In a  white cloak with blood-red lining, with  the shuffling gait of  a
cavalryman, early in  the morning of the  fourteenth day of the spring month
of Nisan, there came out to the covered colonnade between the two  wings  of
the palace of  Herod the Great' the procurator of Judea, [2] Pontius Pilate.
[3]
     More than anything in the world the procurator hated  the smell of rose
oil,  and now everything foreboded a  bad day,  because this smell had  been
pursuing the procurator since dawn.
     It seemed to the procurator that a rosy smell exuded from the cypresses
and palms in the garden, that the smell  of leather trappings and sweat from
the convoy was mingled with the cursed rosy flux.
     From the outbuildings at the back of the palace, where the first cohort
of the Twelfth  Lightning legion, [4]  which had come to Yershalaim [5] with
the procurator, was quartered, a whiff of smoke reached the colonnade across
the upper  terrace  of  the palace,  and  this  slightly acrid  smoke, which
testified  that  the centuries' mess cooks had begun to prepare dinner,  was
mingled with the same thick rosy scent.
     'Oh, gods, gods,  why do you punish me? ... Yes, no doubt, this  is it,
this is it again, the invincible,  terrible illness... hemicrania, when half
of the head aches ...  there's no remedy for it, no escape  ... I'll try not
to move my head...'
     On the mosaic  floor by  the fountain a chair was already prepared, and
the procurator,  without looking  at anyone, sat in it and reached his  hand
out to one side. His secretary deferentially placed  a sheet of parchment in
this  hand. Unable to  suppress  a  painful grimace,  the  procurator  ran a
cursory, sidelong  glance over  the writing, returned  the  parchment to the
secretary, and said with difficulty:
     "The accused is from Galilee? [6] Was the case sent to the tetrarch?'
     'Yes, Procurator,' replied the secretary.
     'And what then?'
     'He refused to make a decision on the case and sent the Sanhedrin's [7]
death sentence to you for confirmation,' the secretary explained.
     The procurator twitched his cheek and said quietly:
     'Bring in the accused.'
     And at once two legionaries  brought a  man  of about twenty-seven from
the garden terrace to the balcony under the columns and stood him before the
procurator's chair.  The  man was dressed in  an  old  and  torn  light-blue
chiton. His head was covered by a white cloth with a leather band around the
forehead, and his hands were bound behind his back. Under the man's left eye
there was a large bruise, in the corner of his mouth a cut caked with blood.
     The man gazed at the procurator with anxious curiosity.
     The latter paused, then asked quietly in Aramaic: [8]
     `So  it  was you  who  incited the  people to  destroy  the  temple  of
Yershalaim?'[9]
     The procurator  sat  as  if made of stone while he  spoke, and only his
lips  moved slightly  as he  pronounced the words. The procurator was  as if
made of  stone because he was afraid to move his head, aflame with  infernal
pain.
     The man with bound hands leaned forward somewhat and began to speak:
     'Good man! Believe me ...'
     But me procurator, motionless as before and  not raising  his  voice in
the least, straight away interrupted him:
     'Is it  me  that you are calling  a good  man? You  are mistaken. It is
whispered about me in  Yershalaim that I am a fierce  monster, and  that  is
perfectly  correct.' And he added in the same monotone: 'Bring the centurion
Ratslayer.'
     It  seemed  to  everyone that it became darker on the balcony  when the
centurion of the first century, Mark, nicknamed Ratslayer, presented himself
before the  procurator. Ratslayer was a head taller than the tallest soldier
of the  legion and so broad in the shoulders  that he completely blocked out
the still-low sun.
     The procurator addressed the centurion in Latin:
     `The criminal  calls me "good  man".  Take  him outside for  a  moment,
explain to him how I ought to be spoken to. But no maiming.'
     And everyone  except the motionless procurator  followed Mark Ratslayer
with  their eyes  as  he  motioned to the  arrested  man, indicating that he
should  go  with  him. Everyone generally followed Ratslayer with their eyes
wherever he appeared,  because  of his height, and those who were seeing him
for the  first  time also because  the  centurion's face was disfigured: his
nose had once been smashed by a blow from a Germanic club.
     Mark's heavy boots thudded across the mosaic, the bound man noiselessly
went  out with  him, complete silence fell in the colonnade,  and  one could
hear pigeons cooing on the garden terrace near the balcony and water singing
an intricate, pleasant song in the fountain.
     The  procurator would  have  liked to get up,  put his temple under the
spout, and stay standing that way. But he knew that even that would not help
him.
     Having  brought the  arrested man  from under  the  columns  out to the
garden, Ratslayer took a whip from the hands of a legionary who was standing
at the foot of a bronze statue and, swinging easily, struck the arrested man
across the shoulders. The centurion's movement was casual and light, yet the
bound man instantly collapsed on the ground as if his legs had been cut from
under him; he gasped for air, the colour drained from his face, and his eyes
went vacant.
     With his left hand only Mark heaved the fallen man into the air like an
empty  sack, set him  on his feet, and spoke nasally,  in  poorly pronounced
Aramaic:
     The Roman procurator is called Hegemon. [10] Use no  other words. Stand
at attention. Do you understand me, or do I hit you?'
     The arrested man swayed, but got  hold of himself, his colour returned,
he caught his breath and answered hoarsely:
     I understand. Don't beat me.'
     A moment later he was again standing before the procurator.
     A lusterless, sick voice sounded:
     'Name?'
     'Mine?' the arrested man hastily  responded, his whole being expressing
a readiness to answer sensibly, without provoking further wrath.
     The procurator said softly:
     'I know my own. Don't pretend to be stupider than you are. Yours.'
     'Yeshua,'[11] the prisoner replied promptly.
     'Any surname?'
     'Ha-Nozri.'
     'Where do you come from?'
     The town of Gamala,'[12] replied the prisoner, indicating with his head
that there, somewhere far off to his  right, in the north,  was the  town of
Gamala.
     'Who are you by blood?'
     'I don't know exactly,' the arrested  man replied animatedly, `I  don't
remember my parents. I was told that my father was a Syrian...'
     "Where is your permanent residence?'
     'I have no permanent home,' the prisoner answered shyly, 'I travel from
town to town.'
     That  can be  put more briefly, in  a word - a vagrant,' the procurator
said, and asked:
     'Any family?'
