The Secret of the Kingdom

TENTH LETTER

MARCUS GREETS TULLIA ONCE MORE:

In my heart I know that I have long ago departed from you, Tullia. I know that nothing of what I’ve written can convince you. If you were to read it you would only jeer at me and think that the Jews had addled my brains. Yet I am consumed by the strange notion that one day I might look at you, and that in that hour your clothes would drop from you and your body itself be merely a superfluous garment; that I should then see your soul and bring you to believe as I myself believe. I think it would mean abstention from much that you value and find pleasant in this life. But if I could look at you thus, none of that would mean anything to you anymore, and so you would be renouncing only unnecessary things. But the idea is surely futile. Such belief is possible only if one has experienced and seen these things for oneself. And there are many who do not believe, even when they’ve seen them with their own eyes.

But I will relate what happened next. On the day before the races Claudia Procula sent me a message, telling me as if it were a mark of supreme favor that she would take me into her box and that I might sit behind her. When I arrived at her rooms she had dressed herself in purple silk, which was perhaps thoughtless. But she could always point out that she was a distant kinswoman of Caesar’s. Her hair was splendidly dressed and she wore a costly diadem on her brow. For me she had provided Roman clothes and a toga, and a barber was waiting to shave me and curl my hair.

“It is high time you left off this Jewish nonsense and appeared like a Roman among the barbarians,” said Claudia.

I reminded her of the utter confusion of dress prevailing among the visitors to the baths, and of how even the Roman adviser had let his beard grow and adopted the Oriental fashion of dress, so as not to make needless parade of his Roman nationality at the court. But at last I was obliged to give my real reason:

“Don’t be offended, Claudia, but I have no desire to go to the races. On the contrary, I want to be ready to leave at any moment, for I’ve reason to think that the followers of Jesus of Nazareth will soon be gathering to meet him. I hope to get word of this in good time, so that I may follow the disciples at a distance and find the meeting place.”

Claudia Procula said sharply, “That is no news to me. Johanna knows of it already. If I were younger and this were Rome and I had enough reliable protectors who could hold their tongues, I might be tempted into this adventure too, and go to the mountains in disguise. It is on a mountain that they’re to meet, is it not?”

I asked in astonishment, “Why did Johanna say nothing of this to me? Doesn’t she trust me?”

“I believe she was told to be silent,” remarked Claudia casually. “But she has promised to speak to Jesus of Nazareth about me. Jesus is known to have healed sick people from a distance. Or perhaps he will give Johanna a piece of stuff which he has held against his body. So you are not needed there at all, Marcus. Be a Roman again, and come to your senses. These races are the greatest event of the year in all Galilee and the neighboring lands.”

I stared at her, unable to believe my ears. “So you exchange Gods son for a chariot race,” I said reproachfully.

“There’s a time for everything,” was Claudia’s excuse. “The baths have done me good, and I’m no longer as crazed in my wits as you. Seriously, I believe you’ve lost all sense of proportion.”

“Claudia Procula,” I said sternly, “your husband condemned him to the cross, however thoroughly he may have washed his hands of it afterward. Are you not afraid?”

Claudia Procula threw out her hands: “But Marcus, I did all I could to save him. He must surely know that, or at least he will come to know it. Besides, Johanna explained to me very particularly that these things had to be, to justify the holy scriptures of the Jews. So in fact he should be grateful to Pontius Pilate who, under pressure from the Jews, helped to fulfill the holy scriptures. Certainly the Jews’ philosophy is obscure and complicated, but I can well believe that Johanna is right. Besides, Johanna is coming to the races too, even though it may delay her arrival at the mountain. So you can see what an important event this is.”

I could do nothing with her; but I would not let the barber shave off my beard. He merely cut it shorter, and waxed it, and said it was now in the style affected by the Herodians.

Herod Antipas’ circus is no vast building. I believe it would not hold as many as thirty thousand spectators. At any rate it was crammed full of a yelling, excited crowd. There must have been more foreigners than Galileans on the benches.

Herod had caused a gallery to be erected for Claudia Procula opposite his own on the other side of the arena, and the rails of it were hung with rich carpets. Everything showed that he wanted to keep on good terms with Pontius Pilate, for Claudia’s box was only one step lower than his own. He had also installed boxes for the Arab chiefs and other visiting dignitaries, and the members of his court had received appropriate instructions; for when Claudia appeared with her suite she was hailed with mighty shouts of acclaim from all sides. The people joined in, to give vent to their excitement.

We saw Herodias and her young daughter enter Herod’s box. She was magnificently dressed, so far as one could see from the opposite side of the arena. At least Claudia Procula sighed and said that that ambitious whore might have done her and Rome the courtesy of dressing a thought less pretentiously. She too was greeted by loud cheers from different quarters, but the people did not join in these, and the foreigners soon fell silent when they saw that the cheerers were cuffed and beaten and menaced in various ways. With that Herodias had to be content and take her place. Lastly Herod Antipas appeared, throwing wide his arms in glad greeting to all. As if to demonstrate their disapproval of his wife, his people acclaimed him by rising, cheering and stamping their feet.

Into the arena there now came a troop of gladiators, who fought in twos and in groups; but their weapons were blunted and no blood flowed. Because of the Jewish law Herod dared not allow any condemned criminals to fight in the ring. His horsemen then displayed many feats of skill, until the people began stamping and demanding that the racing teams should appear.

The chariots were indeed splendid and the horses superb as one team after another circled the arena in the introductory parade. Bookmakers with their great wax tablets now began moving among the benches to take wagers. Herod Antipas’ own coal-black team seemed the favorite. By no means all the teams were thus matched in color, for the barbarian drivers had chosen their horses according to their own judgment from among those in their masters’ stables. The colors to wager on were seen only on the chariots and in the livery of the charioteers. The bookmakers were also shouting of an Idumean and a Syrian team, neither of which bore a color.

The last one to drive in was that of an Arab prince, whose horses were snow white. But the preceding chariots had already formed the usual exasperating jam at the entrance, and the mettlesome white horses were brought to their knees when their driver was forced to rein them in just as they were about to sweep round at full gallop on their parade lap. This was so bad an omen that many people laughed. The charioteer lost his temper and gave his team a flick of the whip; and this of course made them more restive than ever.

At an orthodox, safe chariot race, of the kind appreciated by experts because it allows of reasoned wagering, and because the excitement mounts with each succeeding contest, the teams are usually matched in pairs, and each pair circles the arena several times. Losing teams retire from the tournament, and the last race is run off between the remaining two. But the barbarians here love speed and noise, and to my amazement all the teams lined up together, in an order determined by lot. I heard that they were to run forty laps. I pitied the horses, of which many must inevitably break their legs, and was tolerably sure that a contest of this sort would cost some man his life.

But on beholding the rearing white team I remembered what the solitary fisherman had told me, and wondered whether I really dared stake money on it. When I inquired about it I was told that it had been one of the favorites, but that because of the bad omen no one would back it. In grueling races such as this, powerful horses and quick-witted drivers may well triumph over swifter teams, if luck is with them.

Claudia Procula threw up her arm and cried, “Herod’s team!” The gleaming black horses and their dark-skinned driver did indeed inspire confidence. The color was red, however, for no sensible person would put money on black. Claudia turned to me half-absently and said, “I suppose you have enough money?”

Of course I ought to have guessed beforehand why she so greatly desired my company; indeed I’ve never known any woman to stake money of her own. Should she lose, she finds no difficulty in forgetting the loan; should she win one may be glad if one gets one’s money back.

“A hundred drachmas,” I suggested reluctantly.

Claudia Procula turned right around to me with a look of amazement. “Marcus Mezentius Manilianus,” she said. “Do you mean to insult me? Or have you turned into a Jew? Say a hundred gold pieces at least—and even that’s too little for such glorious horses.”

I hadn’t so much with me, but all the bankers and money-changers of Tiberias were moving among the more eminent spectators, and they too accepted wagers. I called out the name I had been given by the banker Aristainos of Jerusalem, and a man was pointed out to me who in feature and dress might have been his twin. I confided in him. He was willing to give me credit, but told me that it would be difficult to obtain good odds on Herod’s team. Even chances was indeed the best he could get, from a distinguished Idumean who said he was offering this merely out of courtesy to the wife of the Procurator of Judea.

“Remember me when you count your money after the victory!” he called up laughingly to Claudia Procula, as if he had made her a present; and he recorded the wager on his wax tablet.

Once more I surveyed the teams, which only with great difficulty could be kept still in their places. The reason for the long delay was partly to allow time for wagers to be laid and partly to excite the horses and exasperate the drivers. I suspected that some of the chariots would be overturned at the very outset. The Arab chief’s white team was evidently unused to the barbarian mass-start, for they kicked their chariot and splashed foam about them as they tossed their heads and champed their bits.

“What will you give me on the white team?” I asked the banker.

He replied smiling, “If you really want to lose your money to me, I’ll take your bet myself and give you seven to one. What is your stake?”

“Write forty gold pieces from Marcus on the white team, at seven to one,” I decided at the last moment, when Herod had already raised his spear. The banker recorded the wager, and at that moment the spear plunged into the sand, its pennant waving. The charioteers gave a shout and with a rumble the chariots moved off. The more experienced drivers leaned back, reining in their teams with all their strength to allow the foolhardy ones to dash ahead and break their necks at once. But it was almost impossible to restrain the frantic horses. The two foremost teams sprang away at a gallop, and the drivers leaned forward and used their whips so as to gain as long a start as possible and reach the turning-post first. It was the only way to save their lives and avoid being trampled underfoot by the teams hurtling at their heels.

I couldn’t help springing up and standing on my bench, for so breathless a start I had never beheld. Herod’s black team was thrusting its way skillfully through the packed mass, and the charioteer used his heavy whip mercilessly to force his nearest competitors aside. I saw the lash catch the nearside horse of the white team over the eyes, and fancied I could hear the crack of it from where I stood. The Arab’s chariot struck the stone curb, sending sparks flying from the wheel, and it was a marvel that the wheel was not smashed.

At the second turn the heavy bay cavalry team from Caesarea deliberately drove straight at the Idumean, so that it overturned. The Idumean driver was dragged along the course by his reins until the flank horse came down. The bay team got well ahead, but then Herod’s chariot broke through and took up the chase. The Idumean staggered to his feet, half his body smeared with blood, wrenched the fallen horse up by grasping its nostrils, and even succeeded in righting the chariot, so that he could drive out onto the course again. But the injured horse was so lame as to be out of the race, and was only an obstacle to the others. I suspected that the charioteer took up the fight again merely to be revenged on the Roman.

In a contest of this kind, in which fairly evenly matched teams are hurtling round the course, it is in fact impossible to lead by more than a lap. The trailing teams bar the way, and the driver who catches them up would be tempting fortune beyond all reason if he tried to overtake them. The white team was now quite checked, for the horse which had had the whiplash in its eyes was still madly tossing its head in pain. The driver was beside himself: he hit out, swore and shook his fist at Herod as he passed the Tetrarch’s box. But the black team was rapidly gaining on the bay with its heavy chariot. Claudia Procula stood, shrieked and stamped her gilt sandals.

I couldn’t keep count of the laps, nor follow all that happened, but suddenly I saw the Syrian team slung, chariot and all, as if by a catapult from the ruck into the middle of the ring. The horses were thrown head-over-heels, and the driver, his reins still knotted about his waist, flew in among the wildly kicking hooves. I know not whether his dying scream was more terrible than that of one of the horses.

Only a little while later the white team darted forward at one of the turning-posts and crowded another against it, over-turning the chariot. But the Arab team passed unharmed. This may have been owing to the blinded horse, for if it had had the sight of its left eye it would hardly have shaved past so closely. At the risk of his life the driver of the overturned chariot managed to get his horses off the course into the middle just as the team behind came up. I had to admire the skill of the drivers. This man saw the grooms running to meet him, took a few paces toward them but fell headlong, and could not get up again.

Wagering began once more, amid intense excitement. The bay team of the Roman mounted cohort seemed to have gained more supporters, and many people backed it against Herod’s team, especially Arabs, who signaled the odds with their fingers and waved their mantles. Having abandoned their own entry, they preferred the Roman one to Herod’s. Herod’s driver had already tried to overtake the other several times, but the Roman swung coolly out in front of him and let his whip whistle through the air. Herod rose in his box, stamped on the floor and shouted to his driver to pass. All the horses were in a lather and the air was full of dust-clouds, although the course had been carefully watered before the race.

Yet the most remarkable thing was that in spite of all setbacks the white team, by its swiftness, had come up into third place, although the light chariot had met with some rough jolts. The fine horses had recovered themselves slightly and were once more moving admirably in step. The one that had been lashed raised its head and uttered a long neigh. The driver leaned forward and talked to it, and it no longer tried to pull away from its teammates.

Another chariot fell out through losing a wheel. The driver contrived to swing around so that the chariot overturned inward, off the course, and so was out of the way of the rest, but the wheel rolled straight on, and the bay team which came next had to swerve for it. Herod’s charioteer took advantage of this. Leaning far forward he lashed his horses and succeeded in passing the Roman. Cheering and yelling the crowd sprang to its feet, and Claudia Procula jumped and shrieked with joy, disgraceful though it was of her to show delight at the misfortunes of the Roman team. Yet her behavior evoked applause from those sitting near, and many smiled at her.

The number of competitors had dwindled, but the chariot lying last prevented Herod’s charioteer from profiting by his lead. The blood-drenched Idumean, who had had half his face flayed, turned and looked behind him, then beckoned and drew aside to let the other man by. Then he deliberately drove directly in the way of the Roman team behind him, and slackened speed. This happened in the middle of the straight, not at the turn, and the Roman cursed him savagely, for of course this maneuver was against all the rules. But who could prove it? He could always find some excuse for what he was doing. Those Arabs who had staked money on the Roman shouted too, and shook their fists, but at that moment the white team swept past both Roman and Idumean, arrived first at the turn and took the inside position, where it lay close behind Herod’s chariot. The spectators were struck dumb and for a moment ceased cheering, for such a thing as this had never been deemed possible.

After the turning-post the Roman took the outer lane and without difficulty drew level with the Idumean. He might easily have overtaken the injured team before the next turn, but he held in his horses and deliberately struck the Idumean on the head with his whip, bringing the man to his knees in the chariot. This brutal act set the crowd in a roar again, and many applauded, but hatred of Rome flared up too, and I saw many who came to blows among the benches.

But this lasted only a moment, so quickly did everything happen. The Idumean struggled to his feet and, urging his horses to a final effort, overtook the Roman team and again swung in front of it. This was no longer racing but murder. The great bay horses dashed full tilt into the Idumean team, bringing it and themselves sprawling to the ground. The sudden stop sent the Roman flying headfirst from his chariot, so that despite leather guards and helmet he cracked his skull on the stone curb in front of the seats and remained lifeless on the course. The Idumean too died before the race was over. He had been badly kicked by one of the horses.

The clearing-up after this collision forced the remaining teams to slacken their pace. Herod’s driver roared and brandished his whip, so that the grooms who were carrying off the Roman set him down again and sprang aside for their lives. The driver tried to force the black horses over the Roman’s body, but they were no chargers and would not trample on a man. They reared violently and swung the chariot so that it came near to overturning.

Almost at walking-pace the driver of the Arab chariot now steered his white horses past Herod’s team. One wheel struck that curb and mounted it, but the chariot remained upright and he reached the turning-post before Herod’s driver had rounded the corpse and got his horses in step again. Incredible as it seemed the ill-omened white team was now in the lead, and there were not many laps to go. It was my turn to jump up and cheer, and every Arab there joined in. But the unmetaled course was now as rutted and bumpy as a ploughed field, and as dangerous to drive on.

Now for the first time the driver of the black team lost his temper, and lashing his animals he tried once or twice to pass the white team by force. But the swiftness and even pace of the Arab horses saved them, and as their chariot was light, their driver did not have to hug the turning-post, but could take a wide sweep, relying on speed, without danger of Herod’s black team crowding between.

Only three other teams were left in the race. The white tried to pass them fairly, on the outside, but Herod’s charioteer yelled to the others to let him through. Two of them were scared into obedience, but the third, who drove a sturdy but slow team of which no one had any hopes, refused to give way. Again Herod’s man resorted to the whip, jerked his team purposely into breaking step and drove his hub into the other’s wheel, so that effortlessly, by the sheer speed and weight of his vehicle, he overturned his rival’s. The driver of this was badly hurt and retired from the race. Both the others continued cautiously, relying on luck to put obstacles in the way of the two leading chariots.

But it was not to be. The flag was waved, and swiftly as swallows the white horses sped forward to victory. The onlookers yelled wildly, and cheered Herod’s horses too, which were only a couple of lengths behind at the finish. Both charioteers drove up handsomely abreast, reined in and saluted each other with feigned respect and thanks for a good fight. The Arab chief leaped over the rail of his box on to the course and ran with his mantle streaming behind him to his horses. He talked to them and patted them and with tears kissed the swollen eye of the one that had been lashed. A number of brawls started among the benches, but the stewards quickly put a stop to them. Those who had lost their wagers tried to put a good face on it, and applaud the excitement of the race.

