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he completely stopped all access of air to her chest. The can dropped from
Annushka's hand on to the floor. After keeping Annushka without air for some
time, the jacketless foreigner removed his fingers from her throat. Gulping
air, Annushka smiled.
'Ah, the little horseshoe?' she said. This very second! So it's your
little horseshoe? And I see it lying there in a napkin, I pick it up so that
no one takes it, and then just try finding it!'
Having received the little horseshoe and napkin, the foreigner started
bowing and scraping before Annushka, shook her hand firmly, and thanked her
warmly, with the strongest of foreign accents, in the following terms:
'I am deeply grateful to you, ma'am. This little horseshoe is dear to
me as a memento. And, for having preserved it, allow me to give you two
hundred roubles.' And he took the money from his waistcoat pocket at once
and handed it to Annushka.
She, smiling desperately, could only keep exclaiming:
'Ah, I humbly thank you! Merci! Merci!'
The generous foreigner cleared a whole flight of stairs in one leap,
but, before decamping definitively, shouted from below, now without any
accent:
'You old witch, if you ever pick up somebody else's stuff again, take
it to the police, don't hide it in your bosom!'
Feeling a ringing and commotion in her head from all these events on
the stairs, Annushka went on shouting for some time by inertia:
'Merci! Merci! Merci! ...' But the foreigner was long gone. And so was
the car in the courtyard. Having returned Woland's gift to Margarita,
Azazello said goodbye to her and asked if she was comfortably seated, Hella
exchanged smacking kisses with Margarita, the cat kissed her hand, everyone
waved to the master, who collapsed lifelessly and motionlessly in the corner
of the seat, waved to the rook, and at once melted into air, considering it
unnecessary to take the trouble of climbing the stairs. The rook turned the
lights on and rolled out through the gates, past the man lying dead asleep
under the archway. And the lights of the big black car disappeared among the
other lights on sleepless and noisy Sadovaya.
An hour later, in the basement of the small house in the lane off the
Arbat, in the front room, where everything was the same as it had been
before that terrible autumn night last year, at the table covered with a
velvet tablecloth, under the shaded lamp, near which stood a little vase of
lilies of the valley, Margarita sat and wept quietly from the shock she had
experienced and from happiness. The notebook disfigured by fire lay before
her, and next to it rose a pile of intact notebooks. The little house was
silent. On a sofa in the small adjoining room, covered with the hospital
robe, the master lay in a deep sleep. His even breathing was noiseless.
Having wept her fill, Margarita went to the intact notebooks and found
the place she had been rereading before she met Azazello under the Kremlin
wall. Margarita did not want to sleep. She caressed the manuscript tenderly,
as one caresses a favourite cat, and kept turning it in her hands, examining
it from all sides, now pausing at the tide page, now opening to the end. A
terrible thought suddenly swept over her, that this was all sorcery, that
the notebooks would presently disappear from sight, and she would be in her
bedroom in the old house, and that on waking up she would have to go and
drown herself. But this was her last terrible thought, an echo of the long
suffering she had lived through. Nothing disappeared, the all-powerful
Woland really was all-powerful, and as long as she liked, even till dawn
itself, Margarita could rustle the pages of the notebooks, gaze at them,
kiss them, and read over the words:
'The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city
hated by the procurator ...' Yes, the darkness...
The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city
hated by the procurator. The hanging bridges connecting the temple with the
dread Antonia Tower disappeared, the abyss descended from the sky and
flooded the winged gods over the hippodrome, the Hasmonaean Palace with its
loopholes, the bazaars, caravanserais, lanes, pools ... Yershalaim - the
great city - vanished as if it had never existed in the world. Everything
was devoured by the darkness, which frightened every living thing in
Yershalaim and round about. The strange cloud was swept from seaward towards
the end of the day, the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan.
It was already heaving its belly over Bald Skull, where the
executioners hastily stabbed the condemned men, it heaved itself over the
temple of Yershalaim, crept in smoky streams down the temple hill, and
flooded the Lower City. It poured through windows and drove people from the
crooked streets into the houses. It was in no hurry to yield up its moisture
and gave off only light. Each time the black smoky brew was ripped by fire,
the great bulk of the temple with its glittering scaly roof flew up out of
the pitch darkness. But the fire would instantly go out, and the temple
would sink into the dark abyss. Time and again it grew out of it and fell
back, and each time its collapse was accompanied by the thunder of
catastrophe.
Other tremulous glimmers called out of the abyss the palace of Herod
the Great, standing opposite the temple on the western hill, and its dread,
eyeless golden statues flew up into the black sky, stretching their arms out
to it. But again the heavenly fire would hide, and heavy claps of thunder
would drive the golden idols into the darkness.
The downpour burst unexpectedly, and then the storm turned into a
hurricane. In the very place where the procurator and the high priest had
had their talk around noon, by the marble bench in the garden, with the
sound of a cannon shot, a cypress snapped like a reed. Along with the watery
spray and hail, broken-off roses, magnolia leaves, small twigs and sand were
swept on to the balcony under the columns. The hurricane racked the garden.
At that time there was only one man under the columns, and that man was
the procurator.
Now he was not sitting in the chair but lying on a couch by a small,
low table set with food and jugs of wine. Another couch, empty, stood on the
other side of the table. By the procurator's feet spread an unwiped red
puddle, as if of blood, with pieces of a broken jug. The servant who was
setting the table for the procurator before the storm became disconcerted
for some reason under his gaze, grew alarmed at having displeased him in
some way, and the procurator, getting angry with him, smashed the jug on the
mosaic floor, saying:
"Why don't you look me in the face when you serve me? Have you stolen
something?'
The African's black face turned grey, mortal fear showed in his eyes,
he trembled and almost broke a second jug, but the procurator's wrath flew
away as quickly as it had flown in. The African rushed to remove the pieces
and wipe up the puddle, but the procurator waved his hand and the slave ran
away. The puddle remained.
Now, during the hurricane, the African was hiding near a niche in which
stood the statue of a white, naked woman with a drooping head, afraid of
appearing before the procurator's eyes at the wrong time, and at the same
time fearing to miss the moment when the procurator might call for him.
Lying on the couch in the storm's twilight, the procurator poured wine
into the cup himself, drank it in long draughts, occasionally touched the
bread, crumbled it, swallowed small pieces, sucked out an oyster from time
to time, chewed a lemon, and drank again.
Had it not been for the roaring of the water, had it not been for the
thunderclaps that seemed to threaten to lay flat the roof of the palace, had
it not been for the rattle of hail hammering on the steps of the balcony,
one might have heard that the procurator was muttering something, talking to
himself. And if the unsteady glimmering of the heavenly fire had turned into
a constant light, an observer would have been able to see that the
procurator's face, with eyes inflamed by recent insomnia and wine, showed
impatience, that the procurator was not only looking at the two white roses
drowned in the red puddle, but constantly turned his face towards the
garden, meeting the watery spray and sand, that he was waiting for someone,
impatiently waiting.
Time passed, and the veil of water before the procurator's eyes began
to thin. Furious as it was, the hurricane was weakening. Branches no longer
cracked and fell. The thunderclaps and flashes came less frequently. It was
no longer a violet coverlet trimmed with white, but an ordinary, grey
rear-guard cloud that floated over Yershalaim. The storm was being swept
towards the Dead Sea.
Now it was possible to hear separately the noise of the rain and the
noise of water rushing along the gutters and also straight down the steps of
that stairway upon which the procurator had walked in the afternoon to
announce the sentence in the square. And finally the hitherto drowned-out
fountain made itself heard. It was growing lighter. Blue windows appeared in
the grey veil fleeing eastward.
Here, from far off, breaking through the patter of the now quite
weakened rainfall, there came to the procurator's ears a weak sound of
trumpets and the tapping of several hundred hoofs. Hearing this, the
procurator stirred, and his face livened up. The ala was coming back from
Bald Mountain. Judging by the sound, it was passing through the same square
where the sentence had been announced.
At last the procurator heard the long-awaited footsteps and a slapping
on the stairs leading to the upper terrace of the garden, just in front of
the balcony. The procurator stretched his neck and his eyes glinted with an
expression of joy.
Between the two marble lions there appeared first a hooded head, then a
completely drenched man with his cloak clinging to his body. It was the same
man who had exchanged whispers with the procurator in a darkened room of the
palace before the sentencing, and who during the execution had sat on a
three-legged stool playing with a twig.
Heedless of puddles, the man in the hood crossed the garden terrace,
stepped on to the mosaic floor of the balcony, and, raising his arm, said in
a high, pleasant voice:
'Health and joy to the procurator!' The visitor spoke in Latin.
'Gods!' exclaimed Pilate. 'There's not a dry stitch on you! What a
hurricane! Eh? I beg you to go inside immediately. Do me a favour and change
your clothes.'
The visitor threw back his hood, revealing a completely wet head with
hair plastered to the forehead, and, showing a polite smile on his
clean-shaven face, began refusing to change, insisting that a little rain
would not hurt him.
'I won't hear of it,' Pilate replied and clapped his hands. With that
he called out the servants who were hiding from him, and told them to take
care of the visitor and then serve the hot course immediately.
The procurator's visitor required very little time to dry his hair,
change his clothes and shoes, and generally put himself in order, and he
soon appeared on the balcony in dry sandals, a dry crimson military cloak,
and with slicked-down hair.
