The Brook Kerith by George Moore (page 3)

my grief when you found me sitting on the stone by the lake’s edge.

Whereupon Philip stood looking at Joseph as one suspended, for the first time understanding rightly that the rich have their troubles as well as the poor. At last words coming to him he said: money has been our trouble since Jesus drew us together, for we would do without money and yet we know not how this is to be done. Like you, Sir, I’m asking if I’m to sell my sails, those already out and those in the unrolled material, and if I do sell and give the money to the poor how am I to live but by begging of those that have not given their all? But why should I worry you with our troubles? But your troubles are mine, Joseph answered; and Philip went away to fetch Peter, who, he said, would be able to tell him if Jesus could accept a rich man as a disciple. If a man that has a little be permitted to remain, who is to say how much means interdiction? Joseph asked himself as he kept watch for Peter to appear at the corner of the street. And does he know the Master’s mind enough to answer the question of my admission or—- The sentence did not finish in his mind, for Peter was coming up the street at that moment, a great broad face coming into its features and expression. The same high-shouldered fisher as of yore, Joseph said to himself, and he sought to read in Peter’s face the story of Peter’s transference from one master to another. It wasn’t the approach of the Great Day, he said, for Peter never could see beyond his sails and the fins of a fish; and if Jesus were able to lift his thoughts beyond them he had accomplished a no less miracle than turning water into wine.

Well, young Master, he said, we’re glad to have you back among us again. There be no place like home for us Galileans. Isn’t that so? And no fishing like that on these coasts? But, Peter, Joseph interrupted, my father tells me that thou hast laid aside thy nets–but that isn’t what I’m here to talk to thee about, he interjected suddenly, but about Jesus himself, whom I’ve been seeking for nearly two years, very nearly since I parted from you all, well nigh two years ago, isn’t it? I’ve sought him in the hills of Judea, in Moab, in the Arabian desert and all the way to Egypt and back again. It’s about two years since you went away on your travels, Master Joseph, and a great fine story there’ll be for us to listen to when our nets are down, Peter said. I’d ask you to begin it now, Master Joseph, weren’t it that the Master is waiting for us over yonder in my house. And from what Philip tells me you would have my advice about joining our community, Master Joseph. You’ve seen no doubt a good deal of the Temple at Jerusalem and know everything about the goings on there, and are with us in this–that the Lord don’t want no more fat rams and goats and bullocks, and incense is hateful in his nostrils. So I’ve heard. They be Isaiah’s words, aren’t they, young Master? But there’s no master here, only Jesus: he is Master, and if I call you “Master” it is from habit of beforetimes. But no offence intended. You always will be master for me, and I’ll be servant always in a sense, which won’t prevent us from being brothers. The Master yonder will understand and will explain it all to you better than I…. And Peter nodded his great head covered with frizzly hair. But, Peter, I am a rich man, and my father is too, and none but the poor is admitted into the Community of Jesus. That’s what affrights him, Peter–his money, Philip interjected, and I have been trying to make him understand that Jesus won’t ask him for his father’s money, he not having it to give away. I’m not so sure of that, Peter said. The Master told us a story yesterday of a steward who took his master’s money and gave it to the poor, he being frightened lest the poor, whom he hadn’t been over-good to in his lifetime, might not let him into heaven when he died. And the Master seemed to think that he did well, for he said: it is well to bank with the poor. Them were his very words. So it seems to thee, Peter, that I should take my father’s money? Joseph asked. Take your father’s money! Peter answered. We wouldn’t wrong your father out of the price of two perch, and never have done, neither myself nor John and James. Now I won’t say as much for—- We love your father, and never do we forget that when our nets were washed away it was he that gave us new ones. I am sure thou wouldst not wrong my father, Joseph answered, and he refrained from asking Peter to explain the relevancy of the story he had just told lest he should entangle him. It is better, he said to himself, to keep to facts, and he told Peter that even his own money was not altogether his own money, for he had a partner in Jericho and it would be hard to take his money out of the business and give it all to the poor. Giving it to the poor in Galilee, he said, would deprive my camel-drivers of their living. Which, Peter observed, would be a cruel thing to do, for a man must be allowed to get his living, whether he be from Jericho or Galilee, fisher or camel-driver or sail-maker. Which reminds me, Philip, that thou be’st a long time over the sail I was to have had at the end of last month. And the twain began to wrangle so that Joseph thought they would never end, so prolix was Philip in his explanations. He had had to leave the sail unsewn, was all he had to say, but he embroidered on this simple fact so largely that Joseph lost patience and began to tell them he had come to Galilee, Pilate wishing him to add the portage of wheat from Moab to the trade already started in figs and dates. So Pilate is in the business, Peter ejaculated, for Peter did not think that a Jew should have any dealings with Gentiles, and this opinion, abruptly expressed, threw the discourse again into disarray. But Pilate is in Jerusalem, Joseph began. And has he brought the Roman eagles with him? Peter interrupted. And seeing that these eagles would lead them far from the point which he was anxious to have settled–whether the trade he was doing between Jerusalem and Jericho prevented him from being a disciple–Joseph began by assuring Peter that the eagles had been sent back to Caesarea. Caesarea, Peter muttered, our Master has been there, and says it is as full as it can hold of graven images. Well, Peter, what I have come to say is, that were I to disappoint Pilate he might allow the robbers to infest the hills again, and all my money would be lost, and my partner’s money, and the camel-drivers would be killed; and if my convoys did not arrive in Jerusalem there might be bread riots. How would you like that, Peter?

