Judas Iscariot.

Judas Iscariot.CHAPTER I.Jesus Christ had been frequently warned that Judas of Kerioth was a man of ill repute, a man against whom one should be on guard. Some of the disciples of Jesus who had been to Judea knew him well personally, others had heard a great deal of him, and there was none to say a good word concerning him. And if the good condemned him saying that Judas was covetous, treacherous, given to hypocrisy and falsehood, evil men also, when questioned about him, denounced him in the most opprobrious terms. “He always sows dissensions among us” they would say spitting contemptuously at the mere mention of his name; “he has thoughts of his own, and creeps into a house softly like a scorpion, but goes out with noise.” Even thieves have friends, robbers have comrades, and liars have wives to whom they speak the truth, but Judas mocks alike the thieves and the honest, though he is a skillful thief himself, and in appearance he is the most ill-favored among the inhabitants of Judea. “No, he is not of us this Judas of Kerioth”, the evil would say to the surprise of those good people who saw but little difference between them and other vicious men in Judea.It was rumored also that Judas had years back forsaken his wife, and that the poor woman, hungry and wretched, was vainly striving to eke out her sustenance from the three rocks that formed the patrimony of Judas, while he wandered aimlessly for many years among the nations, reaching in his travels the sea, and even another sea that was further still, lying, cutting apish grimaces and keenly searching for something with his thievish eye, only to depart suddenly, leaving in his wake unpleasantness and dissension,—curious, cunning and wicked like a one-eyed demon. He had no children, and this again showed that Judas was an evil man, and that God desired no progeny from him.None of the disciples had noticed the occasion on which this red-haired and repulsive Judean first came near the Christ. But he had been going their way for some time already, unabashed, mingling in their conversations, rendering them small services, bowing, smiling, ingratiating himself. There were moments when he seemed to fit into the general scheme, deceiving the wearied scrutiny, but often he obtruded himself on the eye and the ear, offending both as something incredibly repulsive, false and loathsome. Then they would drive him away with stern rebuke, and for a time he would be lost somewhere on the road, merely to reappear unobserved, servile, flattering and cunning like a one-eyed demon. And there was no doubt to some of His disciples that in his desire to come near Jesus there was hidden some mysterious object, some evil and calculating design.But Jesus did not heed their counsel; their voice of warning did not touch His ear. With that spirit of radiant contradiction which irrepressibly drew Him to the rejected and the unloved, He resolutely received Judas and included him even in the circle of His chosen ones. The disciples were agitated and murmured among themselves, but He sat still, His face turned to the setting sun, and listened pensively,—perhaps to them and perhaps to something entirely different. For ten days not a breath of wind had stirred the atmosphere, and the same diaphanous air, stationary, immobile, keen of scent and perception hung over the earth. And it seemed as though it had preserved in its diaphanous depth all that had been shouted and sung during these days by man, beast or bird,—the tears, the sobs and the merry songs, the prayers and the curses; and these glassy transfixed sounds seemed to burden and satiate it with invisible life. And once more the sun was setting. Its flaming orb was heavily rolling down the firmament, setting it ablaze with its dying radiance, and all on earth that was turned toward it: the swarthy face of Jesus, the walls of houses and the foliage of trees reflected obediently that distant and weirdly pensive light. The white wall was no longer white now, nor did the crimson city on the crimson hill appear white to the eye.And now came Judas.He came humbly bowing, bending his back, cautiously and anxiously stretching out his misshapen large head, and looking just like those who knew had pictured him. He was gaunt, well built, in stature almost as tall as Jesus, who was slightly bent from the habit of thinking while He walked. And he seemed to be sufficiently vigorous, though for some reason he pretended to be ailing and frail, and his voice was changeable: now manly and strong, now shrill like the voice of an old woman scolding her husband, thin and grating on the ear. And often the listener wished to draw the words of Judas out of his ears like some vile insect. His stubbly red hair failed to conceal the strange and unusual form of his skull: it seemed cleft from the back by a double blow of the sword and patched together. It was plainly divided into four parts, and its appearance inspired mistrust and even awe. Such a skull does not bode peace and concord; such a skull leaves in its wake the noise of bloody and cruel conflicts. The face of Judas, too, was double: one side, with its black, keen, observing eye was living, mobile, ready to gather into a multitude of irregular wrinkles. The other side was free from wrinkles, deathly smooth, flat and rigid; and though in size it was equal to the other, it seemed immense because of the wide-open, sightless eye. Covered with an opaque film it never closed night or day, facing alike the light and the darkness; but its vigilant and cunning mate was so close that one was loth to credit its entire blindness. When in fear or excitement Judas happened to close his seeing eye and shake his head, it rolled with the motion of the head and gazed silently and intently. Even altogether unobserving persons realized when they looked on the Iscariot that such a man could bring no good; but Jesus took him up and even seated him at His side, at His very side!John, the beloved disciple, moved away loathingly, while the others, loving their Teacher, looked on the ground with disapproval. But Judas sat down, and, moving his head to the left and to the right, immediately commenced to complain with a thin voice of various ailments, how his breast pained at night, how he was apt to lose breath when walking uphill or grow dizzy at the edge of the precipice, hardly restraining a stupid desire to cast himself into the abyss. And many other things he invented impiously, evidently failing to grasp that sickness comes to man not by chance but is born from a failure to shape his acts in accord with the commands of the Eternal. He rubbed his chest with his palm and coughed hypocritically, this Judas of Kerioth, amid general silence and downcast glances.John, avoiding the Teacher’s glance, whispered to Simon Peter:—“Art thou not tired of this falsehood? I cannot bear it longer and I shall go hence.”Peter looked at Jesus, and meeting His glance, swiftly rose to his feet. “Wait!” he said to his friend.Once more he glanced at Jesus and then, impetuously, like a rock dislodged from the mountain side, he gained the side of Judas Iscariot and loudly greeted him with a wide and unmistakable cordiality:—“Now you are with us, Judas!” Then he amiably slapped the newcomer’s curved back, and not seeing the Teacher, though feeling His glance, he added with that loud voice of his which dispelled all objections as water displaces air:“Your bad looks do not matter. We get uglier creatures into our nets and they turn out the best to eat. And it is not for us, fishers for the Lord, to throw away our haul because the fish is ugly and one-eyed. I saw once in Tyre an octopus caught by the fishermen there and was scared enough to run. They laughed at me, who am a fisherman from Tiberias, and gave me a taste of it. And I asked for another helping, it was so fine. Dost Thou remember, Teacher, I told Thee of it and Thou didst laugh? And thou, too, Judas, resemblest an octopus, at least one half of thee does.”And he laughed loudly, pleased with his jest. When Peter spoke, his words sounded firm and solid as though he were nailing them down with a hammer. When Peter moved or did anything he made a noise that was heard afar off and evoked a response from the dullest objects: the stone floor groaned under his feet, the doors trembled and banged, and the very air was thrilled. In the mountain fastnesses his voice woke an angry echo, and in the morning, while they fished, it rolled sonorously over the somnolently glistening waters and beguiled the first timid rays of the sun into a responsive smile. And perhaps that was why they loved Peter so: while upon the faces of others there rested yet the shadows of the night, his massive head and bare bosom and freely swinging arms glowed already in the radiance of the rising sun.The words of Peter, approved by the Teacher, dispelled the embarrassment of the disciples. But some of them, who had been to the seashore and had seen the octopus, were disquieted by the simile which Peter had so frivolously applied to the new disciple. They remembered the monster’s immense eyes, the multitude of its greedy tentacles, its pretended calm at the very moment it was ready to embrace and to crush the victim and to suck out its life, without a single wink of its great big eyes.What was that? Jesus was silent, Jesus smiled; He was watching them with a kindly smile while Peter spoke of the octopus,—and one after the other the confused disciples approached Judas, addressing him cordially, but they walked away quickly and in embarrassment.And only John, the Son of Zebedee, remained obstinately silent; and Thomas too was ruminating over the incident and apparently could not make up his mind to say anything. He intently watched Christ and Judas who were seated together, and this strange proximity of divine beauty and monstrous hideousness, of the Man with the gentle glance and the Octopus with the immense, immobile lack-lustre, greedy eyes—oppressed his mind like an unfathomable mystery. He strained and wrinkled his straight and smooth forehead, half closing his eyes in an effort to see better, but his exertion had only the effect of making it appear that Judas had really eight restlessly shuffling tentacles. But that was an error. Thomas realized this and gazed again with obstinate effort.But Judas little by little grew bolder: he stretched out his arms, which he had held cramped at the elbows, relaxed the muscles that had kept his jaws in a state of rigidity and cautiously proceeded to exhibit his redhaired skull. It was in the plain view of all, but it seemed to Judas that it had been deeply and impenetrably hidden from sight by some invisible, opaque and cunningly devised film. And as one emerging from the grave, he first felt the rays of light touching his strangely shaped skull and then his sight met the eyes of the onlookers. He paused and suddenly revealed his entire face. But nothing happened. Peter had gone somewhere on an errand. Jesus sat musing and leaned His head upon His arm, softly swinging His sunburnt foot. The disciples were conversing quietly and only Thomas was attentively and seriously scrutinizing him like a conscientious tailor taking his customer’s measure. Judas smiled, but Thomas did not respond, though he apparently took the smile into account, like everything else, and continued his scrutiny. But a disquieting sensation annoyed the left side of Judas’ face and he turned around: from a dark corner John was looking upon him with his cold and beautiful eyes, handsome, pure, without a spot on his snowwhite conscience. Walking apparently like other people, but with the inward feeling of slinking away like a chastised dog, Judas approached him and said:“Why art thou silent, John? Thy words are like golden fruit in transparent silver vessels. Give some of it unto Judas who is so poor.”John gazed at the immobile and wide-open eye and did not utter a word. And he saw Judas creep away, linger an instant irresolutely and disappear in the darkness of the open doorway.It was the time of the full moon and many took the opportunity for a walk. Jesus, too, went forth with the others, and Judas watched the departing figures from the low roof on which he had spread his bed. In the moonlight each figure had on airy and deliberate aspect and seemed to float, with its black shadow in the rear. Suddenly the man would vanish in the gloom and then his voice would be heard. But when the people emerged again into the moonlight, they seemed silent like the white walls, like the black shadows, like that transparently hazy and moonlit night.Most people were sleeping already when Judas heard the gentle voice of the homecoming Christ. And all had grown still in the house and about him. The cock crew; somewhere an ass, disturbed in his slumber, brayed in a loud and injured tone, and ungraciously stopped again after a few protests. But Judas slept not; he was listening intently from his hiding place. The moon illumined one half of his face and its radiance cast a queer reflection in the large and open eye, as if mirroring itself on a lake of ice.Suddenly, as if remembering something, he coughed several times in quick succession, and rubbed with his palm his hairy and vigorous breast: someone might be awake and listening to the thoughts of Judas.CHAPTER II.Little by little the disciples became accustomed to Judas and ceased to notice his ugliness. Jesus turned over to him the treasure chest, and with it the household cares: his task was now to purchase the necessary food and raiment, to distribute alms, and to prepare a lodging place during their wanderings. All this he accomplished skillfully and in a very short time he succeeded in gaining the goodwill of some of the disciples who observed the pains he was taking. Judas, indeed, lied incessantly, but they had become used to this also, for they failed to find any evil deed in the wake of his lying, and it added a peculiar piquancy to his tales making life appear like some absurd, and at times terrible legend.From Judas’ tales it seemed as though he knew all men, and each man whom he knew had at one time or another in his life committed an evil deed, perhaps a crime. Good people in his opinion were those who knew well how to hide their actions and thoughts; but if one were to embrace them, to set them at ease with caresses and, to closely question them, he felt sure evil and falsehood would ooze from them like poison from a suppurating wound. He readily agreed that he too was wont to lie now and then, but affirmed with an oath that others lied even more, and that if there was one person in the world foully imposed upon and ill-used that person was Judas. Many people had deceived him, and more than once and in divers ways. Thus a certain steward who had charge of a nobleman’s treasure had confessed to Judas that for ten years he had coveted the possession of the treasure entrusted to him, but feared his master and his conscience. And Judas believed him, but lo! suddenly he stole the treasure and deceived Judas. And again Judas believed him, but he as unexpectedly returned the stolen goods to his master—and again deceived Judas. And everybody was deceiving him—even the animals. If he petted a dog, it would snap at his fingers; if he beat it with a rod it licked his hand and looked into his eyes with a filial expression. He killed such a dog once, buried the animal deep in the ground and lay a heavy stone on the burial spot, but who knows? perhaps because he had killed it, it became endowed with a more abundant life and was no longer resting in its grave but merrily running about with other dogs.Every one laughed at Judas’ tales, and he himself smiled pleasantly, winking his live and mocking eye, and smilingly confessed again that he had lied a little: that he had never killed such a dog, but promised to find it and surely kill it, for he hated to be deceived. And they laughed still more at such words.But sometimes in his tales he exceeded the limits of probability and verisimilitude and ascribed to people tendencies such as are foreign even to beasts and accused them of simply incredible crimes. And as he mentioned in such connection names of the most respected people, some were indignant at the slander, while others jestingly inquired:“But thy father and mother, Judas, were they not good people?”Judas winked his eye, smiled and shrugged his shoulders. And as he shook his head his congealed wide open eye shook in its orbit and gazed dumbly:“And who was my father? Perhaps the man who chastised me when I was a child, perhaps the devil, or a goat or a rooster. Can Judas know with whom his mother shared her couch? Judas has many fathers. Of whom speak you?”But at this the ire of all was aroused, for they greatly honored their parents, and Matthew, thoroughly versed in the Scriptures, sternly repeated the words of Solomon:“He who speaks ill of his father and his mother, his lamp will be extinguished in utter darkness.”And John of Zebedee inquired contemptuously: “And how about us? What evil wilt thou say about us, Judas of Kerioth?”But he, with pretended fear, threw up his hands, cringing and whining like a beggar vainly praying alms from a passer-by:“Ah! Wouldst thou tempt poor Judas? Mock poor Judas, deceive poor guileless Judas?”While one side of his face was distorted in apish grimaces, the other seemed serious and stern and the never-closed eye peered mutely and vaguely into space. Above all others, and most loudly, Simon Peter was wont to laugh at his jests. But once it happened that with a sudden frown he paused and hastily took Judas aside, almost dragging him by his sleeve:“And Jesus? What thinkest thou of Jesus?” he inquired in a loud whisper bending over him. “But no jesting now, I pray thee.”Judas looked up with hatred:“And what thinkest thou?”“I think that He is the Son of the living God.”“Then why askest thou? What could Judas say whose father is a goat?”“But dost thou love Him? It seems that thou lovest no one.”And with the same odd malice-reeking manner the Iscariot snapped out:“I do.”After this conversation Peter for a day or two loudly referred to Judas as his friend the octopus, while the other clumsily and wrathfully sought to escape from him into some obscure nook where he would sit and sulk, while his white never-closed eye gleamed ominously in the dark.Thomas alone regarded Judas’ tales with seriousness. He was incapable of understanding jests, pretensions and lies, plays of words and of thoughts, and in everything sought the substantial and positive. All stories of Judas concerning evil people and their deeds he interrupted with brief business-like questions:“Can you prove it? Who heard this? And who else was present? What was his name?”Judas shrilly protested that he himself had heard and seen it all, but the obstinate Thomas persisted in questioning him calmly and methodically until Judas confessed that he had lied or until he invented a more plausible falsehood over which Thomas would pore for some time. Then discovering the deception he immediately returned and quietly exposed the liar. Judas on the whole aroused in him an intense curiosity, which brought about a queer sort of a friendship between them, noisy, full of laughter and vituperation on the one hand, and characterized by calm and insistent inquisitiveness on the other. At times Judas felt an irresistible contempt for his unimaginative friend and piercing him with a poignant glance he would inquire with irritation and almost pleadingly:“What else dost thou want? I have told thee all, all.”“I want thee to explain to me how a goat could be thy father,” insisted Thomas phlegmatically and waited for an answer. Once after listening to such a query Judas relapsed into silence and scanned the inquirer from head to foot in amazement. He saw a man of erect and lanky stature, of grey countenance, transparently clear straightforward eyes, two massive folds starting at the nose and losing themselves in the evenly trimmed rough beard, and observed with conviction:“How stupid thou art Thomas! What seest thou in thy dreams? A tree, a wall, an ass?”And Thomas blushed in confusion, finding no answer. But just as Judas’ living and unsteady eye was about to close in sleep, he suddenly exclaimed (they both now slept on the roof):“Thou art wrong, Judas. I do see evil dreams sometimes. How sayest thou, is a man responsible for his dreams?”“And who else sees them but the man himself?”Thomas softly sighed and lapsed into musing. Judas smiled contemptuously, tightly shutting his thievish eyes and calmly yielded himself up to his rebellious dreams, monstrous visions, and mad imaginings which rent to pieces his illshaped skull.When in the wanderings of Jesus through Judea the pilgrims approached a village, the Iscariot was in the habit of relating evil things concerning the inhabitants thereof and predicting calamities. But it generally happened that the people whom he denounced met Christ and His friends joyously, surrounded them with attentions, and the treasure chest of Judas grew so heavy that he could hardly carry it.And when he was twitted with his mistake he shrugged his shoulders in resignation and said:“Yes, yes. Judas thought they were wicked and they are good. They believed quickly and gave us money. And again they deceived Judas, poor trusting Judas of Kerioth.”But once having departed from a village where they had been cordially received Thomas and Judas had a violent dispute, and in order to settle it they chanced to turn back. A day later they caught up with Jesus and the disciples. Thomas looked confused and saddened, but Judas bore himself triumphantly, as if waiting for the others to come and congratulate him. Coming near the Teacher, Thomas announced:“Judas was right, Lord. Those were stupid and wicked people. Thy seed fell upon rocky ground.”And then he related what had happened. Soon after Jesus and His disciples had gone an old woman discovered the loss of a kid and accused the strangers of the theft. The villagers argued with her, but she obstinately insisted that nobody else could have stolen it but Jesus. Many believed her and talked of pursuing the strangers. But soon the kid was found (it had become entangled in the bushes). The villagers, however, decided that Jesus was after all a deceiver and perhaps a thief.“Indeed?” said Peter, distending his nostrils. “Lord, say the word and I shall return to those fools.”But Jesus, who had kept silence all this time, glanced at him sternly, and Peter stopped and hid himself behind the backs of others. And no one else spoke of the incident, as if nothing had happened, as if he, Judas, had proved to be in the wrong. Vainly he strove to show himself from every point of view, laboring to impart to his twofold predatory, birdlike beaked face an appearance of modesty. No one looked on him, except to cast a casual, very unfriendly and even contemptuous glance.And from that day the attitude of Jesus towards him strangely changed. Until then it had somehow seemed as though Judas never spoke directly to Jesus, and as though Jesus never addressed him directly, but still the Teacher had frequently looked at him with a kindly glance, smiling at some of his conceits, and if he missed him for any length of time he was wont to inquire: “And where is Judas?” But now he looked on Judas without noticing him, though as heretofore His glance sought him out, and even more persistently than formerly, whenever He began to speak to His disciples or to the people—but He either turned His back to Judas as He sat down or cast His words at him over His shoulder or else appeared not to notice him at all. And whatever He said, though it may have been one thing to-day or another the next, though it were the same thing that Judas himself had in his mind, it seemed as though He always spoke against Judas. And unto all He was a tender and beautiful flower, the fragrant Rose of Lebanon, but for Judas He had only sharp thorns—as though Judas had no heart, as though he had no eyes or nostrils, as though he were not better able than all others to appreciate the beauty of tender and thornless rose leaves.