d behind the
capital of a column. It may be that it thought of nesting there.
     During its flight, a formula took shape in the now light and lucid head
of the procurator. It went like this: the hegemon has looked into  the  case
of  the  vagrant  philosopher  Yeshua,  alias Ha-Nozri, and  found  in it no
grounds  for  indictment.  In particular,  he has  found  not the  slightest
connection  between the acts of  Yeshua and  the disorders that  have lately
taken place in Yershalaim. The vagrant philosopher has proved to be mentally
ill.  Consequently,  the procurator has not confirmed the death sentence  on
Ha-Nozri passed  by  the Lesser Sanhedrin.  But seeing that  Ha-Nozri's  mad
utopian talk  might  cause disturbances  in  Yershalaim, the  procurator  is
removing  Yeshua from  Yershalaim  and  putting  him  under  confinement  in
Stratonian  Caesarea  on  the Mediterranean - that is,  precisely where  the
procurator's residence was.
     It remained to dictate it to the secretary.
     The  swallow's  wings whiffled right over the hegemon's head,  the bird
darted to the  fountain basin and then flew out into freedom. The procurator
raised his eyes to the prisoner and saw the dust blaze up in a pillar around
him.
     'Is that all about him?' Pilate asked the secretary.
     'Unfortunately  not,'  the  secretary  replied unexpectedly  and handed
Pilate another piece of parchment.
     'What's this now?' Pilate asked and frowned.
     Having  read what had been handed to  him, he  changed countenance even
more: Either the  dark  blood rose  to his neck and  face, or something else
happened, only his  skin lost its yellow tinge, turned  brown,  and his eyes
seemed to sink.
     Again  it  was probably  owing to  the blood  rising to his temples and
throbbing in them, only something happened to the procurator's vision. Thus,
he imagined  that  the prisoner's head  floated off somewhere,  and  another
appeared  in  its  place.  [21] On this bald head sat a scant-pointed golden
diadem. On the forehead was a round canker, eating into the skin and smeared
with ointment. A sunken, toothless mouth with a pendulous, capricious  lower
lip.  It seemed to  Pilate that  the pink columns  of  the  balcony and  the
rooftops  of  Yershalaim  far  below,  beyond  the  garden,  vanished,   and
everything was  drowned in  the  thickest  green  of  Caprean  gardens.  And
something  strange  also happened  to  his  hearing:  it was as if  trumpets
sounded far away,  muted and menacing,  and a nasal  voice was  very clearly
heard, arrogantly drawling: 'The law of lese-majesty...'
     Thoughts raced,  short, incoherent and extraordinary: 'I'm  lost!  ...'
then: 'We're  lost! ...'  And among them  a totally absurd  one,  about some
immortality, which immortality for some reason provoked unendurable anguish.
     Pilate strained, drove the apparition away, his  gaze  returned to  the
balcony, and again the prisoner's eyes were before him.
     'Listen, Ha-Nozri,'  the  procurator spoke, looking at  Yeshua  somehow
strangely: the procurator's face  was menacing, but his  eyes  were alarmed,
'did  you ever say anything about the great Caesar? Answer!  Did  you?...Yes
... or ...  no?'  Pilate drew the word 'no' out somewhat longer than is done
in  court, and his glance sent Yeshua  some thought that he wished as  if to
instill in the prisoner.
     To speak the truth is easy and pleasant,' the prisoner observed.
     `I have no need to  know,' Pilate responded in a stifled,  angry voice,
'whether  it is  pleasant or unpleasant for you to speak the truth. You will
have to  speak  it  anyway. But,  as you speak, weigh every word, unless you
want a not only inevitable but also painful death.'
     No  one knew  what had happened  with the  procurator  of Judea, but he
allowed himself  to raise his hand  as if to  protect himself from a ray  of
sunlight,  and from behind his hand, as  from behind  a shield, to  send the
prisoner some sort of prompting look.
     'Answer, then,' he went on speaking,  `do you know a certain Judas from
Kiriath, [22]  and  what  precisely did you say to him about Caesar, if  you
said anything?'
     'It  was like this,'  the prisoner began talking  eagerly.  The evening
before last, near  the temple, I  made the acquaintance  of a young man  who
called himself Judas, from the town  of Kiriath.  He invited me to his place
in the Lower City and treated me to...'
     'A good man?' Pilate asked, and a devilish fire flashed in his eyes.
     'A very good man and an inquisitive  one,'  the prisoner confirmed. 'He
showed   the  greatest  interest  in  my  thoughts  and   received  me  very
cordially...'
     'Lit the lamps...'[23] Pilate spoke through his teeth, in the same tone
as the prisoner, and his eyes glinted.