The banker came forward to congratulate me and the Idumean merchant, and in my presence paid him the hundred gold pieces that Claudia Procula had lost. For me he counted out one hundred and eighty gold pieces, so that after subtracting my stake my winnings were one hundred and forty, which for many people represents a small fortune....Therefore I bore Claudia Procula no grudge.

It must be remembered that I had dreamt about a white horse on the night after the storm. For some reason the dream had been so vivid that I was aroused from it by my own weeping. So I may have remembered the dream, and taken it as an omen, when I first saw that beautiful white team, and perhaps of my own accord I might have wagered on its winning. This is possible but not certain. The horses had stumbled to their knees at the entrance; and however skeptical he may be of omens, no sensible man flouts them. Therefore I felt it my duty to seek out the girl whose brother was dead, though I had nothing to go on beyond the solitary fisherman’s word that on that night she was mourning her brother at the Greek theatre in the city.

Claudia Procula urged me to accompany her to Herod’s banquet, though I had not been invited. No doubt she considered this favor worth a hundred gold pieces. But I had no wish to force myself unbidden among the many hundreds whom for political reasons Herod Antipas found it necessary to entertain, and Claudia Procula was not offended at my taking leave of her, although she must have thought me foolish not to avail myself of the opportunity.

With the emptying of the circus, the streets of Tiberias were inundated with people of every race, and I fully expected that a night of rioting would follow despite the watchmen and legionaries posted for duty. I found my way to the little Greek theatre without difficulty, but no performance was announced there. Nevertheless the gates stood open, and poor visitors to the city who had found no shelter seemed to be camping on the spectators’ benches. Some had even lighted fires and were cooking, so one could guess what that beautiful theatre would look like next day.

I went down between the stage and the seats, and no one prevented me from entering the cellars where stage properties are kept and where traveling players sometimes spend the night if they have no patron to give them lodging. All was deserted and empty and a little ghostly, as always beneath the stage of a theatre when the actors have gone; as if characters and words from all the performances were still lingering invisibly in the air. These dark theatre cellars have always made me think of the kingdom of the dead, as poets have described it. However rapturously I may have hastened down to them after a performance, bearing a gift for some actress who had set my soul in tumult, I’ve been filled each time with a chill sense of unreality. A player who has shed his costume is not the person he was on the stage.

As I wondered through these subterranean rooms I felt how far and in how short a time I had traveled away from my former life and from everything which used to give me pleasure and enjoyment. The past was just a memory which stabbed at my heart when I realized that I should never be able to experience it in the same way again. I fancied I was seeing a wraith when an old Greek came jogging along the dark passage. His paunch sagged and his eyes were puffy from immoderate toping; he shook his stick at me and demanded with many curses what I was looking for and how I had found my way under the stage.

I asked him in a pacifying tone whether anyone lived down here. He became even more enraged, and yelled, “You don’t mean those Egyptian vagabonds who cheated me and brought me ill-luck by leaving a corpse in here? I’d be gladder than you to get my hands on them.”

I said, “I’m told that I can find a girl here who has lost her brother. I have an errand to her.”

The old man looked at me suspiciously, and asked, “You’re not one of them, are you? I’m holding that girl in pawn; I’ve taken clothes and shoes off her and don’t mean to let her go until the debt is paid to the last farthing.”

“I’ve been sent to ransom her,” I explained, clinking my purse. “Take me to her, and you won’t regret your trouble.”

Doubtfully and with misgivings the old man led me farther along the underground passage and opened the door of a little cubbyhole. There I beheld, in a ray of light coming from a chink in the wall, a thin, naked girl crouching in a corner with her hair over her face, as if petrified with grief; for she never moved when we came in. There was not so much as a bowl of water in the place, no food and no covering.

“Is she ill?” I asked.

“She’s a wicked girl; she tore my beard when I tried to make her dance by the gate,” said the old man. “The city is full of foreigners and someone might have thrown money to her if she had danced. You must understand that I was obliged to pay for her brothers burial, so that no one should know that a corpse had been left in the theatre. And that was by no means all that those cheats of Egyptians owed me.”

I touched the girl’s shoulder and threw down my purse in front of her. “I’ve been sent with a hundred and forty gold pieces for you,” I said loudly. “Pay what you owe and demand your clothes and belongings, and you’re free to go where you please.” But the girl did not stir.

“A hundred and forty gold pieces!” cried the old Greek, making a sign with his right hand to ward off evil. “This is what I feared. The wine is finished and I see visions and hear spirit-voices.” He tried to snatch the purse, but I took charge of it again, since the girl did not touch it. I asked him how much she owed.

He began rubbing his hands, stared piously upward with his swollen eyes, mumbled and reckoned to himself and said at last slyly, “I’m not a greedy man, though this wicked girl has brought ill-fortune upon me. At a round figure her debt is just ten gold pieces. I will fetch her belongings at once, with a little food and wine thrown in. She is probably too greatly exhausted with hunger to utter a word, and you’d have no pleasure of her in that state.”

He poked at my shoulder and whispered, “A hundred and forty gold pieces is an outrageous price for a girl like that. You must be out of your mind. It will be enough if you pay what she owes; then you can take her away and do with her as you choose. For just one gold piece I can get you the necessary papers, so that you may have her lawfully marked as a slave, with your own sign branded on her backside, for she has no protector.”

Without raising her head the girl swept the hair from her eyes and snarled, “Give the filthy old rogue five gold pieces. That covers my debt and all the others’ many times over. Then kick him in the groin for me.”

I opened my purse and counted out five gold pieces. So delighted was he that he never even tried to haggle, but hastened off directly to fetch the girl’s clothes. When he tossed her bundle in to us he cried that he would bring food and wine at once. Again I threw the purse to the girl and turned to go. But she held me back, and asked, “What do you want of me? I can’t give you pleasure worth a hundred and forty gold pieces. Tonight I was going to hang myself in my own hair.”

“I want nothing,” I told her. “I was just sent here with the money.”

“Such things don’t happen,” the girl said incredulously, and for the first time she raised her head and looked at me. To my amazement I recognized her: it was Myrina, the dancer whom I had met aboard the ship to Joppa. But she did not know me at once because of my beard and my Jewish dress.

“Myrina!” I exclaimed, “I never saw it was you. What has happened? Why are you so unhappy as to want to take your own life?”

Myrina shrank back, hid her bare knees with her hair in shame and besought me, “Don’t look at me as I am now. At least turn your back while I dress.” Opening her bundle she found a comb, combed her hair and bound it up with a ribbon, drew on a short tunic and fastened a pair of gay sandals on her feet. Then she broke into bitter weeping and embraced me with all her thin body, pressing her face to my breast and wetting my mantle with her tears.

I stroked her shoulders, gave her comforting words and asked, “Is your brother really dead, and is that why you are crying?”

Hiccupping with sobs Myrina forced out the words. “For him I have wept already. I believe I must be crying now because there is still someone in the world who wishes me well. Another night and I should have been dead, without so much as a farthing to put in my mouth for the ferryman.”

She clung to me hard and wept even more bitterly. I had difficulty in getting a rational word from her, but at last she calmed herself enough to tell me of the misfortunes that had overtaken the troupe of players ever since we parted. They had gone on to Perea and performed in the furlough town of the legion, but there the whole troupe had fallen sick of a fever. On their way back they had existed by appearing on threshing floors, but the Jews stoned them. In Tiberias they had hoped to arrange a display to coincide with the races, but her brother had been drowned while swimming. They had dived for him and rolled him on the ground, and Myrina had tried to blow life into him with her breath, but he never revived. They carried him into the theatre by stealth, and the old Greek had helped to bury him at night, so that the theatre need not be purified because of the known presence of a corpse. The other players had fled, leaving Myrina and her belongings behind as a pledge. But she could dance no longer, having been so frightened by the stoning.

She explained, “As long as my brother was alive we relied on each other and I wasn’t quite alone in the world. But when he was dead and buried I felt unsafe, and realized that wherever I go I shall be dogged by misfortune and wickedness, and so I don’t want to live any longer. I can neither eat nor drink, my limbs are paralyzed and I want to see nothing more in the world, hear nothing, taste and smell nothing. I have had enough of it all, and I mourn my brother.

“And you I cannot understand,” she went on. “Your money must be some new kind of lie and lure, to make me continue my useless life and bring fresh miseries upon me. No, no; take it back and leave me here to die alone, so that I need suffer no further disappointment, now that I know how dangerous and desperate a place the world is.”

The old Greek returned with bread and porridge in a dish, poured wine into a bowl with shaky hands and bade her drink. “Come with me to the stage-keeper’s room,” he said. “It’s lighter there, and there’s a bed. I will make it comfortable for you.”

“For us any place will do, I believe,” I answered. “Leave us alone, for we have much to talk of.”

He readily gave us leave to remain until morning if we chose; and, he told us, should we desire more wine we might get it from him. He went his way with the wineskin under his arm, and Myrina began to eat, reluctantly at first and then with better appetite, until the dish was empty and not a crumb of bread was left.

When she had finished she asked, “Where is the harm in my dancing, and why should I have been cursed so that I daren’t trust my limbs any more, and am afraid? You saw me dance on the ship—you know that I don’t do it for seduction, but to give entertainment and stir people’s emotions with my tricks and feats. What if I do dance naked? Flapping garments would get in the way and make me lose my balance, and my thin body isn’t much to look at, for it’s nothing but trained muscle; I haven’t even any breasts. I don’t understand why the Jews stoned me so mercilessly.”

She showed me her bruises and a badly healed graze on her head beneath her hair, and told me, “We asked for food in one village, and would have paid for it by diverting the people as best we could with singing, playing and my dancing. But they would have stoned me to death if there hadn’t been so many of us. I’m tormented by the sense of having done something forbidden, and I know I shall never be able to dance again as I did.”

I pondered her story and said, “I believe I know the cause of their wrath. I’ve heard that the Lady Herodias made her daughter dance before dissolute Herod Antipas, to induce him to execute a Jewish prophet who had spoken ill of Herodias. Therefore pious Jews in this part of the world abominate all heathen dancing.”

Myrina shook her head: “I used to be proud of my art, and loved the free and varied life of a strolling player. But we met with one misfortune after another, until at last I was full of fear and dreaded every day that dawned. My brother’s death was the final blow, and crushed me utterly.”

But having poured out all her distress to me she began to marvel. She undid the purse, fingered the gold pieces and asked for what reason I wanted to give them to her, and how I had found her at all. I told her of the solitary fisherman and of my wager at the racing, and ended, “I believe that man could hear your weeping across the lake. But how, and how he knew that your brother was dead, I dare not even try to explain. At any rate the money is yours, and you’re free to come and go as you please.”

Myrina frowned thoughtfully and said, “Describe that man to me. Did he look as if he had suffered much and was worn out? Was he grave and gentle, so that you can’t forget his face? Had he wounds in his wrists and feet?”

I said, “You’re thinking of the same man. You must have met him.”

Myrina told me: “After we had fled from the angry Jews we had nothing to eat but ears of corn which we plucked in the fields. At last we came to a well and decided to stay by it that night. We were utterly despondent. Then this man came wearily along the road, and said, ‘Let me drink too.’ But we were all enraged against the Jews. The men prevented him from coming to the well and my brother mocked him, saying, ‘Though you were in your Jewish hell I would not dip a finger in water to refresh you, because you’re an accursed Jew’ But at last I pitied him. I fetched water for him, gave him to drink and washed his wounded feet, for he lacked the strength to do it for himself. No one hindered me. Players are kindly people at heart. Very likely my brother was only joking and would have let him go to the well in the end, only just then we were all full of bitter resentment against the Jews. When he had drunk and I had rinsed his feet clean he gave me a gentle look, blessed me and said, ‘What you’ve done for me you have done for him who sent me. For this one act, much will be forgiven you. Kings and princes will envy you because you gave me water to drink when I was thirsty.’”

“Did he really say that to you, Myrina?” I asked in wonder.

“Those very words,” Myrina said. “They have stayed in my memory, although I didn’t understand them. But I imprinted them on my mind because he was so singular a man. I turned to the others for a while, and during that time he disappeared. We were so hungry that we chewed bark when we lay down to sleep by the well, but a little later an old woman came along the road, looking about her as if in search of something. She had barley bread and mutton in a basket, and she offered it to us, but we told her that we hadn’t a farthing to pay her with. Then she said this: ‘Take it and eat. I have been promised that what I give away of my own will be repaid many times over.’ We took the food and ate, and were all filled. The men thought that the Jews were afraid after treating us so badly, and that they were now trying to conciliate us. But the woman gathered what remained into her basket and went on her way. I had a feeling that it was that weary man who had met her and bidden her bring us food, because I had been kind to him. Who is he, if indeed he be the same man whom you met on the other side of the lake?”

I hesitated as to how much I should tell her, and then said, “I neither know nor understand. At any rate he gave you a princely reward for a drink of water. But not in my wildest dreams would I have imagined meeting you here, Myrina, or that it was to you I had to give my winnings. I can only see it as a sign and a reminder that it was not of my own will alone that I boarded that ship in Alexandria. But peace be with you now, Myrina, and use the money as you think best. I must go, for I expect a message.”

Myrina grasped me firmly by the arm and forced me to sit down on the earth floor again, saying, “No, you shall not go, for I won’t allow it. The man you told me of can be no ordinary man. No one behaves and speaks as he does.”

But I had no wish to disclose the secret of the kingdom to an utterly strange girl of a dubious profession, and said abruptly, “You’ve had all you could ask of him and more. Let me be.”

Myrina, angered, thrust the purse back into my hands and said vehemently, “Then keep your coin, and may it scorch your conscience as long as you live. You cannot buy me off with money, for money is no remedy for the distress I feel. I would rather hang myself. Tell me at once all you know of him, and then take me to him.”

I saw that I had got myself into a quandary, and bitterly did I lament, saying, “His acts are not the acts of men, and I don’t understand him with my human reasoning. Are there not Jewish widows and fatherless in the land who revere God and seek the kingdom? Why then has he chosen an Egyptian—a girl who has sinned from childhood?”

Myrina said in a hurt tone, “I’m no common Egyptian; I was born on one of the islands, of good Greek parents, and I don’t know what you mean when you say I’ve sinned from childhood. There is nothing to be ashamed of in my profession, for by it I delight and please many people. I would not indeed claim to be the woman of one man only, but it takes two to commit that sort of sin, and I know not which is the greater sinner: I, or the man who profits by my poverty to bribe me into sin. But I have put an end to my former life as completely as if I’d hanged myself already. I want a new and better life. I can’t buy that for money. So you must help me as if you were my brother.”

I could have wept. Hardly had I rid myself of Mary of Beret before I had another even more alien and dangerous girl on my hands. But I had to tell her. I thought over what I should say, and began to explain it thus: “I don’t know how much you understand of all this, but you’ve seen the world and must have experienced other inexplicable things. I’ve reason to think that the man you gave water to by the well and whom I spoke to by the lake is a certain Jesus of Nazareth.”

“But him I know!” Myrina broke in, to my surprise. “The legionaries of Decapolis talked of nothing else. He has wrought miracles, healed the sick and even raised the dead, and he promised to establish a kingdom for the Jews. Therefore he was crucified in Jerusalem, and his disciples stole his body from the tomb under Pontius Pilate’s nose, to make the people believe he’d risen from the dead. Or do you think he really came out of his tomb, and that it was he I met by the well?”

“He rose from the dead,” I said. “Therefore he is the son of God and I believe that he possesses all power in heaven and on earth. Such a thing has never happened before. Then he came here into Galilee, telling his people to follow him. He must have been on that journey when you saw him. He has promised to meet them once more on a mountain.”

“But,” objected Myrina, with sturdy common sense, “how could he have been thirsty if he was the son of God?”

“How should I know?” I returned, annoyed. “I have myself felt the weals of the scourge across his back, if it was indeed he. I can testify that he is of flesh and blood. He is a man among men, yet at the same time the son of God. Don’t ask me how and why it is so, for I believe that this is the greatest miracle about him, and the thing that has never happened before in the world. Therefore his kingdom cannot be merely an earthly one, as the Jews imagine.”

Myrina gazed about her wide-eyed, reflected with awe upon my words and said, “If it is as you say, then he has sent you here in place of my brother and not just for the sake of the money. Thus he has bound us together as one binds a pair of doves by the feet. I too long for his kingdom, of whatever kind it may be, for of this one I have had enough. Let us go to that mountain together and throw ourselves down before him and beg him to take us into his kingdom, as he has given you to me for a brother and me to you for a sister.”

