the very start of the execution
four hours before. He had chosen the worst place to watch the execution,
although he had a direct view of the gibbets and could even see the two
glittering badges on the centurion's chest. His vantage point seemed
adequate, however, for a man who seemed anxious to remain out of sight.
Yet four hours ago this man had behaved quite differently and had made
himself all too conspicuous, which was probably the reason why he had now
changed his tactics and withdrawn to solitude. When the procession had
reached the top of the hill he had been the first of the crowd to appear and
he had shown all the signs of a man arriving late. He had run panting up the
hill, pushing people aside, and when halted by the cordon he had made a
naive attempt, by pretending not to understand their angry shouts, to break
through the line of soldiers and reach the place of execution where the
prisoners were already being led off the cart. For this he had earned a
savage blow on the chest with the blunt end of a lance and had staggered
back with a cry, not of pain but of despair. He had stared at the legionary
who had hit him with the bleary, indifferent look of a man past feeling
physical pain.
Gasping and clutching his chest he had run round to the northern side
of the hill, trying to find a gap in the cordon where he might slip through.
But it was too late, the chain had been closed. And the man, his face
contorted with grief, had had to give up trying to break through to the
carts, from which men were unloading the gibbet-posts. Any such attempt
would have led to his arrest and as his plans for that day did not include
being arrested, he had hidden himself in the crevice where he could watch
unmolested.
Now as he sat on his stone, his eyes festering from heat, dust and lack
of sleep, the black-bearded man felt miserable. First he would sigh, opening
his travel-worn tallith, once blue but now turned dirty grey, and bare his
sweating, bruised chest, then he would raise his eyes to the sky in
inexpressible agony, following the three vultures who had long been circling
the hilltop in expectation of a feast, then gaze hopelessly at the yellow
soil where he stared at the half-crushed skull of a dog and the lizards that
scurried around it.
The man was in such distress that now and again he would talk to
himself.
'Oh, I am a fool,' he mumbled, rocking back and forth in agony of soul
and scratching his swarthy chest. ' I'm a fool, as stupid as a woman--and
I'm a coward! I'm a lump of carrion, not a man I '
He hung his head in silence, then revived by a drink of tepid water
from his wooden flask he gripped the knife hidden under his tallith or
fingered the piece of parchment lying on a stone in front of him with a
stylus and a bladder of ink.
On the parchment were some scribbled notes :
'Minutes pass while I, Matthew the Levite, sit here on Mount Golgotha
and still he is not dead!'
Late:
'The sun is setting and death not yet come.' Hopelessly, Matthew now
wrote with his sharp stylus :
'God! Why are you angry with him? Send him death.'
Having written this, he gave a tearless sob and again scratched his
chest.
The cause of the Levite's despair was his own and Yeshua's terrible
failure. He was also tortured by the fatal mistake which he, Matthew, had
committed. Two days before, Yeshua and Matthew had been in Bethphagy near
Jerusalem, where they had been staying with a market gardener who had taken
pleasure in Yeshua's preaching. All that morning the two men had helped
their host at work in his garden, intending to walk on to Jerusalem in the
cool of the evening. But for some reason Yeshua had been in a hurry, saying
that he had something urgent to do in the city, and had set off alone at
noon. That was Matthew the Levite's first mistake. Why, why had he let him
go alone?
That evening Matthew had been unable to go to Jerusalem, as he had
suffered a sudden and unexpected attack of sickness. He shivered, his body
felt as if it were on fire and he constantly begged for water.
To go anywhere was out of the question. He had collapsed on to a rug in
the gardener's courtyard and had lain there until dawn on Friday, when the
sickness left Matthew as suddenly as it had struck him. Although still weak,
he had felt oppressed by a foreboding of disaster and bidding his host
farewell had set out for Jerusalem. There he had learned that his foreboding
had not deceived him and that the disaster had occurred. The Levite had been
in the crowd that had heard the Procurator pronounce sentence.
When the prisoners were taken away to Mount Golgotha, Matthew the
Levite ran alongside the escort amid the crowd of sightseers, trying to give
Yeshua an inconspicuous signal that at least he, the Levite, was here with
him, that he had not abandoned him on his last journey and that he was
praying for Yeshua to be granted a quick death. But Yeshua, staring far
ahead to where they were taking him, could not see Matthew.
Then, when the procession had covered half a mile or so of the way,
Matthew, who was being pushed along by the crowd level with the prisoners'
cart, was struck by a brilliant and simple idea. In his fervour he cursed
himself for not having thought of it before. The soldiers were not marching
in close order, but with a gap between each man. With great dexterity and
very careful timing it would be possible to bend down and jump between two
legionaries, reach the cart and jump on it. Then Yeshua would be saved from
an agonising death. A moment would be enough to stab Yeshua in the back with
a knife, having shouted to him: ' Yeshua! I shall save you and depart with
you! I, Matthew, your faithful and only disciple!'
And if God were to bless him with one more moment of freedom he could
stab himself as well and avoid a death on the gallows. Not that Matthew, the
erstwhile tax-collector, cared much how he died: he wanted only one
thing--that Yeshua, who had never done anyone the least harm in his life,
should be spared the torture of crucifixion.
The plan was a very good one, but it had a great flaw--the Levite had
no knife and no money.
Furious with himself, Matthew pushed his way out of the crowd and ran
back to the city. His head burned with the single thought of how he might at
once, by whatever means, find a knife somewhere in town and then catch up
eyes, it was safe to say that Ivan Savye-lich Varenukha was unrecognisable.