     "None. I'm alone in the world.'
     'Can you read and write?'
     'Yes.'
     'Do you know any language besides Aramaic?'
     'Yes. Greek.'
     A swollen eyelid rose, an eye clouded with suffering fixed the arrested
man. The other eye remained shut.
     Pilate spoke in Greek.
     'So it was you who was going to  destroy the temple building and called
on the people to do that?'
     Here the prisoner again became animated, his eyes ceased to show  fear,
and he spoke in Greek:
     'Never, goo...' Here terror flashed in the prisoner's eyes,  because he
had nearly  made  a  slip. 'Never, Hegemon, never in my life was I going  to
destroy the temple building, nor did I incite anyone to this senseless act.'
     Surprise showed on  the face of the secretary, hunched over a low table
and writing down the testimony. He raised his head, but immediately  bent it
to the parchment again.
     'All sorts  of people gather  in this  town for the  feast.  Among them
there  are magicians, astrologers, diviners and  murderers,' the  procurator
spoke in  monotone, `and  occasionally also liars. You,  for instance, are a
liar. It  is written clearly: "Incited to  destroy the  temple". People have
testified to it.'
     These  good  people,' the prisoner spoke and, hastily adding `Hegemon',
went on: '... haven't any learning and have confused everything I told them.
Generally,  I'm beginning to be  afraid that  this confusion may go on for a
very  long   time.  And  all  because  he  writes  down  the  things  I  say
incorrectly.'
     Silence fell. By now both sick eyes rested heavily on the prisoner.
     'I repeat to you, but for  the last time, stop pretending that you're a
madman,  robber,' Pilate  said softly  and monotonously,  `there's not  much
written in your record, but what there is enough to hang you.'
     'No, no, Hegemon,' the  arrested man  said,  straining all over in  his
wish to  convince, `there's one with a  goatskin  parchment who  follows me,
follows me  and keeps writing all  the  time. But  once  I peeked  into this
parchment and was  horrified. I said  decidedly  nothing of  what's  written
there. I implored him: "Burn your parchment, I beg  you!" But he tore it out
of my hands and ran away.'
     'Who is that?' Pilate asked squeamishly and touched his temple with his
hand.
     'Matthew Levi,'[13] the  prisoner explained willingly. 'He used to be a
tax collector, and I first met him  on the  road  in Bethphage,'[14] where a
fig grove juts out at an angle, and I got to talking with him. He treated me
hostilely at first and even insulted me -  that is, thought he insulted me -
by  calling me a dog.' Here the  prisoner smiled. `I personally see  nothing
bad about this animal, that I should be offended by this word...'
     The secretary stopped writing and  stealthily cast  a surprised glance,
not at the arrested man, but at the procurator.
     '... However, after listening to me,  he began to  soften,' Yeshua went
on, `finally  threw  the  money down  in the  road  and  said  he  would  go
journeying with me...'
     Pilate  grinned with one cheek, baring  yellow teeth, and said, turning
his whole body towards the secretary:
     'Oh, city of Yershalaim! What does one not hear in it! A tax collector,
do you hear, threw money down in the road!'
     Not  knowing how to reply  to that, the secretary found it necessary to
repeat Pilate's smile.
     `He  said  that  henceforth money  had become hateful  to  him,' Yeshua
explained Matthew Levi's  strange action and  added:  'And since then he has
been my companion.'
     His teeth still bared, the procurator glanced at the arrested man, then
at the sun, steadily rising over the equestrian  statues of  the hippodrome,
which lay far  below  to the right, and suddenly, in some sickening anguish,
thought that  the simplest thing would be to drive this  strange  robber off
the balcony by uttering just two words: 'Hang him.' To drive the convoy away
as  well,  to  leave  the  colonnade,  go into the palace,  order  the  room
darkened, collapse  on  the bed, send  for cold water,  call in  a plaintive
voice for his dog Banga, and complain  to  him about the hemicrania. And the
thought of poison suddenly flashed temptingly in the procurator's sick head.
     He gazed with dull eyes at the arrested man and was silent for a  time,
painfully trying to  remember  why  there  stood before him in  the pitiless
morning sunlight of Yershalaim  this  prisoner with  his face  disfigured by
beating, and what other utterly unnecessary questions he had to ask him.
     'Matthew Levi?'  the sick  man asked in a hoarse voice  and closed  his
eyes.
     'Yes, Matthew Levi,' the high, tormenting voice came to him.
     `And what was  it in any  case that you said about  the temple  to  the
crowd in the bazaar?'
     The  responding   voice  seemed  to  stab   at  Pilate's  temple,   was
inexpressibly painful, and this voice was saying:
     'I said, Hegemon, that the temple of the old faith would fall and a new
temple  of truth would  be built. I  said it that way  so as to make it more
understandable.'
     'And why did you stir up the people in the bazaar, you vagrant, talking
about the truth, of which you have no notion? What is truth?'[15]
     And here the  procurator thought: 'Oh,  my  gods!  I'm asking him about
something unnecessary at a  trial... my reason no longer  serves me...'  And
again he pictured a cup of dark liquid. 'Poison, bring me poison...'
     And again he heard the voice:
     The truth is, first of  all,  that your head aches, and aches  so badly
that you're  having  faint-hearted thoughts of death. You're not only unable
to speak to me, but it is even hard for you to look at me. And I am now your
unwilling torturer, which upsets me. You can't even think about anything and
only  dream  that  your  dog should  come, apparently the one  being you are
attached to. But  your suffering will  soon be  over, your  headache will go
away.'
     The secretary goggled his eyes at the prisoner  and stopped writing  in
mid-word.
     Pilate raised  his tormented eyes to the  prisoner and saw that the sun
already stood quite high over the hippodrome, that  a ray had penetrated the
colonnade and  was  stealing towards Yeshua's worn sandals, and that the man
was trying to step out of the sun's way.
     Here the  procurator  rose from his chair, clutched his head  with  his
hands, and his  yellowish,  shaven face  expressed dread. But  he  instantly
suppressed it with his will and lowered himself into his chair again.
     The  prisoner meanwhile continued his speech,  but the secretary was no
longer writing it down, and only stretched his neck like a goose, trying not
to let drop a single word.