     Yes,'  Yeshua went on,  slightly surprised  that  the procurator was so
well informed, 'and asked me  to give  my  view of state  authority.  He was
extremely interested in this question.'
     'And what did you say?'  asked Pilate. 'Or are you going  to reply that
you've  forgotten  what  you  said?'  But there  was already hopelessness in
Pilate's tone.
     `Among  other  things,'  the  prisoner  recounted,  `I  said  that  all
authority is violence over people, and that a time will come when there will
be no authority of  the Caesars, nor any other authority. Man will pass into
the kingdom of  truth and justice, where generally there will be no need for
any authority.'
     'Go on!'
     'I didn't go on,' said the prisoner.  'Here  men  ran in, bound me, and
took me away to prison.'
     The secretary, trying not to let drop a single word, rapidly traced the
words on his parchment.
     'There never has been, is not, and never will be any authority in  this
world  greater  or better  for  people  than  the authority  of  the emperor
Tiberius!'  Pilate's cracked and  sick voice  swelled.  For  some reason the
procurator looked at the secretary and the convoy with hatred.
     `And  it is not  for  you, insane criminal,  to reason about  it!' Here
Pilate shouted: 'Convoy, off  the balcony!' And turning to the secretary, he
added: 'Leave me alone with the criminal, this is a state matter!'
     The convoy raised their  spears  and with a measured tramp of hobnailed
caligae walked  off the balcony  into the garden, and the secretary followed
the convoy.
     For some  time the silence on the balcony was broken only by the  water
singing  in the  fountain.  Pilate saw how the watery dish blew  up over the
spout, how its edges broke off, how it fell down in streams.
     The prisoner was the first to speak.
     'I see that some  misfortune has come about because  I talked with that
young man from Kiriath. I  have a foreboding, Hegemon, that  he will come to
grief, and I am very sorry for him.'
     'I think,' the procurator replied,  grinning strangely,  `that there is
now  someone else in the world for whom you ought to feel sorrier  than' for
Judas of Kiriath, and who is going to have it much worse than Judas! ...
     So, then, Mark  Rat-slayer, a cold  and convinced torturer, the  people
who,  as I see,' the procurator pointed to Yeshua's  disfigured  face, `beat
you  for  your  preaching, the  robbers  Dysmas  and Gestas, who with  their
confreres killed four soldiers, and, finally, the dirty traitor  Judas - are
all good people?'
     'Yes,' said the prisoner.
     'And the kingdom of truth will come?'
     'It will, Hegemon,' Yeshua answered with conviction.
     'It will  never  come!' Pilate  suddenly cried  out in such a  terrible
voice that Yeshua drew back. Thus, many years before,  in the Valley of  the
Virgins,  Pilate had cried to his  horsemen the  words:  'Cut them down! Cut
them down! The giant Rat-slayer  is trapped!'  He  raised his voice, cracked
with commanding, still more, and called out so that his words could be heard
in the garden: 'Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!' And then, lowering his voice,
he asked: 'Yeshua Ha-Nozri, do you believe in any gods?'
     'God is one,' replied Yeshua, 'I believe in him.'
     Then pray to him! Pray hard! However...' here Pilate's voice  gave out,
'that won't  help. No  wife?' Pilate asked with anguish for some reason, not
understanding what was happening to him.
     `No, I'm alone.'
     'Hateful  city...' the  procurator  suddenly muttered for some  reason,
shaking his shoulders as if he were  cold, and  rubbing his hands as  though
washing them, 'if they'd  put a knife in you  before your meeting with Judas
of Kiriath, it really would have been better.'
     `Why don't you  let me  go, Hegemon?' the prisoner  asked unexpectedly,
and his voice became anxious. 'I see they want to kill me.'
     A spasm  contorted  Pilate's  face,  he turned to  Yeshua the inflamed,
red-veined whites of his eyes and said:
     `Do  you  suppose, wretch, that the Roman procurator will let a  man go
who has said what you  have said? Oh, gods, gods! Or do you think  I'm ready
to  take your place? I don't  share your thoughts! And listen to me: if from
this  moment on you say even one word, if you speak to anyone at all, beware
of me! I repeat to you - beware!'
     `Hegemon...'
     'Silence!' cried Pilate, and his furious gaze followed the swallow that
had again fluttered on to the balcony. 'To me!' Pilate shouted.
     And when the secretary and the  convoy returned to their places, Pilate
announced that he confirmed the death  sentence passed at the meeting of the
Lesser  Sanhedrin on the criminal Yeshua Ha-Nozri,  and the  secretary wrote
down what Pilate said.
     A  moment  later  Mark  Rat-slayer  stood before  the  procurator.  The
procurator ordered him to  hand  the criminal over to the head of the secret
service, along with the procurator's directive  that Yeshua Ha-Nozri  was to
be separated from the other condemned men, and also that the soldiers of the
secret  service were to be forbidden, on pain  of severe punishment, to talk
with Yeshua about anything at all or to answer any of his questions.
