The Brook Kerith Part 7

As the days went by he began to feel life more oppressive and unendurable, till one evening the thought crossed his mind that change of scene might be a great benefit to him. If he were to go to Egypt, he would journey for fifteen days through the desert, the rocking stride of the camel would keep him from thinking, and he might arrive in Egypt eager to listen to the philosophers again. But the temptations that Egypt presented faded almost as soon as they had arisen, and he deemed that it might be better for him to choose a city oversea. A sea voyage, he thought, will cheer me more than a long journey across the desert, and Joppa is but a day's journey from Jerusalem. But the shipping is more frequent from Caesarea, and it is not as far; and for a moment it seemed to him that he would like to be on board a ship watching the wind making the sail beautiful. But to what port should he be making for? he asked. Why not to Greece?--for there are philosophers as great or greater than those of Alexandria. But philosophers are out of my humour, he added, and, putting Athens aside, he bethought himself of Corinth, and the variegated world he would meet there. From every port ships come to Corinth, bringing different habits, customs, languages, religions; and for the better part of the evening Corinth seemed to be his destination.

Corinth was famous for its courtesans, and he remembered suddenly that the most celebrated were collected there; and it may have been the courtesans that kept him from this journey, and his thoughts turning from vice to marriage a bitterness rose up in his mind against his father for the persistency with which Dan reminded him in and out of season that every man's duty is to bring children into the world.

It had seemed to him that in asking him to take a wife to his discomfort his father was asking him too much, and he had put the question aside; but he was now without will to resist any memory that might befall him, and for the first time he allowed his thoughts to dwell on his father's implied regret that he had never caught his son near a servant girl's bed. His unwillingness to impugn his father's opinions kept him heretofore from pondering on his words, but feeling his life to be now broken and cast away, there seemed to arise some reasons for an examination of his father's words. They could not mean anything else than that a young man was following the natural instincts if he lingered about a young girl's room; and that to be without this instinct was almost a worse misfortune than to be possessed by it to the practical exclusion of other interests.

His father, it is true, may have argued the matter out with himself somewhat in this fashion: that love of women in a man may be controlled; and looking back into his own life he may have found this view confirmed. Joseph remembered that his grandmother often spoke to him of Dan's great love of his wife, and it might be that he had never loved another woman; few men, however, were as fortunate as his father, and Joseph could not help thinking that it were better to put women out of his mind altogether than to become inflamed by the sight of every woman.

He believed that was why he had always kept all thoughts of women out of his mind; but it seemed to him now that a wife would break the monotony that he saw in front of him, and were he to meet a woman such as his father seems to have met he might take her to live with him. He thought of himself as her husband, though he was by no means sure that married life was a possible makeshift for the life he sought and was obliged to forgo, but as life seemed an obligation from which he could not reasonably escape he thought he would like to share it with some woman who would give him children. His father desired grandchildren, and since he had partly sacrificed his life for his father's sake, he might, it seemed to him, sacrifice himself wholly. But could he? That did not depend altogether on himself, and with the view to discovering the turn of his s.e.x instinct he called to mind all the women he had seen, asking himself as each rose up before him if he could marry her. There were some that seemed nearer to his desire than others, and it was with the view to honourable marriage that he called upon his friends, and his father's friends, and pa.s.sed his eyes over all their daughters; but the girl whose image had lingered more pleasantly than any other in his memory had married lately, and all the others inspired only a physical aversion which he felt none would succeed in overcoming. He had seen some Greek women, and been attracted in a way, for they were not too like their s.e.x; but these Jewish women--the women of his race--seemed to him as gross in their minds as in their bodies, and it surprised him to find that though many men seemed to think as he did about these women, they were not repelled as he was, but accepted them willingly, even greedily, as instruments of pleasure and afterwards as mothers of children. But I am not as these men are, he said; my father must bear his sorrow like another; and in meditation it seemed to him that it would not be reasonable that his father should get everything he desired and his son nothing.

His father had gotten more out of life than ever he should get; he would have his son till he died (so far as he could he would secure him that satisfaction), and after death this world and its shows concern us not.

But it may well be that we die out of one life to be born into another life, that everything that pa.s.ses is replaced by an equivalent, he said, repeating the words of a Greek philosopher to whom he had been much addicted in happy days gone by, and that reality is but an eternal shaping and reshaping of things. All that is beyond doubt, he continued, is that things pa.s.s too quickly for us to have any certain knowledge of them, our only standard being our own flitting impressions; and as all men bring a different sensitiveness into the world, knowledge is a word without meaning, for there can be no knowledge. Every race is possessed of a different sensitiveness, he said, as he pa.s.sed up the Mount of Olives on his way home. We ask for miracles, but the Greeks are satisfied with reason. Am I Greek or Jew? he asked, for he was looking forward to some silent hours with a book of Greek philosophy and hoped to forget himself in the ma.n.u.script. But he could not always keep his thoughts on the ma.n.u.script, and, forgetful of Herac.l.i.tus, he often sat thinking of Jesus' promise--that one morning men would awake to find that G.o.d had come to judge the world and divide it among those that repented their sins. He remembered he had forfeited his share in the Kingdom for his father's sake, or had he been driven out of the community because his belief in the coming of the Kingdom was insufficient? It is true that his belief had wavered, but he had always believed. Even his natural humility, of which he was conscious, did not allow him to doubt that his belief in Jesus was less fervid than that of Peter, James, John and the residue. The conviction was always quick in him that he felt more deeply than these publicans and fishers, yet Jesus retained them and sent him away.