     'Well,  there,  it's  all  over,'  the  arrested   man  said,  glancing
benevolently at  Pilate,  `and  I'm extremely glad  of it. I'd  advise  you,
Hegemon, to leave the  palace for a while  and go for a stroll  somewhere in
the vicinity - say, in the gardens on the Mount of Olives. [16] A storm will
come...' the prisoner  turned, narrowing  his eyes at the sun, '...later on,
towards  evening. A stroll  would do you much  good, and I  would be glad to
accompany  you. Certain new thoughts have occurred to me, which I think  you
might  find interesting, and I'd  willingly share them with you, the more so
as you give the impression of being a very intelligent man.'
     The secretary turned deathly pale and dropped the scroll on the floor.
     'The trouble  is,' the bound man went on, not stopped by  anyone, 'that
you are too closed off and have definitively lost faith  in people. You must
agree,  one can't  place  all  one's  affection  in  a  dog.  Your  life  is
impoverished, Hegemon.' And here the speaker allowed himself to smile.
     The secretary now  thought of  only one  thing, whether to believe  his
ears or not.  He  had to  believe.  Then he  tried to imagine precisely what
whimsical form the wrath of  the hot-tempered procurator  would take at this
unheard-of impudence from the prisoner. And this the secretary was unable to
imagine, though he knew the procurator well.
     Then  came  the cracked, hoarse  voice of the procurator, who  said  in
Latin:
     'Unbind his hands.'
     One  of the convoy  legionaries rapped  with his spear,  handed  it  to
another, went over and took the ropes off the prisoner. The secretary picked
up his scroll, having decided to record nothing for now, and to be surprised
at nothing.
     `Admit,'  Pilate  asked  softly  in  Greek,  `that   you  are  a  great
physician?'
     'No,  Procurator,  I  am  not  a  physician,'  the  prisoner   replied,
delightedly rubbing a crimped and swollen purple wrist.
     Scowling  deeply,  Pilate  bored the prisoner with his eyes,  and these
eyes were no longer dull, but flashed with sparks familiar to all.
     'I didn't ask you,' Pilate said, 'maybe you also know Latin?'
     'Yes, I do,' the prisoner replied.
     Colour came to Pilate's yellowish cheeks, and he asked in Latin:
     'How did you know I wanted to call my dog?'
     'It's very  simple,' the prisoner replied in  Latin.  `You  were moving
your hand in the air' - and the prisoner repeated  Pilate's gesture - `as if
you wanted to stroke something, and your lips...'
     'Yes,' said Pilate.
     There was silence. Then Pilate asked a question in Greek:
     'And so, you are a physician?'
     'No,  no,'  the  prisoner  replied  animatedly, `believe me, I'm  not a
physician.'
     Very  well,  then, if you want to keep  it  a secret,  do so. It has no
direct bearing on  the case. So you maintain that  you did not incite anyone
to destroy ... or set fire to, or in any other way demolish the temple?'
     `I repeat,  I  did not incite anyone  to such acts, Hegemon. Do  I look
like a halfwit?'
     'Oh, no, you don't look like a halfwit,' the procurator replied quietly
and smiled some strange smile. 'Swear, then, that it wasn't so.'
     `By  what  do  you  want me  to swear?' the  unbound  man  asked,  very
animated.
     'Well,  let's  say, by your life,' the procurator  replied. 'It's  high
time you swore by it, since it's hanging by a hair, I can tell you.'
     'You don't think it was you who hung it, Hegemon?' the prisoner asked.
     'If so, you are very mistaken.'
     Pilate gave a start and replied through his teeth:
     'I can cut that hair.'
     `In  that,  too,  you  are  mistaken,'  the  prisoner retorted, smiling
brightly and  shielding himself from the sun with  his hand. 'YOU must agree
that surely only he who hung it can cut the hair?'
     'So, so,' Pilate  said,  smiling, 'now I have no doubts  that the  idle
loafers of Yershalaim followed at your heels.  I don't know  who hung such a
tongue on  you,  but he hung it well. Incidentally, tell me, is it true that
you  entered  Yershalaim  by  the  Susa gate  [17]  riding  on an ass,  [18]
accompanied  by a crowd of riff-raff who shouted  greetings to you  as  some
kind of prophet?' Here the procurator pointed to the parchment scroll.
     The prisoner glanced at the procurator in perplexity.
     'I don't even have  an ass, Hegemon,' he said. `I  did enter Yershalaim
by the  Susa gate, but on foot, accompanied only by Matthew Levi, and no one
shouted anything to me, because no one in Yershalaim knew me then.'
     'Do  you happen to know,' Pilate continued without taking his eyes  off
the prisoner,  `such  men as a certain  Dysmas,  another named Gestas, and a
third named Bar-Rabban?'[19]
     'I do not know these good people,' the prisoner replied.
     Truly?'
     Truly.'
     'And now tell me, why is it that you use me words "good people" all the
time? Do you call everyone that, or what?'
     'Everyone,'  the  prisoner replied.  There  are no evil  people  in the
world.'
     The first I hear of it,' Pilate said, grinning. 'But perhaps I know too
little of life! ...
     You needn't record any more,' he addressed the  secretary,  who had not
recorded anything  anyway, and went on talking  with the prisoner. 'YOU read
that in some Greek book?'
     'No, I figured it out for myself.'
     'And you preach it?'
     'Yes.'
     `But take, for instance, the centurion Mark, the one known as Ratslayer
- is he good?'
     'Yes,' replied the prisoner.  True, he's an unhappy man. Since the good
people disfigured him, he has become cruel  and hard. I'd be curious to know
who maimed him.'
     'I can willingly tell you that,' Pilate responded, 'for I was a witness
to it. The good people  fell on him like  dogs on a bear. There were Germans
fastened  on  his  neck, his  arms,  his  legs.  The  infantry  maniple  was
encircled, and if one flank hadn't been cut by a cavalry turmae, of which  I
was the commander - you, philosopher, would not have had the chance to speak
with the  Rat-slayer. That was at  the battle  of  Idistaviso, [20]  in  the
Valley of the Virgins.'
     `If I could speak with him,' the prisoner suddenly said  musingly, 'I'm
sure he'd change sharply.'