     At a  sign from Mark, the  convoy closed around Yeshua and led him from
the balcony.
     Next  there stood  before the procurator a  handsome, light-bearded man
with eagle feathers on the crest of his  helmet, golden lions' heads shining
on  his chest, and golden  plaques  on  his sword belt, wearing triple-soled
boots  laced  to the  knees,  and  with a  purple cloak thrown over his left
shoulder. This was the legate in command of the legion.
     The  procurator  asked him where  the Sebastean cohort was stationed at
the  moment.  The legate told him that the  Sebasteans  had cordoned off the
square in front of the hippodrome, where the sentencing of the criminals was
to be announced to the people.
     Then the procurator ordered the legate to detach two centuries from the
Roman cohort. One  of them,  under the  command of Rat-slayer, was to convoy
the  criminals, the  carts with the  implements  for the  execution and  the
executioners as they were transported to Bald Mountain, [24] and on  arrival
was to  join  the  upper  cordon. The  other was to be sent  at once to Bald
Mountain  and immediately start forming the  cordon.  For the  same purpose,
that  is, to guard the mountain, the procurator asked  the legate to send an
auxiliary cavalry regiment - the Syrian ala.
     After the legate left the balcony, the procurator ordered the secretary
to summon to the palace the president of the Sanhedrin, two  of its members,
and the head of the  temple guard in Yershalaim, adding that he asked things
to be so arranged  that before conferring with all these  people,  he  could
speak with the president previously and alone.
     The procurator's order was executed quickly and precisely, and the sun,
which  in  those  days  was  scorching  Yershalaim  with   an  extraordinary
fierceness, had not yet had time to  approach its highest point when, on the
upper terrace of the garden, by the two white marble lions that  guarded the
stairs, a meeting took  place between the  procurator and the man fulfilling
the duties  of president of  the  Sanhedrin,  the high  priest  of the Jews,
Joseph Kaifa. [25]
     It  was  quiet  in  the garden.  But  when he  came out from  under the
colonnade to the sun-drenched upper level of  the garden with its palm trees
on monstrous  elephant legs, from which there spread  before  the procurator
the whole of hateful  Yershalaim, with its hanging bridges, fortresses, and,
above all,  that utterly  indescribable heap of  marble  with  golden dragon
scales  for a roof -  the temple of Yershalaim - the procurator's sharp  ear
caught, far below, where the stone wall separated the lower  terraces of the
palace garden from  the city square, a low  rumble over  which  from time to
time there soared feeble, thin moans or cries.
     The procurator understood that there, on the square, a numberless crowd
of  Yershalaim  citizens, agitated  by  the  recent disorders,  had  already
gathered,  that this crowd was waiting  impatiently for  the announcement of
the sentences, and that restless water sellers were crying in its midst.
     The procurator  began by inviting the high priest on to the balcony, to
take shelter from the merciless heat, but Kaifa politely apologized [26] and
explained that he could not do that on the eve of the feast.
     Pilate  covered  his slightly balding  head  with a hood and  began the
conversation. This conversation took place in Greek.
     Pilate said that  he  had looked  into the case  of Yeshua Ha-Nozri and
confirmed the death sentence.
     Thus, three  robbers - Dysmas, Gestas and Bar-Rabban -  and this Yeshua
Ha-Nozri besides, were condemned  to be executed, and it was to be done that
day. The first  two, who had ventured to incite  the people to rebel against
Caesar,  had  been  taken in armed struggle by the  Roman authorities,  were
accounted  to the procurator, and, consequently,  would not be talked  about
here. But the  second two, Bar-Rabban and Ha-Nozri,  had been seized by  the
local  authorities  and condemned by  the Sanhedrin. According  to the  law,
according to custom, one of these two criminals had to be released in honour
of  the great feast of  Passover,  which would begin  that  day.  And so the
procurator wished to know which of the two criminals the  Sanhedrin intended
to set free: Bar-Rabban or Ha-Nozri? [27]
     Kaifa inclined his head to  signify that the question was clear to him,
and replied:
     `The Sanhedrin asks that  Bar-Rabban be released.'  The procurator knew
very well  that the high priest would  give  precisely that answer, but  his
task consisted in showing that this answer provoked his astonishment.
     This  Pilate did with great artfulness. The  eyebrows  on  the arrogant
face rose,  the procurator  looked  with  amazement  straight into  the high
priest's eyes.
     'I confess, this answer stuns me,' the  procurator  began  softly, `I'm
afraid there may be some misunderstanding here.'