Something even more insistent was worrying Rimsky, but he could not put
his finger on it however much he racked his brain or stared at Varenukha. He
was only sure of one thing--that there was something peculiar and unnatural
in the man's posture in that familiar chair.
'Well, finally they overpowered him and shoved him into a car,' boomed
Varenukha, peeping from under the newspaper and covering his bruise with his
hand.
Rimsky suddenly stretched out his arm and with an apparently unthinking
gesture of his palm pressed the button of an electric bell, drumming his
fingers as he did so. His heart sank. A loud ringing should have been heard
instantly throughout the building --but nothing happened, and the bell-push
merely sank lifelessly into the desktop. The warning system was out of
order.
Rimsky's cunning move did not escape Varenukha, who scowled and said
with a clear flicker of hostility in his look :
'Why did you ring? '
'Oh, I just pressed it by mistake, without thinking,' mumbled Rimsky,
pulling back his hand and asked in a shaky voice :
'What's that on your face? '
'The car braked suddenly and I hit myself on the door-handle,' replied
Varenukha, averting his eyes.
'He's lying!' said Rimsky to himself. Suddenly his eyes gaped with
utter horror and he pressed himself against the back of his chair.
On the floor behind Varenukha's chair lay two intersecting shadows, one
thicker and blacker than the other. The shadows cast by the back of the
chair and its tapering legs were clearly visible, but above the shadow of
the chairback there was no shadow or' Varenukha's head, just as there was no
shadow of his feet to be seen under the chairlegs.
'He throws no shadow! ' cried Rimsky in a silent shriek of despair. He
shuddered helplessly.
Following Rimsky's horrified stare Varenukha glanced furtively round
behind the chairback and realised that he had been found out. He got up
(Rimsky did the same) and took a pace away from the desk, clutching his
briefcase.
'You've guessed, damn you! You always were clever,' said Varenukha
smiling evilly right into Rimsky's face. Then he suddenly leaped for the
door and quickly pushed down the latch-button on the lock. The treasurer
looked round in desperation, retreated towards the window that gave on to
the garden and in that moon-flooded window he saw the face of a naked girl
pressed to the glass, her bare arm reaching through the open top pane and
trying to open the lower casement.
It seemed to Rimsky that the light of the desk-lamp was going out and
that the desk itself was tilting. A wave of icy cold washed over him, but
luckily for him he fought it off and did not fall. The remnants of his
strength were only enough for him to whisper:
'Help . . .'
Varenukha, guarding the door, was jumping up and down beside it. He
hissed and sucked, signalling to the girl in the window and pointing his
crooked fingers towards Rimsky.
The girl increased her efforts, pushed her auburn head through the
little upper pane, stretched out her arm as far as she could and began to
pluck at the lower catch with her fingernails and shake the frame. Her arm,
coloured deathly green, started to stretch as if it were made of rubber.
Finally her green cadaverous fingers caught the knob of the window-catch,
turned it and the casement opened. Rimsky gave a weak cry, pressed himself
to the wall and held his briefcase in front of himself like a shield. His
last hour, he knew, had come.
The window swung wide open, but instead of the freshness of the night
and the scent of lime-blossom the room was flooded with the stench of the
grave. The walking corpse stepped on to the window-sill. Rimsky clearly saw
patches of decay on her breast.
At that moment the sudden, joyful sound of a cock crowing rang out in
the garden from the low building behind the shooting gallery where they kept
the cage birds used on the Variety stage. With his full-throated cry the
tame cock was announcing the approach of dawn over Moscow from the east.
Wild fury distorted the girl's face as she swore hoarsely and Varenukha
by the door whimpered and collapsed to the floor.
The cock crowed again, the girl gnashed her teeth and her auburn hair
stood on end. At the third crow she turned and flew out. Behind her, flying
horizontally through the air like an oversized cupid, Varenukha floated
slowly across the desk and out of the window.
As white as snow, without a black hair left on his head, the old man
who a short while before had been Rimsky ran to the door, freed the latch
and rushed down the dark corridor. At the top of the staircase, groaning
with terror he fumbled for the switch and lit the lights on the staircase.
The shattered, trembling old man fell down on the stairs, imagining that
Varenukha was gently bearing down on him from above.
At the bottom Rimsky saw die night-watchman, who had fallen asleep on a
chair in the foyer beside the box office. Rimsky tiptoed past him and
slipped out of the main door. Once in the street he felt slightly better. He
came to his senses enough to realise, as he clutched his head, that he had
left his hat in his office.
Nothing -would have induced him to go back for it and he ran panting
across the wide street to the cinema on the opposite corner, where a
solitary cab stood on the rank. In a minute he had reached it before anyone
else could snatch it from him.
'To the Leningrad Station--hurry and I'll make it worth your while/
said the old man, breathing heavily and clutching his heart.
'I'm only going to the garage,' replied the driver turning away with a
surly face.
Rimsky unfastened his briefcase, pulled out fifty roubles and thrust
them at the driver through the open window.
A few moments later the taxi, shaking like a leaf in a storm, was
flying along the ring boulevard. Bouncing up and down in his seat, Rimsky
caught occasional glimpses of the driver's delighted expression and his own
wild look in the mirror.
Jumping out of the car at the station, Rimsky shouted to the first man
he saw, who was wearing a white apron and a numbered metal disc :
'First class single--here's thirty roubles,' he said as he fumbled for
the money in his briefcase. ' If there aren't any seats left in the first
I'll take second ... if there aren't any in the second, get me " Hard "
class! '
Glancing round at the illuminated clock the man with the apron snatched
the money from Rimsky's hand.