“Myrina,” I said resolutely, “I neither lack nor need a sister. Truly I do not. That is a great mistake. And in any case I don’t intend to take you with me to the mountain, for I don’t even know yet whether I shall find it myself. Who knows whether his disciples may not slay me, believing that I’m spying on their holy mysteries? You must understand that they believe his kingdom is for circumcised Jews alone. They admit no Romans to it, nor Greeks, nor even Samaritans—no one who does not acknowledge the supremacy of their temple. The whole story is far more complicated and dangerous than you know. But if you promise to be quiet and not bother me, I will visit you again when I have met him, and tell you about him, unless he is to take his own people into his kingdom at once. In that event I shall not return; but I hope that you’ll remember me kindly notwithstanding.”

With a violent movement Myrina hurled the purse at my head.

“Be it so, then,” she said bitterly. “A drowning man clutches at a straw; that’s why I would be ready to clutch at Jesus of Nazareth and take you for my brother, though you’re not my brothers equal in anything. He and I understood each other with half a word and a glance; we laughed at the same things and made fun of everything—hunger and humiliation too—so as to endure the wretched existence of a player. Go your way, hard-hearted man—you who think you can buy a person for money! Hasten to your mountain with a cheerful mind. But I wonder what kind of kingdom it can be that will receive you, when you’ve left me to sorrow and death. O rich man, what do you know of insecurity?”

I stared at her, and saw in her flashing green eyes that from grief and wild defiance she was indeed ready to hang herself, if only to annoy me. And she spoke with such conviction that doubts began to gnaw at my mind. Perhaps Jesus of Nazareth had meant me to weaken and take Myrina for my sister, outrageous though this might seem. I began to sense that his kingdom was not a purely agreeable realm, and that it made claims that were hard to satisfy.

“Myrina, my sister,” I said sourly, “let us go together then, and do not blame me for what may happen.”

But Myrina was not satisfied with this. She said, “Don’t talk so harshly to me. If you take me with you, do so like a brother, gladly. Otherwise there is no point in my coming.”

I could not do otherwise than embrace her thin body in a brotherly way, kiss her cheeks and comfort her with gentle words. She shed another tear or two, but then we set forth together, and the old Greek, sitting and babbling over a jar of wine in his porter’s lodge, did not try to stop us.

The sun had just set behind the hills and countless lamps and cressets of pitch were being lighted in the seething city. I was in so great a hurry to regain the inn that I forgot Myrina’s need of new clothes. Because of her player’s dress and gay sandals many passers-by shouted at her, and I had some trouble in getting her out of the town and on the way to the thermae unmolested. I had the notion that Jesus’ disciples would be moving this very night, for they could choose no better time; many people would be streaming away from Tiberias next day and no wayfarer bound for the mountain would attract attention on the roads. For this reason I hurried.

Not until I arrived breathless and hot under the bright lamps of the Greek inn did I realize that I’d done a foolish thing. The dignified landlord, who was accustomed to behold unmoved the whims of the rich, came forward to us, looked Myrina up and down and said reprovingly, “Roman, you’re like a bottomless sack. First you had a Jewish woman for your pleasure, and I said nothing, since you kept her up in your room behind drawn curtains. But to come on a night of festival with a sluttish player-girl who as soon as you’re asleep will go out and offer herself to other guests for a couple of drachmas, make trouble and steal the bedclothes—that is too much. We’ve had player-women here before.”

I surveyed Myrina with his eyes and saw how tattered and stained her short dancing-mantle was; how the color of her pretty sandals was rubbed and how grimy were her knees. Her face was still swollen from weeping, so that one might have supposed that she had come straight from some orgy. Under her arm she carried her brother’s five-reed pipe, and pipes are no recommendation for anyone seeking house-room at an expensive inn. I understood the man, and Myrina stared at the floor, feeling it best to hold her tongue, though quite certainly she could have found plenty to say. Yet I was annoyed by the landlord’s words, since they showed his poor opinion of my judgment, much-traveled citizen though I was. The madness of the situation was brought home to me; I clutched my head in both hands and exclaimed, “You mistake me utterly, my good man! This girl is my sister. We quarreled on our way-hither, aboard the ship from Alexandria, and she defied me by joining a troupe of strolling players. I found her at the theatre in Tiberias, and she has had enough of adventure. Wait until she has bathed and dressed her hair and put on decent clothes. For the sake of her reputation keep quiet, and you shall not regret it.”

The proprietor only half believed me and muttered angrily to himself that not the most drunken guest who ever smuggled a harlot into an inn had hit on the notion of calling her his sister. But when he saw that I was not drunk and that I had known Myrina before and not just picked her up in the street, he let us in and sent a slave-woman to show Myrina to the bath, a barber to curl her hair and a wardrobe master to lay out clothes in my room for me to buy for her. All I wanted for her was a decent, inconspicuous traveling dress, but when she came from her bath she insisted upon trying on various garments and surveying herself front and back in a mirror held by the slave, until I wearied of it and threw myself face-downward on the bed with my hands over my ears, to escape their intolerable chattering.

When Myrina saw that I was seriously annoyed she threw down the clothes, dismissed the slave, touched my shoulder lightly and said, “A woman’s grief and disappointment are soothed by fragrant ointments and newly dressed hair and good clothes. But try to remember that my ragged mantle and worn sandals would be incomparably dearer to me if I might wear them and share a piece of barley bread with my brother. You might at least try to laugh, as I do, when I seek to amuse you and drive the dark thoughts from your head.”

I pressed my hands to my head and said, “Ah, sister, I’m glad to see you find relief from your sorrow, but your anguish has passed into me. The night is far spent and my fear grows with every hour. I know not what it is I fear, but in my heart I pray to Jesus of Nazareth that he may not forsake us. Don’t talk to me of hair and clothes. It’s nothing to me what I put on or eat or drink, now that the hour of accomplishment is near and he will soon show himself to his own.”

Myrina pressed against me, threw her arms around me, laid her thin cheek against my shoulder and said softly, “Was it from your heart that you called me sister just now? If so, I ask no more. In just this way I used to sleep in my brother’s arms, with my head safe against his shoulder.”

In hardly more than a moment she was slumbering in my arms, sobbing a little even in sleep. But I was too uneasy to sleep. Dozing, I seemed to see a wild vision. I was old, my head was gray and I was wandering in the desert along an endless trail, barefoot and wearing a ragged mantle. Beside me, haggard and gaunt, walked Myrina with a burden on her back, and behind, riding a shaggy donkey, came Mary of Beret, so fat and with such lines of discontent about her mouth that it was only by her eyes that I recognized her. Somewhere far ahead walked a radiant figure who now and then turned and glanced behind him; yet hasten as I might, I knew I should never overtake him.

When I awoke from this vision I was soaked through with sweat. If this was really an omen of my future, and if that was the kind of kingdom that Jesus of Nazareth offered to his followers, I was not so sure that I desired to seek him. I remembered that he had foretold other evil things for me, that night by the lake; if indeed that man was he. A temptation seized me, and it seemed to me that a darkness deeper than the darkness of night took upon itself a living shape and tried to entwine itself about me.

“Jesus of Nazareth, son of God, have mercy!” I cried aloud in my torment. The darkness withdrew. Pressing the palms of my hands together I repeated the prayer that Susanna had taught me. When I had uttered the last words, “in truth,” I fell asleep, calmly, and slept until dawn.

I was roused by Myrina starting up at my side. Through the chinks of the shutters I saw the pale morning. But Myrina was staring in front of her with shining eyes and a smiling face, and with a cry she said, “O my brother Marcus, what a wonderful dream!”

And she told it to me: “We were walking up a burning stairway, you and I and someone else, but the fire didn’t hurt us and we went higher and higher, and it grew lighter and lighter. When you grew tired and reluctant to go on, I took you by the hand and helped you. It was the most beautiful dream I’ve ever had. It means something good.”

“I dreamed too,” I told her, and the thought struck me that both dreams might have held the same significance; for one may look at the same thing in quite different ways. Just then there came a knock at the door and a sleepy, scared servant came in to say, “Be not angry, lord, but there is one below asking for you. I would never have dared to wake you but for this obstinate man and his two donkeys. He says you must leave at once.”

Throwing my mantle over me I hurried down. The sun had not yet risen. Shivering in the cold I caught sight of Nathan and gave a cry of delight. Even he was so full of impatience that he forgot his taciturnity and told me, “They left Capernaum this night. Word has gone out to all. They went in separate groups, each with his family and kin. They took Susanna too, and I gave her one of the donkeys. I lent another to Simon Peter whose mother-in-law is elderly and sick. I thought it might be prudent for you to keep on good terms with him, although he doesn’t yet know whose donkey he has borrowed. But I don’t believe they will turn away anyone who has received the message, for this is a day of grace. This very night the kingdom may be founded in Israel.”

“Shall I bring my sword?” I asked quickly.

“No,” replied Nathan. “He said: ‘He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.’ He can call a legion of angels to his aid at need. Let us hasten now and go to the mountain.”

I asked him if it was far to the mountain, and he told me that he knew where it was and how to get there, and that it would mean a long day’s journey. In his opinion it would be wise not to arrive before evening, so as not to attract attention. I asked him to be patient for a moment while I dressed and told my companion to make ready.

Not until I came down again with Myrina did I realize that Nathan believed Mary of Beret to be still with me. He gave Myrina an astonished glance, and then looked reproachfully at me. I felt guilty, as if I had betrayed his trust, but defended myself eagerly, saying, “This young girl is a foreigner like myself, but she has lost her brother and I have adopted her as my sister. Have compassion on her for the sake of Jesus of Nazareth. If you won’t take her, then I can’t go with you either, for I am bound by a promise to take her to the mountain.”

I fell in grave Nathan’s estimation, and he must have thought me a babbler. But he merely threw out his hands and accepted my decision without protest. His relief after the long time of waiting was doubtless so great that he would have allowed Herod Antipas himself to come with us. I felt cheered, and reflected that even the disciples in their joyous expectation would let Jesus make up his own mind about whom to receive and whom to reject.

Nathan took us by a short cut past the city to the highroad which led into the interior. As I had guessed, many people were on their way out of the place: those who had been at the races and spent the night in Tiberias. When we came higher up among the hills I looked about me at the mighty view across the Sea of Galilee and the city with its arcades. The road behind us was bright with people, and before us dust-clouds hung in the air, showing us our route.

At short intervals along the road, and at every bridge, legionaries were posted. The Roman officials had evidently decided to throw a close net across the land, for the legionaries halted all vehicles, donkeys, camels, horses and ox teams, and exacted toll. Of those who traveled on foot they required no toll, but from time to time called one wayfarer or another who looked to them suspect, questioned him and made sure that he was unarmed.

As we began to descend the hillsides toward the interior of the country it seemed as if all Galilee were one great garden, so closely did the cultivated lands lie alongside the road. Many wayfarers, for fear of the Romans, ran off the road when they spied a guard post. But the peasants in their turn came up onto the road at a run, with oaths and complaints of those who in attempting to circumvent the guards trampled crops and damaged fenced vineyards.

No one examined or questioned us, although because of the donkeys we had to pay toll three times. At noon we halted by a well and let our animals rest while we ate. It was then I remembered something that filled me with anxiety. I asked Nathan whether Mary Magdalene had had word or whether I should turn back to find her. Nathan reassured me, and declared that all who expected the message had received it.

As we rested I watched the folk who were hurrying by without allowing themselves a moment’s repose even in the heat of the day, and tried to guess which and how many of them were also on their way to the mountain. I saw some radiant with joyful expectancy and seemingly oblivious of the dust of the road or of any fatigue. But those who were returning from the races walked with drooping heads and seemed weary of everything. Many had broken off green boughs to shade themselves with, for it was a hot day. A handsome youth came by, leading a blind old man.

Just as we were making ready to continue our journey we heard distant shouts of warning and a rumble of wheels and hooves, and the gray team of yesterday’s race dashed past. The driver had had to wait amid the press of carts at the guard post, and was now making up for lost time, heedless of travelers on foot. It seemed to me that he was bound to run someone down at that speed, in such a throng.

When we came to the next bend we saw that indeed there had been an accident. A cluster of people stood shaking their fists after the chariot, which was already far ahead. The youth leading the blind man had managed to push his companion out of the way, but had been hurt badly himself. He had been struck on the head—his brow was bleeding—and seemed to have broken his leg as well, for he could not stand upon it when he tried to get up. The blind man was uttering angry complaints, not fully understanding what had happened.

When people saw that help was needed, they scattered hastily and continued on their way. The young man wiped the blood from his face and felt gingerly at his foot. I looked at him curiously, thinking he might thank his good fortune that he was yet alive. With clenched teeth he met my gaze, then turned to the blind man and with a few vehement words besought him to be calm. We would have passed by, but that Myrina called upon Nathan to stop and swung lightly down from the back of her donkey. Falling on her knees beside the lad she felt his leg with both hands, and called to us, “It is broken.”

“If you’ve satisfied your curiosity,” I said acidly, “let us go on, for we’re in a hurry.”

The young man said to us, “Israelites, for mercy’s sake take pity on my blind father. We are honest folk, but my father has lost his sight, and he has been promised that someone will heal him if he can reach that healer by this evening. Tomorrow will be too late. I count for nothing in this; but I beseech you to take my father with you as far as the edge of the plain of Nazareth. There someone is sure to come and help him and lead him the right way.”

“There are many ways and many false guides,” Nathan broke in. “Are you quite sure of the way yourself, young man?”

The boy gave a radiant smile, despite his pain, so that he looked beautiful sitting there on the ground with his bloodied face. “There’s only one Way,” he said cheerfully.

“In that case we are all going in the same direction,” remarked Myrina, with a questioning look at me. Reluctantly I dismounted from my donkey and said, “Come, blind man! I will help you onto my donkey, and walk.”

Myrina suggested, “If were bound for the same place—if these two are on their way to the mountain—why should we leave the boy behind? Surely we can bind up his wounds and lift him onto my donkey. I am used to walking.”

The youth said, “I would not like to be a trouble to you. But if were children of the same father he will surely bless you if you help me.”

I found it hard to accept the idea that a poor Galilean with a broken ankle, and a blind father who muttered so angrily to himself, were my equals and that they had as good a right as I—if not better, since they were Jews—to seek Jesus of Nazareth. But when I saw the justice of it I thanked Myrina because her innate kindliness had vanquished my obtuseness, and together we washed the young man’s face, bound up his head, splinted his shin and cut a sturdy staff for him, with which he was able to hop on one leg to the donkey. Meanwhile his blind father had mounted the other animal and was ready to start; he listened impatiently to what we were doing, and suddenly cried out in a voice of authority, “What girl is that whose voice I hear and who knows but a few words of our language? Let her not touch you, boy; don’t speak to her—don’t even look at her—lest we defile ourselves on our holy journey.”

The young man looked uncomfortable and said, “My father knows the law and has obeyed it scrupulously all his life. It is from no lapse of piety that he has been afflicted. Understand him. He refuses to risk defilement before meeting the healer.”

For all his ill-will, the blind man clung fast to the donkey with both hands, so that even by force it would have been difficult to lift him off. But my kindly thoughts melted away and I rebuked him sternly: “Your own race forsook you on the road. The girl is a Greek and I myself am an uncircumcised heathen, though I dress in the Hebrew manner. I hope that my donkey at least will not defile you, since you sit on it so firmly.”

Nathan said conciliatingly, “You need not fear them, blind man. I myself am of the children of Israel and of the quiet ones. They seek the same Way as I. Know that I once lived in the desert, in a closed house, where I learned to read the scriptures, gave away my possessions to the children of light and partook of their meals in common. But I was not fit to be a scribe, and so I left the desert to seek a new teacher of righteousness, and followed the prophet in camels hair who proclaimed that the kingdom was at hand; and he baptized me. Then he was killed and I took a vow of silence, so as not to be tempted to speak of what only a true teacher of righteousness can know. But the hour has come and now is. And so I release myself from my promise. Believe me, blind man: at this time and among this people there is not in a single one of our tribes a man who is clean and without sin. Ablutions and sacrifices cannot purify you, and not even the truest teacher can do so. But the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, though we did not know him. He was crucified and rose from the tomb to deliver us from our sins. If you believe in him, he will give you back your sight. But if you believe yourself to be pure in comparison with us, I don’t think he will heal you.”

The blind man lamented loudly and with one hand felt for a seam in his mantle, that he might rend it. But his son restrained him, saying, “These strangers showed mercy when the undefiled abandoned us. Don’t be hard-hearted and grieve them. Our father’s sun shines on good and wicked alike; on the children of Israel and on the heathen. Don’t think that you shine more brightly than his sun—you who have been struck with blindness already.”

But the blind man ordered him to hold his tongue and bade Nathan lead his donkey a little way ahead so that we might not be too near him. Myrina and I dropped back, but the youth reined in his donkey to keep level with us, looked at us frankly and explained, “It’s hard for an old man to free himself from the old things, but your guide is right. There is no righteous person on earth. Though I strained every nerve to obey the commandments and the law it would not free me from my sin. I regard myself as no better than any heathen, and I’ll never believe that your compassion could defile me.”

I looked at him. His face was gray-green with pain, and he gritted his teeth with the effort of keeping himself on the donkey. I said, “Your face is pure, your eyes clear. I don’t believe you willingly yield to sin.”