“Thomas, lovest thou the yellow Rose of Lebanon that has a swarthy face and eyes like a hind?” he once asked of his friend and Thomas indifferently replied:“The Rose? Yes, its odor is agreeable to me, but I have never heard that roses had swarthy faces or eyes like hinds!”“How? Dost thou not even know that the many-armed cactus which yesterday rent thy garment has only one red flower and only one eye?”But Thomas was ignorant of this also, though the day before a cactus had actually gripped a portion of his garment and rent it into shreds. He knew nothing this Thomas, though he inquired about everything and gazed so straightforwardly with his clear and transparent eyes through which one could see as through a Phoenician glass the wall behind him and the plodding ass hitched to it.Before long another incident occurred when Judas again proved to have been correct. In a certain Judean village which he had severely criticised and sought to have left out of the itinerary, Christ was received with much hostility and after He had preached and denounced the hypocrites, the populace was aroused to a wild remonstrance and thought of stoning Him and His disciples.The opponents were numerous and they would have surely succeeded in carrying out their design if it had not been for Judas of Kerioth. Seized with a mad fear for Jesus, as though perceiving already the drops of crimson on His white robe, Judas blindly and frenziedly cast himself against the mob, menacing, screaming, pleading, and lying, and thus gave Jesus and His disciples an opportunity to escape. Amazingly agile, as though scurrying on dozens of feet, ludicrous and terrible in his frenzied pleading, he rushed madly before the crowd and fascinated it with some strange spell. He screamed that the Nazarene was not at all possessed of the devil, that He was a mere deceiver, a thief, a lover of money, like all of His disciples, like he, Judas, himself,—he shook the money chest in their faces, distorted his features and pleaded with them casting himself to the ground. And gradually the wrath of the mob turned into laughter and disgust and the arms that had held the stones sank to their sides.“Unworthy, unworthy they are to die of an honest man’s hand,” exclaimed some, while others musingly gazed after the speedily vanished Judas.And again Judas expected congratulations, praises, and thanks, and made a show of his rent garments and falsely claimed that he had been beaten, but again he was inconceivably deceived. Filled with wrath Jesus walked ahead taking large steps and silent, and even John and Peter dared not approach him, while the others coming across Judas, with his rent garments, his face aglow with excitement and triumph though still a little pale with recent fright, drove him away with curt and angry remarks. As if he had not saved them, as if he had not saved their teacher whom they loved so much.“Dost thou wish to see a pack of fools?” he remarked to Thomas who musingly plodded by his side. “Look how they walk along the roadway, like a herd of sheep, raising the dust. And thou, clever Thomas, art dragging along behind; and I, noble and beautiful Judas, am also trudging in the rear like a filthy slave not fit to walk by the side of his master.”“Why callest thou thyself beautiful?” inquired the surprised Thomas.“Because I am handsome,” replied Judas with conviction and began to relate to him, with many additions, how he had deceived the enemies of Jesus and laughed at them and their stones.“But thou didst lie!” remarked Thomas.“Of course I lied,” agreed the Iscariot in a matter-of-fact tone. “I gave them what they asked and they returned to me what I needed. And what is a lie, my clever Thomas? Would not the death of Jesus have been the greater lie?”“Thou didst wrong. Now I know that thy father was the devil. He taught thee this, Judas.”The Iscariots cheek blanched and seemed to overshadow Thomas, as though a white cloud had descended and hidden the roadway and Jesus. With a lithe movement Judas suddenly seized Thomas and pressed him to himself with a grip so tight that he could not move and whispered into his ear:“Good. The devil taught me? Good, Thomas, good. And I saved Jesus, didn’t I? Then the devil loves Jesus, then the devil needs Jesus and Truth? Good, good Thomas. But my father was not the devil, he was a goat. Mayhap the goat needs Jesus? Hey? And you, do you not want Him? Do you not want the Truth?”Angered and slightly frightened Thomas with an effort released himself from Judas’ slimy embrace and walked ahead swiftly, but soon slowed down in order to ponder over what had just happened.But Judas plodded on quietly in the rear, falling back little by little. The wanderers had merged into one motley group in the distance and it was impossible to tell accurately which of the little figures was Jesus. Now even the tiny figure of Thomas changed into a grey dot, and suddenly they were all lost to sight behind a turn in the road; glancing around Judas turned aside from the roadway and with mighty leaps descended into the depths of a rocky ravine. His robe inflated from his swift and impetuous flight and his arms stretched upward as though he soared on wings. There on a steep decline he slipped and rapidly rolled down in a grey heap, his flesh torn by the shaggy rock, and leaped again to his feet angrily shaking his fist at the mountain.“You too, curse you!”And suddenly forsaking his swiftness of movement for a sullen and concentrated deliberateness he chose a spot near a large rock and slowly seated himself. He turned around as if in search of a comfortable position, pressed the palms of his hands close together against the grey rock and heavily leaned his head upon them. Thus he sat for an hour or two without stirring, deceiving the birds, motionless and grey like the rock itself. Before him, behind him and around him rose the steep sides of the ravine cutting with their sharp outline into the azure sky; and everywhere rose immense stones, rooted into the ground, as if there had passed over the place a shower of rocks and its heavy drops had grown transfixed in neverending thought. The wild and deserted ravine resembled an overturned decapitated skull and each rock therein seemed a congealed thought, and there were many of them, and they all were brooding heavy, limitless, stubborn thoughts.There a deceived scorpion hobbled amicably past Judas on his rickety legs; Judas glanced at him without lifting his head from the stone, and again his eyes stopped rigidly fixed on some object, both motionless, both covered with an odd and whitish film, both seemingly blind and dreadfully seeing. Then from the ground, from the rocks, from the crevices began to rise the calm gloom of night; it enshrouded the motionless Judas and swiftly crept upwards to the luminously pallid sky. The night was advancing with its thoughts and dreams.That night Judas failed to return to the lodging, and the disciples torn from their thoughts by cares for food and drink murmured at his negligence.CHAPTER III.Once about noon time, Jesus and his disciples were ascending a rocky and mountainous path barren of shade, and as they had been over five hours on the road Jesus commenced to complain of weariness. The disciples stopped and Peter with his friend John spread their mantles and those of other disciples on the ground and fastened them overhead on two protruding rocks and thus prepared a sort of a tent for Jesus. And he reclined in that tent, resting from the heat of the sun, while they sought to divert Him with merry talk and jests. But seeing that speech wearied Him they withdrew a short distance and engaged in various occupations, being themselves but little sensitive to heat and fatigue. Some searched the mountainside for edible roots among the rocks, and brought them to Jesus, others ascended higher and higher. John had found a pretty blue lizard among the stones and bore it tenderly to Jesus, with a gentle smile; the lizard gazed with its protruding mysterious eyes into His eyes and then swiftly glided with its cold little body over His warm hand and rapidly bore away somewhere its tender and trembling tail.Peter, caring little for such diversions, amused himself in company with Philip by detaching large stones from the mountainside and rolling them down in a contest of strength. Attracted by their loud laughter, little by little the others gathered around them and took part in the game. Straining every muscle each tore from the glen a hoary moss-covered stone, lifted it high overhead with both arms and dropped it down the incline. It struck heavily with a short, blunt contact and seemed to stop for an instant, as if in thought, then irresolutely it took the first leap, and each time it touched the earth it gathered from it speed and strength, grew light, ferocious, all-crushing. Then it leaped no longer, but flew with flashing teeth, and the air with a whizzing noise made way for the compact rotund missile. Now it reached the edge of the ravine; with a smooth final movement the stone flew up a little distance into the air, and rolled below, clumsy, heavy and circular, towards the bottom of the invisible abyss.“Now then one more!” cried Peter. His white teeth glistened through his black beard and mustache, his powerful breast and arms were bared and the old angry stones, dully wondering at the strength that cast them, one after the other submissively passed into the abyss. Even frail John threw little pebbles, and Jesus smiling gently watched their game. “Well, Judas, why dost thou not take part in the game, it is apparently so diverting?” asked Thomas having found his queer friend motionless behind a large grey rock.“My breast pains and they have not called me.”“Is there any need to call thee? Well, I call thee. Come. Look how large are the stones that Peter is casting down.”Judas glanced sideways at him and for the first time Thomas dimly realized that Judas of Kerioth had two faces. But hardly had he grasped the idea when Judas remarked in his wonted tone, ingratiating and at the same time sneering:“Is there any one stronger than Peter? When he shouts all the asses in Jerusalem think their Messias has come and respond. Hast thou ever heard their braying?”Smiling amicably and bashfully covering his breast that was covered with curly red hair Judas entered the circle of the players. And as they all felt merry they received him with glad shouts and hilarious jests and even John indulgently smiled when Judas, groaning and simulating great strain detached an immense stone. But now he easily raised it and cast it down. His blind wide-open eye shifted and fixed itself rigidly on Peter, while the other, cunning and happy twinkled with suppressed merriment.“Well, you throw another one,” broke in Peter in an offended tone.And then one after another they raised and dropped gigantic stones, and in surprise the disciples watched them. Peter would throw a large stone, but Judas a still larger one. Peter, with a frown, wrathfully turned a fragment of the rock and reeling raised it and dropped it into the depths. Judas, still smiling, searched with a glance for a still larger fragment, caressingly dug into it with his lean long fingers, clung to it, swayed with it and with blanching cheek sent it down into the abyss. Having dropped his stone, Peter fell back and thus watched its flight, while Judas bent forward, leaned over the abyss and spread out his long and creepy arms as though he meant to fly after the stone. Finally both of them, first Peter and then Judas, seized a grey stone and were unable to raise it, neither one nor the other. Flushed with his effort Peter resolutely approached Jesus and loudly exclaimed:“Lord, I do not want Judas to be stronger than I. Help me to raise that stone and cast it down.”And Jesus softly made some reply. Peter dissatisfied shrugged his broad shoulders, but dared no rejoinder and returned with the following words:“He said: ‘And who shall help the Iscariot?’”But glancing at Judas, who with bated breath and tightly clenched teeth still clung to the stubborn stone, Peter burst out in a laugh:“Look at the sick man! Look at our poor ailing Judas.”And Judas himself laughed, being so unexpectedly exposed in a lie, and the others laughed also; even Thomas suffered a smile to slip past his straight, shaggy mustache.With merry and friendly speech they started again on their way, and Peter, having made full peace with the victor, now and again nudged his ribs with his fists and laughed loudly.“The sick man!”Everyone praised Judas, everyone acknowledged him victor, everyone conversed with him cordially, but Jesus—Jesus even this time failed to praise Judas. Silently He walked on ahead, gnawing at a blade of grass, and little by little the disciples ceased their laughter and joined Jesus. Soon it happened that they walked all in one group ahead, but Judas, the victor Judas, the strong Judas, trudged along in the rear swallowing dust.They paused, and Jesus laying one hand on Peter’s shoulder pointed with the other into the distance, where already in the mist had appeared Jerusalem; and the big broad back of Peter carefully couched His fine sunburnt hand.For the night’s lodging they stopped in Bethany, in the house of Lazarus. And when they all gathered to converse, Judas thought it a good time to recall his victory over Peter. The disciples, however, had little to say and were unusually silent. The images of the journey just completed, the sun, the rocks, the grass, Christ reposing in the tent, floated softly through their minds, exhaling a gentle pensiveness, generating dimly sweet dreams of some eternal motion under the sun. The wearied body rested sweetly, musing of something mysteriously beautiful and great—and not one remembered Judas.Judas went out. Then he returned. Jesus was speaking and his disciples listened in silence. Motionless as a statue, Mary sat at His feet and with head thrown back gazed into His face. John had come close to the Teacher and strove to touch the hem of His garment with his hand, but so as not to disturb him. And having touched it he sat breathlessly still. And Peter breathed hard and loud, echoing the words of Jesus with his breath.The Iscariot stopped at the threshold and contemptuously passed his glance over those assembled, concentrating its flames upon Jesus. And as he gazed, all around him grew dim and was lost in gloom and silence; Jesus only, with uplifted hand, was radiant. But now He too seemed to rise in the air, seemed to melt and His substance seemed to change into luminous mist such as hangs over the lake when the moon goes down; and His soft-spoken words sounded somewhere afar off and gentle. And gazing deeper into this wavering vision, drinking in with his ears the tender melody of those distant and spectral words, Judas gripped his whole soul with claws of iron and silently in its unfathomable gloom commenced to rear something stupendous. Slowly in the dense darkness, he raised immense mountainous masses, piling them up one upon another, and raised others and piled them up again; and something was growing in the darkness, expanding voicelessly, spreading its outlines. Now he felt his head transformed into a vast dome, and in its impenetrable gloom there grew and grew something stupendous, and someone wrought therein, raising mountainlike masses, piling them up one upon another and raising up new ones ... And gently there sounded somewhere distant and spectral words.Thus he stood, blocking the doorway, towering tall and dark, while Jesus spoke, and Peter’s loud breathing same in unison with His words. But suddenly Jesus ceased—with an abruptly incomplete sound, and Peter, like one awakened out of a trance, triumphantly exclaimed:“Lord, Thou knowest the words of Eternal Life!”But Jesus was gazing somewhere in silence. And when they followed his glance they saw Judas in the doorway rigid, open-mouthed and with staring eyes. And not knowing what it was about, they laughed. But Matthew, learned in the Scriptures, touched Judas’ shoulder and remarked in Solomon’s words:“He who has a gentle look will be shown mercy, but he who is met in the gate will oppress others.”Judas shuddered and even uttered a faint hoarse cry of fear, and all of his body—eyes, arms and legs seemed to flee in different directions. So a beast might look when suddenly facing the eyes of man. Jesus walked straight against Judas, seemingly bearing some word on His lips, and he walked past Judas through the door which was now open and free.Long after midnight Thomas, becoming worried, approached Judas’ sleeping place and bending over him inquired:“Thou weepest, Judas?”“No, go away, Thomas.”“Then why groanest thou and gnashest thy teeth? Art thou ill?”Judas was silent for a space of time, and then from his lips poured forth one after another heavy words, throbbing with yearning and wrath.“Why does He not love me? Why does He love them? Am I not more beautiful, am I not better, am I not stronger than they? Did I not save His life while the others were running away cringing like cowardly curs?”“My poor friend, thou art not entirely in the right. Thou are not at all beautiful and thy tongue is as disagreeable as thy face. Thou art forever lying and speaking ill of others. How dost thou expect that Jesus should love thee?”But Judas heard him not and continued: “Why is He with those who do not love Him, instead of with Judas? John brought Him a lizard, I would have brought Him a venomous snake. Peter cast stones, I would have turned the mountain around for Him. But what is a snake? Draw its tooth and it will cling about thy neck like a necklace. What is a mountain which one can dig with his hands and trample under foot? I would have given Him Judas, daring, beautiful Judas. But now He will perish and Judas will perish with Him.”“Thou sayest strange things, Judas.”“The withered fig tree which is to be hewn down! Why, that is I, He said it of me! Why does He not hew? He dare not, Thomas. I know Him. He fears Judas! He hides before the daring, the beautiful Judas! He loves the fools, the traitors, the liars! Thou art a liar, Thomas, hast thou heard me?”Thomas was greatly surprised, and thought of protesting, but he decided that Judas was merely brawling, and contented himself by shaking his head. But Judas’ agony increased: he moaned, gnashed his teeth, and one could hear his huge body shifting restlessly under the blanket.“What is it that pains Judas so? Who has set fire to his body? He gives his son unto the dogs, he yields his daughter into the hands of robbers for defilement. But is not the heart of Judas tender? Go away, Thomas, go away, thou fool. Leave Judas alone, strong, daring, beautiful Judas.”CHAPTER IV.Judas purloined a few pieces of silver and the theft was discovered by Thomas who had chanced to note the exact sum of money given him. It was thought likely that he had stolen on previous occasions, and the indignation of the disciples knew no bounds. Bristling with wrath Peter seized Judas by the neck and half dragged him to Jesus. The pale and frightened culprit offered no resistance.“Teacher, look. Our jester! Just look at him, the thief. Thou trustest him, but he steals our money. The rogue! If thou wilt but say the word, I shall....”But Jesus was silent. Peter looked up curiously scanning the Teacher’s expression, and with flushed face relaxed his hold on Judas. The latter smoothed his garments with a sheepish mien and assumed the downcast appearance of a penitent sinner.“What do you think of that!” growled Peter, and walked out of the room banging the door. Everybody was annoyed, and the disciples declared that on no account would they remain together with Judas. John, however, with a sudden inspiration quietly slipped into the room whence through the open doorway was now heard the gentle and apparently cordial voice of Jesus.When John returned, his face was pale and his eyes were red with recent tears.“The Teacher says ... The Teacher says that Judas may take all the money he likes.”Peter laughed angrily. Swiftly and reproachfully John glanced at the impetuous disciple, and suddenly, all aglow, his tears mingling with his wrath, his joy mingling with his tears, he exclaimed with a ringing voice:“And none shall keep count of the money which Judas receives. He is our brother and all the money is his as well as ours, and if he needs much let him take much, telling no one nor taking counsel with any. Judas is our brother and you have deeply offended against him,” thus sayeth our Teacher. “Shame on us, brethren!”In the doorway stood Judas, pale and with a sickly smile. John with a quick movement approached him and kissed him thrice on the cheek. And after him, exchanging glances and awkwardly, came the others, James, Philip, and the rest. After each kiss Judas wiped his mouth, though he received the kiss with a resounding smack as if the sound afforded him much pleasure. The last to kiss him was Peter.“We are all fools, Judas. We are all blind. One alone is seeing, One alone is wise. May I kiss thee?”“Why not? Kiss,” assented Judas.Peter cordially kissed him and whispered into his ear:“And I almost choked thee. The others were gentler, but I seized thee by the throat. Did it pain thee?”“A little.”“I shall go to Him and tell Him. I was even angry with Him,” gloomily remarked Peter striving to open the door without noise.“And how about thee, Thomas?” sternly inquired John who was watching the actions of the disciples.“I don’t know yet. I must think.”And Thomas thought long, almost the whole day.The disciples had gone about their business, and somewhere behind the wall Peter shouted loudly and merrily, but Thomas was still thinking. Pie would have finished sooner, but Judas, whose mocking glance persistently pursued his movement, disturbed him. Now and then the Iscariot inquired with a mock curiosity:“Well, how is it Thomas? How art thou progressing?”Then Judas brought his treasure chest and loudly jingling his coins he commenced to count them, pretending to ignore the presence of Thomas.“Twenty one, twenty two, twenty three. Look, Thomas, another false coin. What great rogues people are, they even offer false money unto God. Twenty four. And then they will say Judas had stolen it. Twenty five. Twenty six....”Thomas resolutely advanced to him, (it was already towards evening) and said:“He was right, Judas. Let me kiss thee.”