LITMIR.BIZ

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called upon anyone, Hegemon, to perform such acts. What, do I seem feeble-minded?”

      "Oh no, you don’t seem at all feeble-minded,” the Procurator replied quietly, and smiled a fearsome sort of smile[75], "so swear, then, that it didn’t happen.”

      "What do you want me to swear on?” asked the unbound man, who was now very animated.

      "Well, on your life, perhaps,” replied the Procurator. "It’s the very time to swear on it, since it hangs by a thread – be aware of that.”

      "And do you think it was you that hung it up, Hegemon?” asked the prisoner. "If so, you’re very much mistaken.”

      Pilate started and replied through his teeth:

      "I can cut the thread.”

      "And you’re mistaken about that too,” retorted the prisoner, smiling brightly and using his hand to shield himself from the sun. "You must agree that it s quite certain the thread can be cut only by the one who hung it up?”

      "Right, right,” said Pilate, smiling, "now I have no doubt that the idle layabouts in Yershalaim followed on your heels. I don’t know who hung your tongue in place, but they certainly hung a quick one. Incidentally, tell me: is it true you entered Yershalaim through the Susim Gate, riding on an ass and accompanied by a crowd of plebs, who were shouting out greetings to you as though to some kind of prophet?” – here the Procurator indicated the scroll of parchment.

      The prisoner looked at the Procurator in bewilderment.

      "I don’t even have an ass, Hegemon,” he said. "I did, indeed, come into Yershalaim through the Susim Gate, but on foot, accompanied by Levi Matthew alone, and nobody shouted anything at me, since nobody in Yershalaim knew me then.”

      “Do you know these people,” Pilate continued, without taking his eyes off the prisoner, “a certain Dismas, a second man… Gestas, and a third. Bar-rabban?”[76]

      “I don’t know these good people,” replied the prisoner.

      “Truly?”

      “Truly.”

      “And now tell me why it is you use the words ‘good people’ all the time? You call everyone that, do you?”

      “Everyone,” replied the prisoner. “There are no evil people in the world.”

      “First I’ve heard of it,” said Pilate with a grin, “but perhaps I don’t know enough about life!.. No need to record any further,” he addressed the secretary, although the latter had been recording nothing anyway, then continued saying to the prisoner: “Did you read about it in some Greek book or other?”

      “No, I came to this conclusion with my own mind.”

      “And is that what you preach?”

      “Yes.”

      “And so, for example, centurion Marcus – he’s nicknamed the Rat-Catcher – is he good?”

      “Yes,” replied the prisoner. “He’s an unhappy man, it’s true. Since good people disfigured him, he’s become cruel and callous. I wonder who it was that mutilated him?”

      “I can readily tell you that,” responded Pilate, “for I was a witness to it. Good people were falling upon him like dogs on a bear. Teutons had hold of his neck, his arms, his legs. An infantry maniple had walked into a trap, and if the cavalry turm which I was commanding hadn’t hacked its way in from the flank – then you, philosopher, would not have had occasion to converse with the Rat-Catcher. It was at the Battle of Idistavizo,[77] in the Valley of the Virgins.”

      “If I could have a talk with him,” said the prisoner dreamily all of a sudden, “I’m sure he’d change dramatically.”

      “I imagine,” responded Pilate, “you’d bring the legate of the legion little joy if you took it into your head to talk with any of his officers or soldiers. It isn’t going to happen, however, luckily for everyone, and I’ll be the first to see to that.”

      At that moment a swallow flew speedily into the colonnade, circled beneath the gold ceiling, descended, almost caught its sharp wing on the face of a bronze statue in a niche and disappeared behind the capital of a column. Perhaps it was thinking of making a nest there.

      In the duration of its flight, a formulation had taken shape in the now lucid and lightened head of the Procurator. It was this: the Hegemon has heard the case of the vagrant philosopher Yeshua, also known as Ha-Nozri, and failed to find corpus delicti[78]. In particular, he has failed to find the slightest link between the actions of Yeshua and the disturbances that have recently taken place in Yershalaim. The vagrant philosopher has turned out to be mentally ill. Consequently, the Procurator does not confirm the death sentence pronounced on Ha-Nozri by the Lesser Sanhedrin. But in view of the fact that Ha-Nozri’s mad utopian speeches could be the cause of unrest in Yershalaim, the Procurator is removing Yeshua from Yershalaim and will subject him to imprisonment in Caesarea Strato on the Mediterranean Sea – that is, in the very place where the Procurator’s residence is.

      It only remained to dictate this to the secretary.

      The swallow’s wings crackled just above the Hegemon’s head, the bird sped towards the bowl of the fountain and flew out to freedom. The Procurator raised his eyes to the prisoner and saw there was a column of dust suddenly ablaze beside him.

      “Is that all there is about him?” Pilate asked the secretary.

      “Unfortunately not,” the secretary replied unexpectedly, and handed Pilate another piece of parchment.

      “What else is there?” asked Pilate, and frowned.

      After reading what had been handed him, he changed countenance[79] still more. It may have been that dark blood had flooded into his neck and face, or something else may have happened, but his skin lost its yellow tinge, grew brown, and his eyes seemed to sink.

      And again it was probably the fault of the blood which had flooded into his temples and begun pounding inside them, only something happened to the Procurator’s vision. And so it seemed to him that the prisoner’s head had floated off somewhere, and another had appeared in its place. On this bald head sat a sparsely toothed golden crown[80]. On the forehead was a round sore that was eating away at the skin and was smeared with ointment. A sunken, toothless mouth with a wilful, drooping lower lip. It seemed to Pilate that the pink columns of the balcony and the roofs of Yershalaim down below in the distance, beyond the garden, had disappeared, and everything around them was submerged in the dense, dense verdure of the gardens of Capreae. Something strange had happened to his hearing too – trumpets seemed to be sounding in the distance, low and threatening, and a nasal voice could be heard quite distinctly, haughtily drawling out the words: “The law of lese-majesty…”

      His thoughts raced – brief, incoherent and extraordinary. “He’s done for[81]!” Then: “We’re done for!” And among them was an utterly absurd one about some sort of immortality, and immortality for some reason provoked unbearable anguish.

      Pilate tensed, drove the vision out, returned his gaze to the balcony, and before him again were the eyes of the prisoner.

      “Listen, Ha-Nozri,” the Procurator began, giving Yeshua a strange sort of look: the Procurator’s face was threatening, but the eyes were alarmed. “Have you ever said anything about the Great Caesar? Answer! Have you? Or… have you… not?” Pilate drew out the word “not” rather more than one ought to at a trial, and sent to Yeshua in his gaze a particular thought which he seemed to want to suggest to the prisoner.

      “Telling the truth is easy and pleasant,” remarked the prisoner.

      “I don’t need to know,” responded Pilate in a choked, angry voice Скачать книгу