Five minutes later the express pulled out of the glass-roofed station
and steamed into the dark. With it vanished Rimsky.
It is not hard to guess that the fat man with the purple face who was
put into room No. 119 at the clinic was Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi.
He had not, however, been put into Professor Stravinsky's care at once,
but had first spent some time in another place, of which he could remember
little except a desk, a cupboard and a sofa.
There some men had questioned Nikanor Ivanovich, but since his eyes
were clouded by a flux of blood and extreme mental anguish, the interview
was muddled and inconclusive.
'Are you Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi,' they began, ' chairman of the house
committee of No. 302a, Sadovaya Street? '
Nikanor Ivanovich gave a wild peal of laughter and replied:
'Of course I'm Nikanor! But why call me chairman? '
'What do you mean? ' they asked, frowning.
'Well,' he replied,' if I'm a chairman I would have seen at once that
he was an evil spirit, wouldn't I? I should have realised, what with his
shaky pince-nez, his tattered clothes--how could he have been an
interpreter? '
'Who are you talking about? '
'Koroviev! ' cried Nikanor Ivanovich. ' The man who's moved into No.
50. Write it down--Koroviev! You must find him and arrest him at once.
Staircase 6--write it down--that's where you'll find him.'
'Where did you get the foreign currency from? ' they asked
insinuatingly.
'As almighty God's my witness,' said Nikanor Ivanovich, ' I never
touched any and I never even suspected that it was foreign money. God will
punish me for my sin,' Nikanor Ivanovich went on feelingly, unbuttoning his
shirt, buttoning it up again and crossing himself. ' I took the money--I
admit that--but it was Soviet money. I even signed a receipt for it. Our
secretary Prolezhnov is just as bad--frankly we're all thieves in our house
committee. . . . But I never took any foreign money.'
On being told to stop playing the fool and to tell them how the dollars
found their way into his ventilation shaft, Nikanor Ivanovich fell on his
knees and rocked backwards and forwards with his mouth wide open as though
he were trying to swallow the wooden parquet blocks.
'I'll do anything you like,' he groaned, ' that'll make you believe I
didn't take the stuff. That Koroviev's nothing less than a devil!'
Everyone's patience has its limit; voices were raised behind the desk
and Nikanor Ivanovich was told that it was time he stopped talking
gibberish.
Suddenly the room was filled with a savage roar from Nikanor Ivanovich
as he jumped up from his knees:
'There he is! There--behind the cupboard! There--look at him grinning!
And his pince-nez . . . Stop him! Arrest him! Surround the building! '
The blood drained from Nikanor Ivanovich's face. Trembling, he made the
sign of the cross in the air, fled for the door, then back again, intoned a
prayer and then relapsed into complete delirium.
It was plain that Nikanor Ivanovich was incapable of talking
rationally. He was removed and put in a room by himself, where he calmed
down slightly and only prayed and sobbed.
Men were sent to the house on Sadovaya Street and inspected flat No.
50, but they found no Koroviev and no one in the building who had seen him
or heard of him. The flat belonging to Berlioz and Likhodeyev was empty and
the wax seals, quite intact, hung on all the cupboards and drawers in the
study. The men left the building, taking with them the bewildered and
crushed Prolezhnev, secretary of the house committee.
That evening Nikanor Ivanovich was delivered to Stravinsky's clinic.
There he behaved so violently that he had to be given one of Stravinsky's
special injections and it was midnight before Nikanor Ivanovich tell asleep
in room No. 119, uttering an occasional deep, tormented groan.
But the longer he slept the calmer he grew. He stopped tossing and
moaning, his breathing grew light and even, until finally the doctors left
him alone.
Nikanor Ivanovich then had a dream, which was undoubtedly influenced by
his recent experiences. It began with some men carrying golden trumpets
leading him, with great solemnity, to a pair of huge painted doors, where
his companions blew a fanfare in Nikanor Ivanovich's honour. Then a bass
voice boomed at him from the sky :
'Welcome, Nikanor Ivanovich! Hand over your foreign currency! ' Amazed
beyond words, Nikanor Ivanovich saw in front of him a black loudspeaker.
Soon he found himself in an auditorium lit by crystal candelabra beneath a
gilded ceiling and by sconces on the walls. Everything resembled a small but
luxurious theatre. There was a stage, closed by a velvet curtain whose dark
cerise background was strewn with enlargements of gold ten-rouble pieces;
there was a prompter's box and even an audience.
Nikanor Ivanovich was surprised to notice that the audience was an
all-male one and that its members all wore beards. An odd feature of the
auditorium was that it had no seats and the entire assembly was sitting on
the beautifully polished and extremely slippery floor.
Embarrassed at finding himself in this large and unexpected company,
after some hesitation Nikanor Ivanovich followed the general example and sat
down Turkish-fashion on the parquet, wedging himself between a stout
redbeard and a pale and extremely hirsute citizen. None of the audience paid
any attention to the newcomer.
There came the gentle sound of a bell, the house-lights went out, the
curtains parted and revealed a lighted stage set with an armchair, a small
table on which was a little golden bell, and a heavy black velvet backdrop.
On to the stage came an actor, dinner-jacketed, clean-shaven, his hair
parted in the middle above a young, charming face. The audience grew lively
and everybody turned to look at the stage. The actor advanced to the
footlights and rubbed his hands.
'Are you sitting down? ' he enquired in a soft baritone and smiled at
the audience.
'We are, we are,' chorused the tenors and basses.