“Indeed? Twenty nine. Thirty. But it is all in vain. I shall steal again. Thirty one....”“How canst thou steal if there is no more thine or anybody else’s? Thou wilt take what thou needest, brother.”“And didst thou require all this time merely to repeat His words? Thou doest not value time, Thomas?”“I fear thou mockest me, brother.”“And think, dost thou act correctly in repeating His words? It was He who had spoken, and they were His words, not thine. It was He who had kissed me, but you defiled my mouth. I can still feel your moist lips creeping over my face. How disgusting that was, Thomas! Thirty eight. Thirty nine. Forty pieces of silver. Dost thou want to count it over?”“But He is our Teacher. How should we not repeat His words?”“Has Judas no longer a neck to drag him by? Is he now naked so that ye cannot seize him? The Teacher will leave the house, Judas may accidentally steal three coins, and will ye not again seize him by the neck?”“We know now, Judas. We understand.”“But have not all disciples a poor memory? And do not the disciples deceive their teachers? The Teacher lifts the rod, the disciples cry: ‘We know the lesson!’ The teacher lies down to sleep and the disciples inquire: ‘Is not this what our teacher taught us?’ And here this morning thou didst call me thief, but now callest thou me brother. What wilt thou call me on the morrow?”Judas laughed, and picking up with one arm the heavy and jingling money chest he continued:“When the wind blows strongly it raises the dust and the stupid people see the dust and say: ‘Behold, the wind bloweth.’ But it is only dust, my good Thomas, the refuse of asses, trodden under foot. There it strikes a wall and is now humbly lying at its foot, but the wind is flying further, the wind is flying further, my good Thomas.”Judas pointed in illustration over the wall and laughed again:“I am glad that thou art merry, Judas,” replied Thomas. “Pity it is that in thy merriment there is so much malice.”“How should not a man be merry who has been kissed so much and who is so useful? If I had not stolen three pieces of silver, how should John have known the exaltation of joy? Is it not pleasurable to be a hook whereupon John hangs his mouldy virtue to dry and thou thy moth-eaten wisdom?”“I think it is best for me to go.”“But I am merely joking. I am jesting, Thomas. I merely wished to know if thou didst really long to kiss the old and repulsive Judas who had stolen three pieces of silver and given the money to a sinful woman.”“A sinful woman?” echoed Thomas in surprise. “And didst thou tell our Teacher this also?”“There, doubting again, Thomas! Yes, to a sinful woman. But if thou only knew what a miserable woman she was. She must have gone without food two days.”“Knowest that this circumstance for a certainty?” inquired Thomas in confusion.“Of course. I had been with her two days myself and saw that she had eaten nothing, for she merely drank wine, red wine. And she reeled with exhaustion and I fell with her.”Thomas leaped to his feet and walking a short distance away, turned and remarked to Judas.“Apparently Satan has entered thy body.”And as he departed he heard the heavy money chest jingle mournfully through the gloom in the hands of Judas ... And it seemed as though Judas were laughing.But the very next day Thomas had to admit that he had been mistaken in Judas: so gentle, simple and at the same time serious had become the Iscariot. He cut no more grimaces, refrained from malicious jesting, no longer cringed before people or insulted them, but attended to his household tasks quietly and unobtrusively. He was as agile as ever: as though he had not two legs like the rest of the people, but dozens of them. Now, however, he scurried about noiselessly, without squealing and screaming or the hyena laugh that had characterized his previous activity. And when Jesus now commenced to speak he sat down in a corner with folded hands and his large eyes assumed such a gentle expression that everybody noticed it. And he ceased to speak evil of people, keeping silence in preference, so that even the stern Matthew found it proper to praise him, which he did in the words of Solomon: “The fool speaketh scornfully of his neighbor, but the wise man is silent,” and he raised his finger as if recalling the former proneness of Judas to speak evil. And the others also noted this change in Judas and rejoiced over it. Only Jesus still viewed him with the same look of estrangement although He in no manner expressed His disfavor. And John himself, towards whom, as the beloved disciple of Jesus and his protector, Judas now manifested a most deferential demeanor, even John’s attitude towards him was softened and he occasionally held converse with him.“How thinkest thou, Judas,” said he once condescendingly, “which of us twain, Peter or I, will be nearest to Christ in His heavenly kingdom?”Judas thought for a moment and replied:“I think thou wilt.”“And Peter thinks he will,” smiled John.“No. Peter’s shouting would scatter the angels. Hearest thou him? Of course, he will dispute with thee and will strive to come first and occupy the place, for he claims that he too loves Jesus. But he is growing old, while thou art young. He is slow, while thou art fleetfooted and thou wilt be the first to enter with Christ. Am I not right?”“Yes. I shall never leave Jesus’ side,” assented John.That same day Simon Peter addressed the very same question to Judas. But fearing that his loud voice would be heard by others he led Judas to the furthest corner of the house.“Well how thinkest thou?” he inquired anxiously. “Thou art wise. Even the Teacher praises thy wisdom. Thou wilt tell me the truth.”“Thou, of course,” the Iscariot replied without hesitation. And Peter indignantly exclaimed:“I told him so.”“But, of course, even there he will try to dispute the first place with thee.”“Of course he will.”“But what can he do if he find the place already occupied by thee? Thou wilt not leave Him alone. Did he not call thee a Rock?”Peter laid his hand on Judas’ shoulder and fervently exclaimed:“I tell thee, Judas, thou art the wisest among us. Pity thou art so malevolent and sneering. The Teacher does not like it. And thou couldst be a beloved disciple no less than John. But even unto thee I shall not yield my place by the side of Jesus, neither here on earth nor over there. Hearest thou me?” And he raised his hand with a threatening gesture.Thus Judas sought to please both, the while he was harboring thoughts of his own. And remaining the same modest, quiet and unobtrusive Judas, he strove to say something agreeable to all.Thus he said to Thomas: “The fool believeth every word, but the man of wisdom takes heed of his ways.” But to Matthew who loved to eat and drink and was ashamed of this weakness he cited the words of Solomon.“The righteous shall eat his fill, but the seed of the lawless is in want.”But such pleasant words he spoke rarely, which lent to them a special value. Now he remained silent for long periods and listened attentively to others, though he kept thinking thoughts of his own. Judas in his musing mood had a disagreeable and ludicrous, and at the same time a disconcerting appearance. While his cunning live eye was mobile he appeared to be genuine and gentle, but when both of his eyes assumed that fixed and rigid look, and the skin on his forehead gathered into queer wrinkles and folds, one received the disquieting impression that within that skull there swarmed very peculiar thoughts, utterly strange, quite peculiar thoughts that had no language of their own and they enveloped the cogitating Iscariot with a shroud of mystery so disturbing that the beholder longed to have him break the silence quickly, to stir a little or even to lie. For even a lie uttered by a human tongue seemed truth and light in the face of this hopelessly mute and unresponsive silence.“Lost in thought again, Judas?” rang out the sonorous voice of Peter, suddenly breaking through the dull silence of the Iscariot’s musing. “What art thou thinking of?”“Of many things,” replied the Iscariot with a quiet smile. And observing the unpleasant effect of his silence upon the others, he began more and more frequently to separate himself from the disciples, taking lonely walks or spending hours alone on the flat roof of the house. More than once Thomas collided on the roof with a grey bundle out of which suddenly disentangled themselves the ungainly limbs of Judas and was startled by the well known mocking accents of the Iscariot’s voice.Only once again the man of Kerioth oddly and abruptly recalled to the memory of the disciples the Judas of former days, and this occurred during the dispute concerning the first place in the Kingdom of heaven. In the presence of the Teacher, Peter and John hotly and with mutual recriminations defended their claims to the place nearest to Jesus. They enumerated their merits, compared the degree of their love of Jesus, shouted angrily and even abused one another incontinently,—Peter, all flushed with wrath and thundering, John pale and still, with trembling hands and stinging words. Their dispute was fast becoming unseemly and the Teacher was commencing to frown, when Peter chanced to look up at Judas and laughed out exultingly. John also glanced at Judas and smiled contentedly. Each remembered what the wise Iscariot had told him. With the foretaste of certain triumph they both summoned Judas to be their judge, and Peter cried out: “Hey, thou wise Judas. Tell us who will be first and nearest to Jesus, he or I?”But Judas was silent. He breathed heavily and fixed his gaze longingly, questioningly, on the deep and calm eyes of Jesus.“Yes,” condescendingly agreed John, “tell him who will be the first and nearest to Jesus.”With his glance still fixed on Christ, Judas rose slowly to his feet and replied calmly and gravely:“I.”Jesus slowly dropped his eyes, while the Iscariot, beating his breast with a bony finger sternly and solemnly repeated:“I! I shall be near Jesus.”And with these words he went out leaving the disciples dumbfounded by this insolent outbreak. Only Peter, as if suddenly recollecting something, whispered to Thomas in an unexpectedly quiet tone:“This is then what he is thinking about. Didst thou hear him?”CHAPTER V.It was just about this time that Judas Iscariot took his first decisive step towards betrayal: he paid a secret visit to the high priest Annas. He was received very sternly, but this did not disconcert him and he demanded a prolonged private interview. Left alone with the stern ascetic old man who eyed him contemptuously from under his bushy eyebrows, he told him that he, Judas, was a pious man who had become a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth with the sole aim of exposing the deceiver and of betraying him into the hands of the law.“And who is He, this Nazarene?” slightingly inquired Annas, as if he had heard the name of Jesus for the first time.Judas for his part pretended to take this strange ignorance of the high priest at its face value and reported to him at length concerning the sermons of Jesus, His wonders, His hatred of the Pharisees and the Temple, the violations of the Law by Him, and His desire to snatch the power from the hands of the ecclesiastics and to establish His own kingdom. And so skillfully did he mingle truth with falsehood that Annas glanced at him more attentively, while he indolently observed:“Are there so few deceivers and madmen in Judea?”“No. But He is a dangerous man,” hotly replied Judas. “He violates the Law. And it is better for one man to perish than for the whole people.”Annas nodded approvingly.“But He has, methinks, many disciples.”“Yes, many.”“And they probably love Him devotedly?”“They say that they love Him; that they love Him more than themselves.”“But if we should want to seize Him, would they not take His part? Will there be no uprising?”Judas laughed long and bitterly.“They? They are cowardly curs who run as soon as a man stoops to pick up a stone. They!”“Are they so bad?” coldly inquired Annas.“And do the bad flee from the good? Do not rather! the good flee before the bad? Ha! They are good and therefore they will run. They are good and therefore they will hide themselves. They are good and therefore they will only appear when Jesus is ready for burial. And they will bury Him themselves, do thou but put Him to death.”“But do they not love Him? Thou saidst so.”“Their Teacher they love always, but more in death than living. As long as the Teacher lives He is apt to examine the pupils, and woe then unto the latter. But when the Teacher is dead, they become teachers in their turn, and woe then unto others! Ha!”Annas looked searchingly at the traitor, and his shriveled lips wrinkled slightly: it was a sign that Annas was smiling.“They have injured thee. I see it.”“Can anything remain a secret to thy insight, O wise Annas? Thou hast penetrated the very heart of Judas. Yes, they injured poor Judas. They said that I had stolen three pieces of silver, as if Judas were not the most honest man in Israel.”And for a long time they spoke of Jesus, of His disciples, and of His pernicious influence on the people of Israel. But the cautious and cunning high priest Annas did not give his final answer on this occasion. He had been watching Jesus for a long time and had long since sealed the fate of the prophet of Galilee in the secret councils of his relatives and friends, the chiefs and the Sadducees. But he distrusted Judas who had been reported to him as an evil and double-dealing man. He did not attach much faith to his frivolous remarks on the cowardice of the disciples and the people. Annas had entire confidence in his own might, but he feared bloodshed, he feared to stir up a tumultuous uprising into which the stiff-necked and volatile people of Jerusalem could be so easily harangued; he feared finally the sternly repressive interference of Roman authorities. Fanned by resistance, fructified by the crimson blood of the people which endows with life all whereon it falls, the heresy might spread all the more rapidly and engulf Annas himself, his rule and his friends. And when the Iscariot sought admission for the second time, Annas was perturbed and refused to receive him. But a third and a fourth time the Iscariot called, insistent as the wind that knocks day and night against the closed door and breathes through the fissures.“I see that wise Annas has some apprehensions,” said Judas when finally admitted to the High Priest.“I am strong enough to fear nothing,” haughtily replied Annas, and the Iscariot made a servile obeisance. “What wouldst thou?”“I want to betray unto you the Nazarene.”“We do not want Him.”Judas bowed low and lingered humbly, fixing his eye upon the high priest.“Go.”“But I must come again. Is it not so, venerable Annas?”“Thou wilt not be admitted. Go.”But again and again Judas of Kerioth knocked at the high priest’s portal and was once more admitted into the presence of the aged Annas. Shriveled and angry, oppressed with thought, he regarded the betrayer in silence and seemed to be counting the hairs on his illshaped head. Judas also was silent, as if, for his part, counting the hairs in the silvery thin beard of the high priest.“Well, thou art here again?” haughtily ejaculated the irritated high priest, as though spuing the words on his visitor’s head.“I want to betray unto you the Nazarene.”They both lapsed into silence, scanning intently one another’s features, the Iscariot gazing calmly, but a feeling of subdued malevolence, dry and cold like the morning frost in the winter time, was beginning to gnaw at the heart of Annas.“And what askest thou for thy Jesus?”“And what will ye give?”With a feeling of quiet elation Annas insultingly retorted:“You are a band of rascals, all of you. Thirty pieces of silver, that is all we will give for Him.”And his heart was filled with delighted gratification as he observed how Judas’ whole body was set agog by this announcement. The Iscariot turned and scurried about, agile and swift, as if he had not two but a dozen legs.“For Jesus? Thirty pieces of silver?” cried Judas in a tone of wild amazement that rejoiced the heart of Annas. “For Jesus of Nazareth? You would buy Jesus for thirty pieces of silver? And you think that Jesus can be sold unto you for thirty pieces of silver?”Judas swiftly turned to the wall and laughed into its smooth and whited face, waving wildly arms.“Hearest thou? Thirty pieces of silver! For Jesus!”With quiet enjoyment Annas indifferently replied: “If thou wilt not have it, go. We shall find some man who will sell more cheaply.”And like sellers of old raiment who shout and swear and scold, fighting over the price of some worthless garment, they commenced their monstrous and frenzied haggling.Thrilled with a strange ecstasy Judas ran about twisting his limbs and shouting, and enumerating on the fingers of his hand the merits of Him whom he was betraying.“And that He is good and heals the sick, is that nothing? Is that worth nothing in your estimation? Hey? No? Tell me like an honest man?”“If thou,” interposed the high priest whose cold disfavor was rapidly fanned into violent wrath by the taunting words of Judas,—but the later interrupted him unabashed.“And that He is youthful and beautiful like the narcissus of Sharon, like the lily of the valley? Hey? Is that nothing? Perhaps you will say that He is aged and worthless?”“If thou,” still strove to cry Annas, but his senile voice was drowned in the storm of Judas’ protests.“Thirty pieces of silver! That makes hardly an obolus for a drop of blood. Less than half an obolus for a tear. Quarter an obolus for a groan. And the cries of pain! and convulsions! What is the stopping of His heart? And the closing of His eyes? Is that all for naught?” screamed the Iscariot towering over the high priest, encircling him with the frenzied whirlwind of his gestures and words.“For all! For all!” replied the breathless high priest.“And how much will you earn on the deal? Hey? Would you rob poor Judas? Tear the piece of bread out of his children’s mouths? I shall go out into the market place and shout: ‘Annas has robbed poor Judas. Help!’”Wearied and dizzy, Annas in futile frenzy stamped the floor with his soft slipper and waved him away: “Begone! Begone!”But Judas suddenly made a humble obeisance and spread out his arms: “And if so, why art thou angry with poor Judas who is seeking the good of his children? Thou too hast children, fine, handsome young men.”“We shall get another.... We shall get another.... Begone!”“And did I say that I would not give in? Do I not believe thee that another may come and give up Jesus unto you for fifteen oboli? For two oboli? For one obolus?”Then with another low obeisance, and with ingratiating words, Judas submissively agreed to accept the money offered him. With a trembling and wrinkled hand Annas, now silent and flushed with excitement, gave him the money. He sat with averted face and in silence, biting his lips and waited until Judas had tested every silver coin between his teeth. Now and then Annas looked around and then, as quickly turned his glance to the ceiling and again bit his lips.“There are so many false coins about now,” calmly explained Judas. “This is money offered up by pious people for the Temple,” remarked Annas looking around hastily and still more quickly turning to Judas the back of his bald head which was now crimson with anger.“But can pious people distinguish false coins from the genuine? Only rogues can do this.”Judas did not take home the money received from the high priest, but going beyond the city he buried it beneath a stone. And he returned with slow, heavy and cautious steps, like a wounded animal creeping to its lair after a cruel and mortal combat. But Judas had no lair of his own to which he might creep, though there was a house and in that house he saw Jesus. Tired, emaciated, worn out with his incessant war against the Pharisees who daily surrounded Him in the Temple like a wall of white, shining, learned foreheads, He was seated, leaning against the wall and was apparently fast asleep. Through the open window entered the restless echoes of the city, behind the wall was heard the knocking of Peter who was making a new table for the common meal and sang a Galilean ditty as he worked. He heard nothing and slept soundly and firmly, and this was He who had been bought for thirty pieces of silver.Advancing noiselessly, Judas with the gentle care of a mother fearing to awaken her ailing babe, with the amazement of a dumb brute that has crept from its lair and lingers in fascination before some pretty white flower, Judas touched His soft hair and precipitately withdrew his hand. He touched it again and as noiselessly crept out.“Lord!” he exclaimed. “Lord!”And going to a deserted spot he wept there a long time, writhing, twisting his limbs, scratching his breast with his nails and biting his shoulders. Suddenly he ceased to weep, to moan and to gnash his teeth and lapsed into deep thought, turning his moist face to one side in the attitude of listening. And thus he stood for a long time, immobile, determined and a stranger to all like his very fate.With a calm love and tender solicitude Judas surrounded the doomed Jesus during these last days of His brief life. Coy and timorous like a maiden in her first love, strangely intuitive and keen of perception, he divined the slightest unexpressed wish of Jesus, penetrated into the hidden depths of His feelings, His fleeting instants of yearning, His heavy moments of weariness. And no matter where the foot of Jesus stepped it rested on something soft, no matter where He turned His glance it met something pleasant. Formerly Judas had held in disfavor Mary Magdalene and the other women who were near Jesus, playing rude jokes at their expense and causing them much annoyance. Now he became their friend, their ludicrous and awkward confederate. With a profound interest he discussed with them the little intimate and beloved traits of Jesus, quizzing them insistently for a long time concerning one and the same thing. With a great show of secrecy he thrust coins into their hands, and they bought ointments, the precious and fragrant myrrh so beloved of Jesus, and anointed His feet. Haggling desperately he bought expensive wine for Jesus and then growled when Peter drank it all with the indifference of a man to whom only quantity matters. In that rocky country surrounding Jerusalem and almost bare of trees and flowers, he managed to obtain fresh spring flowers and green herbs, and offered them to Jesus through the mediation of these same women. For the first time in his life he fetched in his arms little children, finding them somewhere in the neighboring homesteads or in the highways, and forcedly caressed them to keep them from weeping. And it frequently happened that there crawled on the knees of Jesus, while he sat in deep thought, a tiny, curly haired little fellow with a soiled little nose, and insistently sought His caress. And while the two rejoiced in one another, Judas sternly walked a short distance off with the air of a jailer who has admitted a butterfly into the cell of his prisoner and then with a show of asperity grumbles about the disorder.