     'I don't suppose,' Pilate responded, 'that you'd bring much  joy to the
legate of the  legion  if you  decided to  talk with any of his  officers or
soldiers. Anyhow, it's also  not going to  happen, fortunately for everyone,
and I will be the first to see to it.'
     At that  moment a swallow swiftly flitted into the colonnade, described
a circle under the golden  ceiling, swooped down, almost brushed the face of
a bronze statue in a niche with its pointed wing, and disappeared behind the
capital of a column. It may be that it thought of nesting there.
     During its flight, a formula took shape in the now light and lucid head
of the procurator. It went like this: the hegemon has looked into  the  case
of  the  vagrant  philosopher  Yeshua,  alias Ha-Nozri, and  found  in it no
grounds  for  indictment.  In particular,  he has  found  not the  slightest
connection  between the acts of  Yeshua and  the disorders that  have lately
taken place in Yershalaim. The vagrant philosopher has proved to be mentally
ill.  Consequently,  the procurator has not confirmed the death sentence  on
Ha-Nozri passed  by  the Lesser Sanhedrin.  But seeing that  Ha-Nozri's  mad
utopian talk  might  cause disturbances  in  Yershalaim, the  procurator  is
removing  Yeshua from  Yershalaim  and  putting  him  under  confinement  in
Stratonian  Caesarea  on  the Mediterranean - that is,  precisely where  the
procurator's residence was.
     It remained to dictate it to the secretary.
     The  swallow's  wings whiffled right over the hegemon's head,  the bird
darted to the  fountain basin and then flew out into freedom. The procurator
raised his eyes to the prisoner and saw the dust blaze up in a pillar around
him.
     'Is that all about him?' Pilate asked the secretary.
     'Unfortunately  not,'  the  secretary  replied unexpectedly  and handed
Pilate another piece of parchment.
     'What's this now?' Pilate asked and frowned.
     Having  read what had been handed to  him, he  changed countenance even
more: Either the  dark  blood rose  to his neck and  face, or something else
happened, only his  skin lost its yellow tinge, turned  brown,  and his eyes
seemed to sink.
     Again  it  was probably  owing to  the blood  rising to his temples and
throbbing in them, only something happened to the procurator's vision. Thus,
he imagined  that  the prisoner's head  floated off somewhere,  and  another
appeared  in  its  place.  [21] On this bald head sat a scant-pointed golden
diadem. On the forehead was a round canker, eating into the skin and smeared
with ointment. A sunken, toothless mouth with a pendulous, capricious  lower
lip.  It seemed to  Pilate that  the pink columns  of  the  balcony and  the
rooftops  of  Yershalaim  far  below,  beyond  the  garden,  vanished,   and
everything was  drowned in  the  thickest  green  of  Caprean  gardens.  And
something  strange  also happened  to  his  hearing:  it was as if  trumpets
sounded far away,  muted and menacing,  and a nasal  voice was  very clearly
heard, arrogantly drawling: 'The law of lese-majesty...'
     Thoughts raced,  short, incoherent and extraordinary: 'I'm  lost!  ...'
then: 'We're  lost! ...'  And among them  a totally absurd  one,  about some
immortality, which immortality for some reason provoked unendurable anguish.
     Pilate strained, drove the apparition away, his  gaze  returned to  the
balcony, and again the prisoner's eyes were before him.
     'Listen, Ha-Nozri,'  the  procurator spoke, looking at  Yeshua  somehow
strangely: the procurator's face  was menacing, but his  eyes  were alarmed,
'did  you ever say anything about the great Caesar? Answer!  Did  you?...Yes
... or ...  no?'  Pilate drew the word 'no' out somewhat longer than is done
in  court, and his glance sent Yeshua  some thought that he wished as  if to
instill in the prisoner.
     To speak the truth is easy and pleasant,' the prisoner observed.
     `I have no need to  know,' Pilate responded in a stifled,  angry voice,
'whether  it is  pleasant or unpleasant for you to speak the truth. You will
have to  speak  it  anyway. But,  as you speak, weigh every word, unless you
want a not only inevitable but also painful death.'
     No  one knew  what had happened  with the  procurator  of Judea, but he
allowed himself  to raise his hand  as if to  protect himself from a ray  of
sunlight,  and from behind his hand, as  from behind  a shield, to  send the
prisoner some sort of prompting look.
     'Answer, then,' he went on speaking,  `do you know a certain Judas from
Kiriath, [22]  and  what  precisely did you say to him about Caesar, if  you
said anything?'
     'It  was like this,'  the prisoner began talking  eagerly.  The evening
before last, near  the temple, I  made the acquaintance  of a young man  who
called himself Judas, from the town  of Kiriath.  He invited me to his place
in the Lower City and treated me to...'
     'A good man?' Pilate asked, and a devilish fire flashed in his eyes.
     'A very good man and an inquisitive  one,'  the prisoner confirmed. 'He
showed   the  greatest  interest  in  my  thoughts  and   received  me  very
cordially...'
     'Lit the lamps...'[23] Pilate spoke through his teeth, in the same tone
as the prisoner, and his eyes glinted.
     Yes,'  Yeshua went on,  slightly surprised  that  the procurator was so
well informed, 'and asked me  to give  my  view of state  authority.  He was
extremely interested in this question.'
     'And what did you say?'  asked Pilate. 'Or are you going  to reply that
you've  forgotten  what  you  said?'  But there  was already hopelessness in
Pilate's tone.
     `Among  other  things,'  the  prisoner  recounted,  `I  said  that  all
authority is violence over people, and that a time will come when there will
be no authority of  the Caesars, nor any other authority. Man will pass into
the kingdom of  truth and justice, where generally there will be no need for
any authority.'
     'Go on!'
     'I didn't go on,' said the prisoner.  'Here  men  ran in, bound me, and
took me away to prison.'
     The secretary, trying not to let drop a single word, rapidly traced the
words on his parchment.
     'There never has been, is not, and never will be any authority in  this
world  greater  or better  for  people  than  the authority  of  the emperor
Tiberius!'  Pilate's cracked and  sick voice  swelled.  For  some reason the
procurator looked at the secretary and the convoy with hatred.
     `And  it is not  for  you, insane criminal,  to reason about  it!' Here
Pilate shouted: 'Convoy, off  the balcony!' And turning to the secretary, he
added: 'Leave me alone with the criminal, this is a state matter!'