Just then the sun returned to Yershalaim, and, before going to drown in
the Mediterranean Sea, sent farewell rays to the city hated by the
procurator and gilded the steps of the balcony. The fountain revived
completely and sang away with all its might, doves came out on the sand,
cooing, hopping over broken branches, pecking at something in the wet sand.
The red puddle was wiped up, the broken pieces were removed, meat steamed on
the table.
'I wait to hear the procurator's orders,' said the visitor, approaching
the table.
'But you won't hear anything until you sit down and drink some wine,'
Pilate replied courteously and pointed to the other couch.
The visitor reclined, a servant poured some thick red wine into his
cup. Another servant, leaning cautiously over Pilate's shoulder, filled the
procurator's cup. After that, he motioned for the two servants to withdraw.
While the visitor drank and ate, Pilate, sipping his wine, kept
glancing with narrowed eyes at his guest. The man who had come to Pilate was
middle-aged, with a very pleasant, rounded and neat face and a fleshy mouth.
His hair was of some indeterminate colour. Now, as it dried, it became
lighter. It would be difficult to establish the man's nationality. The chief
determinant of his face was perhaps its good-natured expression, which,
however, was not in accord with his eyes, or, rather, not his eyes but the
visitor's way of looking at his interlocutor. Ordinarily he kept his small
eyes under his lowered, somewhat strange, as if slightly swollen eyelids.
Then the slits of these eyes shone with an unspiteful slyness. It must be
supposed that the procurator's guest had a propensity for humour. But
occasionally, driving this glittering humour from the slits entirely, the
procurator's present guest would open his eyelids wide and look at his
interlocutor suddenly and point-blank, as if with the purpose of rapidly
scrutinizing some inconspicuous spot on his interlocutor's nose. This lasted
only an instant, after which the eyelids would lower again, the slits would
narrow, and once again they would begin to shine with good-naturedness and
sly intelligence.
The visitor did not decline a second cup of wine, swallowed a few
oysters with obvious pleasure, tried some steamed vegetables, ate a piece of
meat. Having eaten his fill, he praised the wine:
`An excellent vintage, Procurator, but it is not Falerno?''
'Caecuba, [2] thirty years old,' the procurator replied courteously.
The guest put his hand to his heart, declined to eat more, declared that he
was full. Then Pilate filled his own cup, and the guest did the same. Both
diners poured some wine from their cups on to the meat platter, and the
procurator, raising his cup, said loudly:
'For us, for thee, Caesar, father of the Romans, best and dearest of
men! ...'
After this they finished the wine, and the Africans removed the food
from the table, leaving the fruit and the jugs. Again the procurator
motioned for the servants to withdraw and remained alone with his guest
under the colonnade.
'And so,' Pilate began in a low voice, 'what can you tell me about the
mood of this city?'
He inadvertently turned his eyes to where the colonnades and flat roofs
below, beyond the terraces of the garden, were drying out, gilded by the
last rays.
`I believe, Procurator,' the guest replied, `that the mood of
Yershalaim is now satisfactory.'
'So it can be guaranteed that there is no threat of further disorders?'
'Only one thing can be guaranteed in this world,' the guest replied,
glancing tenderly at the procurator, 'the power of great Caesar.'
'May the gods grant him long life!' Pilate picked up at once, 'and
universal peace!' He paused and then continued: 'So you believe the troops
can now be withdrawn?'
'I believe that the cohort of the Lightning legion can go,' the guest
replied and added: 'It would be good if it paraded through the city in
farewell.'
'A very good thought,' the procurator approved, 'I will dismiss it the
day after tomorrow, and go myself, and - I swear to you by the feast of the
twelve gods, [3] by the lares [4] I swear - I'd give a lot to be able to do
so today!'
'The procurator doesn't like Yershalaim?' the guest asked
good-naturedly.
`Good heavens,' the procurator exclaimed, smiling, `there's no more
hopeless place on earth. I'm not even speaking of natural conditions - I get
sick every time I have to come here - but that's only half the trouble! ...
But these feasts! ... Magicians, sorcerers, wizards, these flocks of
pilgrims! ... Fanatics, fanatics! ... Just take this messiah [5] they
suddenly started expecting this year! Every moment you think you're about to
witness the most unpleasant bloodshed... The shifting of troops all the
time, reading denunciations and calumnies, half of which, moreover, are
written against yourself! You must agree, it's boring. Oh, if it weren't for
the imperial service!'
'Yes, the feasts are hard here,' agreed the guest.
'I wish with all my heart that they should be over soon,' Pilate added
energetically. `I will finally have the possibility of going back to
Caesarea. Believe me, this delirious construction of Herod's' - the
procurator waved his arm along the colonnade, to make clear that he was
speaking of the palace - 'positively drives me out of my mind! I cannot
spend my nights in it. The world has never known a stranger architecture!
... Well, but let's get back to business. First of all, this cursed
Bar-Rabban - you're not worried about him?'
And here the guest sent his peculiar glance at the procurator's cheek.
But the latter, frowning squeamishly, gazed into the distance with
bored eyes, contemplating the part of the city that lay at his feet and was
fading into the twilight. The guest's eyes also faded, and his eyelids
lowered.
'It may be supposed that Bar has now become as harmless as a lamb,' the
guest began to say, and wrinkles appeared on his round face. `It would be
awkward for him to rebel now.'
'Too famous?' Pilate asked with a smirk.
"The procurator has subtly understood the problem, as always.'
'But in any case,' the procurator observed with concern, and the thin,
long finger with the black stone of its ring was raised, 'there must be...'
'Oh, the procurator can be certain that as long as I am in Judea, Bar
will not take a step without having someone on his heels.'
'Now I am at peace - as I always am, incidentally, when you are here.'
The procurator is too kind!'
`And now I ask you to tell me about the execution,' said the
procurator.
'What precisely interests the procurator?'
Were there any attempts on the part of the crowd to display
rebelliousness? That is the main thing, of course.'
'None,' replied the guest.
'Very good. Did you personally establish that death took place?'
"The procurator may be certain of it.'
`And tell me ... were they given the drink before being hung on the
posts?'[6]
'Yes. But he,' here the guest closed his eyes, 'refused to drink it.'
'Who, precisely?' asked Pilate.
`Forgive me, Hegemon!' the guest exclaimed. `Did I not name him?
Ha-Nozri!'
'Madman!' said Pilate, grimacing for some reason. A little nerve began
to twitch under his left eye. To die of sunburn! Why refuse what is offered
by law! In what terms did he refuse it?'
'He said,' the guest answered, again closing his eyes, 'that he was
grateful and laid no blame for the taking of his life.'
'On whom?' Pilate asked in a hollow voice.
That he did not say, Hegemon...'
'Did he try to preach anything in the soldiers' presence?'
'No, Hegemon, he was not loquacious this time. The only thing he said
was that among human vices he considered cowardice one of the first.'[7]
This was said with regard to what?' the guest heard a suddenly cracked
voice.
That was impossible to understand. He generally behaved himself
strangely - as always, however.'
'What was this strangeness?'
'He kept trying to peer into the eyes of one or another of those around
him, and kept smiling some sort of lost smile.'
'Nothing else?' asked the hoarse voice.
'Nothing else.'
The procurator knocked against the cup as he poured himself some wine.
After draining it to the very bottom, he spoke:
The matter consists in the following: though we have been unable - so
far at least - to discover any admirers or followers of his, it is none the
less impossible to guarantee that there are none.'
The guest listened attentively, inclining his head.
'And so, to avoid surprises of any sort,' the procurator continued, 'I
ask you to remove the bodies of all three executed men from the face of the
earth, immediately and without any noise, and to bury them in secrecy and
silence, so that not another word or whisper is heard of them.'
'Understood, Hegemon,' replied the guest, and he got up, saying:
'In view of the complexity and responsibility of the matter, allow me
to go immediately.'
'No, sit down again,' said Pilate, stopping his guest with a gesture,
`there are two more questions. First, your enormous merits in this most
difficult job at the post of head of the secret service for the procurator
of Judea give me the pleasant opportunity of reporting them to Rome.'
Here the guest's face turned pink, he rose and bowed to the procurator,
saying:
'I merely fulfil my duty in the imperial service.'
`But I wanted to ask you,' the hegemon continued, `in case you're
offered a transfer elsewhere with a raise - to decline it and remain here. I
wouldn't want to part with you for anything. Let them reward you in some
other way.'
'I am happy to serve under your command, Hegemon.'
'That pleases me very much. And so, the second question. It concerns
this ... what's his name ... Judas of Kiriath.'
Here the guest sent the procurator his glance, and at once, as was his
custom, extinguished it.
They say,' the procurator continued, lowering his voice, `that he
supposedly got some money for receiving this madman so cordially?'
'Will get,' the head of the secret service quietly corrected Pilate.
'And is it a large sum?'
That no one can say, Hegemon.'
'Not even you?' said the hegemon, expressing praise by his amazement.
'Alas, not even I,' the guest calmly replied. "But he will get the
money this evening, that I do know. He is to be summoned tonight to the
palace of Kaifa.'
'Ah, that greedy old man of Kiriath!' the procurator observed, smiling.
'He is an old man, isn't he?'
The procurator is never mistaken, but he is mistaken this time,' the
guest replied courteously, 'me man from Kiriath is a young man.'
'You don't say! Can you describe his character for me? A fanatic?'