Jesus Christ had been frequently warned that Judas of Kerioth was a man of ill repute, a man against whom one should be on guard. Some of the disciples of Jesus who had been to Judea knew him well personally, others had heard a great deal of him, and there was none to say a good word concerning him. And if the good condemned him saying that Judas was covetous, treacherous, given to hypocrisy and falsehood, evil men also, when questioned about him, denounced him in the most opprobrious terms. “He always sows dissensions among us” they would say spitting contemptuously at the mere mention of his name; “he has thoughts of his own, and creeps into a house softly like a scorpion, but goes out with noise.” Even thieves have friends, robbers have comrades, and liars have wives to whom they speak the truth, but Judas mocks alike the thieves and the honest, though he is a skillful thief himself, and in appearance he is the most ill-favored among the inhabitants of Judea. “No, he is not of us this Judas of Kerioth”, the evil would say to the surprise of those good people who saw but little difference between them and other vicious men in Judea.

It was rumored also that Judas had years back forsaken his wife, and that the poor woman, hungry and wretched, was vainly striving to eke out her sustenance from the three rocks that formed the patrimony of Judas, while he wandered aimlessly for many years among the nations, reaching in his travels the sea, and even another sea that was further still, lying, cutting apish grimaces and keenly searching for something with his thievish eye, only to depart suddenly, leaving in his wake unpleasantness and dissension,—curious, cunning and wicked like a one-eyed demon. He had no children, and this again showed that Judas was an evil man, and that God desired no progeny from him.