     The convoy raised their  spears  and with a measured tramp of hobnailed
caligae walked  off the balcony  into the garden, and the secretary followed
the convoy.
     For some  time the silence on the balcony was broken only by the  water
singing  in the  fountain.  Pilate saw how the watery dish blew  up over the
spout, how its edges broke off, how it fell down in streams.
     The prisoner was the first to speak.
     'I see that some  misfortune has come about because  I talked with that
young man from Kiriath. I  have a foreboding, Hegemon, that  he will come to
grief, and I am very sorry for him.'
     'I think,' the procurator replied,  grinning strangely,  `that there is
now  someone else in the world for whom you ought to feel sorrier  than' for
Judas of Kiriath, and who is going to have it much worse than Judas! ...
     So, then, Mark  Rat-slayer, a cold  and convinced torturer, the  people
who,  as I see,' the procurator pointed to Yeshua's  disfigured  face, `beat
you  for  your  preaching, the  robbers  Dysmas  and Gestas, who with  their
confreres killed four soldiers, and, finally, the dirty traitor  Judas - are
all good people?'
     'Yes,' said the prisoner.
     'And the kingdom of truth will come?'
     'It will, Hegemon,' Yeshua answered with conviction.
     'It will  never  come!' Pilate  suddenly cried  out in such a  terrible
voice that Yeshua drew back. Thus, many years before,  in the Valley of  the
Virgins,  Pilate had cried to his  horsemen the  words:  'Cut them down! Cut
them down! The giant Rat-slayer  is trapped!'  He  raised his voice, cracked
with commanding, still more, and called out so that his words could be heard
in the garden: 'Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!' And then, lowering his voice,
he asked: 'Yeshua Ha-Nozri, do you believe in any gods?'
     'God is one,' replied Yeshua, 'I believe in him.'
     Then pray to him! Pray hard! However...' here Pilate's voice  gave out,
'that won't  help. No  wife?' Pilate asked with anguish for some reason, not
understanding what was happening to him.
     `No, I'm alone.'
     'Hateful  city...' the  procurator  suddenly muttered for some  reason,
shaking his shoulders as if he were  cold, and  rubbing his hands as  though
washing them, 'if they'd  put a knife in you  before your meeting with Judas
of Kiriath, it really would have been better.'
     `Why don't you  let me  go, Hegemon?' the prisoner  asked unexpectedly,
and his voice became anxious. 'I see they want to kill me.'
     A spasm  contorted  Pilate's  face,  he turned to  Yeshua the inflamed,
red-veined whites of his eyes and said:
     `Do  you  suppose, wretch, that the Roman procurator will let a  man go
who has said what you  have said? Oh, gods, gods! Or do you think  I'm ready
to  take your place? I don't  share your thoughts! And listen to me: if from
this  moment on you say even one word, if you speak to anyone at all, beware
of me! I repeat to you - beware!'
     `Hegemon...'
     'Silence!' cried Pilate, and his furious gaze followed the swallow that
had again fluttered on to the balcony. 'To me!' Pilate shouted.
     And when the secretary and the  convoy returned to their places, Pilate
announced that he confirmed the death  sentence passed at the meeting of the
Lesser  Sanhedrin on the criminal Yeshua Ha-Nozri,  and the  secretary wrote
down what Pilate said.
     A  moment  later  Mark  Rat-slayer  stood before  the  procurator.  The
procurator ordered him to  hand  the criminal over to the head of the secret
service, along with the procurator's directive  that Yeshua Ha-Nozri  was to
be separated from the other condemned men, and also that the soldiers of the
secret  service were to be forbidden, on pain  of severe punishment, to talk
with Yeshua about anything at all or to answer any of his questions.
     At a  sign from Mark, the  convoy closed around Yeshua and led him from
the balcony.
     Next  there stood  before the procurator a  handsome, light-bearded man
with eagle feathers on the crest of his  helmet, golden lions' heads shining
on  his chest, and golden  plaques  on  his sword belt, wearing triple-soled
boots  laced  to the  knees,  and  with a  purple cloak thrown over his left
shoulder. This was the legate in command of the legion.
     The  procurator  asked him where  the Sebastean cohort was stationed at
the  moment.  The legate told him that the  Sebasteans  had cordoned off the
square in front of the hippodrome, where the sentencing of the criminals was
to be announced to the people.
     Then the procurator ordered the legate to detach two centuries from the
Roman cohort. One  of them,  under the  command of Rat-slayer, was to convoy
the  criminals, the  carts with the  implements  for the  execution and  the
executioners as they were transported to Bald Mountain, [24] and on  arrival
was to  join  the  upper  cordon. The  other was to be sent  at once to Bald
Mountain  and immediately start forming the  cordon.  For the  same purpose,
that  is, to guard the mountain, the procurator asked  the legate to send an
auxiliary cavalry regiment - the Syrian ala.
     After the legate left the balcony, the procurator ordered the secretary
to summon to the palace the president of the Sanhedrin, two  of its members,
and the head of the  temple guard in Yershalaim, adding that he asked things
to be so arranged  that before conferring with all these  people,  he  could
speak with the president previously and alone.
     The procurator's order was executed quickly and precisely, and the sun,
which  in  those  days  was  scorching  Yershalaim  with   an  extraordinary
fierceness, had not yet had time to  approach its highest point when, on the
upper terrace of the garden, by the two white marble lions that  guarded the
stairs, a meeting took  place between the  procurator and the man fulfilling
the duties  of president of  the  Sanhedrin,  the high  priest  of the Jews,
Joseph Kaifa. [25]
     It  was  quiet  in  the garden.  But  when he  came out from  under the
colonnade to the sun-drenched upper level of  the garden with its palm trees
on monstrous  elephant legs, from which there spread  before  the procurator
the whole of hateful  Yershalaim, with its hanging bridges, fortresses, and,
above all,  that utterly  indescribable heap of  marble  with  golden dragon
scales  for a roof -  the temple of Yershalaim - the procurator's sharp  ear
caught, far below, where the stone wall separated the lower  terraces of the
palace garden from  the city square, a low  rumble over  which  from time to
time there soared feeble, thin moans or cries.