'Oh, no, Procurator.'
'So. And anything else?''
'Very handsome.'
'What else? He has some passion, perhaps?'
'It is difficult to have such precise knowledge about everyone in this
huge city, Procurator ...'
'Ah, no, no, Aphranius! Don't play down your merits.'
'He has one passion, Procurator.' The guest made a tiny pause. 'A
passion for money.'
'And what is his occupation?'
Aphranius raised his eyes, thought, and replied:
'He works in the money-changing shop of one of his relatives.'
'Ah, so, so, so, so.' Here the procurator fell silent, looked around to
be sure there was no one on the balcony, and then said quietly:
The thing is this - I have just received information that he is going
to be killed tonight.'
This time the guest not only cast his glance at the procurator, but
even held it briefly, and after that replied:
'You spoke too flatteringly of me, Procurator. In my opinion, I do not
deserve your report. This information I do not have.'
'You deserve the highest reward,' the procurator replied. 'But there is
such information.'
'May I be so bold as to ask who supplied it?'
`Permit me not to say for the time being, the more so as it is
accidental, obscure and uncertain. But it is my duty to foresee everything.
That is my job, and most of all I must trust my presentiment, for it has
never yet deceived me. The information is that one of Ha-Nozri's secret
friends, indignant at this money-changer's monstrous betrayal, is plotting
with his accomplices to kill him tonight, and to foist the money paid for
the betrayal on the high priest, with a note:
"I return the cursed money."'
The head of the secret service cast no more of his unexpected glances
at the hegemon, but went on listening to him, narrowing his eyes, as Pilate
went on:
'Imagine, is it going to be pleasant for the high priest to receive
such a gift on the night of the feast?'
'Not only not pleasant,' the guest replied, smiling, 'but I believe,
Procurator, that it will cause a very great scandal.'
'I am of the same opinion myself. And therefore I ask you to occupy
yourself with this matter - that is, to take all measures to protect Judas
of Kiriath.'
'The hegemon's order will be carried out,' said Aphranius, 'but I must
reassure the hegemon: the evil-doers' plot is very hard to bring off. Only
think,' the guest looked over his shoulder as he spoke and went on, 'to
track the man down, to kill him, and besides that to find out how much he
got, and manage to return the money to Kaifa, and all that in one night?
Tonight?'
`And none the less he will be killed tonight,' Pilate stubbornly
repeated. `I have a presentiment, I tell you! Never once has it deceived
me.' Here a spasm passed over the procurator's face, and he rubbed his hands
briskly.
'Understood,' the guest obediently replied, stood up, straightened out,
and suddenly asked sternly: 'So they will kill him, Hegemon?'
'Yes,' answered Pilate, 'and all hope lies in your efficiency alone,
which amazes everyone.'
The guest adjusted the heavy belt under his cloak and said:
'I salute you and wish you health and joy!'
'Ah, yes,' Pilate exclaimed softly, 'I completely forgot! I owe you
something! ...'
The guest was amazed.
'Really, Procurator, you owe me nothing.'
'But of course! As I was riding into Yershalaim, remember, the crowd of
beggars ... I wanted to throw them some money, but I didn't have any, and so
I took it from you.'
'Oh, Procurator, it was a trifle!'
'One ought to remember trifles, too.' Here Pilate turned, picked up the
cloak that lay on the chair behind him, took a leather bag from under it,
and handed it to the guest. The man bowed, accepting it, and put the bag
under his cloak.
'I expect a report on the burial,' said Pilate, 'and also on the matter
to do with Judas of Kiriath, this same night, do you hear, Aphranius, this
night. The convoy will have orders to awaken me the moment you appear. I'll
be expecting you.'
'I salute you,' the head of the secret service said and, turning, left
the balcony. One could hear the wet sand crunch under his feet, then the
stamp of his boots on the marble between the lions, then his legs were cut
off, then his body, and finally the hood also disappeared. Only here did the
procurator notice that the sun was gone and twilight had come.
And perhaps it was the twilight that caused such a sharp change in the
procurator's appearance. He aged, grew hunched as if before one's eyes, and,
besides that, became alarmed. Once he looked around and gave a start for
some reason, casting an eye on the empty chair with the cloak thrown over
its back. The night of the feast was approaching, the evening shadows played
their game, and the tired procurator probably imagined that someone was
sitting in the empty chair. Yielding to his faint-heartedness and ruffling
the cloak, the procurator let it drop and began rushing about the balcony,
now rubbing his hands, now rushing to the table and seizing the cup, now
stopping and staring senselessly at the mosaics of the floor, as if trying
to read something written there ... It was the second time in the same day
that anguish came over him.
Rubbing his temple, where only a dull, slightly aching reminder of the
morning's infernal pain lingered, the procurator strained to understand what
the reason for his soul's torments was. And he quickly understood it, but
attempted to deceive himself. It was clear to him that that afternoon he had
lost something irretrievably, and that he now wanted to make up for the loss
by some petty, worthless and, above all, belated actions. The deceiving of
himself consisted in the procurator's trying to convince himself that these
actions, now, this evening, were no less important than the morning's
sentence. But in this the procurator succeeded very poorly.
At one of his turns, he stopped abruptly and whistled. In response to
this whistle, a low barking resounded in the twilight, and a gigantic
sharp-eared dog with a grey pelt and a gold-studded collar sprang from the
garden on to the balcony.
'Banga, Banga,' the procurator cried weakly.
The dog rose on his hind legs, placed his front paws on his master's
shoulders, nearly knocking him to the floor, and licked his cheek. The
procurator sat down in the armchair. Banga, his tongue hanging out, panting
heavily, lay down at his master's feet, and the joy in the dog's eyes meant
that the storm was over, the only thing in the world that the fearless dog
was afraid of, and also that he was again there, next to the man whom he
loved, respected, and considered the most powerful man in the world, the
ruler of all men, thanks to whom the dog considered himself a privileged,
lofty and special being. Lying down at his master's feet without even
looking at him, but looking into the dusky garden, the dog nevertheless
realized at once that trouble had befallen his master. He therefore changed
his position, got up, came from the side and placed his front paws and head
on the procurator's knees, smearing the bottom of his cloak with wet sand.
Banga's actions were probably meant to signify that he comforted his master
and was ready to meet misfortune with him. He also attempted to express this
with his eyes, casting sidelong glances at his master, and with his alert,
pricked-up ears. Thus the two of them, the dog and man who loved each other,
met the night of the feast on the balcony.
Just then the procurator's guest was in the midst of a great bustle.
After leaving the upper terrace of the garden before the balcony, he
went down the stairs to the next terrace of the garden, turned right and
came to the barracks which stood on the palace grounds. In these barracks
the two centuries that had come with the procurator for the feast in
Yershalaim were quartered, as was the procurator's secret guard, which was
under the command of this very guest. The guest did not spend much time in
the barracks, no more than ten minutes, but at the end of these ten minutes,
three carts drove out of the barracks yard loaded with entrenching tools and
a barrel of water. The carts were escorted by fifteen mounted men in grey
cloaks. Under their escort the carts left the palace grounds by the rear
gate, turned west, drove through gates in the city wall, and followed a path
first to the Bethlehem road, then down this road to the north, came to the
intersection by the Hebron gate, and then moved down the Jaffa road, along
which the procession had gone during the day with the men condemned to
death. By that time it was already dark, and the moon appeared on the
horizon.
Soon after the departure of the carts with their escorting detachment,
the procurator's guest also left the palace grounds on horseback, having
changed into a dark, worn chiton. The guest went not out of the city but
into it. Some time later he could be seen approaching the Antonia Fortress,
located to the north and in the vicinity of the great temple.
The guest did not spend much time in the fortress either, and then his
tracks turned up in the Lower City, in its crooked and tangled streets. Here
the guest now came riding a mule.
Knowing the city well, the guest easily found the street he wanted. It
was called Greek Street, because there were several Greek shops on it, among
them one that sold carpets. Precisely by this shop, the guest stopped his
mule, dismounted, and tied it to the ring by the gate. The shop was closed
by then. The guest walked through the little gate beside the entrance to the
shop and found himself in a small square courtyard surrounded on three sides
by sheds. Turning a corner inside the yard, the guest came to the stone
terrace of a house all twined with ivy and looked around. Both the little
house and the sheds were dark, no lamps were lit yet. The guest called
softly:
'Niza!'
At this call a door creaked, and in the evening twilight a young woman
without a veil appeared on the terrace. She leaned over the railing, peering
anxiously, wishing to know who had come. Recognizing the visitor, she smiled
amiably to him, nodded her head, waved her hand.
'Are you alone?' Aphranius asked softly in Greek.
'Yes,' the woman on the terrace whispered, `my husband left for
Caesarea in the morning.' Here the woman looked back at the door and added
in a whisper: 'But the serving-woman is at home.' Here she made a gesture
meaning 'Come in'.
Aphranius looked around and went up the stone steps. After which both
he and the woman disappeared into the house. With this woman Aphranius spent
very little time, certainly no more than five minutes. After which he left
the house and the terrace, pulled the hood down lower on his eyes, and went
out to the street. Just then the lamps were being lit in the houses, the
pre-festive tumult was still considerable, and Aphranius on his mule lost
himself in the stream of riders and passers-by. His subsequent route is not
known to anyone.