'H'mm . . .' said the actor thoughtfully, ' I realise, of course, how
bored you must be. Everybody else is out of doors now, enjoying the warm
spring sunshine, while you have to squat on the floor in this stuffy
auditorium. Is the programme really worth while? Ah well, chacun a son
gout,' said the actor philosophically.
At this he changed the tone of his voice and announced gaily :
'And the next number on our programme is--Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi,
tenants' committee chairman and manager of a diabetic restaurant. This way
please, Nikanor Ivanovich! '
At the sound of the friendly applause which greeted his name, Nikanor
Ivanovich's eyes bulged with astonishment and the compere, shading his eyes
against the glare of the footlights, located him among the audience and
beckoned him to the stage. Without knowing how, Nikanor Ivanovich found
himself on stage. His eyes were dazzled from above and below by the glare of
coloured lighting which blotted out the audience from his sight.
'Now Nikanor Ivanovich, set us an example,' said the young actor
gently and confidingly, ' and hand over your foreign currency.'
Silence. Nikanor Ivanovich took a deep breath and said in a low voice :
' I swear to God, I . . .'
Before he could finish, the whole audience had burst into shouts of
disapproval. Nikanor Ivanovich relapsed into uncomfortable silence. ' Am I
right,' said the compere, ' in thinking that you were about to swear by God
that you had no foreign currency?' He gave Nikanov Ivanovich a sympathetic
look.
'That's right. I haven't any.'
'I see,' said the actor. ' But ... if you'll forgive the indelicacy .
. . where did those four hundred dollars come from that were found in the
lavatory of your flat, of which you and your wife are the sole occupants? '
'They were magic ones! ' said a sarcastic voice somewhere in the dark
auditorium.
'That's right, they were magic ones,' said Nikanor Ivanovich timidly,
addressing no one in particular but adding : ' an evil spirit, that
interpreter in a check suit planted them on me.'
Again the audience roared in protest. When calm was restored, the actor
said:
'This is better than Lafontaine's fables! Planted four hundred
dollars! Listen, you're all in the currency racket--I ask you now, as
experts : is that possible? '
'We're not currency racketeers,' cried a number of offended voices
from the audience, ' but it's impossible! '
'I entirely agree,' said the actor firmly, ' and now I'd like to ask
you : what sort of things do people plant on other people? '
'Babies! ' cried someone at the back.
'Quite right,' agreed the compere. ' Babies, anonymous letters,
manifestos, time bombs and God knows what else, but no one would ever plant
four hundred dollars on a person because there just isn't anyone idiotic
enough to try.' Turning to Nikanor Ivanovich the artist added sadly and
reproachfully: ' You've disappointed me, Nikanor Ivanovich. I was relying on
you. Well, that number was a flop, I'm afraid.'
The audience began to boo Nikanor Ivanovich.
'He's in the currency black market all right,' came a shout from the
crowd, ' and innocent people like us have to suffer because of the likes of
him.'
'Don't shout at him,' said the compere gently. ' He'll repent.'
Turning his blue eyes, brimming with tears, towards Nikanor Ivanovich, he
said : ' Go back to your place Nikanor Ivanovich.'
After this the actor rang the bell and loudly announced:
'Interval! '
Shattered by his involuntary debut in the theatre, Nikanor Ivanovich
found himself back at his place on the floor. Then he began dreaming that
the auditorium was plunged into total darkness and fiery red words leaped
out from the walls ' Hand over all foreign cirrency! '
After a while the curtains opened again and the compere announced:
'Sergei Gerardovich Dunchill on stage, please! '
Dunchill was a good-looking though very stout man of about fifty.
'Sergei Gerardovich,' the compere addressed him, ' you have been
sitting here for six weeks now, firmly refusing to give up your remaining
foreign currency, at a time when your country has desperate need of it. You
are extremely obstinate. You're an intelligent man, you understand all this
perfectly well, yet you refuse to come forward.'
'I'm sorry, but how can I, when I have no more currency? ' was
Dunchill's calm reply.
'Not even any diamonds, perhaps? ' asked the actor.
'No diamonds either.'
The actor hung his head, reflected for a moment, then clapped his
hands. From the wings emerged a fashionably dressed middle-aged woman. The
woman looked worried as Dunchill stared at her without the flicker of an
eyelid.
'Who is this lady? ' the compere enquired of Dunchill.
'She is my wife,' replied Dunchill with dignity, looking at the woman
with a faint expression of repugnance.
'We regret the inconvenience to you, madame Dunchill,' said the
compere, ' but we have invited you here to ask you whether your husband has
surrendered all his foreign currency? '
'He handed it all in when he was told to,' replied madame Dunchill
anxiously.
'I see,' said the actor, ' well, if you say so, it must be true. If he
really has handed it all in, we must regretfully deprive ourselves of the
pleasure of Sergei Gerardovich's company. You may leave the theatre if you
wish, Sergei Gerardovich,' announced the compere with a regal gesture.
Calmly and with dignity Dunchill turned and walked towards the wings.
'Just a minute! ' The compere stopped him. ' Before you go just let me
show you one more number from our programme.' Again he clapped his hands.
The dark backdrop parted and a beautiful young woman in a ball gown
stepped on stage. She was holding a golden salver on which lay a thick
parcel tied with coloured ribbon, and round her neck she wore a diamond
necklace that flashed blue, yellow and red fire.
Dunchill took a step back and his face turned pale. Complete silence
gripped the audience.