     The procurator understood that there, on the square, a numberless crowd
of  Yershalaim  citizens, agitated  by  the  recent disorders,  had  already
gathered,  that this crowd was waiting  impatiently for  the announcement of
the sentences, and that restless water sellers were crying in its midst.
     The procurator  began by inviting the high priest on to the balcony, to
take shelter from the merciless heat, but Kaifa politely apologized [26] and
explained that he could not do that on the eve of the feast.
     Pilate  covered  his slightly balding  head  with a hood and  began the
conversation. This conversation took place in Greek.
     Pilate said that  he  had looked  into the case  of Yeshua Ha-Nozri and
confirmed the death sentence.
     Thus, three  robbers - Dysmas, Gestas and Bar-Rabban -  and this Yeshua
Ha-Nozri besides, were condemned  to be executed, and it was to be done that
day. The first  two, who had ventured to incite  the people to rebel against
Caesar,  had  been  taken in armed struggle by the  Roman authorities,  were
accounted  to the procurator, and, consequently,  would not be talked  about
here. But the  second two, Bar-Rabban and Ha-Nozri,  had been seized by  the
local  authorities  and condemned by  the Sanhedrin. According  to the  law,
according to custom, one of these two criminals had to be released in honour
of  the great feast of  Passover,  which would begin  that  day.  And so the
procurator wished to know which of the two criminals the  Sanhedrin intended
to set free: Bar-Rabban or Ha-Nozri? [27]
     Kaifa inclined his head to  signify that the question was clear to him,
and replied:
     `The Sanhedrin asks that  Bar-Rabban be released.'  The procurator knew
very well  that the high priest would  give  precisely that answer, but  his
task consisted in showing that this answer provoked his astonishment.
     This  Pilate did with great artfulness. The  eyebrows  on  the arrogant
face rose,  the procurator  looked  with  amazement  straight into  the high
priest's eyes.
     'I confess, this answer stuns me,' the  procurator  began  softly, `I'm
afraid there may be some misunderstanding here.'
     Pilate  explained himself.  Roman authority  does  not encroach  in the
least upon the  rights of the local  spiritual authorities, the  high priest
knows  that very well, but in the present case we are  faced with an obvious
error.  And  this  error  Roman  authority  is,  of  course,  interested  in
correcting.
     In fact, the crimes of  Bar-Rabban and  Ha-Nozri are quite incomparable
in their gravity.  If  the latter, obviously an insane person, is  guilty of
uttering  preposterous  things  in  Yershalaim  and some  other  places, the
former's burden of guilt is more considerable. Not only did he allow himself
to call  directly  for  rebellion, but  he  also  killed a  guard during the
attempt  to  arrest  him. Bar-Rabban  is  incomparably  more dangerous  than
Ha-Nozri.
     On  the  strength  of all the foregoing, the  procurator asks the  high
priest to  reconsider the  decision and release the less  harmful of the two
condemned men, and that is without doubt Ha-Nozri. And so? ...
     Kaifa said  in a quiet but firm voice that the Sanhedrin had thoroughly
familiarized itself  with the case and informed him  a second  time  that it
intended to free Bar-Rabban.
     'What?  Even after  my  intercession?  The intercession of him  through
whose person Roman authority speaks? Repeat it a third time, High Priest.'
     'And a third time  I repeat that we are setting Bar-Rabban free,' Kaifa
said softly.
     It was all over, and there was nothing more to talk about. Ha-Nozri was
departing for ever, and there was no one to cure the dreadful, wicked  pains
of the procurator, there was no remedy for them except death. But it was not
this thought which now struck Pilate. The same incomprehensible anguish that
had already  visited him on the balcony pierced his whole being. He tried at
once to explain it, and the explanation was a strange one: it seemed vaguely
to the procurator that there was something he had not finished saying to the
condemned man, and perhaps something he had not finished hearing.
     Pilate drove this  thought away, and it flew off as instantly as it had
come flying. It flew off, and the anguish remained unexplained, for it could
not well  be explained by another  brief thought that flashed like lightning
and at  once  went  out  -  'Immortality...  immortality  has come...' Whose
immortality had come? That  the  procurator  did  not  understand,  but  the
thought of  this enigmatic immortality made  him grow  cold in the scorching
sun.
     'Very well,' said Pilate, 'let it be so.'
     Here  he turned,  gazed around  at the world  visible  to him,  and was
surprised at the change that had taken  place. The bush laden with roses had
vanished, vanished  were the cypresses bordering the upper  terrace, and the
pomegranate tree, and the white statue amidst the greenery, and the greenery
itself. In place  of it all there floated some purple mass, [28] water weeds
swayed in it and began moving off somewhere, and Pilate himself began moving
with  them. He  was carried along  now,  smothered and  burned, by the  most
terrible wrath - the wrath of impotence.
     'Cramped,' said Pilate, 'I feel cramped!'
     With  a cold, moist  hand he tore at  the clasp  on the  collar  of his
cloak, and it fell to the sand.
     'It's sultry  today,  there's  a storm somewhere,' Kaifa responded, not
taking his eyes off the procurator's reddened face,  and foreseeing  all the
torments that still lay ahead,  he thought: 'Oh, what  a  terrible month  of
Nisan we're having this year!'
     'No,' said Pilate, 'it's not because  of the sultriness, I feel cramped
with you here, Kaifa.' And, narrowing his eyes, Pilate smiled and added:
     "Watch out for yourself, High Priest.'
     The high  priest's  dark  eyes glinted,  and  with his  face -  no less
artfully than the procurator had done earlier - he expressed amazement.
     'What  do I hear, Procurator?' Kaifa replied proudly  and  calmly. "You
threaten  me after you yourself have confirmed the sentence passed? Can that
be? We  are accustomed to the Roman procurator choosing his words before  he
says something. What if we should be overheard, Hegemon?'
     Pilate looked at the high priest  with dead eyes and, baring his teeth,
produced a smile.
     'What's your trouble, High Priest? Who can hear us where we are now? Do
you think I'm like that young vagrant holy fool who is to be executed today?