The ma.n.u.script glided from his hand to the floor, and his thoughts wandered back to Alexandria, and he sat thinking that death must be rather the beginning than the end of things, for it were impossible to believe that life was an end in itself. Herac.l.i.tus was right: his present life could be nothing else but the death of another life. And as if to enforce this doctrine a recollection of his grandmother intruded upon his meditation. She was seventy-eight when she died, and her intellect must have faded some months before, but with her pa.s.sing one of the servants told him that a curious expression came into her face--a sort of mocking expression, as if she had learnt the truth at last and was laughing at the dupes she left behind. She lay in a grave in Galilee, under some pleasant trees, and while thinking of her grave it occurred to him that he would not like to be put into the earth; his fancy favoured a tomb cut out of the rocks in Mount Scropas, for there, he said to himself, I shall be far from the Scribes and Pharisees, and going out on the terrace he stood under the cedars and watched for an hour the outlines of the humped hills that G.o.d had driven in endless disorder, like herds of cattle, all the way to Jericho, thinking all the while that it would be pleasant to lie out of hearing of all the silly hurly-burly that we call life. But the hurly-burly would not be silly if Jesus were by him, and he asked himself if Jesus was an illusion like all the rest, and as soon as the pain the question provoked had died away, his desire of a tomb took possession of him again, and it left him no peace, but led him out of the house every evening, up a zigzagging path along the hillside till he came to some rocks over against the desert. I shall lie in quiet here till he calls me, on a couch embedded in the wall and surmounted by an arch--but if he should prefer me to rise out of an humble grave? That I may not know, only that the poorest is not as unhappy as I, so I may as well have a tomb to my liking.

It was a long time since he had come to a resolve, and having come to one at last, he was happier. And in more cheerful mood he decided that now that the site was settled it would be well to seek information as to which are the best workmen to employ on the job.

But for him whose thoughts run on death nothing is harder to settle than where his bones shall lie; and next time he visited the hillside Joseph came upon rocks facing eastward, and it seemed to him that the rays of the rising sun should fall on his sepulchre; but a few days later, coming out of his house in great disquiet, it seemed to him he would lie happy if his tomb were visited every evening by the peaceful rays of the setting sun, and he asked himself how many years of life he would have to drag through before G.o.d released him from his prison. If he wished to die he could, for our lives are in our own hands. But he did not know that he cared to die and, overpowered with grief, he abandoned himself to metaphysical speculation, asking himself again if it were not true that to be born into this world meant to pa.s.s out of one life into another; therefore, if so, to die in this world only meant to pa.s.s into another, a life unknown to us, for all is unknown--nothing being fixed or permanent. We cannot bathe twice in the same river, so Herac.l.i.tus said, but we cannot bathe even once in the same river, he added; and to carry the master's thought a stage further was a pleasure, if any moment of his present life could be called pleasurable. He heard these sayings first in Alexandria, and, looking towards Jerusalem, he tried to recall the exact words of the sage regarding the futility of sacrifice. Our priests try, said Herac.l.i.tus, to purify themselves with blood and we admire them, but if a filthy man were to roll himself in the mud in the hope of cleaning himself we should think he was mad. In some such wise Herac.l.i.tus spoke, but it seemed to Joseph he had lost something of the spirit of the saying in too profuse wording of it. As he sought for the original epitome he heard his name called, and awaking from his recollections of Alexandria he looked up and saw before him a young man whom he remembered having seen at the Sanhedrin. Nicodemus was his name; and he remembered how the fellow had kept his eyes on him for one whole evening, trying at various times to engage him in talk; an insistent fellow who, despite rebuffs, had followed him into the street after the meeting, and, refusing to be shaken off, had led the way so skilfully that Joseph found himself at last on Nicodemus' doorstep and with no option but to accept Nicodemus' invitation to enter. He did not like the fellow, but not on account of his insistence; it was not his insistence that had prejudiced him against him as much as the young man's elaboration of raiment, his hairdressing above all; he wore curls on either side that must have taken his barber a long while to prepare, and he exhaled scents. He wore bracelets, and from his appearance Joseph had not been able to refrain from imagining lascivious pictures on the walls of his house and statues in the corners of the rooms--in a word, he thought he had been persuaded to enter an ultra-Greek house.

In this he was, however, mistaken, and in the hour they spent together his host's thoughts were much less occupied than Joseph expected them to be with the jewels on his neck and his wrists, and the rich ta.s.sels on his sash. He talked of many things, but his real thoughts were upon arms; and he showed Joseph scimitars and daggers. Despite a long discussion on the steel of Damascus, Joseph could not bring himself to believe that Nicodemus' interests in heroic warfare were more than intellectual caprice: and he regarded as entirely superficial Nicodemus'

attacks on the present-day Jews, whose sloth and indolence he reproved, saying that they had left the heroic spirit brought out of Arabia with their language, on the banks of the Euphrates. One hero, he admitted, they had produced in modern times (Judas Maccabeus), and Joseph heard for the first time that this great man always had addressed his soldiers in Hebrew. All the same he did not believe that Nicodemus was serious in his pa.s.sionate demands for the Hebrew language, which had not been spoken since the Jews emerged from the pastoral stage. We should do well, Nicodemus said, to engage others to look to our flocks and herds, so that we may have leisure to ponder the texts of Talmud, nor do I hesitate to condemn my own cla.s.s, the Sadducees, as the least worthy of all; for we look upon the Temple as a means of wealth, despising the poor people, who pay their half-shekel and bring their rams and their goats and bullocks. .h.i.ther.