None of the disciples had noticed the occasion on which this red-haired and repulsive Judean first came near the Christ. But he had been going their way for some time already, unabashed, mingling in their conversations, rendering them small services, bowing, smiling, ingratiating himself. There were moments when he seemed to fit into the general scheme, deceiving the wearied scrutiny, but often he obtruded himself on the eye and the ear, offending both as something incredibly repulsive, false and loathsome. Then they would drive him away with stern rebuke, and for a time he would be lost somewhere on the road, merely to reappear unobserved, servile, flattering and cunning like a one-eyed demon. And there was no doubt to some of His disciples that in his desire to come near Jesus there was hidden some mysterious object, some evil and calculating design.

But Jesus did not heed their counsel; their voice of warning did not touch His ear. With that spirit of radiant contradiction which irrepressibly drew Him to the rejected and the unloved, He resolutely received Judas and included him even in the circle of His chosen ones. The disciples were agitated and murmured among themselves, but He sat still, His face turned to the setting sun, and listened pensively,—perhaps to them and perhaps to something entirely different. For ten days not a breath of wind had stirred the atmosphere, and the same diaphanous air, stationary, immobile, keen of scent and perception hung over the earth. And it seemed as though it had preserved in its diaphanous depth all that had been shouted and sung during these days by man, beast or bird,—the tears, the sobs and the merry songs, the prayers and the curses; and these glassy transfixed sounds seemed to burden and satiate it with invisible life. And once more the sun was setting. Its flaming orb was heavily rolling down the firmament, setting it ablaze with its dying radiance, and all on earth that was turned toward it: the swarthy face of Jesus, the walls of houses and the foliage of trees reflected obediently that distant and weirdly pensive light. The white wall was no longer white now, nor did the crimson city on the crimson hill appear white to the eye.

And now came Judas.

He came humbly bowing, bending his back, cautiously and anxiously stretching out his misshapen large head, and looking just like those who knew had pictured him. He was gaunt, well built, in stature almost as tall as Jesus, who was slightly bent from the habit of thinking while He walked. And he seemed to be sufficiently vigorous, though for some reason he pretended to be ailing and frail, and his voice was changeable: now manly and strong, now shrill like the voice of an old woman scolding her husband, thin and grating on the ear. And often the listener wished to draw the words of Judas out of his ears like some vile insect. His stubbly red hair failed to conceal the strange and unusual form of his skull: it seemed cleft from the back by a double blow of the sword and patched together. It was plainly divided into four parts, and its appearance inspired mistrust and even awe. Such a skull does not bode peace and concord; such a skull leaves in its wake the noise of bloody and cruel conflicts. The face of Judas, too, was double: one side, with its black, keen, observing eye was living, mobile, ready to gather into a multitude of irregular wrinkles. The other side was free from wrinkles, deathly smooth, flat and rigid; and though in size it was equal to the other, it seemed immense because of the wide-open, sightless eye. Covered with an opaque film it never closed night or day, facing alike the light and the darkness; but its vigilant and cunning mate was so close that one was loth to credit its entire blindness. When in fear or excitement Judas happened to close his seeing eye and shake his head, it rolled with the motion of the head and gazed silently and intently. Even altogether unobserving persons realized when they looked on the Iscariot that such a man could bring no good; but Jesus took him up and even seated him at His side, at His very side!

John, the beloved disciple, moved away loathingly, while the others, loving their Teacher, looked on the ground with disapproval. But Judas sat down, and, moving his head to the left and to the right, immediately commenced to complain with a thin voice of various ailments, how his breast pained at night, how he was apt to lose breath when walking uphill or grow dizzy at the edge of the precipice, hardly restraining a stupid desire to cast himself into the abyss. And many other things he invented impiously, evidently failing to grasp that sickness comes to man not by chance but is born from a failure to shape his acts in accord with the commands of the Eternal. He rubbed his chest with his palm and coughed hypocritically, this Judas of Kerioth, amid general silence and downcast glances.

John, avoiding the Teacher’s glance, whispered to Simon Peter:—“Art thou not tired of this falsehood? I cannot bear it longer and I shall go hence.”

Peter looked at Jesus, and meeting His glance, swiftly rose to his feet. “Wait!” he said to his friend.

Once more he glanced at Jesus and then, impetuously, like a rock dislodged from the mountain side, he gained the side of Judas Iscariot and loudly greeted him with a wide and unmistakable cordiality:—“Now you are with us, Judas!” Then he amiably slapped the newcomer’s curved back, and not seeing the Teacher, though feeling His glance, he added with that loud voice of his which dispelled all objections as water displaces air:

“Your bad looks do not matter. We get uglier creatures into our nets and they turn out the best to eat. And it is not for us, fishers for the Lord, to throw away our haul because the fish is ugly and one-eyed. I saw once in Tyre an octopus caught by the fishermen there and was scared enough to run. They laughed at me, who am a fisherman from Tiberias, and gave me a taste of it. And I asked for another helping, it was so fine. Dost Thou remember, Teacher, I told Thee of it and Thou didst laugh? And thou, too, Judas, resemblest an octopus, at least one half of thee does.”

And he laughed loudly, pleased with his jest. When Peter spoke, his words sounded firm and solid as though he were nailing them down with a hammer. When Peter moved or did anything he made a noise that was heard afar off and evoked a response from the dullest objects: the stone floor groaned under his feet, the doors trembled and banged, and the very air was thrilled. In the mountain fastnesses his voice woke an angry echo, and in the morning, while they fished, it rolled sonorously over the somnolently glistening waters and beguiled the first timid rays of the sun into a responsive smile. And perhaps that was why they loved Peter so: while upon the faces of others there rested yet the shadows of the night, his massive head and bare bosom and freely swinging arms glowed already in the radiance of the rising sun.

The words of Peter, approved by the Teacher, dispelled the embarrassment of the disciples. But some of them, who had been to the seashore and had seen the octopus, were disquieted by the simile which Peter had so frivolously applied to the new disciple. They remembered the monster’s immense eyes, the multitude of its greedy tentacles, its pretended calm at the very moment it was ready to embrace and to crush the victim and to suck out its life, without a single wink of its great big eyes.

What was that? Jesus was silent, Jesus smiled; He was watching them with a kindly smile while Peter spoke of the octopus,—and one after the other the confused disciples approached Judas, addressing him cordially, but they walked away quickly and in embarrassment.

And only John, the Son of Zebedee, remained obstinately silent; and Thomas too was ruminating over the incident and apparently could not make up his mind to say anything. He intently watched Christ and Judas who were seated together, and this strange proximity of divine beauty and monstrous hideousness, of the Man with the gentle glance and the Octopus with the immense, immobile lack-lustre, greedy eyes—oppressed his mind like an unfathomable mystery. He strained and wrinkled his straight and smooth forehead, half closing his eyes in an effort to see better, but his exertion had only the effect of making it appear that Judas had really eight restlessly shuffling tentacles. But that was an error. Thomas realized this and gazed again with obstinate effort.

But Judas little by little grew bolder: he stretched out his arms, which he had held cramped at the elbows, relaxed the muscles that had kept his jaws in a state of rigidity and cautiously proceeded to exhibit his redhaired skull. It was in the plain view of all, but it seemed to Judas that it had been deeply and impenetrably hidden from sight by some invisible, opaque and cunningly devised film. And as one emerging from the grave, he first felt the rays of light touching his strangely shaped skull and then his sight met the eyes of the onlookers. He paused and suddenly revealed his entire face. But nothing happened. Peter had gone somewhere on an errand. Jesus sat musing and leaned His head upon His arm, softly swinging His sunburnt foot. The disciples were conversing quietly and only Thomas was attentively and seriously scrutinizing him like a conscientious tailor taking his customer’s measure. Judas smiled, but Thomas did not respond, though he apparently took the smile into account, like everything else, and continued his scrutiny. But a disquieting sensation annoyed the left side of Judas’ face and he turned around: from a dark corner John was looking upon him with his cold and beautiful eyes, handsome, pure, without a spot on his snowwhite conscience. Walking apparently like other people, but with the inward feeling of slinking away like a chastised dog, Judas approached him and said:

“Why art thou silent, John? Thy words are like golden fruit in transparent silver vessels. Give some of it unto Judas who is so poor.”

John gazed at the immobile and wide-open eye and did not utter a word. And he saw Judas creep away, linger an instant irresolutely and disappear in the darkness of the open doorway.

It was the time of the full moon and many took the opportunity for a walk. Jesus, too, went forth with the others, and Judas watched the departing figures from the low roof on which he had spread his bed. In the moonlight each figure had on airy and deliberate aspect and seemed to float, with its black shadow in the rear. Suddenly the man would vanish in the gloom and then his voice would be heard. But when the people emerged again into the moonlight, they seemed silent like the white walls, like the black shadows, like that transparently hazy and moonlit night.

Most people were sleeping already when Judas heard the gentle voice of the homecoming Christ. And all had grown still in the house and about him. The cock crew; somewhere an ass, disturbed in his slumber, brayed in a loud and injured tone, and ungraciously stopped again after a few protests. But Judas slept not; he was listening intently from his hiding place. The moon illumined one half of his face and its radiance cast a queer reflection in the large and open eye, as if mirroring itself on a lake of ice.

Suddenly, as if remembering something, he coughed several times in quick succession, and rubbed with his palm his hairy and vigorous breast: someone might be awake and listening to the thoughts of Judas.

Little by little the disciples became accustomed to Judas and ceased to notice his ugliness. Jesus turned over to him the treasure chest, and with it the household cares: his task was now to purchase the necessary food and raiment, to distribute alms, and to prepare a lodging place during their wanderings. All this he accomplished skillfully and in a very short time he succeeded in gaining the goodwill of some of the disciples who observed the pains he was taking. Judas, indeed, lied incessantly, but they had become used to this also, for they failed to find any evil deed in the wake of his lying, and it added a peculiar piquancy to his tales making life appear like some absurd, and at times terrible legend.

From Judas’ tales it seemed as though he knew all men, and each man whom he knew had at one time or another in his life committed an evil deed, perhaps a crime. Good people in his opinion were those who knew well how to hide their actions and thoughts; but if one were to embrace them, to set them at ease with caresses and, to closely question them, he felt sure evil and falsehood would ooze from them like poison from a suppurating wound. He readily agreed that he too was wont to lie now and then, but affirmed with an oath that others lied even more, and that if there was one person in the world foully imposed upon and ill-used that person was Judas. Many people had deceived him, and more than once and in divers ways. Thus a certain steward who had charge of a nobleman’s treasure had confessed to Judas that for ten years he had coveted the possession of the treasure entrusted to him, but feared his master and his conscience. And Judas believed him, but lo! suddenly he stole the treasure and deceived Judas. And again Judas believed him, but he as unexpectedly returned the stolen goods to his master—and again deceived Judas. And everybody was deceiving him—even the animals. If he petted a dog, it would snap at his fingers; if he beat it with a rod it licked his hand and looked into his eyes with a filial expression. He killed such a dog once, buried the animal deep in the ground and lay a heavy stone on the burial spot, but who knows? perhaps because he had killed it, it became endowed with a more abundant life and was no longer resting in its grave but merrily running about with other dogs.

Every one laughed at Judas’ tales, and he himself smiled pleasantly, winking his live and mocking eye, and smilingly confessed again that he had lied a little: that he had never killed such a dog, but promised to find it and surely kill it, for he hated to be deceived. And they laughed still more at such words.

But sometimes in his tales he exceeded the limits of probability and verisimilitude and ascribed to people tendencies such as are foreign even to beasts and accused them of simply incredible crimes. And as he mentioned in such connection names of the most respected people, some were indignant at the slander, while others jestingly inquired:

“But thy father and mother, Judas, were they not good people?”

Judas winked his eye, smiled and shrugged his shoulders. And as he shook his head his congealed wide open eye shook in its orbit and gazed dumbly:

“And who was my father? Perhaps the man who chastised me when I was a child, perhaps the devil, or a goat or a rooster. Can Judas know with whom his mother shared her couch? Judas has many fathers. Of whom speak you?”

But at this the ire of all was aroused, for they greatly honored their parents, and Matthew, thoroughly versed in the Scriptures, sternly repeated the words of Solomon:

“He who speaks ill of his father and his mother, his lamp will be extinguished in utter darkness.”

And John of Zebedee inquired contemptuously: “And how about us? What evil wilt thou say about us, Judas of Kerioth?”

But he, with pretended fear, threw up his hands, cringing and whining like a beggar vainly praying alms from a passer-by:

“Ah! Wouldst thou tempt poor Judas? Mock poor Judas, deceive poor guileless Judas?”

While one side of his face was distorted in apish grimaces, the other seemed serious and stern and the never-closed eye peered mutely and vaguely into space. Above all others, and most loudly, Simon Peter was wont to laugh at his jests. But once it happened that with a sudden frown he paused and hastily took Judas aside, almost dragging him by his sleeve:

“And Jesus? What thinkest thou of Jesus?” he inquired in a loud whisper bending over him. “But no jesting now, I pray thee.”

Judas looked up with hatred:

“And what thinkest thou?”

“I think that He is the Son of the living God.”

“Then why askest thou? What could Judas say whose father is a goat?”

“But dost thou love Him? It seems that thou lovest no one.”

And with the same odd malice-reeking manner the Iscariot snapped out:

“I do.”

After this conversation Peter for a day or two loudly referred to Judas as his friend the octopus, while the other clumsily and wrathfully sought to escape from him into some obscure nook where he would sit and sulk, while his white never-closed eye gleamed ominously in the dark.