'Eighteen thousand dollars and a necklace worth forty thousand gold
roubles,' the compere solemnly announced, ' belonging to Sergei Gerardovich
and kept for him in Kharkov in the flat of his mistress, Ida Herkulanovna
Vors, whom you have the pleasure of seeing before you now and who has kindly
consented to help in displaying these treasures which, priceless as they
are, are useless in private hands. Thank you very much, Ida Herkulanovna.'
The beauty flashed her teeth and fluttered her long eyelashes. ' And as
for you,' the actor said to Dunchill, ' we now know that beneath that
dignified mask lurks a vicious spider, a liar and a disgrace to our society.
For six weeks you have worn us all out with your stupid obstinacy. Go home
now and may the hell which your wife is preparing for you be your
punishment.'
Dunchill staggered and was about to collapse when a sympathetic pair of
arms supported him. The curtain then fell and bid the occupants of the stage
from sight.
Furious applause shook the auditorium until Nikanor Ivanovich thought
the lamps were going to jump out of the candelabra. When the curtain rose
again there was no one on stage except the actor. To another salvo of
applause he bowed and said :
'We have just shown you a typically stubborn case. Only yesterday I
was saying how senseless it was to try and conceal a secret hoard of foreign
currency. No one who has one can make use of it. Take Dunchill for example.
He is well paid and never short of anything. He has a splendid flat, a wife
and a beautiful mistress. Yet instead of acting like a law-abiding citizen
and handing in his currency and jewellery, all that this incorrigible rogue
has achieved is public exposure and a family scandal. So who wants to hand
in his currency? Nobody? In that case, the next number on our programme will
be that famous actor Savva Potapovich Kurolesov in excerpts from " The
Covetous Knight" by the poet Pushkin.'
Kurolesov entered, a tall, fleshy, clean-shaven man in tails and white
tie. Without a word of introduction he scowled, frowned and began, squinting
at the golden bell, to recite in an unnatural voice :
'Hastening to meet Ills courtesan, the young gallant. . .'
Kurolesov's recital described a tale of evil. He confessed how an
unhappy widow had knelt weeping before him in the rain, but the actor's hard
heart had remained untouched.
Until this dream, Nikanor Ivanovich knew nothing of the works of
Pushkin, although he knew his name well enough and almost every day he used
to make remarks like ' Who's going to pay the rent--Pushkin? ', or ' I
suppose Pushkin stole the light bulb on the staircase', or ' Who's going to
buy the fuel-oil for the boilers--Pushkin, I suppose? ' Now as he listened
to one of Pushkin's dramatic poems for the first time Nikanor Ivanovich felt
miserable, imagining the woman on her knees in the rain with her orphaned
children and he could not help thinking what a beast this fellow Kurolesov
must be.
The actor himself, his voice constantly rising, poured out his
repentance and finally he completely muddled Nikanor Ivanovich by talking to
someone who wasn't on the stage at all, then answered for the invisible man,
all the time calling himself first ' king ', then ' baron ', then ' father
', then ' son ' until the confusion was total. Nikanor Ivanovich only
managed to understand that the actor died a horrible death shouting ' My
keys! My keys! ', at which he fell croaking to the ground, having first
taken care to pull off his white tie.
Having died, Kurolesov got up, brushed the dust from his trousers,
bowed, smiled an insincere smile and walked off to faint applause. The
compere then said :
'In Sawa Potapovich's masterly interpretation we have just heard the
story of " The Covetous Knight". That knight saw himself as a Casanova; but
as you saw, nothing came of his efforts, no nymphs threw themselves at him,
the muses refused him their tribute, he built no palaces and instead he
finished miserably after an attack on his hoard of money and jewels. I warn
you that something of the kind will happen to you, if not worse, unless you
hand over your foreign currency! '
It may have been Pushkin's verse or it may have been the compere's
prosaic remarks which had such an effect; at all events a timid voice was
heard from the audience :
'I'll hand over my currency.'
'Please come up on stage,' was the compere's welcoming response as he
peered into the dark auditorium.
A short blond man, three weeks unshaven, appeared on stage.
'What is your name, please? ' enquired the compere.
'Nikolai Kanavkin ' was the shy answer.
'Ah! Delighted, citizen Kanavkin. Well? '
'I'll hand it over.'
'How much? '
'A thousand dollars and twenty gold ten-rouble pieces.'
'Bravo! Is that all you have? '
The compere stared straight into Kanavkin's eyes and it seemed to
Nikanor Ivanovich that those eyes emitted rays which saw through Kanavkin
like X-rays. The audience held its breath.
'I believe you! ' cried the actor at last and extinguished his gaze. '
I believe you! Those eyes are not lying! How many
times have I said that your fundamental error is to underestimate the
significance of the human eye. The tongue may hide the truth but the
eyes--never! If somebody springs a question you may not even flinch ; in a
second you are in control of yourself and you know what to say in order to
conceal the truth. You can be very convincing and not a wrinkle will flicker
in your expression, but alas! The truth will start forth in a flash from the
depths of your soul to your eyes and the game's up! You're caught!'
Having made this highly persuasive speech, the actor politely asked
Kanavkin:
'Where are they hidden? '
'At my aunt's, in Prechistenka.'
'Ah! That will be ... wait . . . yes, that's Claudia Ilyinishna
Porokhovnikova, isn't it? ' ' Yes.'
'Yes, yes, of course. A little bungalow, isn't it? Opposite a high
fence? Of course, I know it. And where have you put them? '
'In a box in the cellar.'
The actor clasped his hands.
'Oh, no! Really! ' he cried angrily. ' Its so damp there-- they'll
grow mouldy! People like that aren't to be trusted with money! What
child-like innocence. What will they do next?'