The woman Aphranius called 'Niza', left alone, began changing her
clothes, and was hurrying greatly. But difficult though it was for her to
find the things she needed in the dark room, she did not light a lamp or
call the serving-woman. Only after she was ready and her head was covered by
a dark veil did the sound of her voice break the silence in the little
house:
'If anyone asks for me, say I went to visit Enanta.'
The old serving-woman's grumbling was heard in the darkness:
'Enanta? Ah, this Enanta! Didn't your husband forbid you to visit her?
She's a procuress, your Enanta! Wait till I tell your husband ...'
'Well, well, be quiet,' Niza replied and, like a shadow, slipped out of
the house. Niza's sandals pattered over the stone flags of the yard. The
serving-woman, grumbling, shut the door to the terrace. Niza left her house.
Just at that time, from another lane in the Lower City, a twisting lane
that ran down from ledge to ledge to one of the city pools, from the gates
of an unsightly house with a blank wall looking on to the lane and windows
on the courtyard, came a young man with a neatly trimmed beard, wearing a
white kefia falling to his shoulders, a new pale blue festive tallith with
tassels at the bottom, and creaking new sandals. The handsome,
aquiline-nosed young fellow, all dressed up for the great feast, walked
briskly, getting ahead of passers-by hurrying home for the solemn meal, and
watched as one window after another lit up. The young man took the street
leading past the bazaar to the palace of the high priest Kaifa, located at
the foot of the temple hill.
Some time later he could be seen entering the gates of Kaifa's
courtyard. And a bit later still, leaving the same courtyard.
After visiting the palace, where the lamps and torches already blazed,
and where the festive bustle had already begun, the young man started
walking still more briskly, still more joyfully, hastening back to the Lower
City. At the corner where the street flowed into the market-place, amidst
the seething and tumult, he was overtaken by a slight woman, walking with a
dancer's gait, in a black veil that came down over her eyes. As she overtook
the handsome young man, this woman raised her veil for a moment, cast a
glance in the young man's direction, yet not only did not slow her pace, but
quickened it, as if trying to escape from the one she had overtaken.
The young man not only noticed this woman, no, he also recognized her,
and, having recognized her, gave a start, halted, looking perplexedly into
her back, and at once set out after her. Almost knocking over some passer-by
carrying a jug, the young man caught up with the woman, and, breathing
heavily with agitation, called out to her:
'Niza!'
The woman turned, narrowed her eyes, her face showing cold vexation,
and replied drily in Greek:
'Ah, it's you, Judas? I didn't recognize you at once. That's good,
though. With us, if someone's not recognized, it's a sign he'll get rich
...'
So agitated that his heart started leaping like a bird under a black
cloth, Judas asked in a faltering whisper, for fear passers-by might
overhear:
'Where are you going, Niza?'
'And what do you want to know that for?' replied Niza, slowing her pace
and looking haughtily at Judas.
Then some sort of childish intonations began to sound in Judas's voice,
he whispered in bewilderment:
'But why? ... We had it all arranged ... I wanted to come to you, you
said you'd be home all evening ...'
'Ah, no, no,' answered Niza, and she pouted her lower lip capriciously,
which made it seem to Judas that her face, the most beautiful face he had
ever seen in his life, became still more beautiful. `I was bored. You're
having a feast, and what am I supposed to do? Sit and listen to you sighing
on the terrace? And be afraid, on top of it, that the serving-woman will
tell him about it? No, no, I decided to go out of town and listen to the
nightingales.'
'How, out of town?' the bewildered Judas asked. 'Alone?'
'Of course, alone,' answered Niza.
'Let me accompany you, Judas asked breathlessly. His mind clouded, he
forgot everything in the world and looked with imploring eyes into the blue
eyes of Niza, which now seemed black.
Niza said nothing and quickened her pace.
'Why are you silent, Niza?' Judas said pitifully, adjusting his pace to
hers.
Won't I be bored with you?' Niza suddenly asked and stopped. Here
Judas's thoughts became totally confused.
Well, all right,' Niza finally softened, 'come along.'
'But where, where?'
"Wait ... let's go into this yard and arrange it, otherwise I'm afraid
some acquaintance will see me and then they'll tell my husband I was out
with my lover.'
And here Niza and Judas were no longer in the bazaar, they were
whispering under the gateway of some yard.
'Go to the olive estate,' Niza whispered, pulling the veil over her
eyes and turning away from a man who was coming through the gateway with a
bucket, 'to Gethsemane, beyond the Kedron, understand?'
'Yes, yes, yes...'
`I'll go ahead,' Niza continued, `but don't follow on my heels. Keep
separate from me. I'll go ahead ... When you cross the stream ... you know
where the grotto is?'
'I know, I know...'
'Go up past the olive press and turn to the grotto. I'll be there. Only
don't you dare come after me at once, be patient, wait here,' and with these
words Niza walked out the gateway as though she had never spoken with Judas.
Judas stood for some time alone, trying to collect his scattering
thoughts. Among them was the thought of how he was going to explain his
absence from the festal family meal. Judas stood thinking up some lie, but
in his agitation was unable to think through or prepare anything properly,
and slowly walked out the gateway.
Now he changed his route, he was no longer heading towards the Lower
City, but turned back to Kaifa's palace. The feast had already entered the
city. In the windows around Judas, not only were lights shining, but hymns
of praise were heard. On the pavement, belated passers-by urged their
donkeys on, whipping them up, shouting at them. Judas's legs carried him by
themselves, and he did not notice how the terrible, mossy Antonia Towers
flew past him, he did not hear the roar of trumpets in the fortress, did not
pay attention to the mounted Roman patrol and its torch that flooded his
path with an alarming light.
Turning after he passed the tower, Judas saw that in the terrible
height above the temple two gigantic five-branched candlesticks blazed. But
even these Judas made out vaguely. It seemed to him that ten lamps of an
unprecedented size lit up over Yershalaim, competing with the light of the
single lamp that was rising ever higher over Yershalaim - the moon.
Now Judas could not be bothered with anything, he headed for the
Gethsemane gate, he wanted to leave the city quickly. At times it seemed to
him that before him, among the backs and faces of passers-by, the dancing
little figure flashed, leading him after her. But this was an illusion.
Judas realized that Niza was significantly ahead of him. Judas rushed past
the money-changing shops and finally got to the Gethsemane gate. There,
burning with impatience, he was still forced to wait. Camels were coming
into the city, and after them rode a Syrian military patrol, which Judas
cursed mentally ...
But all things come to an end. The impatient Judas was already beyond
the city wall. To the left of him Judas saw a small cemetery, next to it
several striped pilgrims' tents. Crossing the dusty road flooded with
moonlight, Judas headed for the stream of the Kedron with the intention of
wading across it. The water babbled quietly under Judas's feet. Jumping from
stone to stone, he finally came out on the Gethsemane bank opposite and saw
with great joy that here the road below the gardens was empty. The
half-ruined gates of the olive estate could already be seen not far away.
After the stuffy city, Judas was struck by the stupefying smell of the
spring night. From the garden a wave of myrtle and acacia from the
Gethsemane glades poured over the fence.
No one was guarding the gateway, there was no one in it, and a few
minutes later Judas was already running under the mysterious shade of the
enormous, spreading olive trees. The road went uphill. Judas ascended,
breathing heavily, at times emerging from the darkness on to patterned
carpets of moonlight, which reminded him of the carpets he had seen in the
shop of Niza's jealous husband.
A short time later there flashed at Judas's left hand, in a clearing,
an olive press with a heavy stone wheel and a pile of barrels. There was no
one in the garden, work had ended at sunset, and now over Judas choirs of
nightingales pealed and trilled.
Judas's goal was near. He knew that on his right in the darkness he
would presently begin to hear the soft whisper of water falling in the
grotto. And so it happened, he heard it. It was getting cooler. Then he
slowed his pace and called softly:
'Niza!'
But instead of Niza, a stocky male figure, detaching itself from a
thick olive trunk, leaped out on the road, and something gleamed in its hand
and at once went out. With a weak cry, Judas rushed back, but a second man
barred his way.
The first man, in front of him, asked Judas:
'How much did you just get? Speak, if you want to save your life!' Hope
flared up in Judas's heart, and he cried out desperately:
Thirty tetradrachmas!' Thirty tetradrachmas! I have it all with me!
Here's the money! Take it, but grant me my life!'
The man in front instantly snatched the purse from Judas's hands. And
at the same instant a knife flew up behind Judas's back and struck the lover
under the shoulder-blade. Judas was flung forward and thrust out his hands
with clawed fingers into the air. The front man caught Judas on his knife
and buried it up to the hilt in Judas's heart.
'Ni ... za ...'Judas said, not in his own high and clear young voice,
but in a low and reproachful one, and uttered not another sound. His body
struck the earth so hard that it hummed.
Then a third figure appeared on the road. This third one wore a cloak
with a hood.
`Don't linger,' he ordered. The killers quickly wrapped the purse
together with a note handed to them by the third man in a piece of hide and
criss-crossed it with twine. The second put the bundle into his bosom, and
then the two killers plunged off the roadsides and the darkness between the
olive trees ate them. The third squatted down by the murdered man and looked
at his face. In the darkness it appeared white as chalk to the gazing man
and somehow spiritually beautiful.
A few seconds later there was not a living man on the road. The
lifeless body lay with outstretched arms. The left foot was in a spot of
moonlight, so that each strap of the sandal could be seen distinctly. The
whole garden of Gethsemane was just then pealing with the song of
Annushka's hand on to the floor. After keeping Annushka without air for some
time, the jacketless foreigner removed his fingers from her throat. Gulping
air, Annushka smiled.