Now what do ye say to that, Peter? and Philip looked up into Peter’s great broad face. Only this, Peter answered, that money will shipwreck our Community sooner or later–we’re never free from it. Like a fly, Philip suggested, the more we chase it away the more it returns. The fly cannot resist a sweating forehead, Philip, Peter said. Thine own is more sweaty than mine, Philip retorted, and a big blue fly is drinking his belly full though thou feelest him not, being as callous as a camel. The Master’s teaching is, Peter continued, having driven off the fly, that no man should own anything, that everyone should have the same rights, which seems true enough till we begin to put it into practice, for if I were to let whosoever wished take my boats and nets to go out fishing, my boats and nets would be all at the bottom of the lake before the sun went down as like as not, for all men don’t understand fishing. As we must have fish to live I haven’t parted with my boats; but every time we take that turning down yonder to the lake’s edge and I see my boats rocking I offer up a little prayer that the Master may be looking the other way or thinking of something else. James and John, sons of Zebedee, are of the same mind as myself–that we shouldn’t trouble the Master too closely with the working out of his teaching. The teaching is the thing. Why, they be coming towards us, as sure as my name’s Simon Peter, sent perhaps by the Master to fetch us, so long have we been away talking.

Joseph turned to greet the two young men, whom he had known always; as far back as he could remember he had talked to them over the oars, and seen them let down the nets and draw up the nets, and they had hoisted the sail for his pleasure, abandoning the fishing for the day, knowing well that Joseph’s father would pay them for the time they lost in pleasing his son. And now they were young men like himself, only they knew no Greek; rough young men, of simple minds and simple life, who were drawn to Jesus–James a lean man, whose small sullen eyes, dilatory speech and vacant little laugh used to annoy Joseph. James always asked him to repeat the words though he had heard perfectly. Joseph liked John better, for his mind was sturdy and his voice grew sullen at any word of reproof and his eyes flamed, and Joseph wondered what might be the authority that Jesus held over him, a rough turbulent fellow, whom Joseph had always feared a little; even now in their greeting there was a certain dread in Joseph, which soon vanished, for John’s words were outspoken and hearty. We’re glad to have you back again amongst us, Master, I’ve been saying since I left Capernaum this morning. But “Master” is a word, John, that I’ve heard isn’t used among you. Truly it is not used among the brotherhood, John answered. And I came to ask admission, Joseph said. Well, that be good news, Master–brother I should say, for our Master will be glad to meet thee. But that, Philip began, is just the matter we were speaking of among ourselves before we saw thee coming towards us. For there be a difficulty. He be as earnest as any of us, but our rule is what thou knowest it to be. Despite John’s knowledge of the rule Philip began the story, and again he was so prolix in it that Joseph, wishing John to decide on the strict matter of it, and not to be lost in details, some of which were true and some of which were false and all confused in Philip’s telling, interrupted the narrator, saying that he would give all the money that was strictly his, but his father’s he couldn’t give nor his partner’s. We’ve many camels, he said, in common, and how are these to be divided? Nor is it right, it seems to me, that my partner should be left with the burden of all the trade we have created together; yet it is hard that I who have sought Jesus in the deserts of Judea as far as Egypt, and found him in Galilee, at home, should be forced to range myself apart from him, with whom my heart is. Would that the Master were here to hear him speak, Philip interjected. He was with the Master last night, and the Master was well pleased with him. It all depends on what mood the Master be in, John answered, and they all fell to asking each other what the Master’s mood was that morning. But it would seem that all read him differently, and it was with joy at the prospect of a new opinion that they viewed Judas coming towards them.