Thomas alone regarded Judas’ tales with seriousness. He was incapable of understanding jests, pretensions and lies, plays of words and of thoughts, and in everything sought the substantial and positive. All stories of Judas concerning evil people and their deeds he interrupted with brief business-like questions:

“Can you prove it? Who heard this? And who else was present? What was his name?”

Judas shrilly protested that he himself had heard and seen it all, but the obstinate Thomas persisted in questioning him calmly and methodically until Judas confessed that he had lied or until he invented a more plausible falsehood over which Thomas would pore for some time. Then discovering the deception he immediately returned and quietly exposed the liar. Judas on the whole aroused in him an intense curiosity, which brought about a queer sort of a friendship between them, noisy, full of laughter and vituperation on the one hand, and characterized by calm and insistent inquisitiveness on the other. At times Judas felt an irresistible contempt for his unimaginative friend and piercing him with a poignant glance he would inquire with irritation and almost pleadingly:

“What else dost thou want? I have told thee all, all.”

“I want thee to explain to me how a goat could be thy father,” insisted Thomas phlegmatically and waited for an answer. Once after listening to such a query Judas relapsed into silence and scanned the inquirer from head to foot in amazement. He saw a man of erect and lanky stature, of grey countenance, transparently clear straightforward eyes, two massive folds starting at the nose and losing themselves in the evenly trimmed rough beard, and observed with conviction:

“How stupid thou art Thomas! What seest thou in thy dreams? A tree, a wall, an ass?”

And Thomas blushed in confusion, finding no answer. But just as Judas’ living and unsteady eye was about to close in sleep, he suddenly exclaimed (they both now slept on the roof):

“Thou art wrong, Judas. I do see evil dreams sometimes. How sayest thou, is a man responsible for his dreams?”

“And who else sees them but the man himself?”

Thomas softly sighed and lapsed into musing. Judas smiled contemptuously, tightly shutting his thievish eyes and calmly yielded himself up to his rebellious dreams, monstrous visions, and mad imaginings which rent to pieces his illshaped skull.

When in the wanderings of Jesus through Judea the pilgrims approached a village, the Iscariot was in the habit of relating evil things concerning the inhabitants thereof and predicting calamities. But it generally happened that the people whom he denounced met Christ and His friends joyously, surrounded them with attentions, and the treasure chest of Judas grew so heavy that he could hardly carry it.

And when he was twitted with his mistake he shrugged his shoulders in resignation and said:

“Yes, yes. Judas thought they were wicked and they are good. They believed quickly and gave us money. And again they deceived Judas, poor trusting Judas of Kerioth.”

But once having departed from a village where they had been cordially received Thomas and Judas had a violent dispute, and in order to settle it they chanced to turn back. A day later they caught up with Jesus and the disciples. Thomas looked confused and saddened, but Judas bore himself triumphantly, as if waiting for the others to come and congratulate him. Coming near the Teacher, Thomas announced:

“Judas was right, Lord. Those were stupid and wicked people. Thy seed fell upon rocky ground.”

And then he related what had happened. Soon after Jesus and His disciples had gone an old woman discovered the loss of a kid and accused the strangers of the theft. The villagers argued with her, but she obstinately insisted that nobody else could have stolen it but Jesus. Many believed her and talked of pursuing the strangers. But soon the kid was found (it had become entangled in the bushes). The villagers, however, decided that Jesus was after all a deceiver and perhaps a thief.

“Indeed?” said Peter, distending his nostrils. “Lord, say the word and I shall return to those fools.”

But Jesus, who had kept silence all this time, glanced at him sternly, and Peter stopped and hid himself behind the backs of others. And no one else spoke of the incident, as if nothing had happened, as if he, Judas, had proved to be in the wrong. Vainly he strove to show himself from every point of view, laboring to impart to his twofold predatory, birdlike beaked face an appearance of modesty. No one looked on him, except to cast a casual, very unfriendly and even contemptuous glance.

And from that day the attitude of Jesus towards him strangely changed. Until then it had somehow seemed as though Judas never spoke directly to Jesus, and as though Jesus never addressed him directly, but still the Teacher had frequently looked at him with a kindly glance, smiling at some of his conceits, and if he missed him for any length of time he was wont to inquire: “And where is Judas?” But now he looked on Judas without noticing him, though as heretofore His glance sought him out, and even more persistently than formerly, whenever He began to speak to His disciples or to the people—but He either turned His back to Judas as He sat down or cast His words at him over His shoulder or else appeared not to notice him at all. And whatever He said, though it may have been one thing to-day or another the next, though it were the same thing that Judas himself had in his mind, it seemed as though He always spoke against Judas. And unto all He was a tender and beautiful flower, the fragrant Rose of Lebanon, but for Judas He had only sharp thorns—as though Judas had no heart, as though he had no eyes or nostrils, as though he were not better able than all others to appreciate the beauty of tender and thornless rose leaves.

“Thomas, lovest thou the yellow Rose of Lebanon that has a swarthy face and eyes like a hind?” he once asked of his friend and Thomas indifferently replied:

“The Rose? Yes, its odor is agreeable to me, but I have never heard that roses had swarthy faces or eyes like hinds!”

“How? Dost thou not even know that the many-armed cactus which yesterday rent thy garment has only one red flower and only one eye?”

But Thomas was ignorant of this also, though the day before a cactus had actually gripped a portion of his garment and rent it into shreds. He knew nothing this Thomas, though he inquired about everything and gazed so straightforwardly with his clear and transparent eyes through which one could see as through a Phoenician glass the wall behind him and the plodding ass hitched to it.

Before long another incident occurred when Judas again proved to have been correct. In a certain Judean village which he had severely criticised and sought to have left out of the itinerary, Christ was received with much hostility and after He had preached and denounced the hypocrites, the populace was aroused to a wild remonstrance and thought of stoning Him and His disciples.

The opponents were numerous and they would have surely succeeded in carrying out their design if it had not been for Judas of Kerioth. Seized with a mad fear for Jesus, as though perceiving already the drops of crimson on His white robe, Judas blindly and frenziedly cast himself against the mob, menacing, screaming, pleading, and lying, and thus gave Jesus and His disciples an opportunity to escape. Amazingly agile, as though scurrying on dozens of feet, ludicrous and terrible in his frenzied pleading, he rushed madly before the crowd and fascinated it with some strange spell. He screamed that the Nazarene was not at all possessed of the devil, that He was a mere deceiver, a thief, a lover of money, like all of His disciples, like he, Judas, himself,—he shook the money chest in their faces, distorted his features and pleaded with them casting himself to the ground. And gradually the wrath of the mob turned into laughter and disgust and the arms that had held the stones sank to their sides.

“Unworthy, unworthy they are to die of an honest man’s hand,” exclaimed some, while others musingly gazed after the speedily vanished Judas.

And again Judas expected congratulations, praises, and thanks, and made a show of his rent garments and falsely claimed that he had been beaten, but again he was inconceivably deceived. Filled with wrath Jesus walked ahead taking large steps and silent, and even John and Peter dared not approach him, while the others coming across Judas, with his rent garments, his face aglow with excitement and triumph though still a little pale with recent fright, drove him away with curt and angry remarks. As if he had not saved them, as if he had not saved their teacher whom they loved so much.

“Dost thou wish to see a pack of fools?” he remarked to Thomas who musingly plodded by his side. “Look how they walk along the roadway, like a herd of sheep, raising the dust. And thou, clever Thomas, art dragging along behind; and I, noble and beautiful Judas, am also trudging in the rear like a filthy slave not fit to walk by the side of his master.”

“Why callest thou thyself beautiful?” inquired the surprised Thomas.

“Because I am handsome,” replied Judas with conviction and began to relate to him, with many additions, how he had deceived the enemies of Jesus and laughed at them and their stones.

“But thou didst lie!” remarked Thomas.

“Of course I lied,” agreed the Iscariot in a matter-of-fact tone. “I gave them what they asked and they returned to me what I needed. And what is a lie, my clever Thomas? Would not the death of Jesus have been the greater lie?”

“Thou didst wrong. Now I know that thy father was the devil. He taught thee this, Judas.”

The Iscariots cheek blanched and seemed to overshadow Thomas, as though a white cloud had descended and hidden the roadway and Jesus. With a lithe movement Judas suddenly seized Thomas and pressed him to himself with a grip so tight that he could not move and whispered into his ear:

“Good. The devil taught me? Good, Thomas, good. And I saved Jesus, didn’t I? Then the devil loves Jesus, then the devil needs Jesus and Truth? Good, good Thomas. But my father was not the devil, he was a goat. Mayhap the goat needs Jesus? Hey? And you, do you not want Him? Do you not want the Truth?”

Angered and slightly frightened Thomas with an effort released himself from Judas’ slimy embrace and walked ahead swiftly, but soon slowed down in order to ponder over what had just happened.

But Judas plodded on quietly in the rear, falling back little by little. The wanderers had merged into one motley group in the distance and it was impossible to tell accurately which of the little figures was Jesus. Now even the tiny figure of Thomas changed into a grey dot, and suddenly they were all lost to sight behind a turn in the road; glancing around Judas turned aside from the roadway and with mighty leaps descended into the depths of a rocky ravine. His robe inflated from his swift and impetuous flight and his arms stretched upward as though he soared on wings. There on a steep decline he slipped and rapidly rolled down in a grey heap, his flesh torn by the shaggy rock, and leaped again to his feet angrily shaking his fist at the mountain.

“You too, curse you!”

And suddenly forsaking his swiftness of movement for a sullen and concentrated deliberateness he chose a spot near a large rock and slowly seated himself. He turned around as if in search of a comfortable position, pressed the palms of his hands close together against the grey rock and heavily leaned his head upon them. Thus he sat for an hour or two without stirring, deceiving the birds, motionless and grey like the rock itself. Before him, behind him and around him rose the steep sides of the ravine cutting with their sharp outline into the azure sky; and everywhere rose immense stones, rooted into the ground, as if there had passed over the place a shower of rocks and its heavy drops had grown transfixed in neverending thought. The wild and deserted ravine resembled an overturned decapitated skull and each rock therein seemed a congealed thought, and there were many of them, and they all were brooding heavy, limitless, stubborn thoughts.

There a deceived scorpion hobbled amicably past Judas on his rickety legs; Judas glanced at him without lifting his head from the stone, and again his eyes stopped rigidly fixed on some object, both motionless, both covered with an odd and whitish film, both seemingly blind and dreadfully seeing. Then from the ground, from the rocks, from the crevices began to rise the calm gloom of night; it enshrouded the motionless Judas and swiftly crept upwards to the luminously pallid sky. The night was advancing with its thoughts and dreams.

That night Judas failed to return to the lodging, and the disciples torn from their thoughts by cares for food and drink murmured at his negligence.

Once about noon time, Jesus and his disciples were ascending a rocky and mountainous path barren of shade, and as they had been over five hours on the road Jesus commenced to complain of weariness. The disciples stopped and Peter with his friend John spread their mantles and those of other disciples on the ground and fastened them overhead on two protruding rocks and thus prepared a sort of a tent for Jesus. And he reclined in that tent, resting from the heat of the sun, while they sought to divert Him with merry talk and jests. But seeing that speech wearied Him they withdrew a short distance and engaged in various occupations, being themselves but little sensitive to heat and fatigue. Some searched the mountainside for edible roots among the rocks, and brought them to Jesus, others ascended higher and higher. John had found a pretty blue lizard among the stones and bore it tenderly to Jesus, with a gentle smile; the lizard gazed with its protruding mysterious eyes into His eyes and then swiftly glided with its cold little body over His warm hand and rapidly bore away somewhere its tender and trembling tail.

Peter, caring little for such diversions, amused himself in company with Philip by detaching large stones from the mountainside and rolling them down in a contest of strength. Attracted by their loud laughter, little by little the others gathered around them and took part in the game. Straining every muscle each tore from the glen a hoary moss-covered stone, lifted it high overhead with both arms and dropped it down the incline. It struck heavily with a short, blunt contact and seemed to stop for an instant, as if in thought, then irresolutely it took the first leap, and each time it touched the earth it gathered from it speed and strength, grew light, ferocious, all-crushing. Then it leaped no longer, but flew with flashing teeth, and the air with a whizzing noise made way for the compact rotund missile. Now it reached the edge of the ravine; with a smooth final movement the stone flew up a little distance into the air, and rolled below, clumsy, heavy and circular, towards the bottom of the invisible abyss.

“Now then one more!” cried Peter. His white teeth glistened through his black beard and mustache, his powerful breast and arms were bared and the old angry stones, dully wondering at the strength that cast them, one after the other submissively passed into the abyss. Even frail John threw little pebbles, and Jesus smiling gently watched their game. “Well, Judas, why dost thou not take part in the game, it is apparently so diverting?” asked Thomas having found his queer friend motionless behind a large grey rock.

“My breast pains and they have not called me.”

“Is there any need to call thee? Well, I call thee. Come. Look how large are the stones that Peter is casting down.”

Judas glanced sideways at him and for the first time Thomas dimly realized that Judas of Kerioth had two faces. But hardly had he grasped the idea when Judas remarked in his wonted tone, ingratiating and at the same time sneering:

“Is there any one stronger than Peter? When he shouts all the asses in Jerusalem think their Messias has come and respond. Hast thou ever heard their braying?”

Smiling amicably and bashfully covering his breast that was covered with curly red hair Judas entered the circle of the players. And as they all felt merry they received him with glad shouts and hilarious jests and even John indulgently smiled when Judas, groaning and simulating great strain detached an immense stone. But now he easily raised it and cast it down. His blind wide-open eye shifted and fixed itself rigidly on Peter, while the other, cunning and happy twinkled with suppressed merriment.

“Well, you throw another one,” broke in Peter in an offended tone.

And then one after another they raised and dropped gigantic stones, and in surprise the disciples watched them. Peter would throw a large stone, but Judas a still larger one. Peter, with a frown, wrathfully turned a fragment of the rock and reeling raised it and dropped it into the depths. Judas, still smiling, searched with a glance for a still larger fragment, caressingly dug into it with his lean long fingers, clung to it, swayed with it and with blanching cheek sent it down into the abyss. Having dropped his stone, Peter fell back and thus watched its flight, while Judas bent forward, leaned over the abyss and spread out his long and creepy arms as though he meant to fly after the stone. Finally both of them, first Peter and then Judas, seized a grey stone and were unable to raise it, neither one nor the other. Flushed with his effort Peter resolutely approached Jesus and loudly exclaimed:

“Lord, I do not want Judas to be stronger than I. Help me to raise that stone and cast it down.”