     Pilate  explained himself.  Roman authority  does  not encroach  in the
least upon the  rights of the local  spiritual authorities, the  high priest
knows  that very well, but in the present case we are  faced with an obvious
error.  And  this  error  Roman  authority  is,  of  course,  interested  in
correcting.
     In fact, the crimes of  Bar-Rabban and  Ha-Nozri are quite incomparable
in their gravity.  If  the latter, obviously an insane person, is  guilty of
uttering  preposterous  things  in  Yershalaim  and some  other  places, the
former's burden of guilt is more considerable. Not only did he allow himself
to call  directly  for  rebellion, but  he  also  killed a  guard during the
attempt  to  arrest  him. Bar-Rabban  is  incomparably  more dangerous  than
Ha-Nozri.
     On  the  strength  of all the foregoing, the  procurator asks the  high
priest to  reconsider the  decision and release the less  harmful of the two
condemned men, and that is without doubt Ha-Nozri. And so? ...
     Kaifa said  in a quiet but firm voice that the Sanhedrin had thoroughly
familiarized itself  with the case and informed him  a second  time  that it
intended to free Bar-Rabban.
     'What?  Even after  my  intercession?  The intercession of him  through
whose person Roman authority speaks? Repeat it a third time, High Priest.'
     'And a third time  I repeat that we are setting Bar-Rabban free,' Kaifa
said softly.
     It was all over, and there was nothing more to talk about. Ha-Nozri was
departing for ever, and there was no one to cure the dreadful, wicked  pains
of the procurator, there was no remedy for them except death. But it was not
this thought which now struck Pilate. The same incomprehensible anguish that
had already  visited him on the balcony pierced his whole being. He tried at
once to explain it, and the explanation was a strange one: it seemed vaguely
to the procurator that there was something he had not finished saying to the
condemned man, and perhaps something he had not finished hearing.
     Pilate drove this  thought away, and it flew off as instantly as it had
come flying. It flew off, and the anguish remained unexplained, for it could
not well  be explained by another  brief thought that flashed like lightning
and at  once  went  out  -  'Immortality...  immortality  has come...' Whose
immortality had come? That  the  procurator  did  not  understand,  but  the
thought of  this enigmatic immortality made  him grow  cold in the scorching
sun.
     'Very well,' said Pilate, 'let it be so.'
     Here  he turned,  gazed around  at the world  visible  to him,  and was
surprised at the change that had taken  place. The bush laden with roses had
vanished, vanished  were the cypresses bordering the upper  terrace, and the
pomegranate tree, and the white statue amidst the greenery, and the greenery
itself. In place  of it all there floated some purple mass, [28] water weeds
swayed in it and began moving off somewhere, and Pilate himself began moving
with  them. He  was carried along  now,  smothered and  burned, by the  most
terrible wrath - the wrath of impotence.
     'Cramped,' said Pilate, 'I feel cramped!'
     With  a cold, moist  hand he tore at  the clasp  on the  collar  of his
cloak, and it fell to the sand.
     'It's sultry  today,  there's  a storm somewhere,' Kaifa responded, not
taking his eyes off the procurator's reddened face,  and foreseeing  all the
torments that still lay ahead,  he thought: 'Oh, what  a  terrible month  of
Nisan we're having this year!'
     'No,' said Pilate, 'it's not because  of the sultriness, I feel cramped
with you here, Kaifa.' And, narrowing his eyes, Pilate smiled and added:
     "Watch out for yourself, High Priest.'
     The high  priest's  dark  eyes glinted,  and  with his  face -  no less
artfully than the procurator had done earlier - he expressed amazement.
     'What  do I hear, Procurator?' Kaifa replied proudly  and  calmly. "You
threaten  me after you yourself have confirmed the sentence passed? Can that
be? We  are accustomed to the Roman procurator choosing his words before  he
says something. What if we should be overheard, Hegemon?'
     Pilate looked at the high priest  with dead eyes and, baring his teeth,
produced a smile.
     'What's your trouble, High Priest? Who can hear us where we are now? Do
you think I'm like that young vagrant holy fool who is to be executed today?
Am I a boy, Kaifa? I know what I say and where I  say it. There  is a cordon
around the garden, a cordon around the palace, so that a mouse couldn't  get
through any  crack! Not only a mouse, but even that  one, what's his name...
from the  town of  Kiriath, couldn't get through. Incidentally, High Priest,
do  you know him? Yes... if that one got in here, he'd  feel  bitterly sorry
for himself, in this  you will, of course, believe me? Know, then, that from
now on, High Priest, you will have no peace! Neither you nor your people'  -
and Pilate pointed far  off to  the right,  where the  temple blazed on high
-'it  is  I  who  tell  you so, Pontius  Pilate,  equestrian  of  the Golden
Spear!'[29]
     'I know,  I know!' the  black-bearded Kaifa fearlessly replied, and his
eyes  flashed. He raised  his arm to heaven and went on: "The Jewish  people
know  that you hate  them with  a  cruel  hatred, and will cause  them  much
suffering, but you will not destroy them  utterly! God will protect them! He
will  hear us, the almighty Caesar will hear, he will protect us from Pilate
the destroyer!'