'Ah, the little horseshoe?' she said. This very second! So it's your
little horseshoe? And I see it lying there in a napkin, I pick it up so that
no one takes it, and then just try finding it!'
Having received the little horseshoe and napkin, the foreigner started
bowing and scraping before Annushka, shook her hand firmly, and thanked her
warmly, with the strongest of foreign accents, in the following terms:
'I am deeply grateful to you, ma'am. This little horseshoe is dear to
me as a memento. And, for having preserved it, allow me to give you two
hundred roubles.' And he took the money from his waistcoat pocket at once
and handed it to Annushka.
She, smiling desperately, could only keep exclaiming:
'Ah, I humbly thank you! Merci! Merci!'
The generous foreigner cleared a whole flight of stairs in one leap,
but, before decamping definitively, shouted from below, now without any
accent:
'You old witch, if you ever pick up somebody else's stuff again, take
it to the police, don't hide it in your bosom!'
Feeling a ringing and commotion in her head from all these events on
the stairs, Annushka went on shouting for some time by inertia:
'Merci! Merci! Merci! ...' But the foreigner was long gone. And so was
the car in the courtyard. Having returned Woland's gift to Margarita,
Azazello said goodbye to her and asked if she was comfortably seated, Hella
exchanged smacking kisses with Margarita, the cat kissed her hand, everyone
waved to the master, who collapsed lifelessly and motionlessly in the corner
of the seat, waved to the rook, and at once melted into air, considering it
unnecessary to take the trouble of climbing the stairs. The rook turned the
lights on and rolled out through the gates, past the man lying dead asleep
under the archway. And the lights of the big black car disappeared among the
other lights on sleepless and noisy Sadovaya.
An hour later, in the basement of the small house in the lane off the
Arbat, in the front room, where everything was the same as it had been
before that terrible autumn night last year, at the table covered with a
velvet tablecloth, under the shaded lamp, near which stood a little vase of
lilies of the valley, Margarita sat and wept quietly from the shock she had
experienced and from happiness. The notebook disfigured by fire lay before
her, and next to it rose a pile of intact notebooks. The little house was
silent. On a sofa in the small adjoining room, covered with the hospital
robe, the master lay in a deep sleep. His even breathing was noiseless.
Having wept her fill, Margarita went to the intact notebooks and found
the place she had been rereading before she met Azazello under the Kremlin
wall. Margarita did not want to sleep. She caressed the manuscript tenderly,
as one caresses a favourite cat, and kept turning it in her hands, examining
it from all sides, now pausing at the tide page, now opening to the end. A
terrible thought suddenly swept over her, that this was all sorcery, that
the notebooks would presently disappear from sight, and she would be in her
bedroom in the old house, and that on waking up she would have to go and
drown herself. But this was her last terrible thought, an echo of the long
suffering she had lived through. Nothing disappeared, the all-powerful
Woland really was all-powerful, and as long as she liked, even till dawn
itself, Margarita could rustle the pages of the notebooks, gaze at them,
kiss them, and read over the words:
'The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city
hated by the procurator ...' Yes, the darkness...
The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city
hated by the procurator. The hanging bridges connecting the temple with the
dread Antonia Tower disappeared, the abyss descended from the sky and
flooded the winged gods over the hippodrome, the Hasmonaean Palace with its
loopholes, the bazaars, caravanserais, lanes, pools ... Yershalaim - the
great city - vanished as if it had never existed in the world. Everything
was devoured by the darkness, which frightened every living thing in
Yershalaim and round about. The strange cloud was swept from seaward towards
the end of the day, the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan.
It was already heaving its belly over Bald Skull, where the
executioners hastily stabbed the condemned men, it heaved itself over the
temple of Yershalaim, crept in smoky streams down the temple hill, and
flooded the Lower City. It poured through windows and drove people from the
crooked streets into the houses. It was in no hurry to yield up its moisture
and gave off only light. Each time the black smoky brew was ripped by fire,
the great bulk of the temple with its glittering scaly roof flew up out of
the pitch darkness. But the fire would instantly go out, and the temple
would sink into the dark abyss. Time and again it grew out of it and fell
back, and each time its collapse was accompanied by the thunder of
catastrophe.
Other tremulous glimmers called out of the abyss the palace of Herod
the Great, standing opposite the temple on the western hill, and its dread,
eyeless golden statues flew up into the black sky, stretching their arms out
to it. But again the heavenly fire would hide, and heavy claps of thunder
would drive the golden idols into the darkness.
The downpour burst unexpectedly, and then the storm turned into a
hurricane. In the very place where the procurator and the high priest had
had their talk around noon, by the marble bench in the garden, with the
sound of a cannon shot, a cypress snapped like a reed. Along with the watery
spray and hail, broken-off roses, magnolia leaves, small twigs and sand were
swept on to the balcony under the columns. The hurricane racked the garden.
At that time there was only one man under the columns, and that man was
the procurator.
Now he was not sitting in the chair but lying on a couch by a small,
low table set with food and jugs of wine. Another couch, empty, stood on the
other side of the table. By the procurator's feet spread an unwiped red
puddle, as if of blood, with pieces of a broken jug. The servant who was
setting the table for the procurator before the storm became disconcerted
for some reason under his gaze, grew alarmed at having displeased him in
some way, and the procurator, getting angry with him, smashed the jug on the
mosaic floor, saying:
"Why don't you look me in the face when you serve me? Have you stolen
something?'
The African's black face turned grey, mortal fear showed in his eyes,
he trembled and almost broke a second jug, but the procurator's wrath flew
away as quickly as it had flown in. The African rushed to remove the pieces
and wipe up the puddle, but the procurator waved his hand and the slave ran
away. The puddle remained.
Now, during the hurricane, the African was hiding near a niche in which
stood the statue of a white, naked woman with a drooping head, afraid of
appearing before the procurator's eyes at the wrong time, and at the same
time fearing to miss the moment when the procurator might call for him.
Lying on the couch in the storm's twilight, the procurator poured wine
into the cup himself, drank it in long draughts, occasionally touched the
bread, crumbled it, swallowed small pieces, sucked out an oyster from time
to time, chewed a lemon, and drank again.
Had it not been for the roaring of the water, had it not been for the
thunderclaps that seemed to threaten to lay flat the roof of the palace, had
it not been for the rattle of hail hammering on the steps of the balcony,
one might have heard that the procurator was muttering something, talking to
himself. And if the unsteady glimmering of the heavenly fire had turned into
a constant light, an observer would have been able to see that the
procurator's face, with eyes inflamed by recent insomnia and wine, showed
impatience, that the procurator was not only looking at the two white roses
drowned in the red puddle, but constantly turned his face towards the
garden, meeting the watery spray and sand, that he was waiting for someone,
impatiently waiting.
Time passed, and the veil of water before the procurator's eyes began
to thin. Furious as it was, the hurricane was weakening. Branches no longer
cracked and fell. The thunderclaps and flashes came less frequently. It was
no longer a violet coverlet trimmed with white, but an ordinary, grey
rear-guard cloud that floated over Yershalaim. The storm was being swept
towards the Dead Sea.
Now it was possible to hear separately the noise of the rain and the
noise of water rushing along the gutters and also straight down the steps of
that stairway upon which the procurator had walked in the afternoon to
announce the sentence in the square. And finally the hitherto drowned-out
fountain made itself heard. It was growing lighter. Blue windows appeared in
the grey veil fleeing eastward.
Here, from far off, breaking through the patter of the now quite
weakened rainfall, there came to the procurator's ears a weak sound of
trumpets and the tapping of several hundred hoofs. Hearing this, the
procurator stirred, and his face livened up. The ala was coming back from
Bald Mountain. Judging by the sound, it was passing through the same square
where the sentence had been announced.
At last the procurator heard the long-awaited footsteps and a slapping
on the stairs leading to the upper terrace of the garden, just in front of
the balcony. The procurator stretched his neck and his eyes glinted with an
expression of joy.
Between the two marble lions there appeared first a hooded head, then a
completely drenched man with his cloak clinging to his body. It was the same
man who had exchanged whispers with the procurator in a darkened room of the
palace before the sentencing, and who during the execution had sat on a
three-legged stool playing with a twig.
Heedless of puddles, the man in the hood crossed the garden terrace,
stepped on to the mosaic floor of the balcony, and, raising his arm, said in
a high, pleasant voice:
'Health and joy to the procurator!' The visitor spoke in Latin.
'Gods!' exclaimed Pilate. 'There's not a dry stitch on you! What a
hurricane! Eh? I beg you to go inside immediately. Do me a favour and change
your clothes.'
The visitor threw back his hood, revealing a completely wet head with
hair plastered to the forehead, and, showing a polite smile on his
clean-shaven face, began refusing to change, insisting that a little rain
would not hurt him.
'I won't hear of it,' Pilate replied and clapped his hands. With that
he called out the servants who were hiding from him, and told them to take
care of the visitor and then serve the hot course immediately.
The procurator's visitor required very little time to dry his hair,
change his clothes and shoes, and generally put himself in order, and he
soon appeared on the balcony in dry sandals, a dry crimson military cloak,
and with slicked-down hair.