Am I a boy, Kaifa? I know what I say and where I  say it. There  is a cordon
around the garden, a cordon around the palace, so that a mouse couldn't  get
through any  crack! Not only a mouse, but even that  one, what's his name...
from the  town of  Kiriath, couldn't get through. Incidentally, High Priest,
do  you know him? Yes... if that one got in here, he'd  feel  bitterly sorry
for himself, in this  you will, of course, believe me? Know, then, that from
now on, High Priest, you will have no peace! Neither you nor your people'  -
and Pilate pointed far  off to  the right,  where the  temple blazed on high
-'it  is  I  who  tell  you so, Pontius  Pilate,  equestrian  of  the Golden
Spear!'[29]
     'I know,  I know!' the  black-bearded Kaifa fearlessly replied, and his
eyes  flashed. He raised  his arm to heaven and went on: "The Jewish  people
know  that you hate  them with  a  cruel  hatred, and will cause  them  much
suffering, but you will not destroy them  utterly! God will protect them! He
will  hear us, the almighty Caesar will hear, he will protect us from Pilate
the destroyer!'
     'Oh, no!' Pilate exclaimed, and he felt lighter  and lighter with every
word: there was no more  need to pretend, no more need  to choose his words,
`you have complained about me too much to Caesar, and  now my hour has come,
Kaifa! Now the message will fly from me, and not to the governor in Antioch,
and not to  Rome, but  directly  to Capreae,  to the  emperor  himself,  the
message of  how you in Yershalaim are sheltering known criminals from death.
And then it will not be  water from Solomon's Pool that I give Yershalaim to
drink, as I wanted to do for your own  good! No,  not water! Remember how on
account of you I had to remove the shields  with the emperor's insignia from
the  walls, had to transfer  troops, had, as you see,  to  come in person to
look into what goes on with you here! Remember my  words: it is not just one
cohort  that you  will see here in Yershalaim, High  Priest - no! The  whole
Fulminata  legion will come  under the  city walls, the Arabian cavalry will
arrive, and then you will hear bitter weeping and wailing! You will remember
Bar-Rabban then, whom you saved, and  you  will  regret having  sent to  his
death a philosopher with his peaceful preaching!'
     The high priest's face became covered with blotches, his eyes burned.
     Like the procurator, he smiled, baring his teeth, and replied:
     `Do you yourself believe  what you are saying now, Procurator?  No, you
do not!  It is  not  peace, not  peace, that  the seducer of  the people  of
Yershalaim brought us,  and you, equestrian, understand that perfectly well.
You  wanted to release him so that he could disturb the  people, outrage the
faith, and bring  the people under Roman swords! But  I, the high priest  of
the Jews, as long as I  live, will  not allow the faith to  be  outraged and
will  protect the people! Do you  hear, Pilate?' And  Kaifa raised  his  arm
menacingly: 'Listen, Procurator!'
     Kaifa fell silent, and the procurator again heard a noise as if  of the
sea, rolling  up  to the very  walls of the garden of Herod  the Great.  The
noise  rose from below to the feet and into  the face of the procurator. And
behind his  back,  there,  beyond the  wings of the  palace,  came  alarming
trumpet calls, the heavy crunch of hundreds of feet, the clanking of iron.
     The procurator understood that  the Roman  infantry was already setting
out, on his orders,  speeding to the parade of death  so terrible for rebels
and robbers.
     `Do you hear,  Procurator?' the high priest repeated  quietly. 'Are you
going to  tell me that all this' - here the high priest raised both arms and
the dark hood fell from his  head - 'has been caused  by the wretched robber
Bar-Rabban?'
     The procurator wiped his wet, cold forehead with the back of  his hand,
looked  at the ground, then, squinting at the sky, saw that the red-hot ball
was  almost over his  head and that Kaifa's shadow  had shrunk to nothing by
the lion's tail, and said quietly and indifferently:
     'It's nearly noon. We got carried away  by our conversation, and yet we
must proceed.'
     Having apologized in refined terms before the  high  priest, he invited
him to sit down  on a bench  in the shade  of  a magnolia and wait until  he
summoned the other persons needed for the last brief conference and gave one
more instruction connected with the execution.
     Kaifa bowed politely,  placing his hand on his heart, and stayed in the
garden while  Pilate returned to the  balcony.  There he told the secretary,
who  had been waiting  for  him, to invite to the garden the  legate of  the
legion and the tribune of the  cohort, as  well as  the  two members of  the
Sanhedrin  and  the head of  the temple  guard,  who  had been awaiting  his
summons on the lower garden terrace, in  a round gazebo with a fountain.  To
this Pilate added that he himself would come out to the garden at  once, and
withdrew into the palace.
     While the secretary  was gathering the conference, the  procurator met,
in a  room shielded from the sun by dark curtains, with a certain man, whose
face was half covered by a hood, though  he  could not have been bothered by
the sun's  rays  in  this room.  The  meeting  was a  very  short  one.  The
procurator quietly spoke a few words to the man, after which he withdrew and
Pilate walked out through the colonnade to the garden.
     There,  in  the  presence  of  all  those  he had desired to  see,  the
procurator solemnly and dryly stated that he confirmed the death sentence on
Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and officially inquired of the members of the Sanhedrin  as
to whom  among the criminals they would like to grant  life. Having received
the reply that it was Bar-Rabban, the procurator said:
     Very well,' and told the secretary to put it into  the record at  once,
clutched in  his  hand the clasp that the secretary  had  picked up from the
sand, and said solemnly: It is time!'
     Here all  those present  started  down the wide marble stairway between
walls  of roses that  exuded a stupefying aroma, descending lower  and lower
towards the palace  wall, to the gates opening on to the big, smoothly paved
square,  at  the end of which  could be seen the  columns and statues of the
Yershalaim stadium.
     As soon as the group entered the square from the garden and mounted the
spacious stone platform  that dominated the  square, Pilate, looking  around
through narrowed eyelids, assessed the situation.
     The space he  had  just traversed, that is, the space  from  the palace
wall to the  platform, was empty, but  before him Pilate could no longer see
the square -  it had been swallowed up by the crowd, which would have poured
over the platform and the cleared space as well, had it not been kept at bay
by a triple row of Sebastean soldiers to the left of Pilate and soldiers  of
the auxiliary Iturean cohort to his right.
     And so, Pilate mounted the platform, mechanically clutching the useless
clasp  in his fist and squinting his eyes. The procurator was squinting  not
because the sun burned his eyes - no! For some reason he did not want to see
the  group of condemned men who, as he knew  perfectly well, were  now being
brought on to the platform behind him.