     'Oh, no!' Pilate exclaimed, and he felt lighter  and lighter with every
word: there was no more  need to pretend, no more need  to choose his words,
`you have complained about me too much to Caesar, and  now my hour has come,
Kaifa! Now the message will fly from me, and not to the governor in Antioch,
and not to  Rome, but  directly  to Capreae,  to the  emperor  himself,  the
message of  how you in Yershalaim are sheltering known criminals from death.
And then it will not be  water from Solomon's Pool that I give Yershalaim to
drink, as I wanted to do for your own  good! No,  not water! Remember how on
account of you I had to remove the shields  with the emperor's insignia from
the  walls, had to transfer  troops, had, as you see,  to  come in person to
look into what goes on with you here! Remember my  words: it is not just one
cohort  that you  will see here in Yershalaim, High  Priest - no! The  whole
Fulminata  legion will come  under the  city walls, the Arabian cavalry will
arrive, and then you will hear bitter weeping and wailing! You will remember
Bar-Rabban then, whom you saved, and  you  will  regret having  sent to  his
death a philosopher with his peaceful preaching!'
     The high priest's face became covered with blotches, his eyes burned.
     Like the procurator, he smiled, baring his teeth, and replied:
     `Do you yourself believe  what you are saying now, Procurator?  No, you
do not!  It is  not  peace, not  peace, that  the seducer of  the people  of
Yershalaim brought us,  and you, equestrian, understand that perfectly well.
You  wanted to release him so that he could disturb the  people, outrage the
faith, and bring  the people under Roman swords! But  I, the high priest  of
the Jews, as long as I  live, will  not allow the faith to  be  outraged and
will  protect the people! Do you  hear, Pilate?' And  Kaifa raised  his  arm
menacingly: 'Listen, Procurator!'
     Kaifa fell silent, and the procurator again heard a noise as if  of the
sea, rolling  up  to the very  walls of the garden of Herod  the Great.  The
noise  rose from below to the feet and into  the face of the procurator. And
behind his  back,  there,  beyond the  wings of the  palace,  came  alarming
trumpet calls, the heavy crunch of hundreds of feet, the clanking of iron.
     The procurator understood that  the Roman  infantry was already setting
out, on his orders,  speeding to the parade of death  so terrible for rebels
and robbers.
     `Do you hear,  Procurator?' the high priest repeated  quietly. 'Are you
going to  tell me that all this' - here the high priest raised both arms and
the dark hood fell from his  head - 'has been caused  by the wretched robber
Bar-Rabban?'
     The procurator wiped his wet, cold forehead with the back of  his hand,
looked  at the ground, then, squinting at the sky, saw that the red-hot ball
was  almost over his  head and that Kaifa's shadow  had shrunk to nothing by
the lion's tail, and said quietly and indifferently:
     'It's nearly noon. We got carried away  by our conversation, and yet we
must proceed.'
     Having apologized in refined terms before the  high  priest, he invited
him to sit down  on a bench  in the shade  of  a magnolia and wait until  he
summoned the other persons needed for the last brief conference and gave one
more instruction connected with the execution.
     Kaifa bowed politely,  placing his hand on his heart, and stayed in the
garden while  Pilate returned to the  balcony.  There he told the secretary,
who  had been waiting  for  him, to invite to the garden the  legate of  the
legion and the tribune of the  cohort, as  well as  the  two members of  the
Sanhedrin  and  the head of  the temple  guard,  who  had been awaiting  his
summons on the lower garden terrace, in  a round gazebo with a fountain.  To
this Pilate added that he himself would come out to the garden at  once, and
withdrew into the palace.
     While the secretary  was gathering the conference, the  procurator met,
in a  room shielded from the sun by dark curtains, with a certain man, whose
face was half covered by a hood, though  he  could not have been bothered by
the sun's  rays  in  this room.  The  meeting  was a  very  short  one.  The
procurator quietly spoke a few words to the man, after which he withdrew and
Pilate walked out through the colonnade to the garden.
     There,  in  the  presence  of  all  those  he had desired to  see,  the
procurator solemnly and dryly stated that he confirmed the death sentence on
Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and officially inquired of the members of the Sanhedrin  as
to whom  among the criminals they would like to grant  life. Having received
the reply that it was Bar-Rabban, the procurator said:
     Very well,' and told the secretary to put it into  the record at  once,
clutched in  his  hand the clasp that the secretary  had  picked up from the
sand, and said solemnly: It is time!'