He could talk for a long time in this way, his eyes abstracted from Joseph, fixed on the darkness of the room. While listening to him Joseph had often asked himself if there were a real inspiration behind that lean face, carven like a marble, with prominent nose and fading chin, or if he were a mere buffoon.

He succeeded in provoking a casual curiosity in Joseph, but he had not infected Joseph with any desire of his acquaintance; his visits to the counting-house had not been returned. Yet this meeting on the hillside was not altogether unwelcome, and Joseph, to his surprise, surveyed the young man's ringlets and bracelets with consideration; he admired his many weapons, and listened to him with interest. He talked well, telling that the sword that hung from his thigh was from Damascus and recommending a merchant to Joseph who could be trusted to discover as fine a one for him. It was not wise to go about this lonely hillside unarmed, and Joseph was moved to ask him to draw the sword from its scabbard, which Nicodemus was only too glad to do, calling Joseph's attention to the beautiful engraving on the blade, and to the hilt studded with jewels. He drew a dagger from his jacket, a hardly less costly weapon, and Joseph was too abashed to speak of his buckler on his left arm and the spear that he held in his right hand. But, nothing loath, Nicodemus bubbled into explanation. It was part of his project to remind his fellow-countrymen that they too must arm themselves if they ever wished to throw off the Roman yoke.

So long as the Romans subst.i.tute a Hebrew word or letter for the head of Tiberius on the coin we pay the tribute willingly, he said as they followed the crooked path through the rocks up the hillside towards Joseph's house. And in reply to Joseph, who asked him if he believed in the coming end of the world, he answered that he did, but he interpreted the coming end of the world to mean the freeing of the people of Israel from the Roman yoke, astonishing Joseph by the vigour of his reply; for Joseph was not yet sure which was the truer part of this young man, the ringlets and the bracelets or the shield and the spear.

He was partial to long silences; and the next of these was so long that Joseph had begun to wonder, but when they reached the crest of the hill he burst into speech like a bird into song, asking what was happening in Galilee, avouching much interest in Jesus, whom he had heard of, but had never seen. Joseph, guessing that it was to obtain news of Jesus that Nicodemus sought him on the hillside, told him that he had not spoken of Jesus for many weeks, and found a sudden relief in relating all he knew about him: how Jesus said that father, mother, brother and sister must be abandoned. Yes, he had said, we must look upon all sacrifice as naught if we would obtain our ancient kingdom and language. But the Essenes have never spoken like that, Nicodemus urged: he is not an Essene, nor Moses, nor Elijah, nor Jeremiah. He is none of these: he is Judas Maccabeus come to life again: and henceforth I shall look upon myself as his disciple.

He spoke so loudly that any pa.s.ser-by might have caught up his words; and there was danger from Joseph's servants, for they were now standing by his gate. He looked round uneasily, and as Nicodemus showed no signs of taking leave of him, he thought it would be more prudent to ask him into the house, warning him, however, that he had no beautiful things to show him in the way of engraved weapons, swords from Damascus or daggers from Circa.s.sia. It was not, however, to see beautiful weapons that Nicodemus inclined; only so far as they related to Jesus was he interested in arms; and he besought Joseph to tell him more of Jesus, whom he seemed to have already accepted as the leader of a revolt against the Romans. But Joseph, who had begun to fear the young man, protested that Jesus' Kingdom was not of this earth, thinking thereby to discredit Jesus in Nicodemus' eyes. Nicodemus was not to be put off so easily: the Jews spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven so that they might gain the kingdom of earth. A method not very remarkable for its success, Joseph interposed. The Romans do otherwise, never thinking about the Kingdom of Heaven, but only of riches and vainglory, whereas Jesus, he said, says it is as hard for the rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as it would be for a sword to pa.s.s through the eye of a needle. A sword through the eye of a needle, Nicodemus repeated, walking up and down the floor, stamping his lance as he went. He is the leader we have been waiting for. But it is not always thus that he speaks, Joseph interposed, I have heard him myself say: it is as hard for a rich man to enter heaven as it would be for a cow to calve in a rook's nest. As he went to and fro Nicodemus muttered: there is much to be said for this revision of his words. Jesus wishes to reach the imagination of the poor that know not swords. And he spoke for a long time of the indolence of the rich, of their gross pleasures and sensual indulgences. But we must give them swords, he added under his breath, as if he were speaking for himself alone and did not wish Joseph to hear, and then, awaking from his reverie, he turned to his host: tell me more of this remarkable man.

And Joseph, who was now a little amused at his guest's extravagances, asked him if he knew the answer he had given to Antipas, who had invited him to his court in Tiberias in consequence of the renown of his miracles. Wishing to witness some exhibition of his skill, Antipas seated himself in imperial fashion on his highest throne, and, drawing his finest embroideries about him, asked Jesus if he had seen anybody attired so beautifully before, to which Jesus, who stood between two soldiers, a beggar in rags, before the king, replied: I have indeed; pheasants and peac.o.c.ks, for nature apparelled them. Neither Moses nor Elijah nor Jeremiah, Nicodemus declared, could have invented a reply more apt. He asked Joseph if any further doubt lingered in his mind that Jesus was the prophet promised to the Jews. How I envy thy intercourse with him, he cried. How I envy thee, for thou art the friend of him that will overthrow the Romans.