He explained, “God created man in his own image. But because of the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve, God’s image has been weakened in me, and in the presence of God I feel naked and ashamed.”

“I’ve read that, and heard it said,” I answered, “but I’ve never understood it. A Jewish scholar in Alexandria told me that this story too should be taken merely as a parable.”

The young man tried to smile. “How should I, an unschooled lad, understand anything? But I have seen Jesus of Nazareth by the lake. He gave the blind their sight and made the lame walk. He said that he was the bread of life. I would gladly have followed him, but Father is strict. If he had been kind and gentle I should have run away. But as it was, my heart told me that if I ran away to join Jesus of Nazareth I should be doing so merely to escape my father’s sternness. Father believed more in the teachers of the synagogue, who condemned Jesus for keeping company with sinners. Many a time my father thrashed me because I neglected my daily tasks to go and listen to him. Father thought he was an agitator. But then all at once he was smitten with blindness. In the evening he said his prayer and lay down to rest, but when he woke in the morning he could see nothing, and thought at first that day had not yet dawned. He was distracted, and no one could cure him. He was ready then to believe in Jesus, and to seek him, but Jesus had gone on to Judea and Jerusalem, and was crucified there. So then he sought out the quiet ones, who hinted that Jesus was risen and told us of the day and the hour, and of the road were now traveling. Father firmly believes that Jesus can heal him if only we get there in time. I believe so too, but I could wish that my father would seek the kingdom rather than the sight of his eyes.”

Myrina asked me eagerly what the young man had been saying, and I told her. She wondered greatly and said, “This bright-eyed boy is pure of heart. I never even believed such people existed. Why should he of all people meet with an accident?”

“You mustn’t ask that,” I said, “when he himself accepts it without question. He forgets his own pain in wishing good to his surly father. It is the law among the Jews to honor their father and their mother.”

But Nathan, who knew Greek, heard my explanation and turning said, “So the law commands. But, as I’ve heard, Jesus of Nazareth teaches that a husband should leave his wife and a son his parents and brothers and sisters, and a rich man his house and goods, for the sake of the kingdom. When he called, the fishermen had to leave their nets in the lake and the ploughman his ox in the field; and one man who wanted first to bury his father was not allowed to follow him.”

The blind man lamented afresh, crying, “I am fallen among blasphemers, and Satan himself leads my donkey. Can one expect any good thing of a way whose travelers slay the law with their words?”

His son’s face darkened, but he consoled him and said, “I never heard Jesus say such things. He called meek people and peacemakers blessed. He forbade us to speak evil words, or meet evil with evil; he commanded us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. He told us that his father knew all our needs and would supply them if only we would seek the kingdom, without troubling ourselves about the morrow.”

Marveling at this I said bitterly, “I have heard a great deal about him and his teaching. The teaching is full of contradictions, and depends entirely on who delivers it. I no longer know what I should believe.”

But Myrina looked at us in surprise and asked, “Why are you suddenly arguing about him, just as were on our way to see him? I believe I am the happiest among you, knowing little of him and being like an empty vessel which he may fill if he please.”

Her words struck home. Walking there behind the donkeys I stared at the dust of the road, reviewing all that had happened to me and all the different moods in which I had received it. I could find nothing good in me anymore, nor enough love. Yet I assured myself for one last time that it was not from mere curiosity I was seeking the risen man. In my heart I prayed in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, desiring that I might be purged of all my conceit and selfishness, all my learning and my worldly perspicacity—yes, even of my common sense—so that I too might be merely an empty vessel, ready to receive his truth if he would fill me with it.

After that prayer I raised my eyes and saw a hill rising beyond the plain, its rounded crest gilded by the afternoon sun. I knew at once that this was the mountain for which we were bound. Lofty, harmonious, perfect in shape, it commanded all that countryside. We followed the highway a little farther, across the dried-up bed of a stream, and then turned off southward on a track along the hillside to avoid the town which Nathan told us was situated on its northern slopes. We came to the end of cultivation; the path now ran through scrub and we walked in the shade of the mountain. There was silence all about us. We heard no cries of animals and saw no people. Everything was so quiet that I began to wonder whether we were going the right way. Yet the very ground, the trees and the beautifully curving slope told me that the hill was holy. Peace descended on my mind and I was impatient no longer.

Nor was Nathan in any hurry. I believe he chose this difficult path to avoid company on the road and needless questions, for he kept his eyes on the sky and the deepening shadows, and let the donkeys halt and breathe. Being a Roman, I marveled that we should have come upon none of the guard posts of the quiet ones; for where so great and so secret a gathering was concerned, surely the followers of Jesus must have sent forth people on all roads leading to the mountain, to show the way or to turn back those who were unbidden. When three stars appeared in the sky we continued on our way, and in darkness arrived at a place near the summit where we found a great multitude encamped in small groups, and waiting.

Everything was incredibly quiet; people spoke in whispers, so that a gentle breeze seemed to be blowing there. Nathan tethered the donkeys in a clump of trees and helped the blind man to dismount. Myrina and I supported the youth. So we drew near to the crowd and sat down at its fringe, a few paces away from the nearest groups. Away on the other side of the crowd we could see more shadows approaching, outlined against the night sky. Those arriving camped on the ground without talking to anyone, and waited like the rest of us. From the sound of whispering I knew that many hundreds of people must be gathered here, and I would never have believed that so great a crowd could be so quiet.

Thus the first watch of the night went by, but no one wearied in waiting, or rose, or went away. The moon was waning, but the starlight was bright and it rained upon the ground like silver. I began to be increasingly aware of the presence of some power, and putting my arm around Myrina I found that her body had stiffened in expectation. As once in my room in Jerusalem, heavy raindrops seemed to be falling upon me, yet when I touched my face there was no moisture on it.

I noticed that many were standing up to see better, and I did so too. In the midst of the people a tall figure stood erect under the starlight, and spoke in a powerful voice: “Men, brothers!”

All were silent; there was stillness everywhere. He went on: “The grain is ripening to harvest, the festival is at hand and the forty days he gave us are nearing their end. The hour approaches, and with it the departure. Where he goes we cannot follow. He was the bread given us from heaven. He who eats of that bread shall have eternal life. The bread he gave us is his flesh, given for the life of the world. And we dispute no longer as to how he can give us his flesh to eat, for we eleven have known this thing and can bear witness to it. To us he has entrusted the secret of his kingdom. Truly, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. But he who eats the flesh of the Son of Man and drinks his blood possesses eternal life and shall awake at the last day. His flesh is the true food and his blood is the true drink. He who eats his flesh and drinks his blood shall abide in him. But if there be any one among you who is offended by this, and finds such words objectionable, let him rise and go, and no one shall condemn him.”

But no one got up to go; nor did I, although I feared this mystery. I could not have risen, even had I so wished, for my arms and legs felt powerless and I hardly dared to breathe.

The speaker was silent for a long time, and stood steady as a rock in the starlight in the midst of the people. Then he resumed, speaking as simply as a child and seemingly as full of wonder as anyone else: “We ate the paschal lamb together with him the night he was betrayed. He took a loaf, blessed and broke it and gave it to us, saying, ‘This is my body.’ And he took a cup, gave thanks and handed it to us, saying, ‘Drink all of you of this, for this is my blood, which shall be shed to forgive many their sins.’”

When he had related this, he continued with both arms raised, “Eat now and drink, all you who love him and long for him and believe that he is the Christ and the son of God. Bless your bread in his name, and break it, and share it amongst yourselves; bless the wine in his name and give one another to drink; let him who has given to him who has not, that no one be left lacking. When we have eaten and drunk we will watch and wait for him.”

Having spoken he sat down upon the ground, and life and movement came among the crowd as all got up to wash and to help each other pour water over their hands. We had but little water, but Nathan poured some over our hands and over the hands of the blind man and his son; and afterwards I took the waterskin and poured water over Nathan’s hands, and he was not offended. We had food enough for all, but the blind man began trembling, and begged in a whisper that he might eat his own bread and drink his own wine. Still no one spoke aloud, but the murmur of the crowd was like a rising wind.

I felt no resentment at the blind man’s refusal to share our bread. Nathan blessed his bread in the name of Jesus Christ, broke it in half and handed it to him and his son. Then in the same way he blessed our own white bread, gave some to me and Myrina and ate of it himself, saying, “May this bread be the bread of immortality, as it is spoken. May it be to your life and not your death.”

I said humbly, “His will be done, for he is the son of God. If he wills it to my death because I’m a stranger, so be it.”

When we had eaten of the bread, Nathan blessed the blind man’s drink and gave it to him and to his son. For us he mixed water with the wine and blessed the cup. I drank, then he, and the cup remained with Myrina. We ate and drank as all about us ate and drank, sharing their food with each other.

But the blind man had eaten only a few mouthfuls when he burst out weeping, wagged his head and wailed aloud, “I have eaten of the body of God’s son and drunk his blood. I believe that with him all things are possible. May he have mercy on my unbelief.”

Myrina handed the cup to me. I drank and passed it to Nathan. He drank, and the cup returned to Myrina. When she had drunk she slanted the cup, looked into it in wonder and whispered, “This cup in my hand gets no emptier.”

Equally mystified I said, “I thought we had eaten all the bread, but here is a whole loaf beside me. Nathan, did you put it there?”

He answered, “No, but perhaps we had more with us than I thought.”

Once more we drank, and still the cup was not empty. But I was no longer surprised at anything that happened, for everything seemed as in a vivid dream, although I sat on the ground and felt the chill of it, saw the starry sky above my head and heard the murmur of the crowd like the beat of heavy seas on the shore. There was no thought in my head beyond the rapturous certainty that Jesus of Nazareth was on his way, and that I should see him. His bread had not stuck in my throat, and his wine had not choked me.

So passed the second watch of the night, and I believe no one slept: all were waiting. And there was no impatience in that waiting; it was a preparation. Suddenly the blind man raised his head and asked, “Is it already daybreak? I seem to see a brightness.” He turned eagerly, peering in toward the crowd.

We craned our necks too, and saw that the risen man had come and was standing among his own people. How and when he came I can’t explain, but there could be no mistaking him. He was dressed in white and the starlight was cast back by the whiteness, so that he himself seemed to be giving forth light, and his face too was radiant. Very slowly he walked among the crowd, pausing now and then as if greeting his people, and stretching forth his hands to them in benediction.

Little by little all had raised their heads and were looking in the same direction, but no one ventured to leap up and run to him. Suddenly we heard a scream, unnaturally loud, and a woman flung herself face-downward on the ground before him, and cried with weeping and joy in her voice, “My Lord and my God!” A shudder ran through the crowd. The Nazarene stooped and stroked her head, and she was quiet at once. We heard the people’s sighing breath, but more and more were whispering, “That is he. The Master has come to us.”

The blind man craned his neck, knelt on the ground with upstretched hands and said, “I don’t see him. I see only a light, as if the sun were shining straight into my eyes.”

I cannot say how long he lingered among us, for time seemed to stand still; yet I lived wholly and fully while he moved among the throng, pausing by each of his own people, forgetting none. Everything was simple and natural, and so much a matter of course that not one doubt crossed my mind; nor was I surprised at anything that happened. I can only suppose that on that night, for as long as I could see him, I was in his kingdom.

At last he came near us, and as he approached I quaked inwardly, like the surface of ruffled water. He seemed to be talking to the people while he blessed them, but there was no sound, although I saw some who nodded eagerly as if in answer. Then he was standing before us, regarding us. His face was tired and radiant and his kingdom shone from his eyes. I saw the lips of the blind man moving, but heard no sound, and I wondered whether I had been smitten with deafness. But he passed his fingers lightly over the blind man’s eyes and laid his hand upon the son’s head. Both sank to the ground before him and lay there motionless. Others not far away were lying thus; for them too he had touched.

Then he looked straight at me, and I knew that if he touched me I should die. My lips moved and I must have spoken to him, though I didn’t hear my own voice. I think I entreated him: “Lord, take me to your kingdom.”

He said, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ is worthy of my kingdom; only he who hears my word and does my father’s will.”

I asked, “What is your word, and what is your father’s will?”

He said, “That you know already. What you do to the least of these, you do also to me.”

I must have asked something more about his kingdom, for he smiled patiently as to an importunate child, and said, “You cannot say of the kingdom of heaven that it lies here or there. The kingdom is in you and in all who know me.”

He said further, “I forsake no one who calls upon me. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am with them until the end of time. And you are never so lonely as to be without me if you call me.”

He turned from me, paused and looked at Nathan. I saw Nathan move his lips, but heard no word. After regarding Nathan he looked gently at Myrina too, but Myrina’s lips did not move. Then he turned away and went back to his own.

The blind man and his son still lay there as if dead, but when Nathan saw that this alarmed me he shook his head and whispered, “They’re not dead; they sleep. Don’t touch them.”

After that I saw the eleven gathering about him, and it was as if he were speaking to them with great love, and they making answer. But tears dimmed my sight, so that I perceived him only as a bright haze among the eleven. When I had wept all my weeping he had vanished, and I cannot say how and in what manner he left us. I rather felt than saw that he was gone, for with him power departed from our circle. I felt as if I had awakened from slumber; I sneezed, and was able to move my limbs.

Time returned. By the sky I saw that the third watch of the night had come and that dawn was near. People stood up and looked searchingly about. I heard shouts and animated conversation, as if all were vying with one another in telling what he had said to each of them.

I too exclaimed joyfully, “Nathan, Nathan, I spoke to him and he answered me. You can witness that he did not shut me out of his kingdom.”

But Nathan shook his head in wonder, saying, “I can by no means be that witness. I did indeed see your lips move, but your tongue must have been paralyzed, for I heard no sound. But I spoke to him and he answered.”

Myrina clutched my arms with both hands and said rapturously, “I dared not speak to him, but he recognized me and smiled and told me I should never be thirsty in my life again, because I gave him drink when he was thirsty.”

Nathan lost his temper and exclaimed, “You’re out of your minds, both of you! He said nothing to you; he spoke to me alone, and showed me the Way. He taught me that nothing that goes into a man is unclean, only what comes out of him. In his kingdom there are many dwelling places. To each shall be measured according to his own measure—more to one, less to another—but no one who truly asks him for anything shall lack. I am to believe the eleven, for he has chosen them to be the bearers of his message. His kingdom is like a grain of mustard seed: it grows slowly, but one day it will spread into a tree among whose branches birds from every quarter of the world shall build their nests.”

Nathan was silent, staring ahead as if listening, and said at last lamely, “He taught me much else too, though I’ve forgotten it. But surely it will return to my memory in due time.”

I was much surprised, but his kingdom still dwelt in me as he had said, and my mind was at peace. “Don’t be angry with me, Nathan,” I said. “I really believed that he was talking to me and I still believe he said something. Perhaps he spoke to each according to his need. If I knew and could write down all that he has said to his own people this night, surely no book could contain it. So we may not have been meant to hear what he said to each one.”

Nathan, mollified, laid his hands on my shoulders and said, “At least I saw him look at you, and no evil befell you. So I touch you now, and to me you are not unclean.”

We conferred together and agreed that it would be best for us to leave the mountain before daybreak, lest anyone should recognize me. But the blind man and his son were still sleeping like the dead, and we dared not rouse them; nor could we abandon them. So we stayed and waited. As day broke, the excitement and elation of the crowd grew ever noisier. Many joined together in songs of thanksgiving. Others ran breathless from group to group to greet their friends and testify that they had seen the risen man with their own eyes. Flushed with excitement they cried to each other, “Peace be with you. Have your sins too been forgiven? Did he promise you eternal life? Truly, we who saw him here on the mountain shall never taste death.”

The ground under me was hard, my limbs were stiff and I clasped my hands to feel that there was life in them. When morning came and all could recognize each other, the eleven went out among the people in twos and threes. I saw them rouse and raise those whom the risen man had touched and who had sunk to the ground in a swoon.

Three of them were on their way toward us, and the first of them I recognized as the man who had spoken during the night and addressed hard words to the crowd. I knew him by his round head and broad shoulders, and in the pale light of morning I could see that his bearded face was stubborn and fiery. He had young John with him. John was pale from watching, but his face was still the purest and brightest that I had ever seen in any young man; it made me happy just to look at him. The third man I didn’t know, but from his looks I saw that he was one of the eleven. I can explain this in no other way than by saying that his features had something of the features of Jesus of Nazareth, though they were different, and dimmer, as if seen through a veil of gauze.

Beholding him I was reminded of the solitary fisherman with whom I had spoken one night by the lake. Now that I had looked eye to eye at the risen Jesus, I tried to recall the appearance of that fisherman, and still cannot say for certain whether he was Jesus or not; yet I believe that it was to him I spoke by the lake, although I failed to recognize him then. But why he should have revealed himself to me I cannot understand.

The nearer these three came the guiltier I felt; I tried to avert my face from them. They had not noticed me, but bending over the blind man they shook him, raised him up and said, “Awake, sleeper!”