     As soon as the white cloak with crimson lining  appeared high up on the
stone cliff over the verge of the human sea, the unseeing Pilate  was struck
in  the  ears  by a  wave of  sound: 'Ha-a-a...' It started mutedly, arising
somewhere  far away by the  hippodrome, then  became  thunderous and, having
held  out  for  a  few  seconds,  began  to subside.  They've  seen me,' the
procurator thought.  The  wave had not reached  its  lowest  point before it
started swelling  again  unexpectedly and,  swaying, rose  higher  than  the
first, and as foam boils up on the billows of the sea, so a whistling boiled
up  on this second wave and, separate, distinguishable from the thunder, the
wails  of women. They've been led on to the platform,'  thought Pilate, `and
the wails mean that several women got crushed as the crowd surged forward.'
     He waited for some  time, knowing that no power could silence the crowd
before it exhaled all that was pent up in it and fell silent of itself.
     And when this moment came, the procurator threw  up his right arm,  and
the last noise was blown away from the crowd.
     Then Pilate drew into his breast as much of the hot air as he could and
shouted, and his cracked voice carried over thousands of heads:
     'In the name of the emperor Caesar! ...'
     Here his  ears  were struck several times by a clipped iron shout:  the
cohorts of soldiers raised  high their spears and standards  and shouted out
terribly:
     'Long live Caesar!'
     Pilate lifted his face and thrust  it straight into the sun. Green fire
flared up  behind  his eyelids, his  brain took flame  from it,  and  hoarse
Aramaic words went flying over the crowd:
     `Four  criminals,  arrested  in Yershalaim for  murder,  incitement  to
rebellion, and  outrages against the laws and the faith, have been sentenced
to  a  shameful execution  - by hanging on  posts! And  this  execution will
presently  be  carried  out on Bald Mountain! The names of the criminals are
Dysmas, Gestas, Bar-Rabban and Ha-Nozri. Here they stand before you!'
     Pilate pointed to his right, not seeing any criminals, but knowing they
were there, in place, where they ought to be.
     The crowd responded with a long rumble as if of surprise or relief.
     When it died down, Pilate continued:
     'But only three  of them will be executed, for,  in accordance with law
and custom, in honour of the feast of Passover, to one of the condemned,  as
chosen  by  the  Lesser  Sanhedrin and  confirmed by  Roman  authority,  the
magnanimous emperor Caesar will return his contemptible life!'
     Pilate cried out the words  and at the same time listened as the rumble
was replaced by a great silence. Not a sigh, not a rustle  reached his  ears
now, and there was even a  moment when it seemed to  Pilate that  everything
around him had  vanished altogether. The hated  city died, and  he alone  is
standing  there, scorched by  the sheer rays, his face  set against the sky.
Pilate held the silence a little longer, and then began to cry out:
     'The name of the one who will now be set free before you is...' He made
one  more pause, holding back the name, making sure he had said all, because
he knew that the dead city  would resurrect once the name of the  lucky  man
was  spoken,  and no further words  would be heard. 'All?' Pilate  whispered
soundlessly to  himself.  'All. The name!' And, rolling the letter 'r'  over
the silent city, he cried:
     'Bar-Rabban!'
     Here  it  seemed to him that  the  sun,  clanging,  burst over  him and
flooded  his  ears with fire.  This fire raged  with  roars, shrieks, wails,
guffaws and whistles.
     Pilate  turned  and  walked back  across the platform  to  the  stairs,
looking  at nothing except the multicoloured  squares of the flooring  under
his feet, so as not  to trip. He knew  that behind his back the platform was
being showered with bronze coins, dates, that people in the howling mob were
climbing  on shoulders, crushing each other, to see  the  miracle with their
own eyes - how a man already in the grip of death escaped that grip! How the
legionaries take the ropes off  him, involuntarily causing  him burning pain
in  his  arms,  dislocated during  his  interrogation;  how he,  wincing and
groaning, nevertheless smiles a senseless, crazed smile.
     He knew that  at the same time the convoy was already leading the three
men with bound arms to the side stairs, so as to take them to the road going
west  from  the  city,  towards  Bald Mountain. Only  when  he  was  off the
platform, to  the rear of it, did Pilate open  his eyes, knowing that he was
now safe - he could no longer see the condemned men.
     Mingled with the  wails of the quieting crowd, yet distinguishable from
them, were the piercing cries of heralds repeating, some in Aramaic,  others
in Greek, all  that the procurator had cried  out from the platform. Besides
that, there came to his ears the tapping, clattering and approaching thud of
hoofs, and a  trumpet calling out  something  brief and  merry. These sounds
were answered by the drilling whistles of boys on  the roofs of houses along
the street that led from  the bazaar to the  hippodrome square, and by cries
of 'Look out!'
     A  soldier, standing  alone in the cleared  space  of the square with a
standard  in his hand,  waved  it anxiously,  and  then the procurator,  the
legate of the legion, the secretary and the convoy stopped.
     A cavalry  ala, at an ever-lengthening trot, flew out into  the square,
so as to cross it at one side, bypassing the mass of people, and ride down a
lane under a stone  wall  covered with creeping  vines, taking the  shortest
route to Bald Mountain.
     At a flying trot, small as a boy, dark  as a  mulatto, the commander of
the  ala,  a Syrian, coming  abreast of  Pilate, shouted something in a high
voice and  snatched  his sword from its sheath.  The  angry,  sweating black
horse  shied  and reared.  Thrusting his  sword back  into  its sheath,  the
commander struck the horse's neck with his crop, brought  him down, and rode
off  into the lane,  breaking into  a gallop.  After  him,  three by  three,
horsemen  flew  in a cloud  of dust, the tips  of their  light bamboo lances
bobbing,  and faces dashed  past the procurator - looking especially swarthy
under their white turbans - with merrily bared, gleaming teeth.
     Raising dust to the  sky, the ala burst into the  lane, and the last to
ride past Pilate was  a soldier with a trumpet slung on his back, blazing in
the sun.
     Shielding  himself from the dust with his hand and wrinkling  his  face
discontentedly, Pilate  started  on  in the direction  of  the  gates to the
palace garden, and after him came the legate, the secretary, and the convoy.
     It was around ten o'clock in the morning.