Kanavkin, realising that he was doubly at fault, hung his curly head.
'Money,' the actor went on, ' should be kept in the State Bank, in dry
and specially guarded strongrooms, but never in your aunt's cellar where
apart from anything else, the rats may get at it. Really, Kanavkin, you
should be ashamed : you--a grown man! '
Kanavkin did not know which way to look and could only twist the hem of
his jacket with his finger.
'All right,' the artist relented slightly, ' since you have owned up
we'll be lenient. . .' Suddenly he added unexpectedly : ' By the way . . .
we might as well kill two birds with one stone and not waste a car journey
... I expect your aunt has some of her own hidden away, hasn't she? '
Not expecting the conversation to take this turn, Kanavkin gave a start
and silence settled again on the audience.
'Ah, now, Kanavkin,' said the compere in a tone of kindly reproach, '
I was just going to say what a good boy you were I And now you have to go
and upset it all! That wasn't very clever, Kanavkin! Remember what I said
just now about your eyes? Well, I can see from your eyes that your aunt has
something hidden. Come on--don't tantalise us! '
'Yes, she has! ' shouted Kanavkin boldly.
'Bravo! ' cried the compere.
'Bravo! ' roared the audience.
When the noise had died down the compere congratulated Kanavkin, shook
him by the hand, offered him a car to take him home and ordered somebody in
the wings to go and see the aunt in the same car and invite her to appear in
the ladies' section of the programme.
'Oh yes, I nearly forgot to ask you--did your aunt tell you where she
has hidden hers? ' enquired the compere, offering Kanavkin a cigarette and a
lighted match. His cigarette lit, the wretched man gave an apologetic sort
of grin.
'Of course, I believe you. You don't know,' said the actor with a
sigh. ' I suppose the old skinflint wouldn't tell her nephew. Ah well, we
shall just have to try and appeal to her better nature. Perhaps we can still
touch a chord in her miserly old heart. Goodbye, Kanavkin--and good luck! '
Kanavkin departed relieved and happy. The actor then enquired whether
anyone else wished to surrender his foreign currency, but there was no
response.
'Funny, I must say! ' said the compere with a shrug of his shoulders
and the curtain fell.
The lights went out, there was darkness for a while, broken only by the
sound of a quavering tenor voice singing :
'Heaps of gold--and mine, all mine ...'
After a burst of applause, Nikanor Ivanovich's red-bearded neighbour
suddenly announced :
'There's bound to be a confession or two in the ladies' programme.'
Then with a sigh he added: ' oh, if only they don't get my geese! I have a
flock of geese at Lianozov, you see. They're savage birds, but I'm afraid
they'll die if I'm not there. They need a lot of looking after . . . Oh, if
only they don't take my geese! They don't impress me by quoting Pushkin . .
.' and he sighed again.
The auditorium was suddenly flooded with light and Nikanor Ivanovich
began dreaming that a gang of cooks started pouring through all the doors
into the auditorium. They wore white chef's hats, carried ladles and they
dragged into the theatre a vat full of soup and a tray of sliced black
bread. The audience livened up as the cheerful cooks pushed their way down
the aisle pouring the soup into bowls and handing out bread.
'Eat up, lads,' shouted the cooks, ' and hand over your currency! Why
waste your time sitting here? Own up and you can all go home! '
'What are you doing here, old man?' said a fat, red-necked cook to
Nikanor Ivanovich as he handed him a bowl of soup with a lone cabbage leaf
floating in it.
'I haven't got any! I haven't, I swear it,' shouted Nikanor Ivanovich
in a terrified voice.
'Haven't you? ' growled the cook in a fierce bass. ' Haven't you? ' he
enquired in a feminine soprano. ' No, I'm sure you haven't,' he muttered
gently as he turned into the nurse Praskovya Fyodorovna.
She gently shook Nikanor Ivanovich by the shoulder as he groaned in his
sleep. Cooks, theatre, curtain and stage dissolved. Through the tears in his
eyes Nikanor Ivanovich stared round at his hospital room and at two men in
white overalls. They turned out not to be cooks but doctors, standing beside
Praskovya Fyodorovna who instead of a soup-bowl was holding a gauze-covered
white enamelled dish containing a hypodermic syringe.
'What are you doing? ' said Nikanor Ivanovich bitterly as they gave
him an injection. ' I haven't any I tell you! Why doesn't Pushkin hand over
his foreign currency? I haven't got any! '
'No, of course you haven't,' said kind Praskovya Fyodorovna, ' and no
one is going to take you to court, so you can forget it and relax.'
After Ms injection Nikanor Ivanovich calmed down and fell into a
dreamless sleep.
His unrest, however, had communicated itself to No. 120 where the
patient woke up and began looking for his head; No. 118 where the nameless
master wrung his hands as he gazed at the moon, remembering that last bitter
autumn night, the patch of light under the door in his basement and the
girl's hair blown loose.
The anxiety from No. 118 flew along the balcony to Ivan, who woke up
and burst into tears.
The doctor soon calmed all his distraught patients and they went back
to sleep. Last of all was Ivan, who only dozed off as dawn began to break
over the river. As the sedative spread through his body, tranquillity
covered him like a slow wave. His body relaxed and his head was filled with
the warm breeze of slumber. As he fell asleep the last thing that he heard
was the dawn chorus of birds in the wood. But they were soon silent again
and he began dreaming that the sun had already set over Mount Golgotha and
that the hill was ringed by a double cordon. ...
The sun had already set over Mount Golgotha and the hill was ringed by
a double cordon.