And taking Judas into the discussion Peter said: now I’ve two boats, and John and James have four, so we aren’t without money though our riches are small compared with the young Master’s. Are we to sell our boats and give the money to the poor, and if we do who then will look after the Master’s wants? They are small it is true, a bit of fish and bread every day, and a roof over his head; but who will give him a roof if mine be taken from me? Is not this so? All seemed in agreement, and Peter continued: I am thinking, John, that our new brother might help us to buy the Master a new cloak, for his is falling to pieces and my wife’s mother is weary with patching it. He cured her of the fever, but she thinks that a great cost is put upon me and would ask the Master something for his keep. Whereupon John spoke out that the story of his mother-in-law was for ever the same; and seeing that he was offending Peter with the words he addressed against his wife’s mother, though indeed Peter liked her not too much himself, Joseph put his hand in his pocket and said: here are some shekels, go and buy Jesus a cloak, but say not to him whence the money came.

Say not to him! Judas interjected. No need to tell him that can read the thoughts in the mind. It would be better for the young Master to give him one of his old cloaks. Jesus would question the new cloak and say it savours of money. He sees into the heart. We have tried to keep things from him before, Judas continued turning to Joseph…. It is our duty to save him as much as we can. Peter has done much and I’ve shared the expense with Peter, though I am a poor man; we pick the stones from his path, for he walks with his eyes fixed upon the Kingdom of God always. Yes, he sees into our hearts, Philip interrupted, and reads through all we are thinking even before the thoughts come into our minds. It is as Philip says, Judas muttered: our hearts are open to him always. But James, who had not spoken till now, put forward the opinion, and no one seemed inclined to gainsay it, that if Jesus knew men’s thoughts before they came into men’s minds he must be warned of them by the angels. He goes into the solitude of the mountains to converse with the angels, James said–for what else? Moses went into the clefts of Mount Sinai, Joseph added, and he asked Peter to tell him if Jesus believed that the soul existed apart from the body, at which question Peter was fairly embarrassed, for the soul must be somewhere, he said, and if there be no body to contain it—- You must ask the Master about these things, we have not considered them. All the same we are glad that you are with us and ready to follow him into danger, for if the Sadducees and Pharisees are against him we are with him. Is that not so, sons of Zebedee?

At the challenge the two lads came forward again and all began to talk of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the enthusiasm of the disciples catching upon Joseph he, too, was soon talking of the Kingdom that was to come, and whether they should all go down to Jerusalem together to meet the Kingdom and share it, or wait for it to appear in Galilee. Share and share alike, Joseph said. Ay, ay, sure we shall, and enjoy it, Peter rolled out at his elbow. But we must set our hearts in patience, for there be a rare lot to be converted yet. Every man must have his chance, and seeing Jesus coming towards him Peter waited till Jesus was by him. Haven’t I thy promise, Master, he asked, laying his hand on Jesus’ shoulder, that my chair in Kingdom Come will be next to thine? Before Jesus could answer John and James asked him if their chairs would not be on his left and right. But not next to the Master’s, Peter answered. I’m on the right hand of the Master, and my brother Andrew on the left. Look into his face and read in it that I have said well. But the disciples were not minded to read the Master’s face as Peter instructed them to read it, and might have come to gripping each other’s throats if Jesus had not asked them if they would have the fat in the narrow chairs and the thin in the wide, as often happens in this world. The spectacle of Peter trying to sit on James’ chair set them laughing, and as if to make an end of an unseemly disputation John asked the Master whither they were going to cure the sick that day? To which question Jesus made no answer, for he felt no power on him that day to cure the sick or to cast out demons. You’ll see him do these things on another occasion, Peter whispered in Joseph’s ear; to-day he’s deep in one of his meditations, and we dare not ask him whither he be going, but must just follow him. As likely as not he’ll lead us up into the hills for—- But I see Salome coming this way. You know her sons, John and James. The woman bears me an ill will and would have my chair set far down, belike as not between Nathaniel and Philip, who as you have noticed do not hold their heads very high in our company. But let us hasten a little to hear what she has to say. Listen, ’tis as I said, Master, Peter continued; you heard her ask him that her sons should sit on either side of him. Now mark his answer, if he answers her; I doubt if he will, so dark is his mood.