The blind man rubbed his eyes, stared at them and said, “I see you. You are three men, but I don’t know you.”

The first of them said, “We are three of the messengers whom Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, has chosen. I am Simon whom he called Peter. But who are you?”

The blind man rubbed his forehead, looked about him with seeing eyes, rejoiced greatly and said, “Last night I saw a great light. A power worked in my eyes and it hurt so much that I fainted. But now I am awake, and see with both eyes, though I was blind when I came here.”

In great joy he bent over his son, shook him awake, raised him to his feet and embraced him, crying, “The risen Jesus of Nazareth healed me last night. Blessed be his name! All my days I will praise God who sent him.”

Half asleep, the boy snatched the bandage from his head. The wound in his forehead was healed and cicatrized, and he stood on both legs without pain. Finding that something still hampered him, he stooped and took off the splint, rubbed his calf and said wonderingly, “My leg is mended!”

Simon Peter said, “Last night he healed all those whom he had called to testify to his resurrection, that there might be witnesses enough. We have all beheld him at the same time. Not only has he healed eyes so that they have regained their sight, and restored to deaf ears their hearing, and made the lame walk; he has healed us also of our sins, and opened to us the gate of life everlasting.”

But John was staring at me. Touching Peter’s arm he said, “We don’t know those two; we never called them, yet he has healed them. Others too have come here unsummoned, but last night he turned no one away.” Pointing accusingly at me he went on, “But him I do recognize. He thrust himself upon us in Jerusalem, ensnared us with importunate questions, misled the women and tempted Simon of Cyrene and Zaccheus, so that Levi had to go and warn him not to abuse our master’s name. This is that same Marcus, a heathen and a Roman. I do not understand how he can be here.”

Simon Peter started, clenched his big fists and exclaimed, “Have we even here a traitor among us?”

But John and the other man held him back and said warningly, “Let us make no disturbance. Take them aside, or the people will be frightened and stone him, and then we shall be questioned as to the shedding of his blood; for he is a Roman citizen.”

Breathing heavily, Peter gave me a somber look and said, “There are hotheads among the people. What would you say, Roman, if I handed you over to them? They would take you with them to some cave from which you would never return.”

“I’m not afraid of you or of anyone,” I answered. “Why should I fear, when your master did not turn me away last night? Surely he had power to hinder my coming if he had so wished? Or do you doubt that?”

Anxious and worried, they took all three of us to the copse where they had tethered the donkeys, and conferred among themselves as to whether they should summon the other disciples. From their conversation I gathered that Nicodemus, Simon of Cyrene and Zaccheus, whom I knew, were among the people on the mountain. But John said, “The more men we summon, the more stir it will cause. The Roman is right: the Lord did not turn him away. Why, I don’t know; but the servant ought not to think himself wiser than his master.”

Now that we were by ourselves the blind man who had been healed and his son spoke up for us, and told what had happened upon the road, saying that I had taken pity on them and brought them to the mountain. But Simon Peter said fiercely, “Was it not sign enough for you that the horse trampled you down and broke the boy’s leg? You had not been called and he didn’t want you here.”

The young man was saddened, and throwing himself on his knees before Peter he implored him: “Forgive me, holy men. I meant no harm. It was for my father’s sake that I did it. I never asked him to heal my leg; I never even thought of it. But of his goodness he touched me and made me whole. Perhaps in that way he gave me his forgiveness. Forgive me also—me and my father.”

Nor did I find it hard to humble myself before these three worried men. “If you wish it I will kneel to you, holy men of God,” I said. “I beg your forgiveness, since you are his chosen ones and the foremost in his kingdom. I am no traitor; I wish you no harm. I will be silent about all that I have seen, if you think it best; or if you will, I am ready to testify to his resurrection before the whole world—before Caesar himself.”

Simon Peter fumbled at his tunic as if to rend it, and exclaimed, “Be silent, madman! What would people say if a Roman and a heathen were to bear witness of the kingdom? Better if you had never heard of the Way. Though this night you may have fled from your defilement, yet it will ensnare you again and you will return to the world like a dog to its vomit. For us you are no more than dog’s vomit.”

In wrath he turned to Nathan and said accusingly, “You I have seen in Capernaum, and I trusted you, but you’ve betrayed us and brought a heathen to the feast of eternal life.”

Nathan rubbed his nose with his forefinger and said, “You, Simon, fisher of men! Did I not lend you a donkey in Capernaum, so that you might bring hither your sick mother-in-law?”

Peter looked abashed. Glancing guiltily at his two companions he nevertheless returned with some heat, “Well, and what then? I trusted you, and Susanna spoke for you.”

“That donkey was this Roman’s donkey,” Nathan told him in measured tones. “Marcus here is a good-natured man, but if you cross him he may claim the beast again, compassionate though he may be. Then you will be left here on the mountain with your mother-in-law. Of course Susanna might stay to keep you company; she rode here on another of the Roman’s donkeys.”

Simon Peter was perplexed; scraping his toe on the ground he said, “My mother-in-law has a malicious tongue, and once lashed even him with it for enticing me to a life of idleness, as she thought, because I left my nets for his sake. But Jesus cured her when she was sick of a fever and thought she was dying. Since then she has held her tongue. I wouldn’t like to leave her in the lurch, for we eleven must set forth at once and travel day and night, if we’re to reach Jerusalem before the forty days have elapsed. Then we must remain there and await the fulfillment of the promise. If my mother-in-law has no donkey to take her back to Capernaum, I know not what I shall do.”

Warmly I assured him, “I don’t return evil for evil; you’re welcome to keep the donkey, even though to you I may be no more than dog’s vomit. Keep these two other donkeys as well, for the women to ride. We need them no longer, being well able to walk. Take them. Nathan will fetch them in Capernaum. I’ll go my way from here without disturbing anyone. And don’t curse me or send anyone to hunt me down, for I don’t believe that is in accordance with your law.”

John now joined in the conversation, and appealed to me: “Roman, try to understand. Some things are not yet clear to us, and the promise is not yet fulfilled. All we know is that the way is narrow and the gate small. Of ourselves we dare not widen them.”

The third man said, “He commanded us to make all peoples his disciples. But when and how this is to be done we don’t yet know. First, surely, he was to found a kingdom for Israel. All this we shall learn of in Jerusalem.”

Seeing these three standing there hand in hand like brothers, and recalling the heritage which Jesus of Nazareth had entrusted to their stewardship, I was filled with envy and dread. I threw myself on the ground before them and appealed to them once more with a prayer, saying, “To you three, and to all eleven of you, he has bequeathed the words of eternal life. I don’t rebel against his will, though you’re all simple men. Scholars would interpret his teaching, each after his own wisdom, adding thereto something of their own. But you will surely fulfill his will only, as best you can. He did not turn me away; I was allowed to behold him; he did not prevent me from coming. Last night I even believed that he spoke to me; but that I am willing to erase from my mind if you so wish. I don’t even ask you for any medicine of immortality. Only allow me to keep his kingdom in my heart, and do not utterly reject me, and I will believe everything as you expound it, adding nothing of my own and claiming no share in any secret knowledge. All that I own I am willing to give away for your support; and as a citizen of Rome I may be able to help you, should you be called to account before the authorities, and persecuted for his sake.”

Simon Peter raised his hand in protest, and said, “Not for gold or for silver.”

The second of them said, “I remember he promised us that we need never be anxious about what to say if we’re haled before the justices; in that hour the words we need will be put into our mouths.”

But tears came into the eyes of John; he looked at me with a look of beauty and said, “Roman, I love you for your humility, and I believe you mean us no harm. He descended into the realm of death; he burst its portals and delivered the dead. This I heard from his mother, whom he entrusted to me as my own, at the cross. Should he not then deliver the heathen too? But how this is to come about we do not know. Be patient. Pray, fast and purify yourself. But never speak of him to others, lest for lack of understanding you lead them astray. Leave the speaking to us.”

I rose with bowed head and did my utmost to overcome my own vanity, though I was tormented by the suspicion that the heritage of Jesus of Nazareth would be scattered and dispersed by all the winds of heaven if these unlearned men alone were to be its guardians. Yet assuredly—thus I consoled myself—he must have known what was best.

To Nathan I said, “Take the donkeys, go and help the women; protect them and accompany them to Capernaum or to whatever place they are bound for. Rest then after your journeying. Afterwards come back to fetch me from the thermae of Tiberias.”

“It will be hard for you to walk through Galilee with only that girl for company,” said Nathan warningly. And when I looked about me I found that the erstwhile blind man had seized the opportunity to slip away, taking his son with him. But I was all defiance. Surely Jesus of Nazareth would not forsake me, though men might do so.

“Peace be with you all,” I said, and taking Myrina by the hand I set off down the mountain, along the same path by which we had climbed in the darkness. Looking back once more I could see life and movement among the people on the slopes, though many, wearied by their vigil, had wrapped themselves in their cloaks and lain down again upon the ground to sleep for a while before setting forth on their return.

As I walked I recalled all that had happened during the night, and felt no surprise that the blind man should have received his sight, or that his son should have had his leg healed, if indeed it had ever been broken. These marvels seemed to me perfectly natural and the least part of what had happened. So great had been his tenderness that when he revealed himself to his own people he healed also those whom he had not summoned.

The forty days were nearing their end and he was to return to his father. I tried to accustom myself to the idea that in spite of that he would come to me if I called him, so that never more should I be alone. It was an astounding idea which, if suggested by anyone else, would have sounded senseless. As it was, I had to believe it, so profound was the impression the sight of him had made upon me.

Busy with these thoughts I walked down the hillside through the scrub, leading Myrina by the hand. A fox slunk across the path in front of us. Myrina looked at me and said, “You must have forgotten that you’re not alone, although you’re holding my hand.”

Startled, I looked at her, and reflected that Jesus of Nazareth must have given me to Myrina in place of her brother, lest she perish. He could not entrust her to the Jews, since they would have cared nothing for her; so he had chosen me, a Roman. All this he had done in return for a drink of water.

But, I thought in bewilderment, I have never given Jesus of Nazareth anything. On the contrary, he had been the giver, even to the point of sharing his meal with me on the shore of the sea of Galilee, and letting me warm myself and dry my clothes by his fire, if that solitary fisherman had been he. But I could keep Myrina as my sister, and thus serve the Nazarene.

“Myrina,” I said, “from this hour you are my real sister and I will never forsake you. What is mine is yours. Try to bear with my faults and my vanity.”

Myrina pressed my hand hard, and said, “Marcus, my brother, have forbearance with me too. But above all explain what it is that has happened to us, and what those three men wanted and why they looked at me with such ill-will.”

But since the messengers had forbidden me to speak I dared not explain, even to Myrina, anything about Jesus of Nazareth and his kingdom as I myself understood it. I said only, “Those were three holy men, of the eleven holy men to whom Jesus of Nazareth has revealed the secret of his kingdom. They turned us away because we don’t belong to the children of Israel, but are heathen and in their eyes unclean. They forbade me to speak of Jesus of Nazareth out of my own head. But tell me what you think has happened.”

Myrina pondered, and then said, “First we ate a sacrificial meal, as is done in Syria when Adonis is buried and raised from the dead. But this was different, for Jesus of Nazareth offered himself as the sacrifice and rose again. Last night I believed him to be the son of God. Our cup was never emptied of its wine, and bread from nowhere appeared beside us. But to me this proved nothing. My only proof is that I loved him with all my heart when he looked at me, and in that hour there was nothing I would not have been ready to do for his sake. This is a great mystery, certainly a greater one than any of the Greeks or even of the Egyptians. I believe that his kingdom is invisible to me, and yet present, so that I am in his kingdom although my feet walk upon the path and the ground here. No, I could never break away from his kingdom even if I would. But I’m not afraid, for it is good to be in it, and when I am there, there is no sin in me.”

I looked in wonder at Myrina’s narrow face and green eyes, and said enviously, “Surely he has blessed you, and you are happier than I. His truth must indeed be as simple as bread and wine, so that even the poorest may possess it. My worldly wisdom stands within me like a dark wall: learning is a net to ensnare me, and the logic of the Sophists a trap for my feet. Help me, my sister, to remember this when these seductions beset me.”

While talking together we had reached the foot of the mountain, but when I looked about me I saw that we had strayed from the path by which we had come the evening before. Yet this did not disturb me, for I could determine the right direction by the sun and I knew where the great highway ran. But we were no longer in a hurry. I was suddenly aware of this. Never again would I be in a hurry for anything, for surely I had had everything already and would receive no more. I possessed a treasure. With careful husbandry it would suffice me and Myrina for the rest of our days.

At this moment of perception, my whole body was filled with an infinite weariness, and I believe never in my life had I felt so tired. “Myrina,” I said, “I cannot walk another step. Henceforth all places are equally good to me. Let us stay here and rest, and sleep in the shade of that fig tree. We have our whole life before us and will wander through it together. Let us rest now, while his kingdom is still at hand and we ourselves well content.”

We lay down under the fig tree and I took her in my arms. Both of us sank into a deep sleep. When we awoke, the shadows had moved and the eighth hour had already come. We began walking again, following paths and the headlands of fields in the direction of the highroad. We didn’t talk, but I had awakened as if reborn, and in Myrina I felt the presence of my sister. The yellowed fields of Galilee and the brown slopes through their blue haze were beautiful to my eyes. The air was light to breathe and I had no evil thoughts of anyone.

But I was astonished beyond measure when the first people I saw on the road proved to be Mary Magdalene and Mary of Beret. Mary Magdalene was riding a donkey, and Mary of Beret walked barefoot in the dust behind it, urging it on with a switch. I clapped my hands in surprise and hurried forward to greet them. But Mary Magdalene gave me a cold look and was not pleased to see me.

“So it’s you, then, is it? And you’re coming from the mountain?” she asked sourly. “A fine quandary I should have been in if I’d had only you to rely on. And who’s that girl with you now, when you have only just escaped the other by a hairbreadth?”

Both she and Mary of Beret measured Myrina with their eyes, and I realized that Mary Magdalene had expected me to accompany her to the mountain. Yet we had made no such agreement, nor had she sent me word. But for Nathan’s loyalty I should never have reached the mountain. However, reproaches were useless now.

“Let me accompany you to your home and protect you on the way, as you have no man to escort you,” I suggested. “It will soon be evening. We will find an inn, eat together, spend the night there and tomorrow I will go with you to your house.”

But Mary Magdalene was deeply offended at my words. She said harshly and haughtily, “Formerly I had many escorts. Formerly I was offered litters and had no lack of protectors. But since I beheld the Lord upon the mountain he is escort enough for me, and you need not insult me by saying that I have no man to go with me.”

I guessed that all had not gone as she would have wished at her departure from the mountain. But I was even more surprised when Mary of Beret addressed me with great stiffness, saying, “You seem very frivolous and fickle, and have consoled yourself very soon. I am glad of that, for your sake, for you can have no more hopes of me. I’ve had my sins forgiven and am purified so that I’m like a virgin again, and can have nothing further to do with you, a Roman and a heathen. So you’re not to look at me desirously; and tell that short-nosed girl not to stare at me in that insolent, critical way, with those ugly eyes of hers.”

Fortunately Myrina understood but little of what she was saying, but the looks of both women she did understand, and she gazed at the ground. I was grieved for her sake and asked, “What has happened to you, and why do you speak to me so unkindly?”

Mary of Beret told me, “On the mountain this morning I met a young man and his eyes are as clear as spring water and his cheeks are like pomegranates, and as yet no beard has roughened his chin. He looked at me and took a liking to me, and he promised that he would send his friend to Mary Magdalene’s house at once, to come to an agreement, so that he and I may break the winecup together. He is all impatience in his love, and I will gladly hasten too, so long as I am pure. His father has a field and a vineyard, olive trees and sheep, and I ask no more than that to live a good life. His father approves of me too and is willing to believe that I’m a virgin, because Jesus of Nazareth restored his sight last night and because he need pay no bride-price for me.”

Mary Magdalene interrupted her, saying, “All this is true, and I did not have to let her out of my sight for more than an instant for her to find a suitor. Otherwise I should have been compelled to marry her to you, and that would have been a pity; for Israelite women may not marry heathen men, though the men have an easier time of it. Truly it was a piece of good fortune that the boy’s father was cured of his blindness and out of pure joy believes that Mary too has been cleansed of all her sins. Anyone else, though he believed this, would scarcely have been willing to marry her, because of her past.”

Surveying Mary Magdalene’s face, which was more like white stone than anything, I knew that she would indeed have had the power to marry Mary of Beret to me, even against my will. I sighed with relief and said, “I can only praise my good fortune and yours, Mary of Beret. But I don’t understand it, for I dreamed an omen, and in the dream I was walking in the desert with this Greek girl, and Mary of Beret was with us.”

Mary Magdalene was suddenly attentive, and said, “Tell me your dream as accurately as you can remember. Are you certain that Mary of Beret was there?”