Overthrow the Romans! Joseph repeated to himself, and as soon as his guest had left his house he was brought to a presentiment of the danger he incurred in allowing this man to come to his house: a young man who walked about extravagantly armed would, sooner or later, find himself haled before Pilate. Joseph felt that it would be better to refuse to see him if he called at the counting-house: an excuse could be found easily: his foreman might say: Master is away in Jericho. But when Nicodemus called a few weeks afterwards Joseph was constrained to tell his foreman to tell Nicodemus that he would see him. The truth was, Joseph was glad of an interruption, for his business was boring him more than it did usually, but he liked to pretend to himself that he could not escape from Nicodemus.

A new opinion of Nicodemus began to shape itself in his mind when Nicodemus said that many and many a year will have to pa.s.s before that can be done with success, and the Roman rule is so light that the people feel it not. It saves us from quarrels among ourselves, and who have quarrelled as bitterly as we have done? Joseph's heart softened at this appreciation of the Jewish people, and they began to talk in sympathy for the first time, and it was a pleasure to find themselves in this agreement, that before the Jews could conquer the Romans they would have to conquer themselves. He is more cautious than I thought for, Joseph muttered as he returned to his camel-drivers, for his guest had departed suddenly without giving any reason for his visitation. A spy he cannot be, Joseph said to himself. I stand too well with Pilate to be suspected of schemes of mutiny. But he will soon come under the notice of Pilate; and Joseph was not surprised when Pilate asked him if he knew an extravagantly dressed young man, Nicodemus by name. Joseph replied that he did, giving Pilate to understand that Nicodemus was no more than one of the many eccentrics to be found in every city, with a taste for the beauty of engraved swords, and little for the use of these weapons; and Pilate, who seemed to be of the same opinion himself, suddenly asked him if he had ever met in Galilee one named Jesus. Jesus from Nazareth, Pilate said; and Joseph watched the tall, handsome, pompous Roman, one of those intelligently stupid men of which there are so many about. He arrived, Pilate continued, in Jerusalem yesterday with a number of Galileans, all talking of the resurrection, and news has just reached me that he had been preaching in the Temple, creating some disturbance, which will, I hope, not be repeated, for disturbances in the Temple lead to disturbances in the streets. Does your father know this new prophet?

As Joseph was about to answer one of Pilate's apparitors entered suddenly with papers that demanded the procurator's attention. We will talk over this on another occasion, Pilate said as he bent over the papers, and Joseph went out muttering: so he has come, so he has come to Jerusalem at last.

At any moment he might meet Jesus, and to stop to speak to him in the street would, in a sense, involve a profanation of his oath to his father; and he knew he could not turn aside from Jesus. He must therefore refrain from going up to Jerusalem and transact his business from his house by means of messengers. But if Pilate were to send for him? We cannot altogether avoid risk, he said to himself. I can do no more than remain within doors.

It was not many days afterwards that one of his servants came suddenly into the room. Nicodemus, Sir, is waiting in the hall and would see you, though I told him you were engaged with business. He says the matter on which he is come to speak to you is important. Well, then, let me see him, Joseph answered.

Now, what has happened? he asked. Has he said anything that the Sanhedrin will be able to punish him for? He threw some more olive roots on the fire and told the servant to bring a lamp. A lamp, he said, will be welcome, for this grey dusk is disheartening.

The weather is cold, so draw your chair near to the fire. I am glad to see you. The men waited for the servant to leave the room. We shall be more comfortable when the curtains are drawn. The lamp, I see, is beginning to burn up.... Nicodemus sat grave and hieratic, thin and tall, in the high chair, and the gloom on his face was so immovable that Joseph wasted no words. What has fallen out? he said, and Nicodemus asked him if he knew Phinehas, the great money-changer in the Temple.

Joseph nodded, and, holding his hands before the fire, Nicodemus told his story very slowly, exasperating Joseph by his slowness; but he did not dare to bid him to hasten, and, holding himself in patience, he listened to him while he told that Phinehas was perhaps the worst of the extorters, the most noisy and arrogant, a vicious and quarrelsome man, who, yester-morning, was engaged with a rich Alexandrian Jew, Shamhuth, who had lately arrived from Alexandria and was buying oxen, rams and ewes in great numbers for sacrifice. We wondered at his munificence, Nicodemus said, not being able to explain it to ourselves, for the Feast of the Tabernacles is over; and our curiosity was still more roused when it became known that he was distributing largess. The man's appearance aroused suspicion, for it is indeed a fearful one. From his single eye to his chin a fearful avariciousness fills his face, and the empty, withered socket speaks of a close, sordid, secret pa.s.sion, and so clearly that Jesus said: that man has not come to glorify G.o.d nor to repent of his sins. He is guilty of a great crime, and he would have it forgiven him. But the crime? Of what crime is he guilty? we asked. Jesus did not answer us, for at that moment some young man had come to listen to him, and the man's crime appeared to him as of little importance compared to his own teaching. Has he come, we asked, to pray that his sight may be restored to him? Jesus motioned to us that that was so; and he also bade us be silent, for stories of miracles have a great hold upon the human mind, and Jesus wished to teach some young men who had come to ask him how they were to live during these last days. But myself, consumed with desire to hear the man's story, mingled with the herdsmen who had brought in the cattle, and inquired how Shamhuth had lost his eye. None could tell me, and I failed to get tidings of him till I came upon an Alexandrian Jew who told me a strange story.