     Here all  those present  started  down the wide marble stairway between
walls  of roses that  exuded a stupefying aroma, descending lower  and lower
towards the palace  wall, to the gates opening on to the big, smoothly paved
square,  at  the end of which  could be seen the  columns and statues of the
Yershalaim stadium.
     As soon as the group entered the square from the garden and mounted the
spacious stone platform  that dominated the  square, Pilate, looking  around
through narrowed eyelids, assessed the situation.
     The space he  had  just traversed, that is, the space  from  the palace
wall to the  platform, was empty, but  before him Pilate could no longer see
the square -  it had been swallowed up by the crowd, which would have poured
over the platform and the cleared space as well, had it not been kept at bay
by a triple row of Sebastean soldiers to the left of Pilate and soldiers  of
the auxiliary Iturean cohort to his right.
     And so, Pilate mounted the platform, mechanically clutching the useless
clasp  in his fist and squinting his eyes. The procurator was squinting  not
because the sun burned his eyes - no! For some reason he did not want to see
the  group of condemned men who, as he knew  perfectly well, were  now being
brought on to the platform behind him.
     As soon as the white cloak with crimson lining  appeared high up on the
stone cliff over the verge of the human sea, the unseeing Pilate  was struck
in  the  ears  by a  wave of  sound: 'Ha-a-a...' It started mutedly, arising
somewhere  far away by the  hippodrome, then  became  thunderous and, having
held  out  for  a  few  seconds,  began  to subside.  They've  seen me,' the
procurator thought.  The  wave had not reached  its  lowest  point before it
started swelling  again  unexpectedly and,  swaying, rose  higher  than  the
first, and as foam boils up on the billows of the sea, so a whistling boiled
up  on this second wave and, separate, distinguishable from the thunder, the
wails  of women. They've been led on to the platform,'  thought Pilate, `and
the wails mean that several women got crushed as the crowd surged forward.'
     He waited for some  time, knowing that no power could silence the crowd
before it exhaled all that was pent up in it and fell silent of itself.
     And when this moment came, the procurator threw  up his right arm,  and
the last noise was blown away from the crowd.
     Then Pilate drew into his breast as much of the hot air as he could and
shouted, and his cracked voice carried over thousands of heads:
     'In the name of the emperor Caesar! ...'
     Here his  ears  were struck several times by a clipped iron shout:  the
cohorts of soldiers raised  high their spears and standards  and shouted out
terribly:
     'Long live Caesar!'
     Pilate lifted his face and thrust  it straight into the sun. Green fire
flared up  behind  his eyelids, his  brain took flame  from it,  and  hoarse
Aramaic words went flying over the crowd:
     `Four  criminals,  arrested  in Yershalaim for  murder,  incitement  to
rebellion, and  outrages against the laws and the faith, have been sentenced
to  a  shameful execution  - by hanging on  posts! And  this  execution will
presently  be  carried  out on Bald Mountain! The names of the criminals are
Dysmas, Gestas, Bar-Rabban and Ha-Nozri. Here they stand before you!'
     Pilate pointed to his right, not seeing any criminals, but knowing they
were there, in place, where they ought to be.
     The crowd responded with a long rumble as if of surprise or relief.
     When it died down, Pilate continued:
     'But only three  of them will be executed, for,  in accordance with law
and custom, in honour of the feast of Passover, to one of the condemned,  as
chosen  by  the  Lesser  Sanhedrin and  confirmed by  Roman  authority,  the
magnanimous emperor Caesar will return his contemptible life!'
     Pilate cried out the words  and at the same time listened as the rumble
was replaced by a great silence. Not a sigh, not a rustle  reached his  ears
now, and there was even a  moment when it seemed to  Pilate that  everything
around him had  vanished altogether. The hated  city died, and  he alone  is
standing  there, scorched by  the sheer rays, his face  set against the sky.
Pilate held the silence a little longer, and then began to cry out:
     'The name of the one who will now be set free before you is...' He made
one  more pause, holding back the name, making sure he had said all, because
he knew that the dead city  would resurrect once the name of the  lucky  man
was  spoken,  and no further words  would be heard. 'All?' Pilate  whispered
soundlessly to  himself.  'All. The name!' And, rolling the letter 'r'  over
the silent city, he cried:
     'Bar-Rabban!'
     Here  it  seemed to him that  the  sun,  clanging,  burst over  him and
flooded  his  ears with fire.  This fire raged  with  roars, shrieks, wails,
guffaws and whistles.