Just then the sun returned to Yershalaim, and, before going to drown in
the Mediterranean Sea, sent farewell rays to the city hated by the
procurator and gilded the steps of the balcony. The fountain revived
completely and sang away with all its might, doves came out on the sand,
cooing, hopping over broken branches, pecking at something in the wet sand.
The red puddle was wiped up, the broken pieces were removed, meat steamed on
the table.
'I wait to hear the procurator's orders,' said the visitor, approaching
the table.
'But you won't hear anything until you sit down and drink some wine,'
Pilate replied courteously and pointed to the other couch.
The visitor reclined, a servant poured some thick red wine into his
cup. Another servant, leaning cautiously over Pilate's shoulder, filled the
procurator's cup. After that, he motioned for the two servants to withdraw.
While the visitor drank and ate, Pilate, sipping his wine, kept
glancing with narrowed eyes at his guest. The man who had come to Pilate was
middle-aged, with a very pleasant, rounded and neat face and a fleshy mouth.
His hair was of some indeterminate colour. Now, as it dried, it became
lighter. It would be difficult to establish the man's nationality. The chief
determinant of his face was perhaps its good-natured expression, which,
however, was not in accord with his eyes, or, rather, not his eyes but the
visitor's way of looking at his interlocutor. Ordinarily he kept his small
eyes under his lowered, somewhat strange, as if slightly swollen eyelids.
Then the slits of these eyes shone with an unspiteful slyness. It must be
supposed that the procurator's guest had a propensity for humour. But
occasionally, driving this glittering humour from the slits entirely, the
procurator's present guest would open his eyelids wide and look at his
interlocutor suddenly and point-blank, as if with the purpose of rapidly
scrutinizing some inconspicuous spot on his interlocutor's nose. This lasted
only an instant, after which the eyelids would lower again, the slits would
narrow, and once again they would begin to shine with good-naturedness and
sly intelligence.
The visitor did not decline a second cup of wine, swallowed a few
oysters with obvious pleasure, tried some steamed vegetables, ate a piece of
meat. Having eaten his fill, he praised the wine:
`An excellent vintage, Procurator, but it is not Falerno?''
'Caecuba, [2] thirty years old,' the procurator replied courteously.
The guest put his hand to his heart, declined to eat more, declared that he
was full. Then Pilate filled his own cup, and the guest did the same. Both
diners poured some wine from their cups on to the meat platter, and the
procurator, raising his cup, said loudly:
'For us, for thee, Caesar, father of the Romans, best and dearest of
men! ...'
After this they finished the wine, and the Africans removed the food
from the table, leaving the fruit and the jugs. Again the procurator
motioned for the servants to withdraw and remained alone with his guest
under the colonnade.
'And so,' Pilate began in a low voice, 'what can you tell me about the
mood of this city?'
He inadvertently turned his eyes to where the colonnades and flat roofs
below, beyond the terraces of the garden, were drying out, gilded by the
last rays.
`I believe, Procurator,' the guest replied, `that the mood of
Yershalaim is now satisfactory.'
'So it can be guaranteed that there is no threat of further disorders?'
'Only one thing can be guaranteed in this world,' the guest replied,
glancing tenderly at the procurator, 'the power of great Caesar.'
'May the gods grant him long life!' Pilate picked up at once, 'and
universal peace!' He paused and then continued: 'So you believe the troops
can now be withdrawn?'
'I believe that the cohort of the Lightning legion can go,' the guest
replied and added: 'It would be good if it paraded through the city in
farewell.'
'A very good thought,' the procurator approved, 'I will dismiss it the
day after tomorrow, and go myself, and - I swear to you by the feast of the
twelve gods, [3] by the lares [4] I swear - I'd give a lot to be able to do
so today!'
'The procurator doesn't like Yershalaim?' the guest asked
good-naturedly.
`Good heavens,' the procurator exclaimed, smiling, `there's no more
hopeless place on earth. I'm not even speaking of natural conditions - I get
sick every time I have to come here - but that's only half the trouble! ...
But these feasts! ... Magicians, sorcerers, wizards, these flocks of
pilgrims! ... Fanatics, fanatics! ... Just take this messiah [5] they
suddenly started expecting this year! Every moment you think you're about to
witness the most unpleasant bloodshed... The shifting of troops all the
time, reading denunciations and calumnies, half of which, moreover, are
written against yourself! You must agree, it's boring. Oh, if it weren't for
the imperial service!'
'Yes, the feasts are hard here,' agreed the guest.
'I wish with all my heart that they should be over soon,' Pilate added
energetically. `I will finally have the possibility of going back to
Caesarea. Believe me, this delirious construction of Herod's' - the
procurator waved his arm along the colonnade, to make clear that he was
speaking of the palace - 'positively drives me out of my mind! I cannot
spend my nights in it. The world has never known a stranger architecture!
... Well, but let's get back to business. First of all, this cursed
Bar-Rabban - you're not worried about him?'
And here the guest sent his peculiar glance at the procurator's cheek.
But the latter, frowning squeamishly, gazed into the distance with
bored eyes, contemplating the part of the city that lay at his feet and was
fading into the twilight. The guest's eyes also faded, and his eyelids
lowered.
'It may be supposed that Bar has now become as harmless as a lamb,' the
guest began to say, and wrinkles appeared on his round face. `It would be
awkward for him to rebel now.'
'Too famous?' Pilate asked with a smirk.
"The procurator has subtly understood the problem, as always.'
'But in any case,' the procurator observed with concern, and the thin,
long finger with the black stone of its ring was raised, 'there must be...'
'Oh, the procurator can be certain that as long as I am in Judea, Bar
will not take a step without having someone on his heels.'
'Now I am at peace - as I always am, incidentally, when you are here.'
The procurator is too kind!'
`And now I ask you to tell me about the execution,' said the
procurator.
'What precisely interests the procurator?'
Were there any attempts on the part of the crowd to display
rebelliousness? That is the main thing, of course.'
'None,' replied the guest.
'Very good. Did you personally establish that death took place?'
"The procurator may be certain of it.'
`And tell me ... were they given the drink before being hung on the
posts?'[6]
'Yes. But he,' here the guest closed his eyes, 'refused to drink it.'
'Who, precisely?' asked Pilate.
`Forgive me, Hegemon!' the guest exclaimed. `Did I not name him?
Ha-Nozri!'
'Madman!' said Pilate, grimacing for some reason. A little nerve began
to twitch under his left eye. To die of sunburn! Why refuse what is offered
by law! In what terms did he refuse it?'
'He said,' the guest answered, again closing his eyes, 'that he was
grateful and laid no blame for the taking of his life.'
'On whom?' Pilate asked in a hollow voice.
That he did not say, Hegemon...'
'Did he try to preach anything in the soldiers' presence?'
'No, Hegemon, he was not loquacious this time. The only thing he said
was that among human vices he considered cowardice one of the first.'[7]
This was said with regard to what?' the guest heard a suddenly cracked
voice.
That was impossible to understand. He generally behaved himself
strangely - as always, however.'
'What was this strangeness?'
'He kept trying to peer into the eyes of one or another of those around
him, and kept smiling some sort of lost smile.'
'Nothing else?' asked the hoarse voice.
'Nothing else.'
The procurator knocked against the cup as he poured himself some wine.
After draining it to the very bottom, he spoke:
The matter consists in the following: though we have been unable - so
far at least - to discover any admirers or followers of his, it is none the
less impossible to guarantee that there are none.'
The guest listened attentively, inclining his head.
'And so, to avoid surprises of any sort,' the procurator continued, 'I
ask you to remove the bodies of all three executed men from the face of the
earth, immediately and without any noise, and to bury them in secrecy and
silence, so that not another word or whisper is heard of them.'
'Understood, Hegemon,' replied the guest, and he got up, saying:
'In view of the complexity and responsibility of the matter, allow me
to go immediately.'
'No, sit down again,' said Pilate, stopping his guest with a gesture,
`there are two more questions. First, your enormous merits in this most
difficult job at the post of head of the secret service for the procurator
of Judea give me the pleasant opportunity of reporting them to Rome.'
Here the guest's face turned pink, he rose and bowed to the procurator,
saying:
'I merely fulfil my duty in the imperial service.'
`But I wanted to ask you,' the hegemon continued, `in case you're
offered a transfer elsewhere with a raise - to decline it and remain here. I
wouldn't want to part with you for anything. Let them reward you in some
other way.'
'I am happy to serve under your command, Hegemon.'
'That pleases me very much. And so, the second question. It concerns
this ... what's his name ... Judas of Kiriath.'
Here the guest sent the procurator his glance, and at once, as was his
custom, extinguished it.
They say,' the procurator continued, lowering his voice, `that he
supposedly got some money for receiving this madman so cordially?'
'Will get,' the head of the secret service quietly corrected Pilate.
'And is it a large sum?'
That no one can say, Hegemon.'
'Not even you?' said the hegemon, expressing praise by his amazement.
'Alas, not even I,' the guest calmly replied. "But he will get the
money this evening, that I do know. He is to be summoned tonight to the
palace of Kaifa.'
'Ah, that greedy old man of Kiriath!' the procurator observed, smiling.
'He is an old man, isn't he?'
The procurator is never mistaken, but he is mistaken this time,' the
guest replied courteously, 'me man from Kiriath is a young man.'
'You don't say! Can you describe his character for me? A fanatic?'
'Oh, no, Procurator.'