Shamhuth's money came from his friend's wife, whom he married after causing him to be killed by hirelings; and when his senses tired of her he persuaded her daughter to come over to him in the night. Shamhuth always walked praying aloud, his eyes cast down lest they should fall upon a woman, and his wife did not suspect him. But one night she was bidden in a dream to seek her husband, and rising from her bed she descended and opened the door very softly, not wishing to disturb him in his sleep. The sight that met her eyes kindled such a great flame of hate in her that she returned to her room for a needle, and placing her hands upon her daughter's mouth she quickly p.r.i.c.ked out both her eyes, and then, approaching her husband, she p.r.i.c.ked out his right eye, and was about to p.r.i.c.k out the other, but he slid from her hands and escaped, blind of an eye, to Jerusalem, bringing with him great sums of money in the hope that he may purchase a miracle, which is a great blasphemy in itself, and shows what the man really is in his heart.

Such was the story that the Alexandrian Jew, who knew him, told us; and as soon as these abominations became known in the Temple a riot began, and somebody cried: the adulterer must be put away. Whereupon Phinehas, seeing the large profits he had expected vanishing, turned to Jesus and said: it is thou who hast brought this disaster upon me, lying Galilean, who callest thyself the son of David, when all know ye to be the son of Joseph the Carpenter.

Son of David! Son of David! How can that be? the people began to ask each other, and in the midst of their questioning a great hilarity broke over them. In great wrath Jesus overturned Phinehas' table, and Phinehas would have overthrown Jesus had not Peter, who had armed himself with a sword, raised it. The people became like mad: tables were broken for staves, some rushed away to escape with a whole skin, and the frightened cattle dashed among them, a black bull goring many. And in all the mob Jesus was the fiercest fighter, lashing the people in the face with the thongs of the whip he had taken from a herdsman, and felling others with the handle. The cages of the doves were broken, the birds took flight, and the priests, at their wits' end, called for the guards to come down from the porticoes, and it was not till much blood had been spilt that order was restored. Joseph asked how Phinehas came out of all this trouble, and heard that he had escaped without injury. Merely losing a few shekels, not more, though he deserved to lose his life, for he placed his money above the Temple, not caring whether it was polluted by the presence of an adulterer, only thinking of the great profit he could make out of the man's sins, differing in no wise in this from the priests and sacristans.

Jesus should never have gone to the Temple nor come to Jerusalem, Joseph said. But in this Nicodemus could not agree with him, for if Jesus were the Messiah his mission was nothing less than to free Jerusalem from the Roman yoke. But he should have brought a larger body of disciples with him--some thousands, instead of a few hundreds--not enough to bring about the abolition of the Temple, which, according to Nicodemus, was the Galilean's project--one more difficult to accomplish than he thinks for. The Romans support the Temple, he cried, because the Temple divides us. I say it myself, Sadducee though I am.

It was these last words that proved to Joseph that the ringlets and bracelets did not comprise the whole of this young man's soul, and he was moved forthwith to confide the story of his father's sickness to him, dwelling on all its consequences: he had not been elected an apostle, and Jesus consequently had no one by to tell him that he must not speak of the abolition of the law in Jerusalem. But if he did not come to incite the people against the Temple, for what did he come?

Nicodemus asked. You've heard him preach in Galilee, tell me who he is, and in what does his teaching consist?--a direct question that prompted Joseph to relate his a.s.sociations with the Essenes, Banu, John, the search for Jesus in Egypt and among the Judean hills--a long story I'm afraid it is, Joseph mentioned apologetically to Nicodemus, who begged him to omit no detail of it. Nicodemus sat with his eyes fixed on Joseph while Joseph told of the discovery of Jesus in Galilee among his father's fishermen; and as if to excuse the almost immodest interest awakened in Nicodemus, Joseph murmured that the story owed nothing to his telling of it; he was telling it as plainly as it could be told for a purpose; Nicodemus must judge it fairly. Resuming his narrative, Joseph related the day spent in the forest and Jesus' interpretation of the prophecies. Nicodemus cried: he is the stone cut by no hand out of the mountain; the idol shall fall, and the stone that felled it shall grow as big as a mountain and fill the whole earth.

CHAP. XVII.

As they sat talking the servant brought in a letter which, he said, has just arrived from Galilee. The messenger rode the whole journey in two days, Sir, and you'll have to do the same, Sir, and to start at once if you would see your father alive. If I would see my father alive! if I would see my father alive! Joseph repeated, and, seizing Nicodemus by the hand, he bade him farewell.

Let an escort be called together at once, he cried, and an hour later he was on the back of a speedy dromedary riding through the night, his mind whirling with questions which he did not put to the messenger, knowing he could not answer any of them. And they rode on through that night and next day, stopping but once to rest themselves and their animals--six hours' rest was all he allowed himself or them. Six hours' rest for them, for him not an hour, so full was his mind with questions. He rode on, drinking a little, but eating nothing, thinking how his father's life might be saved, of that and nothing else. Were they feeding him with milk every ten minutes?--he could not trust nurses, n.o.body but himself. Were they shouting in his ear, keeping him awake, as it were, stimulating his consciousness at wane?

Once, and only once, while attending on his father did Joseph remember that if his father died he would be free to follow Jesus: a shameful thought that he shook out of his mind quickly, praying the while upon his knees by the bedside that he might not desire his father's death.