And Jesus softly made some reply. Peter dissatisfied shrugged his broad shoulders, but dared no rejoinder and returned with the following words:

“He said: ‘And who shall help the Iscariot?’”

But glancing at Judas, who with bated breath and tightly clenched teeth still clung to the stubborn stone, Peter burst out in a laugh:

“Look at the sick man! Look at our poor ailing Judas.”

And Judas himself laughed, being so unexpectedly exposed in a lie, and the others laughed also; even Thomas suffered a smile to slip past his straight, shaggy mustache.

With merry and friendly speech they started again on their way, and Peter, having made full peace with the victor, now and again nudged his ribs with his fists and laughed loudly.

“The sick man!”

Everyone praised Judas, everyone acknowledged him victor, everyone conversed with him cordially, but Jesus—Jesus even this time failed to praise Judas. Silently He walked on ahead, gnawing at a blade of grass, and little by little the disciples ceased their laughter and joined Jesus. Soon it happened that they walked all in one group ahead, but Judas, the victor Judas, the strong Judas, trudged along in the rear swallowing dust.

They paused, and Jesus laying one hand on Peter’s shoulder pointed with the other into the distance, where already in the mist had appeared Jerusalem; and the big broad back of Peter carefully couched His fine sunburnt hand.

For the night’s lodging they stopped in Bethany, in the house of Lazarus. And when they all gathered to converse, Judas thought it a good time to recall his victory over Peter. The disciples, however, had little to say and were unusually silent. The images of the journey just completed, the sun, the rocks, the grass, Christ reposing in the tent, floated softly through their minds, exhaling a gentle pensiveness, generating dimly sweet dreams of some eternal motion under the sun. The wearied body rested sweetly, musing of something mysteriously beautiful and great—and not one remembered Judas.

Judas went out. Then he returned. Jesus was speaking and his disciples listened in silence. Motionless as a statue, Mary sat at His feet and with head thrown back gazed into His face. John had come close to the Teacher and strove to touch the hem of His garment with his hand, but so as not to disturb him. And having touched it he sat breathlessly still. And Peter breathed hard and loud, echoing the words of Jesus with his breath.

The Iscariot stopped at the threshold and contemptuously passed his glance over those assembled, concentrating its flames upon Jesus. And as he gazed, all around him grew dim and was lost in gloom and silence; Jesus only, with uplifted hand, was radiant. But now He too seemed to rise in the air, seemed to melt and His substance seemed to change into luminous mist such as hangs over the lake when the moon goes down; and His soft-spoken words sounded somewhere afar off and gentle. And gazing deeper into this wavering vision, drinking in with his ears the tender melody of those distant and spectral words, Judas gripped his whole soul with claws of iron and silently in its unfathomable gloom commenced to rear something stupendous. Slowly in the dense darkness, he raised immense mountainous masses, piling them up one upon another, and raised others and piled them up again; and something was growing in the darkness, expanding voicelessly, spreading its outlines. Now he felt his head transformed into a vast dome, and in its impenetrable gloom there grew and grew something stupendous, and someone wrought therein, raising mountainlike masses, piling them up one upon another and raising up new ones ... And gently there sounded somewhere distant and spectral words.

Thus he stood, blocking the doorway, towering tall and dark, while Jesus spoke, and Peter’s loud breathing same in unison with His words. But suddenly Jesus ceased—with an abruptly incomplete sound, and Peter, like one awakened out of a trance, triumphantly exclaimed:

“Lord, Thou knowest the words of Eternal Life!”

But Jesus was gazing somewhere in silence. And when they followed his glance they saw Judas in the doorway rigid, open-mouthed and with staring eyes. And not knowing what it was about, they laughed. But Matthew, learned in the Scriptures, touched Judas’ shoulder and remarked in Solomon’s words:

“He who has a gentle look will be shown mercy, but he who is met in the gate will oppress others.”

Judas shuddered and even uttered a faint hoarse cry of fear, and all of his body—eyes, arms and legs seemed to flee in different directions. So a beast might look when suddenly facing the eyes of man. Jesus walked straight against Judas, seemingly bearing some word on His lips, and he walked past Judas through the door which was now open and free.

Long after midnight Thomas, becoming worried, approached Judas’ sleeping place and bending over him inquired:

“Thou weepest, Judas?”

“No, go away, Thomas.”

“Then why groanest thou and gnashest thy teeth? Art thou ill?”

Judas was silent for a space of time, and then from his lips poured forth one after another heavy words, throbbing with yearning and wrath.

“Why does He not love me? Why does He love them? Am I not more beautiful, am I not better, am I not stronger than they? Did I not save His life while the others were running away cringing like cowardly curs?”

“My poor friend, thou art not entirely in the right. Thou are not at all beautiful and thy tongue is as disagreeable as thy face. Thou art forever lying and speaking ill of others. How dost thou expect that Jesus should love thee?”

But Judas heard him not and continued: “Why is He with those who do not love Him, instead of with Judas? John brought Him a lizard, I would have brought Him a venomous snake. Peter cast stones, I would have turned the mountain around for Him. But what is a snake? Draw its tooth and it will cling about thy neck like a necklace. What is a mountain which one can dig with his hands and trample under foot? I would have given Him Judas, daring, beautiful Judas. But now He will perish and Judas will perish with Him.”

“Thou sayest strange things, Judas.”

“The withered fig tree which is to be hewn down! Why, that is I, He said it of me! Why does He not hew? He dare not, Thomas. I know Him. He fears Judas! He hides before the daring, the beautiful Judas! He loves the fools, the traitors, the liars! Thou art a liar, Thomas, hast thou heard me?”

Thomas was greatly surprised, and thought of protesting, but he decided that Judas was merely brawling, and contented himself by shaking his head. But Judas’ agony increased: he moaned, gnashed his teeth, and one could hear his huge body shifting restlessly under the blanket.

“What is it that pains Judas so? Who has set fire to his body? He gives his son unto the dogs, he yields his daughter into the hands of robbers for defilement. But is not the heart of Judas tender? Go away, Thomas, go away, thou fool. Leave Judas alone, strong, daring, beautiful Judas.”

Judas purloined a few pieces of silver and the theft was discovered by Thomas who had chanced to note the exact sum of money given him. It was thought likely that he had stolen on previous occasions, and the indignation of the disciples knew no bounds. Bristling with wrath Peter seized Judas by the neck and half dragged him to Jesus. The pale and frightened culprit offered no resistance.

“Teacher, look. Our jester! Just look at him, the thief. Thou trustest him, but he steals our money. The rogue! If thou wilt but say the word, I shall....”

But Jesus was silent. Peter looked up curiously scanning the Teacher’s expression, and with flushed face relaxed his hold on Judas. The latter smoothed his garments with a sheepish mien and assumed the downcast appearance of a penitent sinner.

“What do you think of that!” growled Peter, and walked out of the room banging the door. Everybody was annoyed, and the disciples declared that on no account would they remain together with Judas. John, however, with a sudden inspiration quietly slipped into the room whence through the open doorway was now heard the gentle and apparently cordial voice of Jesus.

When John returned, his face was pale and his eyes were red with recent tears.

“The Teacher says ... The Teacher says that Judas may take all the money he likes.”

Peter laughed angrily. Swiftly and reproachfully John glanced at the impetuous disciple, and suddenly, all aglow, his tears mingling with his wrath, his joy mingling with his tears, he exclaimed with a ringing voice:

“And none shall keep count of the money which Judas receives. He is our brother and all the money is his as well as ours, and if he needs much let him take much, telling no one nor taking counsel with any. Judas is our brother and you have deeply offended against him,” thus sayeth our Teacher. “Shame on us, brethren!”

In the doorway stood Judas, pale and with a sickly smile. John with a quick movement approached him and kissed him thrice on the cheek. And after him, exchanging glances and awkwardly, came the others, James, Philip, and the rest. After each kiss Judas wiped his mouth, though he received the kiss with a resounding smack as if the sound afforded him much pleasure. The last to kiss him was Peter.

“We are all fools, Judas. We are all blind. One alone is seeing, One alone is wise. May I kiss thee?”

“Why not? Kiss,” assented Judas.

Peter cordially kissed him and whispered into his ear:

“And I almost choked thee. The others were gentler, but I seized thee by the throat. Did it pain thee?”

“A little.”

“I shall go to Him and tell Him. I was even angry with Him,” gloomily remarked Peter striving to open the door without noise.

“And how about thee, Thomas?” sternly inquired John who was watching the actions of the disciples.

“I don’t know yet. I must think.”

And Thomas thought long, almost the whole day.

The disciples had gone about their business, and somewhere behind the wall Peter shouted loudly and merrily, but Thomas was still thinking. Pie would have finished sooner, but Judas, whose mocking glance persistently pursued his movement, disturbed him. Now and then the Iscariot inquired with a mock curiosity:

“Well, how is it Thomas? How art thou progressing?”

Then Judas brought his treasure chest and loudly jingling his coins he commenced to count them, pretending to ignore the presence of Thomas.

“Twenty one, twenty two, twenty three. Look, Thomas, another false coin. What great rogues people are, they even offer false money unto God. Twenty four. And then they will say Judas had stolen it. Twenty five. Twenty six....”

Thomas resolutely advanced to him, (it was already towards evening) and said:

“He was right, Judas. Let me kiss thee.”

“Indeed? Twenty nine. Thirty. But it is all in vain. I shall steal again. Thirty one....”

“How canst thou steal if there is no more thine or anybody else’s? Thou wilt take what thou needest, brother.”

“And didst thou require all this time merely to repeat His words? Thou doest not value time, Thomas?”

“I fear thou mockest me, brother.”

“And think, dost thou act correctly in repeating His words? It was He who had spoken, and they were His words, not thine. It was He who had kissed me, but you defiled my mouth. I can still feel your moist lips creeping over my face. How disgusting that was, Thomas! Thirty eight. Thirty nine. Forty pieces of silver. Dost thou want to count it over?”

“But He is our Teacher. How should we not repeat His words?”

“Has Judas no longer a neck to drag him by? Is he now naked so that ye cannot seize him? The Teacher will leave the house, Judas may accidentally steal three coins, and will ye not again seize him by the neck?”

“We know now, Judas. We understand.”

“But have not all disciples a poor memory? And do not the disciples deceive their teachers? The Teacher lifts the rod, the disciples cry: ‘We know the lesson!’ The teacher lies down to sleep and the disciples inquire: ‘Is not this what our teacher taught us?’ And here this morning thou didst call me thief, but now callest thou me brother. What wilt thou call me on the morrow?”

Judas laughed, and picking up with one arm the heavy and jingling money chest he continued:

“When the wind blows strongly it raises the dust and the stupid people see the dust and say: ‘Behold, the wind bloweth.’ But it is only dust, my good Thomas, the refuse of asses, trodden under foot. There it strikes a wall and is now humbly lying at its foot, but the wind is flying further, the wind is flying further, my good Thomas.”

Judas pointed in illustration over the wall and laughed again:

“I am glad that thou art merry, Judas,” replied Thomas. “Pity it is that in thy merriment there is so much malice.”

“How should not a man be merry who has been kissed so much and who is so useful? If I had not stolen three pieces of silver, how should John have known the exaltation of joy? Is it not pleasurable to be a hook whereupon John hangs his mouldy virtue to dry and thou thy moth-eaten wisdom?”

“I think it is best for me to go.”

“But I am merely joking. I am jesting, Thomas. I merely wished to know if thou didst really long to kiss the old and repulsive Judas who had stolen three pieces of silver and given the money to a sinful woman.”

“A sinful woman?” echoed Thomas in surprise. “And didst thou tell our Teacher this also?”

“There, doubting again, Thomas! Yes, to a sinful woman. But if thou only knew what a miserable woman she was. She must have gone without food two days.”

“Knowest that this circumstance for a certainty?” inquired Thomas in confusion.

“Of course. I had been with her two days myself and saw that she had eaten nothing, for she merely drank wine, red wine. And she reeled with exhaustion and I fell with her.”

Thomas leaped to his feet and walking a short distance away, turned and remarked to Judas.

“Apparently Satan has entered thy body.”

And as he departed he heard the heavy money chest jingle mournfully through the gloom in the hands of Judas ... And it seemed as though Judas were laughing.

But the very next day Thomas had to admit that he had been mistaken in Judas: so gentle, simple and at the same time serious had become the Iscariot. He cut no more grimaces, refrained from malicious jesting, no longer cringed before people or insulted them, but attended to his household tasks quietly and unobtrusively. He was as agile as ever: as though he had not two legs like the rest of the people, but dozens of them. Now, however, he scurried about noiselessly, without squealing and screaming or the hyena laugh that had characterized his previous activity. And when Jesus now commenced to speak he sat down in a corner with folded hands and his large eyes assumed such a gentle expression that everybody noticed it. And he ceased to speak evil of people, keeping silence in preference, so that even the stern Matthew found it proper to praise him, which he did in the words of Solomon: “The fool speaketh scornfully of his neighbor, but the wise man is silent,” and he raised his finger as if recalling the former proneness of Judas to speak evil. And the others also noted this change in Judas and rejoiced over it. Only Jesus still viewed him with the same look of estrangement although He in no manner expressed His disfavor. And John himself, towards whom, as the beloved disciple of Jesus and his protector, Judas now manifested a most deferential demeanor, even John’s attitude towards him was softened and he occasionally held converse with him.

“How thinkest thou, Judas,” said he once condescendingly, “which of us twain, Peter or I, will be nearest to Christ in His heavenly kingdom?”

Judas thought for a moment and replied:

“I think thou wilt.”

“And Peter thinks he will,” smiled John.

“No. Peter’s shouting would scatter the angels. Hearest thou him? Of course, he will dispute with thee and will strive to come first and occupy the place, for he claims that he too loves Jesus. But he is growing old, while thou art young. He is slow, while thou art fleetfooted and thou wilt be the first to enter with Christ. Am I not right?”

“Yes. I shall never leave Jesus’ side,” assented John.

That same day Simon Peter addressed the very same question to Judas. But fearing that his loud voice would be heard by others he led Judas to the furthest corner of the house.

“Well how thinkest thou?” he inquired anxiously. “Thou art wise. Even the Teacher praises thy wisdom. Thou wilt tell me the truth.”

“Thou, of course,” the Iscariot replied without hesitation. And Peter indignantly exclaimed:

“I told him so.”

“But, of course, even there he will try to dispute the first place with thee.”

“Of course he will.”

“But what can he do if he find the place already occupied by thee? Thou wilt not leave Him alone. Did he not call thee a Rock?”