'So. And anything else?''
'Very handsome.'
'What else? He has some passion, perhaps?'
'It is difficult to have such precise knowledge about everyone in this
huge city, Procurator ...'
'Ah, no, no, Aphranius! Don't play down your merits.'
'He has one passion, Procurator.' The guest made a tiny pause. 'A
passion for money.'
'And what is his occupation?'
Aphranius raised his eyes, thought, and replied:
'He works in the money-changing shop of one of his relatives.'
'Ah, so, so, so, so.' Here the procurator fell silent, looked around to
be sure there was no one on the balcony, and then said quietly:
The thing is this - I have just received information that he is going
to be killed tonight.'
This time the guest not only cast his glance at the procurator, but
even held it briefly, and after that replied:
'You spoke too flatteringly of me, Procurator. In my opinion, I do not
deserve your report. This information I do not have.'
'You deserve the highest reward,' the procurator replied. 'But there is
such information.'
'May I be so bold as to ask who supplied it?'
`Permit me not to say for the time being, the more so as it is
accidental, obscure and uncertain. But it is my duty to foresee everything.
That is my job, and most of all I must trust my presentiment, for it has
never yet deceived me. The information is that one of Ha-Nozri's secret
friends, indignant at this money-changer's monstrous betrayal, is plotting
with his accomplices to kill him tonight, and to foist the money paid for
the betrayal on the high priest, with a note:
"I return the cursed money."'
The head of the secret service cast no more of his unexpected glances
at the hegemon, but went on listening to him, narrowing his eyes, as Pilate
went on:
'Imagine, is it going to be pleasant for the high priest to receive
such a gift on the night of the feast?'
'Not only not pleasant,' the guest replied, smiling, 'but I believe,
Procurator, that it will cause a very great scandal.'
'I am of the same opinion myself. And therefore I ask you to occupy
yourself with this matter - that is, to take all measures to protect Judas
of Kiriath.'
'The hegemon's order will be carried out,' said Aphranius, 'but I must
reassure the hegemon: the evil-doers' plot is very hard to bring off. Only
think,' the guest looked over his shoulder as he spoke and went on, 'to
track the man down, to kill him, and besides that to find out how much he
got, and manage to return the money to Kaifa, and all that in one night?
Tonight?'
`And none the less he will be killed tonight,' Pilate stubbornly
repeated. `I have a presentiment, I tell you! Never once has it deceived
me.' Here a spasm passed over the procurator's face, and he rubbed his hands
briskly.
'Understood,' the guest obediently replied, stood up, straightened out,
and suddenly asked sternly: 'So they will kill him, Hegemon?'
'Yes,' answered Pilate, 'and all hope lies in your efficiency alone,
which amazes everyone.'
The guest adjusted the heavy belt under his cloak and said:
'I salute you and wish you health and joy!'
'Ah, yes,' Pilate exclaimed softly, 'I completely forgot! I owe you
something! ...'
The guest was amazed.
'Really, Procurator, you owe me nothing.'
'But of course! As I was riding into Yershalaim, remember, the crowd of
beggars ... I wanted to throw them some money, but I didn't have any, and so
I took it from you.'
'Oh, Procurator, it was a trifle!'
'One ought to remember trifles, too.' Here Pilate turned, picked up the
cloak that lay on the chair behind him, took a leather bag from under it,
and handed it to the guest. The man bowed, accepting it, and put the bag
under his cloak.
'I expect a report on the burial,' said Pilate, 'and also on the matter
to do with Judas of Kiriath, this same night, do you hear, Aphranius, this
night. The convoy will have orders to awaken me the moment you appear. I'll
be expecting you.'
'I salute you,' the head of the secret service said and, turning, left
the balcony. One could hear the wet sand crunch under his feet, then the
stamp of his boots on the marble between the lions, then his legs were cut
off, then his body, and finally the hood also disappeared. Only here did the
procurator notice that the sun was gone and twilight had come.
And perhaps it was the twilight that caused such a sharp change in the
procurator's appearance. He aged, grew hunched as if before one's eyes, and,
besides that, became alarmed. Once he looked around and gave a start for
some reason, casting an eye on the empty chair with the cloak thrown over
its back. The night of the feast was approaching, the evening shadows played
their game, and the tired procurator probably imagined that someone was
sitting in the empty chair. Yielding to his faint-heartedness and ruffling
the cloak, the procurator let it drop and began rushing about the balcony,
now rubbing his hands, now rushing to the table and seizing the cup, now
stopping and staring senselessly at the mosaics of the floor, as if trying
to read something written there ... It was the second time in the same day
that anguish came over him.
Rubbing his temple, where only a dull, slightly aching reminder of the
morning's infernal pain lingered, the procurator strained to understand what
the reason for his soul's torments was. And he quickly understood it, but
attempted to deceive himself. It was clear to him that that afternoon he had
lost something irretrievably, and that he now wanted to make up for the loss
by some petty, worthless and, above all, belated actions. The deceiving of
himself consisted in the procurator's trying to convince himself that these
actions, now, this evening, were no less important than the morning's
sentence. But in this the procurator succeeded very poorly.
At one of his turns, he stopped abruptly and whistled. In response to
this whistle, a low barking resounded in the twilight, and a gigantic
sharp-eared dog with a grey pelt and a gold-studded collar sprang from the
garden on to the balcony.
'Banga, Banga,' the procurator cried weakly.
The dog rose on his hind legs, placed his front paws on his master's
shoulders, nearly knocking him to the floor, and licked his cheek. The
procurator sat down in the armchair. Banga, his tongue hanging out, panting
heavily, lay down at his master's feet, and the joy in the dog's eyes meant
that the storm was over, the only thing in the world that the fearless dog
was afraid of, and also that he was again there, next to the man whom he
loved, respected, and considered the most powerful man in the world, the
ruler of all men, thanks to whom the dog considered himself a privileged,
lofty and special being. Lying down at his master's feet without even
looking at him, but looking into the dusky garden, the dog nevertheless
realized at once that trouble had befallen his master. He therefore changed
his position, got up, came from the side and placed his front paws and head
on the procurator's knees, smearing the bottom of his cloak with wet sand.
Banga's actions were probably meant to signify that he comforted his master
and was ready to meet misfortune with him. He also attempted to express this
with his eyes, casting sidelong glances at his master, and with his alert,
pricked-up ears. Thus the two of them, the dog and man who loved each other,
met the night of the feast on the balcony.
Just then the procurator's guest was in the midst of a great bustle.
After leaving the upper terrace of the garden before the balcony, he
went down the stairs to the next terrace of the garden, turned right and
came to the barracks which stood on the palace grounds. In these barracks
the two centuries that had come with the procurator for the feast in
Yershalaim were quartered, as was the procurator's secret guard, which was
under the command of this very guest. The guest did not spend much time in
the barracks, no more than ten minutes, but at the end of these ten minutes,
three carts drove out of the barracks yard loaded with entrenching tools and
a barrel of water. The carts were escorted by fifteen mounted men in grey
cloaks. Under their escort the carts left the palace grounds by the rear
gate, turned west, drove through gates in the city wall, and followed a path
first to the Bethlehem road, then down this road to the north, came to the
intersection by the Hebron gate, and then moved down the Jaffa road, along
which the procession had gone during the day with the men condemned to
death. By that time it was already dark, and the moon appeared on the
horizon.
Soon after the departure of the carts with their escorting detachment,
the procurator's guest also left the palace grounds on horseback, having
changed into a dark, worn chiton. The guest went not out of the city but
into it. Some time later he could be seen approaching the Antonia Fortress,
located to the north and in the vicinity of the great temple.
The guest did not spend much time in the fortress either, and then his
tracks turned up in the Lower City, in its crooked and tangled streets. Here
the guest now came riding a mule.
Knowing the city well, the guest easily found the street he wanted. It
was called Greek Street, because there were several Greek shops on it, among
them one that sold carpets. Precisely by this shop, the guest stopped his
mule, dismounted, and tied it to the ring by the gate. The shop was closed
by then. The guest walked through the little gate beside the entrance to the
shop and found himself in a small square courtyard surrounded on three sides
by sheds. Turning a corner inside the yard, the guest came to the stone
terrace of a house all twined with ivy and looked around. Both the little
house and the sheds were dark, no lamps were lit yet. The guest called
softly:
'Niza!'
At this call a door creaked, and in the evening twilight a young woman
without a veil appeared on the terrace. She leaned over the railing, peering
anxiously, wishing to know who had come. Recognizing the visitor, she smiled
amiably to him, nodded her head, waved her hand.
'Are you alone?' Aphranius asked softly in Greek.
'Yes,' the woman on the terrace whispered, `my husband left for
Caesarea in the morning.' Here the woman looked back at the door and added
in a whisper: 'But the serving-woman is at home.' Here she made a gesture
meaning 'Come in'.
Aphranius looked around and went up the stone steps. After which both
he and the woman disappeared into the house. With this woman Aphranius spent
very little time, certainly no more than five minutes. After which he left
the house and the terrace, pulled the hood down lower on his eyes, and went
out to the street. Just then the lamps were being lit in the houses, the
pre-festive tumult was still considerable, and Aphranius on his mule lost
himself in the stream of riders and passers-by. His subsequent route is not
known to anyone.