As the thought did not come again, he a.s.sumed that his prayer was granted, and when he returned to Jerusalem a month later (the new year springing up all about him), immersed in a sort of sad happiness, thanking G.o.d, who had restored his father to health (Joseph had left Dan looking as if he would live to a hundred), a strange new thought came into his mind and took possession of it: the promise given his father only bound him during his father's lifetime; at his father's death he would be free to follow Jesus; but the dead hold us more tightly than the living, and he feared that his life would be always in his father's keeping.

He was about his father's business in the counting-house; his father seemed to direct every transaction, and, ashamed of his weakness, he refrained from giving an order till he heard, or thought he heard, his father's voice speaking through him, and when he returned to his dwelling-house, over against the desert, it often seemed to him that if he were to raise his eyes from the ashes in which some olive roots were burning he would see his father, and as plain as if he were before his eyes in the flesh. But my father isn't dead, so what is the meaning of this dreaming? he cried one evening; and, starting out of his chair, he stood listening to the gusts whirling through the hills with so melancholy a sound that Joseph could not dismiss the thought that the moment was fateful. His father was dying ... something was befalling, or it might be that Jesus was at the door asking for him. The door opened, and he uttered a cry: what is it? Nicodemus, the servant answered, has come to see you, Sir. And he waited for his order to bid the visitor to enter or depart.

His master seemed unable to give either order, and stood at gaze till the servant reminded him that Nicodemus was waiting in the hall; and then, as if yielding to superior force, Joseph answered he was willing to receive the visitor, regretting his decision almost at once, while the servant descended the stairs, and vehemently on seeing Nicodemus, who entered, the lamplight falling upon him, more brilliantly apparelled than Joseph had ever seen him. A crimson mantle hung from his shoulders and a white hand issuing from a purfled sleeve grasped a lance; weapons, jewelled and engraved, appeared among the folds of his raiment, and he strode about the room in silence, as if he thought it necessary to give Joseph a few moments in which to consider his war gear (intended as an elaborate piece of symbolism). In response to the riddle presented, Joseph began to wonder if Nicodemus regarded himself rather as a riddle than as a reality--a riddle that might be propounded again and again, or if he could not do else than devise gaud and trappings to conceal his inner emptiness, a dust-heap of which he himself was grown weary. A great deal of dust-heap there certainly is, Joseph said to himself as his eyes followed the strange figure prowling along and across the room, breaking occasionally into speech. But he could not help thinking that beneath the dust-heap there was something of worth, for when Nicodemus spoke, he spoke well, and to speak well means to think well, and to think well, Joseph was p.r.o.ne to conclude, means to act well, if not always, at least sometimes. But could an apt phrase condone the accoutrements? He had added a helmet to the rest of his war gear, and the glint of the lamplight on the bra.s.s provoked Joseph to beg of him to unarm and relate his story, that burdens you more than your armour, he said. At these words Nicodemus was raised from the buffoon to a man of sense and shrewdness. I have come here, he said, to speak to you about Jesus. But the story is a somewhat perilous one, and as it rains no longer I will walk with you along the hillside and tell it to you.

He raised his hand to Joseph, forbidding him to speak, and it was not till they reached a lonely track that Nicodemus stopped suddenly: his death had been resolved upon, he said, and the two men stood for a moment looking into each other's eyes without speaking. It was Nicodemus who fell to walking again and the relation of circ.u.mstances. He had come straight from the Sanhedrin, where he defended Jesus against his enemies and accusers at some personal risk, as he was quickly brought to see by Raguel's retort: and art thou too a Galilean? And walking with his eyes on the ground, as if communing with himself, Nicodemus related that there was now but one opinion in the Sanhedrin: Jesus and Judaism were incompatible; one or the other must go. Better that one man should perish than that a nation should be destroyed, he said, are the words one hears. Stopping again, he said, looking Joseph in the face: it is believed that sufficient warrant for his death has been gotten, for he said not many days ago he could destroy the Temple and build it again in three days, which can be interpreted as speech against the law. Joseph asked that a meaning should be put on the words, and Nicodemus answered that Jesus spoke figuratively. To his mind the Temple stood for no more than observances from which all spiritual significance had faded long ago, and Jesus meant that he could and would replace dead formulae by a religion of heart: the true religion which has no need of priests or sacrifices. We must persuade him to leave Jerusalem and return to Galilee, Joseph cried, his voice trembling. By no means, by no means, Nicodemus exclaimed, raising his voice and stamping his lance. He has been called to the work and must drive the plough to the headland, though death be waiting him there. But he can be saved, I think, Nicodemus continued, his voice a.s.suming a thoughtful tone, for though he has spoken against the law the Jews may not put him to death: his death can be obtained only by application to Pilate. Will Pilate grant it to please the Jews? Joseph asked. The Romans are averse, Nicodemus answered, from religious executions and will not comprehend the putting to death of a man for saying he can destroy the Temple and build it again in three days.