I described my dream as well as I could, but as I was speaking it faded from my mind and became indistinct. But without hesitation I said at last, “Mary of Beret was quite certainly there. She was riding a donkey, as you are doing now. She had become fat and bloated, and I saw deep lines of discontent at the corners of her mouth, but in spite of that I recognized her by her eyes.”

Mary of Beret was angry, and cried, “You have no right to have such dreams about me, and I don’t believe you. It is you who will grow fat and bloated with your own sins; you will lose your teeth and become bald.”

I spread my hands and said, “May my dream be unfulfilled. Why should we shout harsh words at each other, when we’ve all been on the mountain and seen him who is risen? Not one of us did he turn away, not even Myrina.”

Quickly I told them how I had met Myrina and what had happened to her, and how her winecup remained full. I also told of the chariot that had knocked the youth down upon the road, and of how we had helped him and his blind father to the mountains. Mary Magdalene nodded with understanding, and said, “Surely all this has come about for a purpose. In this way he leads heathen to heathen and the children of Israel to the children of Israel. But the shadows are long and I do not care for these parts, for I have too much money in my purse. I didn’t give them the money, for they would not take me with them to Jerusalem, and Peter ordered me to go home. But what they expect to do in Jerusalem I know not. Come with us, and let us put up at an inn together. When you have brought me to my house we must part as good friends.”

We set off in company, and there were no longer many people on the road. During our conversation Myrina had stood silent, staring at the ground, and for that I respected her. When we resumed our journey she asked me in a whisper who these women were. I told her that Mary Magdalene had walked with Jesus on his wanderings and had been the first one at the tomb to see that it was empty. At once Myrina was filled with reverence for Mary Magdalene, and walking up beside her as she rode, she begged her humbly, “Tell me of him who is risen, O happiest among women.”

Her meekness pleased Mary so that she looked kindly at Myrina and told her many things about Jesus, speaking in Greek. On the mountain she had met a young married couple from Cana, at whose wedding Jesus had wrought his first miracle and turned water into wine to delight the wedding guests. Then she spoke of Jesus’ birth, of how an angel had appeared to his mother Mary and she had become with child in a supernatural manner, and how Joseph her betrothed had thought of sending her away, until revelation came to him in a dream. As I listened I began to feel that I now better understood the men whom Jesus had chosen to be his messengers, and I saw what they meant when they said that Mary was too talkative. But Myrina swallowed it all, and listened with bated breath and shining eyes.

At last I could not help remarking, “The gods of Greece and Rome, according to the stories, mixed with the daughters of mortals and begot children by them. It is even said that the progenitor of the Romans was descended from Aphrodite. Nowadays such tales are regarded by sensible people as parables, just as the Jewish scribes in Alexandria interpret their holy scriptures. I don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth needs any stories to make him the son of God.”

Mary Magdalene was offended, and laying her hand on Myrina’s shoulder she said, “We women are alike, whether Greeks or children of Israel. Men can never understand us. And you, Roman, should not speak of earthbound gods who chain man to the illusions of earthly life. Now that Jesus has become the Christ of the world they have no longer any power over men, unless men themselves choose evil and bring themselves under their sway. But what I tell, I know; and it is the truth. Mary, the mother of Jesus of Nazareth, told me and other women of it herself when we were walking with Jesus. Even Herod, the old and cruel one, believed that a king had been born in Israel, and had all the male children of Bethlehem slain, thinking to be rid of him in that way. Of that there are still countless witnesses.”

Her words caused me to reflect. Mary Magdalene herself might well see too many visions and angels, and dream too many dreams, but I did not believe that of Jesus of Nazareth’s mother. I had seen her face by the cross as she mourned. I had also formed the idea that she did not talk unnecessarily, but was silent when others spoke. What reason could she have for telling such a tale unless it were true? The miracles wrought by Jesus of Nazareth were sufficient testimony to him. If I believed them—and I could do nothing else after having spoken to Lazarus—why should I doubt this one? Why should not a spirit cause a woman to be with child if God was to be born on earth as a man? Compared with that marvel, all others were secondary.

Myrina asked more questions about Jesus, and Mary Magdalene, with a look of rebuke at me, continued, “Often he would talk of a sower who went out to sow. Some corn fell on a rock and found no soil to grow in. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. But some fell in good soil and bore a manifold crop.

“Not everyone who has heard his word and believes in him it fit for his kingdom, therefore,” Mary Magdalene went on. “Your heart is not hard, Roman; it is all too soft. When you return to your own people, thorns and thistles will grow up thickly about you, and block your way to the kingdom.”

Her words filled me with dread. I looked about me at the red hills of Galilee and the dark green vineyards where the shadows were lengthening, and said, “How could I ever forget? To the day I die I shall remember this Galilee and the mountain and him as I saw him last night. And I shall never be so lonely that he will not be with me when I call upon him.”

I thought for a little, and said, “I am a bad servant to him, the king who is bound for the far country now that the forty days are at an end. I don’t know whether he has entrusted any minae to me, but if he has I must bury them in the earth by order of his messengers. This torments me. But I have been given a promise which I believe in, although I shall not tell you of it lest you mock me....”

I was thinking that I am one day to die for the glorification of his name, incredible though it may seem. Yet that was what the lonely fisherman had said to me that night by the lake. For my body’s sake I rejoiced that I am a citizen and entitled to execution by the sword, for that agonizing crucifixion I could never endure. I no longer regarded this prediction as something bad, but realized that this is the only way in which I can show Jesus of Nazareth that I belong to him.

Before evening we turned off the highroad along a donkey track which Mary Magdalene said led over the mountains to Magdala. She knew an inn where we could spend the night. We reached it soon after sunset, before it was quite dark. The place was crammed and the food had run out, but the people respectfully made room for Mary Magdalene. I saw the many guests sitting round their fires, bright-eyed, holding whispered conversations, and even from the roof a lively murmur could be heard; and from this I guessed that all these people had come from the mountain. All spoke kindly to one another, and those who had provisions shared with those who had none, so that Myrina and I too could dip our bread into a common dish.

Among the Galileans I felt like a stranger, and when the chill of night came I would have liked nothing better than to be allowed to sit by them, and like them talk of Jesus of Nazareth’s revelation and of his kingdom, of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. But they did not look upon me as their brother, and I could not force myself upon them. Nevertheless our host led the strangers’ donkeys into the courtyard, swept out a stall and gave us clean straw to lie on, so that Myrina and I did not have to sleep under the open sky.

Since everyone else was still whispering, in the faint light of a single lamp I taught Myrina the prayer that Susanna had taught me. Myrina felt it suited her and made her feel safe. She said too that it was a great relief not to have to take notice of whether the moon was waxing or waning, or to sprinkle salt and repeat incomprehensible incantations, and carve images from vine roots when one was going to pray. With such rites one never knows if one has done something in the wrong way or said a wrong word so as to deprive the prayer of its virtue.

When I awoke next morning the first thing I saw was Mary of Beret, who was sitting beside me in the straw and staring into my face. When she saw that my eyes were open she began wagging her head and wringing her hands; she whispered softly, “I was hot in there and couldn’t sleep. I wanted to see what you were doing, and how you hold your hands when you’re with that foreign girl. I would rather have slept like that in the straw with my head on your shoulder than with Mary Magdalene in a narrow bed, getting sweaty and louse-bitten. It was thus that you and I slept by the Jordan on our way to Tiberias. Take no heed of my malicious talk. Yesterday evening I was confused—I knew not what I was saying when you appeared so suddenly with that Greek girl, and I didn’t know what to think. I still don’t really know. All night I have suffered terrible pangs of conscience because I so suddenly took a fancy to that young man and promised to await his friend in Magdala. Perhaps he will repent of it, and no one will ever come.”

I assured her quickly, “That young man is without deceit. His friend will quite certainly come, and in due time he will lead you to the bride-bed, according to Galilean custom. The villagers will drink wine and stamp out the beat, the music will sound and all will sing songs of joy in your honor.”

Mary of Beret was annoyed; she ceased wringing her hands and raised her voice: “You purposely misunderstand me. I have suffered agonies over this matter all night long, so that I have hardly slept a wink. You must think me very ugly now that I’ve had two sleepless nights running, and am red-eyed. It is true, on the other hand, that I know my sins are forgiven and that I’m as virginal again as if I had never known a man. You know that too, since you know the Christ. And anyway I never told the young man much about my past life; only what was absolutely necessary since I didn’t want to grieve him needlessly. But I am terrified at the thought that his kinsfolk and all the villagers will spread out the sheet next morning and perhaps may find no token of my innocence, so that I shall be shamefully driven away with stones and sticks, and lose my ring. You Romans are less fussy about these things, but I know my own people, and in this the people of Galilee are no different from the villagers of Beret.”

I said, “Mary Magdalene is a woman of experience, and a dove breeder. Trust in her. Even the Romans are in the habit of sacrificing a pair of doves to Venus at their wedding, for safety’s sake, so that the bride need suffer no shame.”

Mary of Beret’s voice was even louder as she cried, “Don’t twist and turn away from it like this! And don’t tell me you didn’t take me with you from Jerusalem to be cleansed from my sin and made fit for you. Certainly I should be breaking the law if I became the wife of a Roman, but in the name of Jesus of Nazareth I am ready to do this thing, to save one of the least of his people.”

With a bitter look at Myrina she went on, “I bear no grudge against that girl. She is not worth it. I won’t even reproach you if you want her as a secondary wife, for that is accounted no great sin for a man, and not even the Pharisees are blameless in this respect. I will show her her place so that she remains as meek as she is now.”

Myrina had long since awakened: she was watching us through her lashes and trying to understand what Mary was saying. Now she opened her eyes wide, sat up and said, “When I fell asleep I felt safe and happy, but in the gray pallor of morning I am cold. The moment of truth must be in the gray of morning and not in evening warmth. I couldn’t catch it all, but so much I have understood—this Jewish woman has claims upon you. If I stand in her light, or am a burden to you as your sister, I am ready to go my way. I have the gold pieces, with which I may buy myself a secure living in one way or another. So have no concern for me, and do not take me into account when you and that beautiful Jewish girl discuss your affairs.”

Mary of Beret understood not a word of Greek. She stared suspiciously at Myrina and screamed, “Don’t believe her—not a word. She speaks gently and beautifully, but I know how wily the Greeks are, and you have too little knowledge of women.”

She burst out sobbing, clapped her hands to her face and wailed, “How hard-hearted you are! Don’t you see that for your sake I am ready to leave everything and come with you to save you from heathen dirt?”

Myrina looked at her in alarm with her green eyes, touched my hand and said, “Why do you make her weep? Don’t you see how beautiful she is and how her eyes shine, and what a soft red mouth she has? I envied her even yesterday. I haven’t even breasts like a real woman; my nose is too short and my eyes are ugly.”

Distracted almost from my wits I looked at them both, and reflected that this was what my dream had signified. Marriage I had never thought of. As long as she lived, Mary of Beret would think herself better than I, for she was a daughter of Israel. She would make Myrina her servant, and in the end, after sufficient nagging, compel me to be circumcised for the sake of peace. Such things have happened to many weak men in Rome, although they do all they may to hide it.

Then a frightening idea struck me. Perhaps this was the intention. Perhaps it was only through the imageless God of the Jews that the way to the Nazarene’s kingdom led. Perhaps his disciples would no longer turn me away if thanks to Mary of Beret I became a true proselyte. I had left Rome, and was free to shape my life as I would. If only a painful little cut with the Jewish flint knife divided me from the fellowship of Jesus’ followers, it was a small price to pay. I have endured worse pains. And Roman officers on garrison duty in the desert often enough have their foreskin removed for purely practical reasons, being tired of the perpetual swelling caused by fine sand. Egyptians and Arabs have the same custom.

Nevertheless I rebelled against this simple idea. It was the highest exponents of this religion, the high priests, scribes and elders of Israel, who had condemned Jesus of Nazareth. In my heart I knew that I should be betraying Jesus if I entered their temple—that glittering slaughterhouse—to beg them to receive me into their fellowship. I would remain simple and humble of heart rather than allow myself to be circumcised on false pretexts in order to be accepted by the disciples, who would have nothing to do with me as I was today.

Mary of Beret had ceased weeping and was staring at me in suspense. Myrina too looked at me as if she had already lost me. Comparing her with the voluble Mary I felt only tenderness for her, and knew that she would always be closer to me than Mary. My common sense returned and I said resolutely, “You need not make any sacrifice for me, Mary of Beret. You would only bring destruction upon yourself if you parted from the people whom your God has chosen, to go with me who am an unclean heathen. Remember that it was I who brought the young man to the mountain on my donkey, after he had broken his leg. You cannot break your promise to him. I must give you up, but I will gladly present you with so large a wedding gift that you will not be utterly dependent on your husband.”

Mary was compelled to believe me. She stopped crying, and said merely, “Thanklessness is this world’s reward, and now I too believe that Romans are dogs. Think of me, then, in vain some day when sweet ointments drip from you as you recline on soft cushions behind your curtains. Think then upon my hands, which were made for caresses but must grind at a quern all day long, and upon my eyes watering in the smoke as I bake bread.”

Her words left me unmoved, for I didn’t believe them. On the contrary, I guessed that she would drive her husband to toil beyond his strength and her relations to wait upon her lightest word, and that in her old age she would be a torment to her sons’ wives and a plague to her daughters’ husbands. But of course I may have been mistaken.

Having tried to distress me as much as possible, she forgave me, and said, “By rights I should throw your words back in your teeth, but for my own sake I am bound to accept your wedding gift, lest I be held of little account in the eyes of my husband’s family. It is no gift, but rather a debt you’re paying, having broken all your promises.”

I wanted to ask her when I had ever promised her anything, but by now I had learned wisdom and was silent. While we’d been talking, the other guests at the inn had set forth to continue their journey. Mary Magdalene now came to us with a radiant face. She scolded us, saying, “Why do you squabble? Look at the world out there, how gloriously it shines in the light of his sun, now that his kingdom is come upon earth. I bear no one any grudge now—not even Peter. Last night I had a dream, and it showed me that grace has come to the world. White doves glided down from the sky and settled upon the people’s heads. On your head too, Roman, a dove descended. I reject no one. To each and every one according to his deserts—or even if he be undeserving—there shall be measured such a flowing abundance of love that no one will be left without his share. A father may punish his child if it is disobedient, but he would never utterly forsake it. Therefore today I see no difference between Roman and Hebrew, and all people under the blue sky are my brothers and sisters. I don’t except even the Samaritans, although it was a Samaritan sorcerer who made use of the demons that had taken up their dwelling in me, and put them to his service.”

She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me on both cheeks, and I felt such a force emanating from her that everything was transfigured before my eyes and I wanted to dance and laugh like a child. Myrina too she embraced and kissed, and Mary of Beret she drew tenderly toward her, calling her her daughter. Thus we all exulted, and resumed our journey without thought of food or drink, so filled were we with his kingdom. That day we walked in his kingdom, although we were still on earth.

In the afternoon we reached Mary Magdalene’s place and saw again the sea of Galilee. Her servants welcomed her with delight, for she had left home secretly with Mary of Beret as her only companion, saying nothing to anyone; so they had been anxious on her account and feared lest she had been possessed again by demons. But she commanded them, “Take new clothes for yourselves from the storerooms and prepare a great banquet for this evening. Do your best, for the days of gladness and rejoicing are here. Our Lord Jesus of Nazareth has risen from the dead and shown himself to his own people. More than five hundred of us can bear witness to this. Go therefore to Magdala and invite all who are willing to my banquet. But do not invite Pharisees or leaders of the synagogue, nor elders, nor the rich. Ask to my table the poor and wretched, the publicans and tax gatherers, and also foreigners. Say to them all, ‘Mary Magdalene invites only sinners this evening, and not the righteous.’ For neither did the Lord invite the righteous, but only sinners, and in his sight nothing was unclean. With him, forgiveness of sin came upon the earth.”

Thus rapturously she spoke to her servants, who shook their heads but obeyed. Me she led aside, looked lovingly into my eyes, laid her hands upon my shoulders and said, “The time has come for us to part, but I at least regard you as a child of the kingdom, though all others should thrust you away. Evil days will come upon you yet, and no one is without sin. But let not your heart be hardened, never give yourself out to be pious in the eyes of men, and make no rash promises. Acknowledge your sin when you fall into such as you cannot avoid, and never excuse yourself by saying that you’re no worse than others who do the same. But if you suffer from your sin as you commit it, then you are ripe for healing. And there is no sin so terrible that he will not forgive it you, if you ask him with repentance in your heart. It is only a hard heart that he cannot forgive, because by that a man knowingly and deliberately cuts himself off from God. Yet I believe no one can depart so far from him as not to be able to find his way back, so measureless is his grace. But if you follow the way of the kingdom you will avoid much evil. And I will confide to you the miracle that was disclosed to me in my dream: the road that leads to the kingdom is already a part of it.”

With tears in her eyes she looked at me and went on, “That is my teaching—Mary Magdalene’s teaching—which was surely ripening in me when I listened to him, sitting at his feet. After all that has happened, this man will say one thing about him, and that man another, each according to his intelligence. I am no more right than anyone else—and no more wrong either, I believe.”