But dark though it was he answered her with a seeming cheerfulness that in the coming world there is neither weariness of spirit nor of body, and therefore chairs are not set in heaven. A fine answer that, and Peter chuckled; too wise for thee. Go home and ponder on it. We shall lie on couches when we are not flying, he added, and being in doubt he asked Joseph if the heavenly host was always on the wing. A question that seemed somewhat silly to Joseph, though he could not have given his reason for thinking it silly. Peter called on Jesus to hasten for the disciples were half way up the principal street at a turning whither their way led through the town by olive garths and orchards, and finding a path through these they came upon green corn sown in patches just beginning to show above ground, and the fringe of the wood higher up the hillside–some grey bushes with young oaks starting through them, still bare of leaves, ferns beginning to mark green lanes into the heart of the woods, and certain dark wet places where the insects had already begun to hum. But when the wood opened out the birds were talking to one another, blackbird to blackbird, thrush to thrush, robin to robin, kin understanding kin, and every bird uttering vain jargon to them that did not wear the same beak and feathers, just like ourselves, Joseph said to himself and he stood stark before a hollow into which he remembered having once been forbidden to stray lest a wolf should pounce upon him suddenly. Now he was a man, he was among men, and all had staves in their hands, and the thoughts of wolves departed at the sight of a wild fruit tree before which Jesus stopped, and calling John and James to him, as if he had forgotten Peter, he said: you see that tree covered with beautiful blossoms, but the harsh wind which is now blowing along the hillside will bear many of the blossoms away before the fruit begins to gather. And the birds will come and destroy many a berry before the plucker comes to pick the few that remain for the table. How many of you that are gathered about me now—- He stopped suddenly, and his eyes falling on John he addressed his question directly to him as if he doubted that Peter would apprehend the significance of the parable. But Joseph, whom it touched to the quick, was moved to cry out, Master, I understand; restraining himself, however, or his natural diffidence restraining him, he could only ask Peter to ask Jesus for another parable. Peter reproved Joseph, saying that it were not well to ask anything from the Master at present, but that his mood might improve during the course of the afternoon. Thomas, who did not know the Master as well as Peter, could not keep back the question that rose to his lips. Our trade, he said, is in apricots, but is it the same with men as with the apricots, or shall we live to see the fruit that thou hast promised us come to table? Whereupon James and John began to ask which were the blossoms among them that would be eaten by the birds and insects and which would wither in the branches. Shall I feed the insects, Master? Matthew asked, or shall I be eaten by the birds? A question that seemed to everyone so stupid that none was surprised that Jesus did not answer it, but turning to Philip he asked him: canst thou not, Philip, divine my meaning? But Philip, though pleased to come under the Master’s notice, was frightened, and could think of no better answer than that the apricots they would eat in Paradise would be better. For there are no harsh winds in Paradise, isn’t that so, Master? Thy question is no better than Salome’s, Jesus answered, who sees Paradise ranged with chairs. Then everyone wondered if there were no chairs nor apricots in Paradise of what good would Paradise be to them; and were dissatisfied with the answer that Jesus gave to them, that the soul is satisfied in the love of God as the flower in the sun. But with this answer they had to content themselves, for so dark was his face that none dared to ask another question till Matthew said: Master, we would understand thee fairly. If there be no chairs nor apricots in Paradise there cannot be a temple wherein to worship God. To which Jesus answered: God hath no need of temples in Paradise, nor has he need of any temple except the human heart wherein he dwells. It is not with incense nor the blood of sheep and rams that God is worshipped, but in the heart and with silent prayers unknown to all but God himself, who knows all things. And the day is coming, I say unto you, when the Son of Man shall return with his Father to remake this world afresh, but before that time comes you would do well to learn to love God in your hearts, else all my teaching is vainer than any of the things in this world that ye are accustomed to look upon as vain. Upon this he took them to a mountain-side where the rock was crumbling, and he said: you see this crumbling rock? Once it held together, now it is falling into sand, but it shall be built up into rock again, and again it shall crumble into sand. At which they drew together silent with wonder, each fearing to ask the other if the Master were mad, for though they could see that the rock might drift into sand, they could not see how sand might be built up again into rock.