The cavalry ala that had held up the Procurator that morning had left
the city at a trot by the Hebron Gate, its route cleared ahead of it.
Infantrymen of the Cappadocian cohort pressed back a crowd of people, mules
and camels, and the ala, throwing up pillars of white dust, trotted towards
the crossroads where two ways met--one southward to Bethlehem, the other
northwestward to Jaffa. The ala took the north-westward route. More of the
Cappadocians had been posted along the edge of the road in time to clear the
route of all the caravans moving into Jerusalem for Passover. Crowds of
pilgrims stood behind the line of troops, leaving the temporary shelter of
their tents pitched on the grass. After about a kilometre the ala overtook
the second cohort of the Lightning legion and having gone a further
kilometre arrived first at the foot of Mount Golgotha. There the commander
hastily divided the ala into troops and cordoned off the base of the low
hill, leaving only a small gap where a path led from the Jaffa road to the
hilltop.
After a while the second cohort arrived, climbed up and formed another
cordon round the hill.
Last on the scene was the century under the command of Mark Muribellum.
It marched in two single files, one along each edge of the road, and between
them, escorted by a secret service detachment, drove the cart carrying the
three prisoners. Each wore a white board hung round his neck on which were
written the words ' Robber & Rebel' in Aramaic and Greek. Behind the
prisoners' cart came others, loaded with freshly sawn posts and
cross-pieces, ropes, spades, buckets and axes. They also carried six
executioners. Last in the convoy rode Mark the centurion, the captain of the
temple guard and the same hooded man with whom Pilate had briefly conferred
in a darkened room of the palace.
Although the procession was completely enclosed by troops, it was
followed by about two thousand curious sightseers determined to watch this
interesting spectacle despite the infernal heat. These spectators from the
city were now being joined by crowds of pilgrims, who were allowed to follow
the tail of the procession unhindered, as it made its way towards Mount
Golgotha to the bark of the heralds' voices as they repeated Pilate's
announcement.
The ala allowed them through as far as the second cordon, where the
century admitted only those concerned with the execution and then, with a
brisk manoeuvre, spread the crowd round the hill between the mounted cordon
below and the upper ring formed by the infantry, allowing the spectators to
watch the execution through a thin line of soldiery.
More than three hours had gone by since the procession had reached the
hill and although the sun over Mount Golgotha had already begun its descent,
the heat was still unbearable. The troops in both cordons were suffering
from it; stupefied with boredom, they cursed the three robbers and sincerely
wished them a quick death.
At the gap in the lower cordon the diminutive commander of the ala, his
forehead damp and his white tunic soaked with the sweat of his back,
occasionally walked over to the leather bucket in No. I. Troop's lines,
scooped up the water in handfuls, drank and moistened his turban. With this
slight relief from the heat he would return and recommence pacing up and
down the dusty path leading to the top. His long sword bumped against his
laced leather boot. As commander he had to set an example of endurance to
his men, but he considerately allowed them to stick their lances into the
ground and drape their white cloaks over the tops of the shafts. The Syrians
then sheltered from the pitiless sun under these makeshift tents. The
buckets emptied quickly and a rota of troopers was kept busy fetching water
from a ravine at the foot of the hill, where a muddy stream flowed in the
shade of a clump of gaunt mulberry trees. There, making the most of the
inadequate shade, the bored grooms lounged beside the horse-lines.
The troops were exhausted and their resentment of the victims was
understandable. Fortunately, however, Pilate's fears that disorders might
occur in Jerusalem during the execution were unjustified. When the fourth
hour of the execution had passed, against all expectation not a man remained
between the two cordons. The sun had scorched the crowd and driven it back
to Jerusalem. Beyond the ring formed by the two Roman centuries there were
only a couple of stray dogs. The heat had exhausted them too and they lay
panting with their tongues out, too weary even to chase the green-backed
lizards, the only creatures unafraid of the sun, which darted between the
broken stones and the spiny, ground-creeping cactus plants.
No one had tried to attack the prisoners, neither in Jerusalem, which
was packed with troops, nor on the cordoned hill. The crowd had drifted back
into town, bored by this dull execution and eager to join in the
preparations for the feast which were already under way in the city.
The Roman infantry forming the second tier was suffering even more
acutely than the cavalrymen. Centurion Muribellum's only concession to his
men was to allow them to take off their helmets and put on white headbands
soaked in water, but he kept them standing, lance in hand. The centurion
himself, also wearing a headband though a dry one, walked up and down a
short distance from a group of executioners without even removing his heavy
silver badges of rank, his sword or his dagger. The sun beat straight down
on the centurion without causing him the least distress and such was the
glitter from the silver of his lions' muzzles that a glance at them was
almost blinding.
Muribellum's disfigured face showed neither exhaustion nor displeasure
and the giant centurion seemed strong enough to keep pacing all day, all
night and all the next day. For as long as might be necessary he would go on
walking with his hands on his heavy bronze-studded belt, he would keep his
stern gaze either on the crucified victims or on the line of troops, or just
kick at the rubble on the ground with the toe of his rough hide boot,
indifferent to whether it was a whitened human bone or a small flint.
The hooded man had placed himself a short way from the gibbets on a
three-legged stool and sat in calm immobility, occasionally poking the sand
with a stick out of boredom.
It was not quite true that no one was left of the crowd between the
cordons. There was one man, but he was partly hidden. He was not near the
path, which was the best place from which to see the execution, but on the
northern side, where the hill was not smooth and passable but rough and
jagged with gulleys and fissures, at a spot where a sickly fig tree
struggled to keep alive on that arid soil by rooting itself in a crevice.