     Pilate  turned  and  walked back  across the platform  to  the  stairs,
looking  at nothing except the multicoloured  squares of the flooring  under
his feet, so as not  to trip. He knew  that behind his back the platform was
being showered with bronze coins, dates, that people in the howling mob were
climbing  on shoulders, crushing each other, to see  the  miracle with their
own eyes - how a man already in the grip of death escaped that grip! How the
legionaries take the ropes off  him, involuntarily causing  him burning pain
in  his  arms,  dislocated during  his  interrogation;  how he,  wincing and
groaning, nevertheless smiles a senseless, crazed smile.
     He knew that  at the same time the convoy was already leading the three
men with bound arms to the side stairs, so as to take them to the road going
west  from  the  city,  towards  Bald Mountain. Only  when  he  was  off the
platform, to  the rear of it, did Pilate open  his eyes, knowing that he was
now safe - he could no longer see the condemned men.
     Mingled with the  wails of the quieting crowd, yet distinguishable from
them, were the piercing cries of heralds repeating, some in Aramaic,  others
in Greek, all  that the procurator had cried  out from the platform. Besides
that, there came to his ears the tapping, clattering and approaching thud of
hoofs, and a  trumpet calling out  something  brief and  merry. These sounds
were answered by the drilling whistles of boys on  the roofs of houses along
the street that led from  the bazaar to the  hippodrome square, and by cries
of 'Look out!'
     A  soldier, standing  alone in the cleared  space  of the square with a
standard  in his hand,  waved  it anxiously,  and  then the procurator,  the
legate of the legion, the secretary and the convoy stopped.
     A cavalry  ala, at an ever-lengthening trot, flew out into  the square,
so as to cross it at one side, bypassing the mass of people, and ride down a
lane under a stone  wall  covered with creeping  vines, taking the  shortest
route to Bald Mountain.
     At a flying trot, small as a boy, dark  as a  mulatto, the commander of
the  ala,  a Syrian, coming  abreast of  Pilate, shouted something in a high
voice and  snatched  his sword from its sheath.  The  angry,  sweating black
horse  shied  and reared.  Thrusting his  sword back  into  its sheath,  the
commander struck the horse's neck with his crop, brought  him down, and rode
off  into the lane,  breaking into  a gallop.  After  him,  three by  three,
horsemen  flew  in a cloud  of dust, the tips  of their  light bamboo lances
bobbing,  and faces dashed  past the procurator - looking especially swarthy
under their white turbans - with merrily bared, gleaming teeth.
     Raising dust to the  sky, the ala burst into the  lane, and the last to
ride past Pilate was  a soldier with a trumpet slung on his back, blazing in
the sun.
     Shielding  himself from the dust with his hand and wrinkling  his  face
discontentedly, Pilate  started  on  in the direction  of  the  gates to the
palace garden, and after him came the legate, the secretary, and the convoy.
     It was around ten o'clock in the morning.


        CHAPTER 3. The Seventh Proof

     'Yes,  it  was around ten  o'clock in  the  morning, my  esteemed  Ivan
Nikolaevich,' said the professor.
     The poet passed his hand over his face like a man  just  coming  to his
senses,  and saw that it was  evening at the Patriarch's Ponds. The water in
the pond had turned black, and a light boat was  now gliding  on it, and one
could hear  the splash of  oars and the  giggles of some  citizeness  in the
little boat. The public appeared  on the  benches along the walks, but again
on  the  other  three  sides of the  square, and not on the  side where  our
interlocutors were.
     The sky  over Moscow  seemed to lose colour, and the full moon could be
seen quite  distinctly  high above,  not  yet golden but white. It was  much
easier  to  breathe, and  the voices  under the lindens now sounded  softer,
eveningish.
     `How is it I didn't notice that he'd managed to spin a whole story?...'
Homeless thought in amazement. 'It's already evening! ... Or maybe he wasn't
telling it, but I simply fell asleep and dreamed it all?'
     But it must be supposed  that the  professor did  tell the story  after
all,  otherwise it would have  to be assumed  that Berlioz had  had the same
dream, because he said, studying the foreigner's face attentively:
     'Your  story  is  extremely interesting,  Professor, though it does not
coincide at all with the Gospel stories.'
     'Good heavens,' the professor responded, smiling  condescendingly, 'you
of all people should know that precisely nothing of  what is written in  the
Gospels ever actually took place, and if  we start referring  to the Gospels
as a historical  source...' he smiled once more,  and Berlioz stopped short,
because this was literally the  same thing he had been saying to Homeless as
they walked down Bronnaya towards the Patriarch's Ponds.
     'That's  so,' Berlioz replied, 'but I'm afraid no  one can confirm that
what you've just told us actually took place either.'
     'Oh, yes! That there is one who can!' the professor, beginning to speak
in  broken  language,  said  with  great  assurance,  and   with  unexpected
mysteriousness he motioned the two friends to move closer.