Peter laid his hand on Judas’ shoulder and fervently exclaimed:

“I tell thee, Judas, thou art the wisest among us. Pity thou art so malevolent and sneering. The Teacher does not like it. And thou couldst be a beloved disciple no less than John. But even unto thee I shall not yield my place by the side of Jesus, neither here on earth nor over there. Hearest thou me?” And he raised his hand with a threatening gesture.

Thus Judas sought to please both, the while he was harboring thoughts of his own. And remaining the same modest, quiet and unobtrusive Judas, he strove to say something agreeable to all.

Thus he said to Thomas: “The fool believeth every word, but the man of wisdom takes heed of his ways.” But to Matthew who loved to eat and drink and was ashamed of this weakness he cited the words of Solomon.

“The righteous shall eat his fill, but the seed of the lawless is in want.”

But such pleasant words he spoke rarely, which lent to them a special value. Now he remained silent for long periods and listened attentively to others, though he kept thinking thoughts of his own. Judas in his musing mood had a disagreeable and ludicrous, and at the same time a disconcerting appearance. While his cunning live eye was mobile he appeared to be genuine and gentle, but when both of his eyes assumed that fixed and rigid look, and the skin on his forehead gathered into queer wrinkles and folds, one received the disquieting impression that within that skull there swarmed very peculiar thoughts, utterly strange, quite peculiar thoughts that had no language of their own and they enveloped the cogitating Iscariot with a shroud of mystery so disturbing that the beholder longed to have him break the silence quickly, to stir a little or even to lie. For even a lie uttered by a human tongue seemed truth and light in the face of this hopelessly mute and unresponsive silence.

“Lost in thought again, Judas?” rang out the sonorous voice of Peter, suddenly breaking through the dull silence of the Iscariot’s musing. “What art thou thinking of?”

“Of many things,” replied the Iscariot with a quiet smile. And observing the unpleasant effect of his silence upon the others, he began more and more frequently to separate himself from the disciples, taking lonely walks or spending hours alone on the flat roof of the house. More than once Thomas collided on the roof with a grey bundle out of which suddenly disentangled themselves the ungainly limbs of Judas and was startled by the well known mocking accents of the Iscariot’s voice.

Only once again the man of Kerioth oddly and abruptly recalled to the memory of the disciples the Judas of former days, and this occurred during the dispute concerning the first place in the Kingdom of heaven. In the presence of the Teacher, Peter and John hotly and with mutual recriminations defended their claims to the place nearest to Jesus. They enumerated their merits, compared the degree of their love of Jesus, shouted angrily and even abused one another incontinently,—Peter, all flushed with wrath and thundering, John pale and still, with trembling hands and stinging words. Their dispute was fast becoming unseemly and the Teacher was commencing to frown, when Peter chanced to look up at Judas and laughed out exultingly. John also glanced at Judas and smiled contentedly. Each remembered what the wise Iscariot had told him. With the foretaste of certain triumph they both summoned Judas to be their judge, and Peter cried out: “Hey, thou wise Judas. Tell us who will be first and nearest to Jesus, he or I?”

But Judas was silent. He breathed heavily and fixed his gaze longingly, questioningly, on the deep and calm eyes of Jesus.

“Yes,” condescendingly agreed John, “tell him who will be the first and nearest to Jesus.”

With his glance still fixed on Christ, Judas rose slowly to his feet and replied calmly and gravely:

“I.”

Jesus slowly dropped his eyes, while the Iscariot, beating his breast with a bony finger sternly and solemnly repeated:

“I! I shall be near Jesus.”

And with these words he went out leaving the disciples dumbfounded by this insolent outbreak. Only Peter, as if suddenly recollecting something, whispered to Thomas in an unexpectedly quiet tone:

“This is then what he is thinking about. Didst thou hear him?”

It was just about this time that Judas Iscariot took his first decisive step towards betrayal: he paid a secret visit to the high priest Annas. He was received very sternly, but this did not disconcert him and he demanded a prolonged private interview. Left alone with the stern ascetic old man who eyed him contemptuously from under his bushy eyebrows, he told him that he, Judas, was a pious man who had become a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth with the sole aim of exposing the deceiver and of betraying him into the hands of the law.

“And who is He, this Nazarene?” slightingly inquired Annas, as if he had heard the name of Jesus for the first time.

Judas for his part pretended to take this strange ignorance of the high priest at its face value and reported to him at length concerning the sermons of Jesus, His wonders, His hatred of the Pharisees and the Temple, the violations of the Law by Him, and His desire to snatch the power from the hands of the ecclesiastics and to establish His own kingdom. And so skillfully did he mingle truth with falsehood that Annas glanced at him more attentively, while he indolently observed:

“Are there so few deceivers and madmen in Judea?”

“No. But He is a dangerous man,” hotly replied Judas. “He violates the Law. And it is better for one man to perish than for the whole people.”

Annas nodded approvingly.

“But He has, methinks, many disciples.”

“Yes, many.”

“And they probably love Him devotedly?”

“They say that they love Him; that they love Him more than themselves.”

“But if we should want to seize Him, would they not take His part? Will there be no uprising?”

Judas laughed long and bitterly.

“They? They are cowardly curs who run as soon as a man stoops to pick up a stone. They!”

“Are they so bad?” coldly inquired Annas.

“And do the bad flee from the good? Do not rather! the good flee before the bad? Ha! They are good and therefore they will run. They are good and therefore they will hide themselves. They are good and therefore they will only appear when Jesus is ready for burial. And they will bury Him themselves, do thou but put Him to death.”

“But do they not love Him? Thou saidst so.”

“Their Teacher they love always, but more in death than living. As long as the Teacher lives He is apt to examine the pupils, and woe then unto the latter. But when the Teacher is dead, they become teachers in their turn, and woe then unto others! Ha!”

Annas looked searchingly at the traitor, and his shriveled lips wrinkled slightly: it was a sign that Annas was smiling.

“They have injured thee. I see it.”

“Can anything remain a secret to thy insight, O wise Annas? Thou hast penetrated the very heart of Judas. Yes, they injured poor Judas. They said that I had stolen three pieces of silver, as if Judas were not the most honest man in Israel.”

And for a long time they spoke of Jesus, of His disciples, and of His pernicious influence on the people of Israel. But the cautious and cunning high priest Annas did not give his final answer on this occasion. He had been watching Jesus for a long time and had long since sealed the fate of the prophet of Galilee in the secret councils of his relatives and friends, the chiefs and the Sadducees. But he distrusted Judas who had been reported to him as an evil and double-dealing man. He did not attach much faith to his frivolous remarks on the cowardice of the disciples and the people. Annas had entire confidence in his own might, but he feared bloodshed, he feared to stir up a tumultuous uprising into which the stiff-necked and volatile people of Jerusalem could be so easily harangued; he feared finally the sternly repressive interference of Roman authorities. Fanned by resistance, fructified by the crimson blood of the people which endows with life all whereon it falls, the heresy might spread all the more rapidly and engulf Annas himself, his rule and his friends. And when the Iscariot sought admission for the second time, Annas was perturbed and refused to receive him. But a third and a fourth time the Iscariot called, insistent as the wind that knocks day and night against the closed door and breathes through the fissures.

“I see that wise Annas has some apprehensions,” said Judas when finally admitted to the High Priest.

“I am strong enough to fear nothing,” haughtily replied Annas, and the Iscariot made a servile obeisance. “What wouldst thou?”

“I want to betray unto you the Nazarene.”

“We do not want Him.”

Judas bowed low and lingered humbly, fixing his eye upon the high priest.

“Go.”

“But I must come again. Is it not so, venerable Annas?”

“Thou wilt not be admitted. Go.”

But again and again Judas of Kerioth knocked at the high priest’s portal and was once more admitted into the presence of the aged Annas. Shriveled and angry, oppressed with thought, he regarded the betrayer in silence and seemed to be counting the hairs on his illshaped head. Judas also was silent, as if, for his part, counting the hairs in the silvery thin beard of the high priest.

“Well, thou art here again?” haughtily ejaculated the irritated high priest, as though spuing the words on his visitor’s head.

“I want to betray unto you the Nazarene.”

They both lapsed into silence, scanning intently one another’s features, the Iscariot gazing calmly, but a feeling of subdued malevolence, dry and cold like the morning frost in the winter time, was beginning to gnaw at the heart of Annas.

“And what askest thou for thy Jesus?”

“And what will ye give?”

With a feeling of quiet elation Annas insultingly retorted:

“You are a band of rascals, all of you. Thirty pieces of silver, that is all we will give for Him.”

And his heart was filled with delighted gratification as he observed how Judas’ whole body was set agog by this announcement. The Iscariot turned and scurried about, agile and swift, as if he had not two but a dozen legs.

“For Jesus? Thirty pieces of silver?” cried Judas in a tone of wild amazement that rejoiced the heart of Annas. “For Jesus of Nazareth? You would buy Jesus for thirty pieces of silver? And you think that Jesus can be sold unto you for thirty pieces of silver?”

Judas swiftly turned to the wall and laughed into its smooth and whited face, waving wildly arms.

“Hearest thou? Thirty pieces of silver! For Jesus!”

With quiet enjoyment Annas indifferently replied: “If thou wilt not have it, go. We shall find some man who will sell more cheaply.”

And like sellers of old raiment who shout and swear and scold, fighting over the price of some worthless garment, they commenced their monstrous and frenzied haggling.

Thrilled with a strange ecstasy Judas ran about twisting his limbs and shouting, and enumerating on the fingers of his hand the merits of Him whom he was betraying.

“And that He is good and heals the sick, is that nothing? Is that worth nothing in your estimation? Hey? No? Tell me like an honest man?”

“If thou,” interposed the high priest whose cold disfavor was rapidly fanned into violent wrath by the taunting words of Judas,—but the later interrupted him unabashed.

“And that He is youthful and beautiful like the narcissus of Sharon, like the lily of the valley? Hey? Is that nothing? Perhaps you will say that He is aged and worthless?”

“If thou,” still strove to cry Annas, but his senile voice was drowned in the storm of Judas’ protests.

“Thirty pieces of silver! That makes hardly an obolus for a drop of blood. Less than half an obolus for a tear. Quarter an obolus for a groan. And the cries of pain! and convulsions! What is the stopping of His heart? And the closing of His eyes? Is that all for naught?” screamed the Iscariot towering over the high priest, encircling him with the frenzied whirlwind of his gestures and words.

“For all! For all!” replied the breathless high priest.

“And how much will you earn on the deal? Hey? Would you rob poor Judas? Tear the piece of bread out of his children’s mouths? I shall go out into the market place and shout: ‘Annas has robbed poor Judas. Help!’”

Wearied and dizzy, Annas in futile frenzy stamped the floor with his soft slipper and waved him away: “Begone! Begone!”

But Judas suddenly made a humble obeisance and spread out his arms: “And if so, why art thou angry with poor Judas who is seeking the good of his children? Thou too hast children, fine, handsome young men.”

“We shall get another.... We shall get another.... Begone!”

“And did I say that I would not give in? Do I not believe thee that another may come and give up Jesus unto you for fifteen oboli? For two oboli? For one obolus?”

Then with another low obeisance, and with ingratiating words, Judas submissively agreed to accept the money offered him. With a trembling and wrinkled hand Annas, now silent and flushed with excitement, gave him the money. He sat with averted face and in silence, biting his lips and waited until Judas had tested every silver coin between his teeth. Now and then Annas looked around and then, as quickly turned his glance to the ceiling and again bit his lips.

“There are so many false coins about now,” calmly explained Judas. “This is money offered up by pious people for the Temple,” remarked Annas looking around hastily and still more quickly turning to Judas the back of his bald head which was now crimson with anger.

“But can pious people distinguish false coins from the genuine? Only rogues can do this.”

Judas did not take home the money received from the high priest, but going beyond the city he buried it beneath a stone. And he returned with slow, heavy and cautious steps, like a wounded animal creeping to its lair after a cruel and mortal combat. But Judas had no lair of his own to which he might creep, though there was a house and in that house he saw Jesus. Tired, emaciated, worn out with his incessant war against the Pharisees who daily surrounded Him in the Temple like a wall of white, shining, learned foreheads, He was seated, leaning against the wall and was apparently fast asleep. Through the open window entered the restless echoes of the city, behind the wall was heard the knocking of Peter who was making a new table for the common meal and sang a Galilean ditty as he worked. He heard nothing and slept soundly and firmly, and this was He who had been bought for thirty pieces of silver.

Advancing noiselessly, Judas with the gentle care of a mother fearing to awaken her ailing babe, with the amazement of a dumb brute that has crept from its lair and lingers in fascination before some pretty white flower, Judas touched His soft hair and precipitately withdrew his hand. He touched it again and as noiselessly crept out.

“Lord!” he exclaimed. “Lord!”

And going to a deserted spot he wept there a long time, writhing, twisting his limbs, scratching his breast with his nails and biting his shoulders. Suddenly he ceased to weep, to moan and to gnash his teeth and lapsed into deep thought, turning his moist face to one side in the attitude of listening. And thus he stood for a long time, immobile, determined and a stranger to all like his very fate.

With a calm love and tender solicitude Judas surrounded the doomed Jesus during these last days of His brief life. Coy and timorous like a maiden in her first love, strangely intuitive and keen of perception, he divined the slightest unexpressed wish of Jesus, penetrated into the hidden depths of His feelings, His fleeting instants of yearning, His heavy moments of weariness. And no matter where the foot of Jesus stepped it rested on something soft, no matter where He turned His glance it met something pleasant. Formerly Judas had held in disfavor Mary Magdalene and the other women who were near Jesus, playing rude jokes at their expense and causing them much annoyance. Now he became their friend, their ludicrous and awkward confederate. With a profound interest he discussed with them the little intimate and beloved traits of Jesus, quizzing them insistently for a long time concerning one and the same thing. With a great show of secrecy he thrust coins into their hands, and they bought ointments, the precious and fragrant myrrh so beloved of Jesus, and anointed His feet. Haggling desperately he bought expensive wine for Jesus and then growled when Peter drank it all with the indifference of a man to whom only quantity matters. In that rocky country surrounding Jerusalem and almost bare of trees and flowers, he managed to obtain fresh spring flowers and green herbs, and offered them to Jesus through the mediation of these same women. For the first time in his life he fetched in his arms little children, finding them somewhere in the neighboring homesteads or in the highways, and forcedly caressed them to keep them from weeping. And it frequently happened that there crawled on the knees of Jesus, while he sat in deep thought, a tiny, curly haired little fellow with a soiled little nose, and insistently sought His caress. And while the two rejoiced in one another, Judas sternly walked a short distance off with the air of a jailer who has admitted a butterfly into the cell of his prisoner and then with a show of asperity grumbles about the disorder.

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