She said further, “I am only a woman. They bid me be silent, and henceforth I shall be humbly silent in their presence. But to you I want to say that he was born a man, and submitted to the misery of the body, to deliver the world. He knew what was to befall him and spoke of it often, clearly and plainly. He desired to sacrifice himself for many and so enter into a new covenant, taking upon himself the sins of the whole world as the son of Man and the son of God. My heart is blissful for him.”

In this way, rapturously, did she instruct me, and I took her teaching to heart, though I didn’t understand it all. After that we talked of everyday things and agreed upon the wedding gift I would send Mary of Beret when I reached Tiberias. As soon as she had married Mary off—which, knowing Mary, she wanted to do as soon as might be—she intended to make the journey to Jerusalem yet again, to see that the disciples lacked for nothing; for they did not know themselves how long they would have to stay there. Thomas was the only one who had said, “We will stay there and await the fulfillment of the promise, though it should take twelve years.”

At last she came with me to the door, and when we parted Mary of Beret wept so bitterly that her eyes were swollen, and Myrina wept too, out of sheer friendship for Mary. But I had the cheering certainty that whatever might befall me I could always return here to Mary Magdalene, if I could not win peace in my soul in any other way. It was not my intention to come back, but it is good for a man to know that he has a place to which he may return if ever there is need.

Myrina and I walked in silence to Magdala and took the road to Tiberias. Neither of us was tired, so there was no need to hire a boat, which we could easily have done. As we walked and I looked about me, breathing in the pure smell of the lake, I reflected that I had nothing further to do in alien Galilee. Nor was I in any hurry to leave. So it was good to saunter along beside the glittering waters. And I was not alone; I had Myrina.

We came to Tiberias in the red glow of evening, and my intention was to pass straight through the city to the thermae on the other side; but in Herod Antipas’ forum a man deep in thought collided with me before I had time to dodge, and I had to catch at his arm so as not to fall, for he was big and powerful. He started as if from sleep and looked at me, and to my astonishment I saw that it was Simon of Cyrene.

“Peace be with you,” I greeted him warily, fearing his wrath if he should recognize me. But he was not angry; he smiled uncomfortably and answered, “Is it you, Roman? With you also be peace.”

I let go his arm, but did not walk on; we stood regarding each other. We had not met since the events in his house, but it seemed to me that he had aged greatly during the short time that had elapsed. His gaze was somber and he carried his head stubbornly bent. It was as if nothing in the world were to his liking.

I need not have addressed him at all, but it struck me that the encounter might not have been without purpose. So I asked him humbly, “Have you forgiven me for what happened in your house? I bore the blame for it, though I believe it was not all my fault. But if you bear me any grudge, forgive me now.”

He replied, “I’m not angry with you. I myself am answerable for what I do. I sent you word that I meant no harm to you.”

“But you meant me no good either,” I said. “You would have nothing to do with me. Do you believe now that I’m no magician? What do you think of all that has come to pass since then?”

He looked about him suspiciously, but at this hour the forum was deserted. I raised my hand and said, “Have no mistrust of me. I come from the mountain as you do. Well, what do you think now?”

With a sigh he admitted, “Yes, yes; there were more than five hundred of us there. No wonder I didn’t see you. But if you were there, you must know what I think.

“I ran headlong out of Jerusalem when I heard that he had promised to go before us into Galilee,” Simon went on, without waiting for my answer. “Many others did the same, but the time of waiting was full of confusion and the reports contradictory, and not everyone believed that he had appeared to the disciples by the lake. Some were disappointed and returned to Jerusalem. But I have learned patience. A slave has to do that. Besides, I had business to attend to in Galilee. I wasted no time. I was already hoping with all my heart that the disciples had lied. I found peace in waiting thus in vain, and hoped to return to Jerusalem and my former life, which suited me. I would give my two sons the best things I had found: the faith of Israel, the culture of Greece, the peace of Rome, and a fortune prudently invested. But then I received word and went to the mountain, and there I saw him.”

Simon of Cyrene continued with an effort, his cheek muscles quivering. “I saw that he was really risen. I was forced to acknowledge him as the Christ. And so now I must begin everything again from the beginning. On earth, then, there is more than the eye can see or the hand touch or weights and measures assess. It is terrible to know this. I could curse the day I met him and took his cross upon my back. It is his fault that nothing of what I thought I’d built up so prudently for my sons holds good any longer. You asked what I think of it all. I think of what I must do to be fit for his kingdom, and to see that the boys too may be his subjects. His laws are most unjust—merciless for a man who has toiled himself out of slavery into freedom and fortune. But now that I’ve been convinced of his resurrection I must submit to his laws. I hoped at least to bargain with him a little, as men do among men in any reasonable dealing. But he is not only a man. When I had seen him on the mountain I knew at once that there could be no bargaining here. I am forced to be his slave, hair and hide of me. I can do no other. Afterwards it will be for him to decide whether to make me a freedman. I have no say in that. I was thinking so hard about these things that I ran straight into you, Roman.”

“But,” I said, greatly wondering, “don’t you distrust me who am a Roman and a heathen?”

Simon of Cyrene looked at me in surprise and explained, “Why a Jew should be any better in his sight than a Roman or a Greek is something I can’t understand, now that I’m looking at everything with new eyes. It is for him to distinguish between true and false. I should be out of my mind if I thought I could tell which people are his and which cannot be his. In this too he is unjust. No, I shall never make him out just by thinking. I’m not of those who believe they can find bliss by withdrawing into the wilds, away from everyone. I’m an everyday man. To me, deeds are more than words. I must live my life among people, be they Jews or Romans. Besides, I have evil premonitions concerning my own folk, should there indeed be a new covenant through bread and wine. He himself is said to have wept for Jerusalem. It may be that I shall be prompt in claiming what is mine from a house doomed to bankruptcy, should the temple really prove incapable of saving anyone. Then I shall flee with my sons to some other country. But this I don’t yet know for certain.”

His words were very curt and blunt, and his thoughts seemed to stray from one thing to another. I asked curiously, “Did you speak with him on the mountain?”

Simon of Cyrene looked at me as if I’d taken leave of my senses, and retorted, “How could I dare speak to him? It was enough to see him.”

I told him timidly, “The eleven will have nothing to do with me. Peter has forbidden me even to speak of him, because I’m a Roman.”

But Simon of Cyrene cared nothing about this. “When they come to my age and have experienced life as I have, they will know better,” he assured me. “They’re only men, and there are no men without fault. But slow, simple fellows like them will do less harm than clever and ambitious ones, in so responsible a position. It will be enough for me if they do not entirely scatter their inheritance. No, we shall not get far if the kingdom is to be managed by those eleven only. Yet even that is better than that scribes should squabble over this inheritance. Perhaps they will grow with their task. Such a thing has happened before.”

“And of what do you believe this inheritance consists?” I ventured to ask. “Tell me.”

Unthinkingly we had begun to pace up and down the forum with long strides, like Sophists in disputation, and Myrina had sat down upon the navel-stone of the city to rest her feet. Simon stopped and stared at me with a somber gaze, and his outstretched hand dropped powerlessly to his side.

“If I only knew!” he lamented in a tone of agony. “I heard much about his message during the time of waiting, but I began to hope ever more fervently that it was no more than the babbling of a crazy prophet. His mother and relatives believed him to be out of his wits, for that matter, and tried in vain to get him home after he’d begun preaching in Galilee. He was too merciless to the righteous and too gentle to sinners. There are people of sound judgment who maintain that he performed his miracles with the help of Beelzebub. That is an evil spirit—one of the ancient gods who live on in the land, as you may have heard. For this reason I didn’t memorize carefully all that he is supposed to have said, because one day he said one thing, and the next another. There are those who have listened to him on the self-same day and make widely differing statements as to what he did say. You may understand what an overwhelming shock it was to me to see that he is still alive, although I myself carried his cross to the place of skulls. I cannot deny him, but I cannot understand him either.

“Forgive us our debts,” he went on, pressing the palms of his hands together, “as we forgive our debtors. That I understand, though I resent it. Am I to forgive Herod Antipas what he owes me? For every time the Tetrarch visits Jerusalem his treasurer Kusas comes running to me for money. It is true that I never have great hopes of getting it back, and no large sums are involved; it’s more a subtle sort of bribery, to dissuade him from interfering in certain transactions of mine in Perea and Galilee. Yet it rankles deeply in my mind that I should be forced to go to the Tetrarch and, not only with my lips but with my whole heart, cancel what he owes me. I know that he mocked Jesus before the crucifixion. I have canceled the debts of some poor Galileans, although at first I meant to amalgamate their plots of land into one large estate in the name of my son Rufus. But they were family men who through no fault of their own fell into debt by reason of the triple tax and the locusts. I’m not telling you this to boast of it, for Jesus said—so they tell us—that not even the left hand should know what the right hand does, far less strangers. But counsel me! Would it not be more sensible to claim all I can from the Tetrarch and share it out among the poor, than to forgive him what he owes?”

He put this question to me seriously, and I considered his problem. “I believe you worry needlessly about your property and your claims,” I said cautiously. “I myself am well-to-do, but for the present I don’t allow that to trouble me. Perhaps it is because I became rich through no merit of my own, and in a way which many consider to be without honor. But in any event I would counsel you to wait and do nothing hastily. I’ve heard that even the eleven are prepared to wait in Jerusalem twelve years if they must, for a certain promise to be fulfilled and for them to receive clear understanding of all things. Why should you hasten ahead of them?”

“Because I’m a hard, wicked man,” Simon replied at once, as if he had long pondered this question. “I’m in haste to have my own debts—my own heartlessness—forgiven.”

“Now you’re thinking in your old way, as a merchant,” I told him. “You expect to receive something in return for what you give. I don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth gives anyone anything because of what he deserves. I believe that he was born into the world as a man, to expiate the sins of the world, because no human being can expiate his own sins by himself. It is madness; but as you said yourself, there’s much more than this in his teaching which is madness in the eyes of the wise.”

Simon of Cyrene laid a hand on his forehead and sighed deeply. “I understand not what you are saying. My head just aches more and more. Do you really think that it is only through a sort of slave-and-merchant arrogance that I want to purchase forgiveness of my sins in the only way I can? Who are you to instruct me? Didn’t you tell me you’d been forbidden to speak of him?”

Bitterly I regretted my thoughtlessness, and besought him, “Forgive me, Simon of Cyrene. Who indeed am I to instruct you? You asked me for advice and I ought not to have answered you, for surely I understand no more of it than you, and perhaps less, since you are older and more experienced. Seek then his kingdom in your own way, and I will seek in mine.”

Absent-mindedly Simon of Cyrene stretched forth his calloused hand and stroked Myrina’s cheek, where she sat on the stone. “If only I had a daughter,” he mourned. “I always wanted a daughter. I might be a gentler man had I had a little girl as well as my boys.”

He stared in wonder at his hand. Darkness had fallen, and lamps were being lit outside the houses. “Again we have talked much together,” he said. “The more we talked, the uneasier I grew; but I had only to touch your daughter’s cheek for my head to cease aching and for me to feel contented and at ease.”

“She is not my daughter; I’m not yet as old as that,” I told him. “This is my sister Myrina, and she does not understand your language.”

“She must certainly have been with you on the mountain,” said Simon of Cyrene, staring sleepily at his hand. “I felt that as soon as I touched her. I never felt it in you when you ran into me and gripped my arm. From her, peace entered into me, and now I shall concern myself no more about unnecessary things. It was not intended that I should listen to your sententious words, but that I should touch your sister’s cheek.”

This I thought was unjustly spoken, but I would not trouble his peace of mind by protesting, if he really had found serenity in the touch of Myrina’s cheek. But I felt tired, as if talking had wearied me more than the daylong wayfaring. I wanted to go on to the thermae; Simon of Cyrene came with us, holding Myrina’s hand. The three of us walked hand-in-hand, with Myrina in the middle. When we came to a lighted inn he insisted on giving us a meal; for it was one of those places where freethinking Jews and heathen may eat from the same dish.

So we broke bread together, and ate fish and salad, and no one was offended because Myrina ate with us. Simon of Cyrene even ordered wine to be mixed for us, though he himself drank water. Myrina’s eyes shone, her thin cheeks were flushed and I too felt the mild glow of good food and wine. While we were eating, Simon talked in a different voice, gentler than before. To amuse us he told us a story in his Cyrenean Greek:

“At the other end of the world lies a vast realm, from which silk is brought to Rome. It is so far away that the Silk Road runs through many countries, and it takes two years for the merchandise to reach Tyre. In the Roman realm the earth is red, but in the silk realm it is yellow, and the inhabitants have yellow skins. This is no invention, for I myself have met a yellow-skinned man in Tyre, and his yellowness was not caused by any sickness; he assured me that in his homeland everyone was yellow from top to toe, that his country was mightier than Rome and with so lofty a culture that Greek culture was as barbarism compared. No doubt he was exaggerating the merits of his own land, for he was a fugitive from it. He told me—and this I heard also from other far-traveled men—that a new king had been born in his country who deposed the former ruler and called himself the son of heaven. He changed the existing order in the realm and proclaimed that the soil was common property. Thenceforth no one might possess any land, but all should cultivate it in common, and the king would see to it that each and every one obtained his livelihood. And it is not so long since this happened, for the king reigned for twenty years, and it is only a few years since news reached Tyre that the peasants had revolted and rioted and overthrown him, and a new ruler had restored the old order. The fugitive at once left Tyre for his own country, where he had held an exalted position before the time of the lunatic king.

“Of course much of this is fancy and fable,” Simon of Cyrene went on. “That yellow man declared, for instance, that the silk in his country was spun by worms, and that all the people had to do was to gather together the threads and weave them into stuff. But I’ve thought a great deal about that son of heaven and his mad idea. The same thing might happen in the Roman empire, where more and more land is being gathered into the hands of a few, so that at last everyone else will be either a day laborer or a slave. To the great majority it would be a matter of indifference whether the land were owned by everyone in common or by a few individuals; so, thinking of Jesus of Nazareth, I sometimes fear that when he becomes king he may introduce a similar system, whereby no individual possesses anything and everything is owned in common. Only a man who has been a slave can fully appreciate how dangerous—how impossible—it is to live like that. Even a slave must have something he can call his own, however trifling, to exist at all. In Cyrene a slave might be proud even of his leg iron, if it was larger and heavier than others’. However, I’m relieved to know that Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. If he’d aimed at that sort of administration he’d have had to have himself born emperor of Rome, not king of the Jews.”

I said warningly, “Is it wise to talk politics at an inn? As I understand it, Jesus of Nazareth’s kingdom came on earth when he was born here, and is still with us, though it’s invisible and no ruler from outside can gain control of it. His adherents may be persecuted, but no one can overthrow his kingdom, for it is within us—if you can understand what I mean when I do not understand it myself.”

Simon of Cyrene shook his head mournfully and said, “How inexperienced you are, and how little you know of mankind! The kingdom of that son of heaven was overthrown in twenty years, though there the system was comprehensible. How is an invisible kingdom to endure when he himself has gone? Believe me, when we who have seen him are dead, his memory will not survive us by many years. How could one ever induce anybody who has not seen for himself that this was the son of God, to believe in an invisible kingdom? Something of him might endure for as long as a hundred years, if his doctrine were sensible and did not conflict with human nature; but now it runs dead against anything that has ever been.”

His common sense depressed me. “So you don’t believe that the world will be changed because of him, and through his name?” I asked.

“No, I don’t,” answered Simon of Cyrene candidly. “No; this world and human nature not even God himself can alter now.

“Why,” he exclaimed, “these Galileans did all they could to crown him king after he had fed the five thousand. If even they so completely misunderstood him, how should those understand him who never saw him at all? Note that his is a dubious, dangerous teaching. He summoned sinners. On the very cross he promised one of the robbers who were crucified with him that he should enter his kingdom. In a word: only the rabble who have nothing else to hope for can listen to his teaching. Those in power will surely see to it that such a doctrine never spreads too far.”

Myrina, smiling, raised her hand and stroked his bearded cheek. “Why are you so worried about the spreading of his doctrine?” she asked. “That’s no business of yours, nor of my brother Marcus, nor of mine. Let us rather rejoice in him, and in having seen him on the mountain. He is a good light, and now that I’ve seen him I shall never feel quite defenseless again. You talk only of the evil darkness.”

Myrina had been sitting so humbly silent that we were both surprised when she spoke, as if a lifeless table had suddenly acquired the faculty of speech. Gladness returned to us both, and as we looked at her radiant face we felt ashamed of our foolish talk. The kingdom was within us once more and my heart overflowed with love for Myrina and for Simon of Cyrene too. We sat for a long time in silence, looking at each other, undisturbed by the noise of the other guests at the inn.

Both Myrina and I slept behind drawn curtains in our room until nearly noon, so exhausted were we from walking and all we had seen and done. Our joy did not melt away as we slept, but was with us still when we awoke, and we rejoiced to see each other wake.

