Short Fiction by Leonid Andreyev (fastest ebook reader TXT) 📕

a child, perhaps the devil, or a goat or a rooster. Can Judas know with whom his mother shared her couch? Judas has many fathers. Of whom speak you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judas looked up with hatred:

“And what thinkest thou?”

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

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

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

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

“I do.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Jesus, who had kept silence all this time, glanced at him sternly, and Peter stopped and hid himself behind the backs