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

of the contact was not like that of some hard object striking another, but as of some thing soft and incapable of pain. And after watching it long it seemed like some weird and interminable game, something that almost amounted to an illusion. After one vigorous blow the man or the manikin smoothly dropped on the knees of a soldier. He pushed it away and it turned and fell on the next man’s knees, and so on. Shouts of wild laughter greeted this game and Judas also smiled⁠—as if some powerful hand with fingers of steel had torn open his mouth. The lips of Judas had played him false this time.

The night seemed to drag and the campfires still smouldered. Judas fell back from the wall and slowly trudged over to one of the fires, stirred up the coals, revived the flames, and though now he did not feel cold, he held over it his slightly trembling hands. And longingly he murmured:

“Ah, it hurts, little son, it hurts, child, child, child. It pains, very, very much.”

Then he walked over to the window that gleamed yellow from the dim lantern within the bars and once more he commenced to watch the chastisement of Jesus. Once before the very eyes of Judas flitted the vision of His dark face, now disfigured and encircled in a maze of tangled hair. There someone’s hand seized this hair, felled the Man and methodically turning the head from side to side began to wipe with His face the filthy floor. Under the very window a soldier slept opening his wide-open mouth wherein two rows of teeth gleamed white and shiny. Now somebody’s broad back with a fat bare neck shut out the view from the window and nothing more could be seen. And suddenly all grew still.

“What is it? Why are they silent? What if they have comprehended?”

Instantly the head of Judas was filled with the roaring, shouting and tumult of a thousand frenzied thoughts. What if they have realized? What if they have comprehended that this was⁠—the very best among men. This is so plain, so simple. What is going on there now? Are they kneeling before Him, weeping softly, kissing His feet? There He will emerge in an instant, and behind Him will come forth in abject submission the others; how He will come forth and draw near to Judas, the conqueror, the Son of Man, the Lord of Truth, God.⁠ ⁠…

Who is deceiving Judas? Who is right?

But no. Shouts and uproar again. They are beating Him again. They have not comprehended. They have not realized and they are beating Him with greater violence, more cruelly. And the fires are burning low, being covered with ashes, and the smoke over them is as transparently blue as the air, and the sky is as light as the moon. It is the dawn of day.

“What is day?” asked Judas.

Now everything is ablaze, everything glows, everything has grown young, and the smoke above is no longer blue but pink. The sun is rising.

“What is the sun?” asketh Judas.

VIII

They pointed him out with their fingers, and some contemptuously, while others with hatred and terror added:

“See, this is Judas, the Traitor.”

This was the beginning of his shameful infamy to which he condemned himself for all ages. Thousands of years will pass, nation will succeed nation, and still the words will be heard in the air, uttered with contempt and dread by the good and the evil:

“Judas, the Traitor! Judas, the Traitor!”

But he listened with indifference to the words spoken concerning him, absorbed in a feeling of a supreme curiosity. From the very morn that Jesus was led out of the guardhouse after His chastisement Judas followed Him, his heart strangely free from longing, pain or joy. It was only filled with the unconquerable craving to see and to hear all. Though he had not slept all night he felt as though walking on air; where the people would not let him pass he elbowed his way forward and with agility gained a point of vantage. During the examination of Jesus by Kaiaphas he held his hand to his ear so as not to lose a word and nodded his head approvingly, whispering:

“That’s so. That’s so. Hearest Thou this, Jesus?”

But he was not free⁠—he was like a fly tied to a thread: buzzing it flies hither and thither but not for an instant the pliant and obstinate thread releases it. Thoughts that seemed hewed out of stone weighed down his head and he could not shake them off. He knew not what thoughts these were, he feared to stir them up, but he felt their presence constantly. And at times they threatened to overwhelm him, almost crushing him with their incredible weight as though the roof of some rocky vault slowly and terribly subsided over his head. Then he held his hand to his heart and shook himself as though shivering with the cold, and his glance straying to another and still another spot as Jesus was led out from the presence of Kaiaphas, he met His wearied glance at quite close quarters, and without rendering account to himself of his action, he nodded his head a few times with a show of friendliness and murmured:

“I am here, sonny, I am here.” Then he wrathfully shoved aside some gaping countryman who stood in his way. Now they were moving, an immense and noisy throng, on to Pilate, for the last examination and trial, and with the same insupportable curiosity Judas eagerly and swiftly scanned the faces of the people. Many were entirely unknown to him; Judas had never seen them before; but some there were who had shouted “Hosannah!” to Jesus, and with every step the number of such seemed to increase.

“Just so!” flashed through the mind of Judas. He reeled like a drunken man. “It is all finished. Now they will shout: He is ours! He is our Jesus! What are ye doing? And everyone will