The woman Aphranius called 'Niza', left alone, began changing her
clothes, and was hurrying greatly. But difficult though it was for her to
find the things she needed in the dark room, she did not light a lamp or
call the serving-woman. Only after she was ready and her head was covered by
a dark veil did the sound of her voice break the silence in the little
house:
'If anyone asks for me, say I went to visit Enanta.'
The old serving-woman's grumbling was heard in the darkness:
'Enanta? Ah, this Enanta! Didn't your husband forbid you to visit her?
She's a procuress, your Enanta! Wait till I tell your husband ...'
'Well, well, be quiet,' Niza replied and, like a shadow, slipped out of
the house. Niza's sandals pattered over the stone flags of the yard. The
serving-woman, grumbling, shut the door to the terrace. Niza left her house.
Just at that time, from another lane in the Lower City, a twisting lane
that ran down from ledge to ledge to one of the city pools, from the gates
of an unsightly house with a blank wall looking on to the lane and windows
on the courtyard, came a young man with a neatly trimmed beard, wearing a
white kefia falling to his shoulders, a new pale blue festive tallith with
tassels at the bottom, and creaking new sandals. The handsome,
aquiline-nosed young fellow, all dressed up for the great feast, walked
briskly, getting ahead of passers-by hurrying home for the solemn meal, and
watched as one window after another lit up. The young man took the street
leading past the bazaar to the palace of the high priest Kaifa, located at
the foot of the temple hill.
Some time later he could be seen entering the gates of Kaifa's
courtyard. And a bit later still, leaving the same courtyard.
After visiting the palace, where the lamps and torches already blazed,
and where the festive bustle had already begun, the young man started
walking still more briskly, still more joyfully, hastening back to the Lower
City. At the corner where the street flowed into the market-place, amidst
the seething and tumult, he was overtaken by a slight woman, walking with a
dancer's gait, in a black veil that came down over her eyes. As she overtook
the handsome young man, this woman raised her veil for a moment, cast a
glance in the young man's direction, yet not only did not slow her pace, but
quickened it, as if trying to escape from the one she had overtaken.
The young man not only noticed this woman, no, he also recognized her,
and, having recognized her, gave a start, halted, looking perplexedly into
her back, and at once set out after her. Almost knocking over some passer-by
carrying a jug, the young man caught up with the woman, and, breathing
heavily with agitation, called out to her:
'Niza!'
The woman turned, narrowed her eyes, her face showing cold vexation,
and replied drily in Greek:
'Ah, it's you, Judas? I didn't recognize you at once. That's good,
though. With us, if someone's not recognized, it's a sign he'll get rich
...'
So agitated that his heart started leaping like a bird under a black
cloth, Judas asked in a faltering whisper, for fear passers-by might
overhear:
'Where are you going, Niza?'
'And what do you want to know that for?' replied Niza, slowing her pace
and looking haughtily at Judas.
Then some sort of childish intonations began to sound in Judas's voice,
he whispered in bewilderment:
'But why? ... We had it all arranged ... I wanted to come to you, you
said you'd be home all evening ...'
'Ah, no, no,' answered Niza, and she pouted her lower lip capriciously,
which made it seem to Judas that her face, the most beautiful face he had
ever seen in his life, became still more beautiful. `I was bored. You're
having a feast, and what am I supposed to do? Sit and listen to you sighing
on the terrace? And be afraid, on top of it, that the serving-woman will
tell him about it? No, no, I decided to go out of town and listen to the
nightingales.'
'How, out of town?' the bewildered Judas asked. 'Alone?'
'Of course, alone,' answered Niza.
'Let me accompany you, Judas asked breathlessly. His mind clouded, he
forgot everything in the world and looked with imploring eyes into the blue
eyes of Niza, which now seemed black.
Niza said nothing and quickened her pace.
'Why are you silent, Niza?' Judas said pitifully, adjusting his pace to
hers.
Won't I be bored with you?' Niza suddenly asked and stopped. Here
Judas's thoughts became totally confused.
Well, all right,' Niza finally softened, 'come along.'
'But where, where?'
"Wait ... let's go into this yard and arrange it, otherwise I'm afraid
some acquaintance will see me and then they'll tell my husband I was out
with my lover.'
And here Niza and Judas were no longer in the bazaar, they were
whispering under the gateway of some yard.
'Go to the olive estate,' Niza whispered, pulling the veil over her
eyes and turning away from a man who was coming through the gateway with a
bucket, 'to Gethsemane, beyond the Kedron, understand?'
'Yes, yes, yes...'
`I'll go ahead,' Niza continued, `but don't follow on my heels. Keep
separate from me. I'll go ahead ... When you cross the stream ... you know
where the grotto is?'
'I know, I know...'
'Go up past the olive press and turn to the grotto. I'll be there. Only
don't you dare come after me at once, be patient, wait here,' and with these
words Niza walked out the gateway as though she had never spoken with Judas.
Judas stood for some time alone, trying to collect his scattering
thoughts. Among them was the thought of how he was going to explain his
absence from the festal family meal. Judas stood thinking up some lie, but
in his agitation was unable to think through or prepare anything properly,
and slowly walked out the gateway.
Now he changed his route, he was no longer heading towards the Lower
City, but turned back to Kaifa's palace. The feast had already entered the
city. In the windows around Judas, not only were lights shining, but hymns
of praise were heard. On the pavement, belated passers-by urged their
donkeys on, whipping them up, shouting at them. Judas's legs carried him by
themselves, and he did not notice how the terrible, mossy Antonia Towers
flew past him, he did not hear the roar of trumpets in the fortress, did not
pay attention to the mounted Roman patrol and its torch that flooded his
path with an alarming light.
Turning after he passed the tower, Judas saw that in the terrible
height above the temple two gigantic five-branched candlesticks blazed. But
even these Judas made out vaguely. It seemed to him that ten lamps of an
unprecedented size lit up over Yershalaim, competing with the light of the
single lamp that was rising ever higher over Yershalaim - the moon.
Now Judas could not be bothered with anything, he headed for the
Gethsemane gate, he wanted to leave the city quickly. At times it seemed to
him that before him, among the backs and faces of passers-by, the dancing
little figure flashed, leading him after her. But this was an illusion.
Judas realized that Niza was significantly ahead of him. Judas rushed past
the money-changing shops and finally got to the Gethsemane gate. There,
burning with impatience, he was still forced to wait. Camels were coming
into the city, and after them rode a Syrian military patrol, which Judas
cursed mentally ...
But all things come to an end. The impatient Judas was already beyond
the city wall. To the left of him Judas saw a small cemetery, next to it
several striped pilgrims' tents. Crossing the dusty road flooded with
moonlight, Judas headed for the stream of the Kedron with the intention of
wading across it. The water babbled quietly under Judas's feet. Jumping from
stone to stone, he finally came out on the Gethsemane bank opposite and saw
with great joy that here the road below the gardens was empty. The
half-ruined gates of the olive estate could already be seen not far away.
After the stuffy city, Judas was struck by the stupefying smell of the
spring night. From the garden a wave of myrtle and acacia from the
Gethsemane glades poured over the fence.
No one was guarding the gateway, there was no one in it, and a few
minutes later Judas was already running under the mysterious shade of the
enormous, spreading olive trees. The road went uphill. Judas ascended,
breathing heavily, at times emerging from the darkness on to patterned
carpets of moonlight, which reminded him of the carpets he had seen in the
shop of Niza's jealous husband.
A short time later there flashed at Judas's left hand, in a clearing,
an olive press with a heavy stone wheel and a pile of barrels. There was no
one in the garden, work had ended at sunset, and now over Judas choirs of
nightingales pealed and trilled.
Judas's goal was near. He knew that on his right in the darkness he
would presently begin to hear the soft whisper of water falling in the
grotto. And so it happened, he heard it. It was getting cooler. Then he
slowed his pace and called softly:
'Niza!'
But instead of Niza, a stocky male figure, detaching itself from a
thick olive trunk, leaped out on the road, and something gleamed in its hand
and at once went out. With a weak cry, Judas rushed back, but a second man
barred his way.
The first man, in front of him, asked Judas:
'How much did you just get? Speak, if you want to save your life!' Hope
flared up in Judas's heart, and he cried out desperately:
Thirty tetradrachmas!' Thirty tetradrachmas! I have it all with me!
Here's the money! Take it, but grant me my life!'
The man in front instantly snatched the purse from Judas's hands. And
at the same instant a knife flew up behind Judas's back and struck the lover
under the shoulder-blade. Judas was flung forward and thrust out his hands
with clawed fingers into the air. The front man caught Judas on his knife
and buried it up to the hilt in Judas's heart.
'Ni ... za ...'Judas said, not in his own high and clear young voice,
but in a low and reproachful one, and uttered not another sound. His body
struck the earth so hard that it hummed.
Then a third figure appeared on the road. This third one wore a cloak
with a hood.
`Don't linger,' he ordered. The killers quickly wrapped the purse
together with a note handed to them by the third man in a piece of hide and
criss-crossed it with twine. The second put the bundle into his bosom, and
then the two killers plunged off the roadsides and the darkness between the
olive trees ate them. The third squatted down by the murdered man and looked
at his face. In the darkness it appeared white as chalk to the gazing man
and somehow spiritually beautiful.
A few seconds later there was not a living man on the road. The
lifeless body lay with outstretched arms. The left foot was in a spot of
moonlight, so that each strap of the sandal could be seen distinctly. The
whole garden of Gethsemane was just then pealing with the song of