Although the fig tree gave no shade, this sole remaining spectator had
been sitting beneath it on a stone since the very start of the execution
four hours before. He had chosen the worst place to watch the execution,
although he had a direct view of the gibbets and could even see the two
glittering badges on the centurion's chest. His vantage point seemed
adequate, however, for a man who seemed anxious to remain out of sight.
Yet four hours ago this man had behaved quite differently and had made
himself all too conspicuous, which was probably the reason why he had now
changed his tactics and withdrawn to solitude. When the procession had
reached the top of the hill he had been the first of the crowd to appear and
he had shown all the signs of a man arriving late. He had run panting up the
hill, pushing people aside, and when halted by the cordon he had made a
naive attempt, by pretending not to understand their angry shouts, to break
through the line of soldiers and reach the place of execution where the
prisoners were already being led off the cart. For this he had earned a
savage blow on the chest with the blunt end of a lance and had staggered
back with a cry, not of pain but of despair. He had stared at the legionary
who had hit him with the bleary, indifferent look of a man past feeling
physical pain.
Gasping and clutching his chest he had run round to the northern side
of the hill, trying to find a gap in the cordon where he might slip through.
But it was too late, the chain had been closed. And the man, his face
contorted with grief, had had to give up trying to break through to the
carts, from which men were unloading the gibbet-posts. Any such attempt
would have led to his arrest and as his plans for that day did not include
being arrested, he had hidden himself in the crevice where he could watch
unmolested.
Now as he sat on his stone, his eyes festering from heat, dust and lack
of sleep, the black-bearded man felt miserable. First he would sigh, opening
his travel-worn tallith, once blue but now turned dirty grey, and bare his
sweating, bruised chest, then he would raise his eyes to the sky in
inexpressible agony, following the three vultures who had long been circling
the hilltop in expectation of a feast, then gaze hopelessly at the yellow
soil where he stared at the half-crushed skull of a dog and the lizards that
scurried around it.
The man was in such distress that now and again he would talk to
himself.
'Oh, I am a fool,' he mumbled, rocking back and forth in agony of soul
and scratching his swarthy chest. ' I'm a fool, as stupid as a woman--and
I'm a coward! I'm a lump of carrion, not a man I '
He hung his head in silence, then revived by a drink of tepid water
from his wooden flask he gripped the knife hidden under his tallith or
fingered the piece of parchment lying on a stone in front of him with a
stylus and a bladder of ink.
On the parchment were some scribbled notes :
'Minutes pass while I, Matthew the Levite, sit here on Mount Golgotha
and still he is not dead!'
Late:
'The sun is setting and death not yet come.' Hopelessly, Matthew now
wrote with his sharp stylus :
'God! Why are you angry with him? Send him death.'
Having written this, he gave a tearless sob and again scratched his
chest.
The cause of the Levite's despair was his own and Yeshua's terrible
failure. He was also tortured by the fatal mistake which he, Matthew, had
committed. Two days before, Yeshua and Matthew had been in Bethphagy near
Jerusalem, where they had been staying with a market gardener who had taken
pleasure in Yeshua's preaching. All that morning the two men had helped
their host at work in his garden, intending to walk on to Jerusalem in the
cool of the evening. But for some reason Yeshua had been in a hurry, saying
that he had something urgent to do in the city, and had set off alone at
noon. That was Matthew the Levite's first mistake. Why, why had he let him
go alone?
That evening Matthew had been unable to go to Jerusalem, as he had
suffered a sudden and unexpected attack of sickness. He shivered, his body
felt as if it were on fire and he constantly begged for water.
To go anywhere was out of the question. He had collapsed on to a rug in
the gardener's courtyard and had lain there until dawn on Friday, when the
sickness left Matthew as suddenly as it had struck him. Although still weak,
he had felt oppressed by a foreboding of disaster and bidding his host
farewell had set out for Jerusalem. There he had learned that his foreboding
had not deceived him and that the disaster had occurred. The Levite had been
in the crowd that had heard the Procurator pronounce sentence.
When the prisoners were taken away to Mount Golgotha, Matthew the
Levite ran alongside the escort amid the crowd of sightseers, trying to give
Yeshua an inconspicuous signal that at least he, the Levite, was here with
him, that he had not abandoned him on his last journey and that he was
praying for Yeshua to be granted a quick death. But Yeshua, staring far
ahead to where they were taking him, could not see Matthew.
Then, when the procession had covered half a mile or so of the way,
Matthew, who was being pushed along by the crowd level with the prisoners'
cart, was struck by a brilliant and simple idea. In his fervour he cursed
himself for not having thought of it before. The soldiers were not marching
in close order, but with a gap between each man. With great dexterity and
very careful timing it would be possible to bend down and jump between two
legionaries, reach the cart and jump on it. Then Yeshua would be saved from
an agonising death. A moment would be enough to stab Yeshua in the back with
a knife, having shouted to him: ' Yeshua! I shall save you and depart with
you! I, Matthew, your faithful and only disciple!'
And if God were to bless him with one more moment of freedom he could
stab himself as well and avoid a death on the gallows. Not that Matthew, the
erstwhile tax-collector, cared much how he died: he wanted only one
thing--that Yeshua, who had never done anyone the least harm in his life,
should be spared the torture of crucifixion.
The plan was a very good one, but it had a great flaw--the Levite had
no knife and no money.
Furious with himself, Matthew pushed his way out of the crowd and ran
back to the city. His head burned with the single thought of how he might at
once, by whatever means, find a knife somewhere in town and then catch up