     They leaned towards him from both sides, and he said, but again without
any accent, which with him, devil knows why, now appeared, now disappeared:
     The thing is...'  here  the professor looked around fearfully and spoke
in a  whisper,  `that I  was personally present at it all. I was  on Pontius
Pilate's  balcony, and in the garden when  he  talked with Kaifa, and on the
platform, only  secretly, incognito, so to speak, and therefore I beg you  -
not a word to anyone, total secrecy, shh...'
     Silence fell, and Berlioz paled.
     'YOU  ... how long  have you  been in Moscow?' he asked  in a quavering
voice.
     'I  just arrived  in  Moscow this  very  minute,'  the  professor  said
perplexedly, and only here did it occur to the friends to take  a good  look
in his eyes, at which  they became  convinced that his  left  eye, the green
one, was totally insane, while the right one was empty, black and dead.
     'There's   the   whole  explanation  for   you!'   Berlioz  thought  in
bewilderment. 'A mad German has turned up, or just went crazy at the  Ponds.
What a story!'
     Yes,  indeed, that explained the  whole thing:  the strangest breakfast
with the late philosopher Kant, the  foolish  talk  about sunflower  oil and
Annushka,  the  predictions about his head being cut off and  all the rest -
the professor was mad.
     Berlioz realized  at once  what  had to be done.  Leaning  back on  the
bench, he winked to Homeless  behind the professor's back -  meaning,  don't
contradict him - but the perplexed poet did not understand these signals.
     'Yes,  yes,  yes,'  Berlioz  said  excitedly,  `incidentally  it's  all
possible...  even  very possible, Pontius  Pilate, and  the balcony,  and so
forth... Did you come alone or with your wife?'
     'Alone, alone, I'm always alone,' the professor replied bitterly.
     'And where are your things, Professor?' Berlioz asked insinuatingly.
     'At the Metropol?* Where are you staying?'
     'I? ...  Nowhere,'  the  half-witted  German  answered,  his  green eye
wandering in wild anguish over the Patriarch's Ponds.
     'How's that? But ... where are you going to live?'
     'In your apartment,' the madman suddenly said brashly, and winked.
     'I  ... I'm very glad  ...' Berlioz began muttering,  'but, really, you
won't  be  comfortable at my place ... and they have wonderful  rooms at the
Metropol, it's a first-class hotel...'
     'And  there's  no devil either?' the sick man suddenly inquired merrily
of Ivan Nikolaevich.
     'No devil...'
     'Don't contradict him,' Berlioz whispered  with his lips only, dropping
behind the professor's back and making faces.
     There  isn't any devil!' Ivan  Nikolaevich, at  a  loss from  all  this
balderdash,  cried out not what  he ought. 'What a punishment! Stop  playing
the psycho!'
     Here the insane man burst into such laughter that a sparrow flew out of
the linden over the seated men's heads.
     'Well, now that is positively interesting!' the professor said, shaking
with  laughter.  'What is it with you - no  matter what one  asks for, there
isn't  any!' He suddenly stopped  laughing and,  quite understandably for  a
mentally ill person, fell into the opposite  extreme after laughing,  became
vexed and cried sternly: 'So you mean there just simply isn't any?'
     'Calm down,  calm down,  calm  down,  Professor,' Berlioz muttered, for
fear  of agitating the  sick man.  'You  sit here  for a little  minute with
comrade Homeless, and I'll just run to the corner  to make a phone call, and
then we'll take you wherever you like. You don't know the city...'
     Berlioz's plan must be acknowledged as correct: he  had to run  to  the
nearest  public  telephone  and inform the foreigners' bureau, thus  and so,
there's some consultant from abroad sitting at the  Patriarch's  Ponds in an
obviously  abnormal state. So it was necessary to  take  measures, lest some
unpleasant nonsense result.
     To make a call? Well, then make your call,' the sick  man agreed sadly,
and suddenly  begged passionately:  `But I implore  you, before  you go,  at
least believe that the devil exists! I no longer ask you for anything more.
     Mind you, there exists a seventh proof of it, the surest of all! And it
is going to be presented to you right now!'
     'Very good, very good,' Berlioz said with false tenderness and, winking
to the  upset poet, who did not relish  at all the idea of guarding  the mad
German,  set out for the exit from  the Ponds at the corner  of Bronnaya and
Yermolaevsky Lane.
     And the professor seemed to recover his health and brighten up at once.
     'Mikhail Alexandrovich!' he shouted after Berlioz.
     The  latter gave a start,  looked back, but reassured himself  with the
thought that the  professor  had also learned  his  name and patronymic from
some newspaper.
     Then the professor called out, cupping his hands like a megaphone:
     `Would you  like me to  have a telegram sent at  once  to your uncle in
Kiev?'
     And again Berlioz winced. How does the madman know about  the existence
of