Nicodemus became prolix and tedious, repeating again and again that it was the second part of the sentence that would save Jesus, for it was obvious that though a man might destroy the Temple in three days (a great fire would achieve the destruction in a few hours), he could not build it again in three days. This second part of the sentence proved beyond doubt that Jesus was speaking figuratively, and the Romans would refuse to put a man to death because he was a poet and spoke in symbols and allegories. The Romans were hard, but they were just; and he spoke on Roman justice till they came round the hills shouldering over against Bethany, and found themselves in the midst of a small group of men taking shelter from the wind behind a large rock. Why, Master, it is you. And Joseph recognised Peter's voice, and afterwards the voices of James and John, who were with him, called to Matthew and Aristion, who were at some little distance, sitting under another rock, and the five apostles crowded round Joseph, bidding him welcome, Peter, James and John demonstratively, and Aristion and Matthew, who knew Joseph but little, giving him a more timid but hardly less friendly welcome. We did not know why you had left us, they said. But it is pleasant to find you in Jerusalem, for we are lonely here, Matthew said, and the Hierosolymites mock at us for not speaking as they do. But you are with us here, young Master, as you were in Galilee? John asked. We knew not why you left us. But we did, John, Peter interposed, we knew well that Jesus said to him, when he returned from his father's sick-bed, that those who would follow him must leave father and mother, brother and sister, wives and children to live and die by themselves, which is as we have done. Yes, Sir, Peter continued, freeing himself from John and turning to Joseph, we've left this world behind us, or if not this world itself, the things of this world: our boats and nets, our wives and our children. All that Jesus calls our ghostly life we have thrown into the lake. My wife and children and mother-in-law are all there, and John and James have left their mother, Salome. But, said James, the neighbours will not be lacking to give her a bite if she wants something when she is hungry. She'll be getting men to fish for her, for we've left her our boats and nets. They've done this, Peter chimed in, and my wife and children will have to be fishing for themselves; but we hope they'll manage to get somehow a bite and a sup of something till the Kingdom comes, which we hope will not be delayed much longer, for we like not Jerusalem, and being mocked at in the Temple. But say ye, Master, that we've done wrong in leaving our wives and children to fish for themselves? It seemed hard at first, and you were weak, Master, and stayed with your father; but after all he has money and could pay for attendance, whereas our wives and little ones have none; ourselves will be in straits to get our living if the Kingdom be delayed in its coming, for what good are fishermen except along the sea coast or where there is a lake or a river, and here there isn't enough water for a minnow to swim in. Our wives and our children are better off than we are, for they'll be getting someone to fish for them, and will stand at the doors at Capernaum waiting for the boats to return, praying that the nets weren't let down in vain; but we aren't as sure of the Kingdom as we were of a great take of fishes in Galilee when the wind was favourable to fishing. Not that we'd have you think our faith be failing us; we be as firm as ever we were, as John and James will be telling you. And Peter, interrupting them again, reminded Joseph that if they lacked faith the promised Kingdom would not come.

It was Jesus' faith that upheld us, John said, pushing Peter aside, and the promises he made us that we might hear the trumpets of the cherubims and seraphims announcing the Kingdom at any moment of the day or night.

And making himself the spokesman of the five, John told Joseph and Nicodemus that Jesus now looked upon the arrival of the Kingdom as a very secondary matter, and his own death as one of much greater import.

He says that he'll have to give his blood to the earth and his flesh to the birds of the air else none will believe his teaching. He says that G.o.d demands a victim; and looks upon him as the victim; but if that be so, the world will get his teaching and we shall get nothing, for we know his teaching of old.

As Peter has told you, James interrupted, there be no water here, not a spring nor a rivulet, nothing in which a fish could live; we're fishermen stranded in a desert without boats or nets, which would be of no use to us, nor am I gainsaying it; but if he gives himself as a victim how shall we get back to Galilee? He now talks not of these matters to us, but of his Father only, and of doing his Father's will.

He seems to have forgotten us, and everything else but his Father and his Father's will, and we cannot make him understand when we try that we shall want money, that money will be wanting to get us back to Galilee, nor does he hear us when we say: our nets and our boats may have pa.s.sed into other hands. We know not what is come over him; he's a changed man; a lamb as long as you're agreeing with him, but at a word of contradiction he's all claws and teeth.

The walk is a long one, Matthew interjected, and the taxes will be collected by the time we get back if the Kingdom don't come, and sore of foot I'll be sitting in a desolate house without wife or children or fire in the hearth. But we have faith, they all cried out together, and having followed Jesus so far we'll follow him to the end. But we are glad, Sirs, James said, that you've come, for you'll see Jesus and tell him that we would like to have a word from him as to when we may expect the Kingdom; and a word, too, as to what it will be like; whether there'll be rivers and lakes well stocked with fish in it, and whether our chairs shall be set; Peter on the Master's right hand to be sure, we are all agreed as to that. But you remember, Master, our mother, Salome, how she took Jesus aside and said that myself and John were to be on his left with Andrew one below us? Peter began to raise his voice, and, straightening his shoulders, he declared that his brother Andrew must sit on Jesus' left. You remember, Master? I remember, Joseph interrupted, that the Master answered you all saying that every chair had been made and caned and cushioned before the world was. You can't have forgotten, Peter, this saying: that every one would find a chair according to his measure? Yes, Master, he did say something like that.

I'm far from saying we'd all sit equally easy in the same chairs, and if the chairs were before the world was, all I can say is that there seems to have been a lack of foresight, for how could G.o.d himself know what our backsides would be like years upon years before they came into being.

About that we will speak later; but now point out the house of Simon the Leper to us where Jesus lodges, Joseph asked. You see yon house, James replied, and they went forward together, meeting on the way thither several apostles and many disciples; and these accompanied Joseph and Nicodemus to the door, telling them the while that Jesus had driven them out of the house. It is a main struggle that is going by in him, Philip said, and so we left him, being afraid of his looks. Isn't that so, Bartholomew? And they all acquiesced, and Bartholomew nodded, saying: yes, we were afraid of his looks. It was then that Simon the Leper opened the door, and Joseph, remembering his promise to his father, laid his hand on Nicodemus' shoulder: I may not enter, he said. I have come thus far but may not go into the house; but do you go in and tell him, Nicodemus, that in spirit I am with him.