Master, how shall we know thee when thou returnest to us? Wilt thou be changed as the rock changes? Wilt thou be sand or rock? It was Andrew that had spoken; and Philip answered him that the Master will return in a chariot of fire, for he was angry that a fellow of Andrew’s stupidity should put questions to Jesus whether they were wise or foolish; but could they be aught else than foolish coming from him? Andrew, persisting, replied: but we may not be within sight of the Master when he steps out of his chariot of fire, and we are only asking for a token whereby we may know him from his Father. My Father and thy Father, Andrew, Jesus answered, the Father of all that has lived, that lives, and that shall live in the world; and the law over the rock that crumbles into sand and the sand that is built up into rock again, was in that rock before Abraham was, and will abide in it and in the flower that grows under the rock till time everlasting. But, Master, wilt thou tell us if the rock we are looking upon was sand or rock in the time of Abraham? Philip asked, and Jesus answered him: my words are not then plain, that before that rock was and before the sand out of which the rock was built, was God’s love–that which binds and unbinds enduring always though the rock pass into sand and the sand into rock a thousand times.

And it was then that a disciple poked himiself up to Jesus to ask him if they were not to believe the Scriptures. He answered him that the Scriptures were no more than the love of God. This answer did not quell the dissidents, but caused them to murmur more loudly against him, and Jesus, though he must have seen that he was about to lose some disciples, would retract nothing. The Scriptures are, he repeated, but the love of God. He that came to betray him said: and the Gentiles that haven’t the Scriptures? Jesus answered that all men that have the love of God in their hearts are beloved by God. Is it then of no value to come of the stock of Abraham? the man asked, and Jesus replied: none, but a loss if ye do not love God, for God asks more from those whose minds he has opened than from those whose minds he has suffered to remain shut. At which Peter cried: though there be not a pint of wine in all heaven we will follow thee, and though there be no fish in heaven but the scaleless that the Gentiles eat—- He stopped suddenly and looked at Jesus, saying: there are no Gentiles in heaven. Heaven is open to all men that love God, Jesus said, and after these words he continued to look at Peter, but like one that sees things that are not before him; and the residue followed him over the hills, saying to themselves: he is thinking about this journey to Jerusalem, and then a little later one said to the others: he is in commune with the spirits that lead him, asking them to spare him this journey, for he knows that the Pharisees will rise up against him, and will stone him if he preach against the Temple. What else should he preach against? asked another disciple; and they continued to watch Jesus, trying to gather from his face what his thoughts might be, thinking that his distant eyes might be seeking a prediction of the coming kingdom in the sky. We might ask him if he sees the kingdom coming this way, an apostle whispered in the ear of another, and was forthwith silenced, for it was deemed important that the Master should never be disturbed in his meditations, whatever they might be.