My cheerfulness continued until I remembered Claudia Procula, and my obligation to render account to her of what I had seen on the mountain. Myrina asked me what troubled me, and when I told her of Claudia Procula and her illness, she suggested trustfully that we should go to her together to bear witness of the joyful message.

But first I felt the need to wash myself clean after the hardships of the journey, which seemed to have begun with my departure from Jerusalem. My Jewish mantle smelled of sweat and my body garment was grimy. I wanted to put on fresh clothes, and remove my beard, having now no reason to hide the fact that I was a Roman. So I went to the thermae and had my face shaved, my hair dressed and the hairs of my body plucked. Then, after massage and the rubbing in of ointments, I put on new clothes and gave my old ones to the servant. Now that I looked as I used to do, I felt ashamed of having tried to ingratiate myself with the Jews by wearing beard and mantle tassels. On returning to my room I even took my gold ring from my purse and slipped it onto my thumb.

Myrina came back from her bath and I saw that she too had had her hair done; that she had beautified her face and put on a white gown embroidered with gold thread. We looked at each other for a long time, as if no longer knowing who we were. I ought to have been pleased to see that I need not blush for her before the rich bath-guests, or Claudia Procula. But I did not rejoice at her beauty. Her dress and her painted face made her a stranger. I realized that I preferred to see in her the girl with the thin face and slender limbs who had slept in my arms on a hillside of Galilee, with a stained mantle for covering.

But she had certainly done her best for my sake, so I could not blame her, or tell her that I loved her worn player sandals more than fine shoes and gold thread. But Myrina regarded me in a distant way, and said, “That’s how you looked aboard the ship to Joppa. That’s how you looked when you gave me the big silver coin from your purse. Of course you’re right to remind me of who you are and who I am. It was thoughtless of me to suggest that you should take me to call upon the wife of the Procurator.”

I reminded her of the joy we had felt on seeing each other wake from sleep, and said, “You must understand that I was tired of that sweaty woolen mantle and of my beard; I wanted to feel clean again. If all orthodox Jews draw aside from my very shadow now that I look like this, it may be that one day the same thing will happen to them, and the people of the world will spit when they see a Jew. I thought you’d like to see me like this.”

But a coolness fell between us, and the thought did indeed strike me that it might be unsuitable to take her with me to Claudia Procula. But in my heart I knew it was a betrayal of her to think thus, and on no account whatever would I betray her. After much persuasion she consented to come, and just then the servant arrived to say that Claudia Procula was willing to receive me.

As we approached the summer palace I noticed that the visitors to the baths no longer swarmed about it inquisitively, trying to peer into the garden, nor were Herod Antipas’ red-cloaked guards of honor to be seen. A Syrian legionary from Claudia’s own retinue waved his hand lazily to indicate that I might go in. Everything showed that the sojourn of the Judean Procurator’s wife in Tiberias was now a part of everyday life. She was merely a distinguished guest among other guests.

Claudia Procula was resting in a cool room behind a floating curtain. She had not troubled to make herself beautiful for me. I saw the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, her discontented mouth, and her age. Yet she was calm and alert; she no longer twitched and started, nor did her hands shake. She scrutinized Myrina curiously from head to foot and raised her eyes to mine with a look of inquiry.

“This is my sister Myrina,” I told her. “She was with me on the mountain. That is why I have brought her before you, Claudia. For now we may talk alone together, the three of us, without a listener.”

After a moment’s reflection Claudia Procula dismissed her companion, but did not invite us to sit. So we remained standing before her as she began talking with great animation, never taking her eyes from Myrina: “You don’t know what you’ve missed. How much you might have learned of the customs of this country if only you’d come with me to the Tetrarch’s banquet after the race. I must admit that Herodias is considerably better than her reputation, and she suffers from the awkwardness of her position. She gave me a triple-rowed Persian necklace and we spoke quite frankly together about everything. Of course her daughter Salome is a shameless hussy and can wind Herod Antipas around her little finger, but that’s entirely to her mother’s advantage. Herodias herself is not as young as she was. And it seems that the offspring of Herod the Great do not shun incest in any form. It’s as if it were a tradition with them, and we Romans are not the people to judge of eastern customs. They can be quite charming when they like.

“However, Herodias is not without influence, and her aim seems to be to obtain royal rank for her husband: and that we talked over as well. For Pontius Pilate it is vital that Herod Antipas should not write disagreeable letters, from sheer malice, to the emperor Tiberius. And Herodias for her part understands perfectly that Tiberius is now just a sick old man. Sejanus supports Pilate, and it is he we have to thank for the procuratorship. As matters now stand, it’s to the advantage of both Herod and Pontius to be on good terms with each other and wash each other’s hands. That point was settled between Herodias and myself. So my cure here has been profitable, and I am ready to return to Caesarea.”

She was in fact disclosing no perilous secrets, for all these things are obvious to any thinking person. The emperor Tiberius is a frail old man and the very name of Sejanus arouses such fear that all men of sense in the Roman empire are content to be silent and wait for him to secure the status of people’s tribune, and ultimate power. I thought that Claudia, with her sideways glances, had been trying to discover whether Myrina understood Latin, but now she suddenly pointed to her and said, “By Hecate and her black whelps, that girl is the living image of Tullia!”

Startled, I stared at Myrina, and for a moment she did seem to remind me of you, Tullia. At that instant I knew that I should never send any of these letters to you, and I know also that I never want to meet you again. I felt only repugnance and fear when I beheld you in front of me, in the guise of Myrina. But the spell faded, and as I regarded Myrina feature by feature I realized that there was nothing of you in her. Nevertheless, Claudia Procula continued malignantly, “Just so. If her eyes were dark and shining and her nose more finely chiseled, her hair black and her mouth full, she really would remind one faintly of Tullia.”

I wasn’t sure whether she just meant to tease Myrina. I believe though that she was in earnest, and was herself wondering what there was about Myrina that could remind her of you, Tullia, for you and she have not one feature in common. I flared up, and said, “Leave Myrina alone. She doesn’t know that she’s beautiful. And Tullia I don’t want to remember. Let us speak Greek. Do you want to know what happened on the mountain or not?”

“Certainly I do,” replied Claudia, recollecting herself. “What did happen there? Did you see Jesus of Nazareth?”

“We both saw him,” I said. “He has risen from the dead, and is alive.”

Myrina too said slowly, “Yes, yes; he’s alive.”

Then Claudia Procula asked a singular question: “How do you know that it really was Jesus of Nazareth?”

I hadn’t thought of that. For a moment I was perplexed. Then I answered, “Of course it was. Who else could it have been? There were over five hundred people there who recognized him.” I laughed. “I saw him myself; I met his gaze. That was enough. He’s no ordinary man.”

And Myrina said, “No man could look at one like that.”

Claudia Procula regarded us sharply and questioned us like an interrogator: “It was night when you saw him. Wasn’t the moon waning and the night very dark?”

“It was dark,” I admitted. “Yet I saw him plainly enough. There was no mistaking him.”

Throwing out her hands Claudia Procula said, “No, of course I don’t doubt that he was he, and so forth. But Herod Antipas’ physician has continued to treat me, and has visited me from time to time. And Herodias told me in confidence that a strange man is known to have been going about in Galilee, and that many have taken him to be Jesus of Nazareth. Yet the reports are contradictory and no one has been able to describe his appearance accurately. They believe he is someone mad, or possessed, who has purposely wounded his hands and feet. Or else that his disciples, after stealing the body from the tomb, have continued the game by inducing someone to impersonate him.”

Seeing my look, Claudia Procula added in excuse, “I am only repeating what I’ve heard. I don’t say that it’s my opinion. But there are many possibilities. The physician has discussed the matter professionally with other men of learning. Do you know that in the desert by the Dead Sea there is a Jewish sect living in an enclosed house, and that through fasting, prayer, asceticism, communal meals and baptism its members have become so holy that they’re not ordinary people anymore? Their white clothes are said to shine in the dark. They have secret associates in Jerusalem and elsewhere. Indeed, Herod the Great considered them so dangerous that he persecuted them. They had to flee to Damascus, and did not return to the desert until after his death. Not much is known about them, for they receive no one as their guest; yet it may be that they—or at least the holiest of them—know more than other people. There are different grades of holiness among them.

“Yesterday, after talking to other scholars, Herod Antipas’ physician suggested that this desert sect might have been closely observing Jesus of Nazareth’s activities, and protecting him, perhaps even without his knowledge. A particularly suspicious factor is that it was two members of the Supreme Council who laid Jesus in his tomb after the crucifixion. Mary Magdalene saw a shining white figure in the sepulcher in the dawnlight and thought it was an angel. Jesus of Nazareth’s disciples are simple men and may have been too frightened to steal his body, but for the holy men of the desert it was not difficult. They may have put life into the corpse by magic, or one of them may be masquerading among the simple folk of Galilee. Why they should want people to believe that Jesus of Nazareth is risen is hard to tell. Perhaps they have their own reasons for undermining the prestige of the temple. But a person used to thinking politically will find political reasons for everything, as the physician said. They may just as likely have religious motives known only to themselves. But they’re too clever to prolong the deception. So far as I know it has now been ended by this final appearance—or whatever it may have been—to the Nazarene’s closest adherents on that mountain in the dark.”

When Claudia observed the bewilderment with which I was following her explanations she threw out her hands once more and said, “I don’t believe all that. I’m only repeating what others have told me. His own closest disciples would surely not be mistaken, even in the dark—that is, unless they were in the plot themselves. Tell me just one thing. Did you speak to him about me?”

Embarrassed, I answered her: “I cannot explain the thing to you in any comprehensible way, but I don’t believe I could have spoken to him of you even had I wanted to. And I did not want to, for when I saw him, all other thoughts went out of my head.”

To my surprise Claudia did not reproach me. On the contrary she said with satisfaction, “Johanna told me the same thing. But she collected a little earth in a cloth from a place where she remembered that Jesus had stood, and brought it to me, that it might cure me if I touched it or laid it on my forehead at night. But I no longer need it.”

She gave me an enigmatic look and quite staggered me by saying, “You see, I was on the mountain myself, and he healed me.”

Seeing my astonishment she broke into a gay laugh, clapped her hands and cried, “That surprised you, did it not? Sit down here beside me, Marcus, and you sit too, girl, wherever you like. No, I don’t mean that I was present there in the body; but that night I had a good dream: the first for a very long time. You know I am a highly strung, capricious sort of woman. In my dreams I’m often pinched or have my face slapped and my hair pulled. It’s all real and vivid, and I cannot stir a finger, try as I may, until at last I contrive to utter a cry and am awakened by my own scream, bathed in cold sweat and so full of fear that I dare not fall asleep again.

“We were talking about the mountain,” she continued soberly. “I’d been thinking about it a great deal, so it is not surprising that I should have been on it that night in my dream. It was so dark that I rather felt than saw the many motionless figures kneeling on the ground about me, and waiting. And in my dream I was not at all afraid. Then a shining presence stood before me and I dared not raise my head to look at him—not because I was afraid, but because of a strong feeling that it would be better that I not look him in the face. The presence spoke to me in a gentle voice and asked, ‘Claudia Procula, do you hear my voice?’ I answered, ‘I hear your voice.’ He said, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews, whom your husband Pontius Pilate caused to be crucified in Jerusalem.’ I answered, ‘Yes, you are he.’ Then he talked to me of lambs, which I didn’t understand, for I know nothing of sheep rearing and therefore did not remember it all. Yet it was like a rebuke when he said at last, ‘I am the door of the sheep. I let no thief or robber kill my lambs.’ I knew at once that by thief and robber he meant Pontius Pilate, and I declared, ‘Surely he will persecute your lambs no longer, and he wouldn’t have executed you either had he not been forced to do it for political reasons.’

“But he never heeded my explanation; so I took it that the whole matter was as empty air to him now, and that he bore Pilate no grudge. He went on speaking of sheep, and said, ‘I have other lambs too.’ Not knowing how to reply, I said, to be friendly, ‘I believe you are a good shepherd.’ He seemed gladdened by these words, for he answered at once, ‘You have said so. I am the good shepherd, and a good shepherd gives his life for his lambs.’ In my dream I felt a great desire to weep, and I would have liked to ask him whether I too might become one of those lambs. But I dared not. I just felt him lay his hand on my head, and at that I awoke, and even after I was awake I could feel his hand on my head. It was a good dream—the best dream I’ve ever had. When I had recalled it accurately so as to forget no part of it, I fell asleep again and slept for a long time; and since then I have not had a single nightmare. As I understand it, he has healed me on condition that Pontius does not persecute his followers.”

Claudia Procula tittered like a young girl, then put her hand to her mouth, abashed. “That was an easy promise to make,” she went on. “Pontius has no reason to persecute the Nazarene’s friends. On the contrary. Should they ever form a party, it will cause further splits among the Jews, and that suits Roman policy. Dreams are only dreams, and if he talked of lambs it must be because I’ve heard that he often did so when teaching. However, it was a vivid dream, and it visited me on the night when you and this girl saw him on the mountain. Above all, I have been cured of my nightmares.

“Of course,” she continued, “Herod Antipas’ physician assures me that the improvement has been brought about by the hot sulphur baths and his own treatment. I cannot offend him, naturally, and he shall have the usual presents. All the same, I believe—laugh if you like—that Jesus of Nazareth took pity on me, and cured me in my dream because I’ve thought of him so much and have had bad dreams on his account.”

Then triumphantly she said, “So whoever it was you saw on the mountain, I at least beheld Jesus of Nazareth in my dream. Nevertheless, Johanna is certain that it was Jesus of Nazareth she saw there, and I don’t doubt her word.”

Thinking about her dream I trembled for joy, and asked eagerly, “Did he really tell you that he has other lambs? If that is true, he gave his life for them too. Myrina, did you hear? In his eyes we are not strangers.”

Claudia Procula burst out laughing and cried, “No, no; all that lamb nonsense is too much. I know Jesus of Nazareth and believe firmly enough that he has risen from the dead and is the son of God. Johanna has taught me, so that I can pray to him when necessary, and I mean to obey some of his commandments, insofar as I can do so secretly and without detriment to my position. I must in any case sacrifice to Caesar’s genius, even though I may not trouble myself about the other gods of Rome. But the most difficult problem in all this is how much I am to tell Pontius Pilate. He’s a hard-headed man who has studied law and is not at all the kind to believe in miracles.”

“I should think,” I said hesitantly, “that you had better say as little to him as possible about Jesus of Nazareth. This whole matter is a sore subject with him, and wounds his sense of justice. He will only be annoyed if you remind him of it.”

“It is hard to know what he really thinks,” said Claudia Procula. “As a Roman official he’s so used to hiding his feelings that I sometimes wonder whether he has any feelings at all. He is not a bad man. Judea could have had a worse procurator than he. It was wrong to call him a thief and a robber, but that’s just the usual Jewish excitability. Perhaps you are right. I shall tell him nothing unless he asks.

“Well, and now to something else,” she went on, looking at me attentively. “I’m pleased to see you clean-shaven and decently dressed again. It must have done you good to meet him on the mountain, for I was becoming quite uneasy about you and afraid that the Jews had addled your brains. You looked so ecstatic that the physician whom you met that time asked me afterward what ailed you. Ought you not soon to return to Rome? In Baiae the roses will be blooming now. From there it is not far to Capri. Some friend of yours here in the east might show practical gratitude for detailed and accurate news of Caesar’s health from time to time. Conveyed of course in veiled terms agreed upon beforehand, for it is dangerous to write in any other way of how the Emperor does.”

Tilting her head sideways she looked at Myrina, and probably did not like what she saw, for with a shrug of her thin shoulders she said cruelly, “A year’s exile must be enough to cool off an over-ardent lover, so you will suit Tullia again by now. I’ve reason to think that in the meantime she has had her marriage dissolved and has married again, so you may resume in peace and quiet. No one in Rome seeks your life, if that’s what she wants to make you believe.”

She must have been speaking the truth. No danger can threaten me in Rome now. A pang shot through me. Not on your account, Tullia, but on account of my own outrageous conceit which persuaded me that you would follow me to Alexandria.

“I don’t believe I shall ever return to Rome,” I said bitterly. “The mere thought of roses disgusts me.”

“Then come at least to Caesarea sometime,” Claudia Procula returned invitingly. “It is a new, civilized town, incomparably more splendid than the Tiberias of Herod Antipas. From there you may take ship to whatever place you wish. You may also receive advice which may help you to make something of your life. Beautiful Jewesses and little Greek girls are not enough for a Roman in the long run.”

Myrina surprisingly put an end to the conversation by rising calmly to her feet and thanking Claudia Procula with courtesy for the honor done to her. Then, just as calmly, she slapped me first on one cheek and then on the other, took me by the hand and led me to the door. There she turned and said, “Honored Claudia Procula, do not concern yourself about where Marcus goes or what he makes of his life. I, Myrina, will see to it that this lamb does not go astray.”