On these words Nicodemus pa.s.sed into the house, leaving Joseph in the centre of a small crowd of apostles, disciples and sympathisers in several degrees, all eager to talk to him and to hear him say that they had but to follow Jesus to Jerusalem and the Scribes and Pharisees would give way before them at once. You that are of the Sanhedrin should know if we are strong enough to cast them out of the Temple. But, my good men, I know nothing of your plot to clear the Temple of its thieves, Joseph answered, and there'll always be thieves in this world, wherever you go. But the Day of Judgment is approaching. When may we expect his second coming? somebody shouted from out of a group of men standing a little way back from the others, and the cry was taken up. He is coming with his Father in a chariot, one said. With our Father, somebody interrupted, and an eddying current of theology spread through the crowd. I've come from Galilee, from my father's sick-bed, and know nothing of your numbers and have not seen him these many months, Joseph said. He is the true Messiah, and we believe in him, was an unexpected utterance; but Joseph was not given time to ponder on it, for a woman, thrusting her way up to him, cried out in his face: he can destroy the Temple and build it again in three days. And when Joseph asked her who had said that, she told him that Jesus had said it. He turned to Peter, John and James to ask them the meaning of these words. What did Jesus mean when he said he could destroy the Temple and build it again in three days? He means, said half-a-dozen voices, that the priests and the Scribes are to be cast out, and a new Temple set up, for the pure worship of the true G.o.d, who desires not the fat of rams. Joseph understood that the rams destined for sacrifice were to be given to the poor.

If you don't mind, will you be telling us why you refuse to go up with Nicodemus to ask Jesus to delay no longer, but to lead us into Jerusalem? he was asked, and perforce had to answer that Nicodemus wished to talk privily to Jesus, at which they pressed round him, and from every side the question was put to him: is he going to lead us into Jerusalem? And then Joseph began to understand that these people would find themselves on the morrow, or perhaps the next day, fighting with the Roman legions, and, knowing how the fight would end, he answered them that the Romans would be on the side of the priests and Scribes.

Whereupon they tore their garments and cast dust on their heads, and in his attempt to pacify them he asked if it would not be better for Jesus to go up to Galilee and wait till the priests were less prepared to resist him. No, no, to Jerusalem, to Jerusalem, they cried on every side, and voices were again raised, and the Galileans admitted that they had come down from Galilee for this revolution, and had been insulted in the Temple by the Scribes, and laughed at, and called "foolish Galileans"; but they would show the Scribes what the Galileans could do.

Was it true that Jesus was the Messiah promised to the Jewish people by the prophet Daniel?--and while Joseph was seeking an answer to this question a woman cried: you're not worthy of a Messiah, for do you not know that he is the one promised to us in Holy Writ? And do not his miracles prove that he is the Messiah we have been waiting for? None but the true Messiah could have rid my son of the demon that infested him for two years; and with these words gaining the attention of the crowd she related how the ghost of a man long dead had come into her boy when he was but fourteen, bringing him to the verge of death in two years--a pale, exhausted creature, having no will of his own nor strength for anything. But how, asked Joseph, do you know that the demon was the ghost of a man that had lived long ago? Because in life he had dearly loved his wife, but had found her to be unfaithful to him and had died of grief twenty years ago, and was captured then by the beauty of my boy; and his grief entered into the boy and abode in him, and would have destroyed him utterly if Jesus had not imposed his hands upon him and put the vampire to flight. Whither I know not, but my boy is free. It is as the woman says, a man cried out, for I've seen the boy, and he is free now of the demon. My limb, too, is proof that Jesus is a prophet.

And the lion-hunter told how in a fight with a great beast his thigh had been dislocated; and for seven years he had walked with a crutch, but the moment Jesus imposed his hands upon him the use of his limb was given back to him.

Another came forward and showed his arm, which for many a year had hung lifeless, but as soon as Jesus took it in his hand the sinews reknit themselves, and now it was stronger than the other. And then a woman pressed through the crowd, and she wished everybody to know that a flux of blood that had troubled her for seven years had been healed. But the people were bored with accounts of miracles and were now anxious to hear from Joseph if Jesus was going up to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Pa.s.sover. But, my friends, I have but just returned from Galilee, and have come from there to learn these things. He is watching for a sign from his Father in heaven, a woman cried, shaking her head. A man tried to get some words privily with Joseph: will he speak against the taxes?

he asked, but before he could get any further Nicodemus appeared in the doorway, and the people pressed round him, asking what Jesus had said to him, and if he were coming down to speak to them. But before Nicodemus could answer any of them the lion-hunter cried out that a priest was not so terrible a beast as a lion, and while he was with them Jesus had nothing to fear. At which his enemy in the crowd began to jeer, saying: Asiel wears the lion's skin, we all know, but he has never told anybody who killed the lion for him. And the men might have hit each other if the woman who suffered for seven years had not cried out: now, what are you fighting for? know ye not that Jesus cannot come down to us, for he is waiting for a sign from his Father? From our Father, John thundered out. Nicodemus said he had spoken truly, and the crowd followed Nicodemus and Joseph a little way. Do not return to the house of Simon the Leper. Leave Jesus in peace to-night to pray, meditate, and rest, for he needs rest. He'll lead you to Jerusalem as soon as he gets a sign from our Father which is in heaven, Nicodemus said.