He stood at gaze, his apostles and his disciples watching from a little distance, recalling the day his dog Coran refused to follow him, and seeing that the dog had something on his mind, he left his flock in charge of the other dogs and followed Coran to the hills above the Brook Kerith, down a little crumbling path to Elijah’s cave. He found John the Baptist, and recognising in him Elijah’s inheritor–at that moment a flutter of wings in the branches awoke him from his reverie, and seeing his disciples about him, he asked them whose inheritor he was. Some said Elijah, some said Jeremiah, some said Moses. As if dissatisfied with these answers, he looked into their faces, as if he would read their souls, and asked them to look up through the tree tops and tell him what they could see in a certain space of sky. In fear of his mood, and lest he might call them feeble of sight or purblind, his disciples, or many among them, fell to disputing among themselves as to what might be discerned by human eyes in the cloud; till John, thinking to raise himself in the Master’s sight, so it seemed to Joseph (who dared not raise his eyes to the sky, but bent them on the earth), said that he could see a chariot drawn by seven beasts, each having on its forehead seven horns; the jaws of these beasts, he averred, were like those of monkeys, and in their paws, he said, were fourteen golden candlesticks. Andrew, being misled by the colour of the cloud which was yellow, said that the seven beasts were like leopards; whereas Philip deemed that the beasts were not leopards, for him they were bears; and they began to dispute one with the other, some discerning the Father Almighty in a chariot, describing him to be a man garmented in white; his hair is like wool, they said. And seated beside him Matthew saw the Son of Man with an open book on his knees. But these visions, to their great trouble, did not seem to interest Jesus; or not sufficiently for their intention; and to the mortification of Peter and Andrew, James and John, he turned to Thaddeus and Aristion and asked them what they saw in the clouds, and partly because they were loath to say they could see naught, and also thinking to please him, they began to see a vision, and their vision was an angel whom they could hear crying: at thy bidding, O Lord; on which he emptied his vial into the Euphrates, and forthwith the river was turned to blood. The second angel crying likewise, at thy bidding, O Lord, emptied his vial; and when the third angel had emptied his, three animals of the shape of frogs crawled out of the river; and then from over the mountains came a great serpent to devour the frog-shapen beasts, and after devouring them he vomited forth a great flood, and the woman that had been seated on it was borne away. It was Thaddeus that spoke the last words, and he would have continued if Jesus’ eyes had not warned him that the Master was thinking of other things, perhaps seeing and hearing other things. It is known to you all, he said, that Jeremiah kneels at the steps of my Father’s throne praying for the salvation of Israel? Therefore tell me what is your understanding of the words “praying for the salvation of Israel”? Was the prophet praying that Israel might be redeemed from the taxes the Romans had imposed upon them? Being without precise knowledge of how much remission Jeremiah might obtain for them, it seemed to them that it would be well to say that Jeremiah was praying to God to delay no longer, but send the Messiah he had promised. At which Jesus smiled and asked them if the Messiah would remit the taxes; and the disciples answered craftily that the Messiah would set up the Kingdom of God on earth: in which kingdom no taxes are levied, Jesus replied. Come, he said, let us sit upon these rocks and talk of the great prophecies, for I would hear from you how you think the promised kingdom will come to pass. And the disciples answered, one here, one there, and then in twos and threes. But, Master, thou knowest all these things, since it is to thee our Father has given the task of establishing his Kingdom upon earth; tell us, plague us no longer with dark questions. We are not alone, Thaddeus cried, a rich man’s son is amongst us. If he have come amongst us God has sent him, Jesus said, and we should have no fear of riches, since we desire them not. This kindness heartened Joseph, who dared to ask Jesus how he might disburden himself of the wealth that would come to him at his father’s death.

As no such dilemma as Joseph’s had arisen before, all waited to hear Jesus, but his thoughts having seemingly wandered far, they all fell to argument and advised Joseph in so many different ways that he did not know to whom to accede so contradictory were all their notions of fairness; and, the babble becoming louder, it waked Jesus out of his mood, and catching Joseph’s eyes, he asked him if he whom our Father sent to establish his Kingdom on earth would not have to give his life to men for doing it. A question that Joseph could not answer; and while he sought for the Master’s meaning the disciples began again aloud to babble and to put questions to the Master, hurriedly asking him why he thought he must die before going up to heaven. Did not Elijah, they asked, ascend into heaven alive in his corporeal body?–and the cloak he left with Elisha, Aristion said, might be held to be a symbol of the fleshly body. This view was scorned, for the truth of the Scriptures could not be that the disciples inherited not the spiritual power of the prophet, but his fleshly show. Then the fate of Judas the Gaulonite rising up in Peter’s mind, he said: but, Master, we shall not allow thee to be slain on a cross and given as food to the birds. The disciples raised their staves, crying, we’re with thee, Master, and the forest gave back their oaths in echoes that seemed to reach the ends of the earth; and when the echoes ceased a silence came up from the forest that shut their lips, and, panic-stricken, all would have run away if Peter had not drawn the sword which he had brought with him in case of an attack by wolves, and swore he would strike the man down that raised his hand against the Master. To which Jesus replied that every man is born to pursue a destiny, and that he had long known that his led to Jerusalem, whereupon Peter cried out: we’ll defend thee from thyself; for which words Jesus reproved him, saying that to try to save a man from himself were like trying to save him from the decree that he brings into the world with his blood. And what is mine, Master? It may be, Jesus answered, to return to thy fishing. Whereupon Peter wept, saying: Master, if we lose thee we’re as sheep that have lost their shepherd, a huddled, senseless flock on the hillside, for we have laid down our nets to follow thee, believing that the Kingdom of God would come down here in Galilee rather than in Jerusalem; pray that it may descend here, for thou’lt be safer here, Master; we have swords and staves to defend thee–so let us kneel in prayer and ask the Lord that he choose Galilee rather than Judea for the setting up of his kingdom. To which Jesus answered nothing, and his face was as if he had not heard Peter; and then Peter’s fears for Jesus’ life, should he go to Jerusalem, seemed to pass on from one to the other, till all were possessed by the same fear, and Peter said: let us lift up our hearts to our Father in Heaven and pray that Jesus be not taken from us. Let us kneel, he said, and they all knelt and prayed, but to their supplication Jesus seemed indifferent. And seeing they were unable to dissuade him from Jerusalem, Peter turned to Joseph. Here is one, he said, who knows the perils of Jerusalem and will bear witness, that if thou preach that God have no need of a Temple or a sacrifice, thou’lt surely be done to death by the priests.

Peter’s sudden appeal to his knowledge of the priests of Jerusalem awoke Joseph, who was wholly absorbed in his love of Jesus, and thought only of rushing forward and worshipping; but he was held back and strained forward at the same time, and seeing he was overcome, Peter did not press him for an answer, and Joseph fell back among the crowd, ashamed, thinking that if Peter came to him again he would speak forthright. He had words that would bring him into the sympathy of Jesus, but instead of speaking them he stood, held at gaze by the beauty of the bright forehead, large and arched; and so exalted were the eyes that Joseph could not think else than that Jesus was looking upon things that his disciples did not see. It seemed to Joseph that Jesus was meditating whether he should confide all he saw and heard to his disciples. He waited, tremulous with expectation, watching the thin scrannel throat out of which rose a voice to which the ear became attuned quickly and was gratified as by a welcome dissonance. It rose up among the silence of the pines, and the delight of listening to it, Joseph thought, was so near to intoxication that he would have pressed forward if he had not remembered suddenly that he was a new-comer into the community; one who might at any moment be driven out of it because he possessed riches which he could not unburden himself of. So he kept his seat in the background among the casual followers, by two men whose accents told him they were Samaritans, and these now seemed within the last few minutes to have become opposed to Jesus, and Joseph wondered at the change that had come over them and lent an ear to their discourse so that he might discover a reason for it. And it was not long before he discovered that their objection related to the Book of Daniel, for they were of the sort that receive no Scriptures after the five Books of the Law.

Joseph knew the book less perhaps than any other book of the Scriptures; he had looked into it with Azariah, but for a reason which he could not now discover he had read it with little attention; and since his schooldays he had not looked into it again. Peter and Andrew and John and James were listening intently to the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream for the sake of the story related and without thought of what might be Jesus’ purpose in relating it. But to Joseph Jesus’ purpose was the chief interest of the relation; and the purpose became apparent when he began to tell how the great statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar in his dream, whose head was gold, whose arms and breast were silver, whose belly was brass, and whose legs and feet were iron and clay intermingled, was overthrown by a stone that hand had not cut out of the mountain. This stone became forthwith as big as a mountain and filled the whole earth, and Joseph fell to thinking if this stone were the fifth kingdom which the Messiah would set up when the Roman kingdom had fallen to dust, or whether the stone were the Messiah himself. And while Joseph sat thinking he heard suddenly that when Nebuchadnezzar looked into the furnace and saw the four men whom he had ordered to be thrown into it walking through the flames safely, he said: and the form of the fourth is like the son of God.

The story wholly delighted the disciples; and they asked Jesus to tell them the further adventures of Daniel, and as if wishing to humour them he began to relate that a hand had appeared writing on the wall during the great feast at Babylon, a story to which Joseph could give but little heed, for his imagination was controlled by the words, “whose form is like the son of God”–an inspiration on the part of the Babylonian king. If ever a man had seemed since to another like the son of God, Jesus was that man; and Joseph asked himself how it was that these words had passed over the ears of the disciples–over the ears of those who knew Jesus’ mind, if any could be said to know Jesus’ mind. Jesus, though he lived near them and loved them, lived in the world of his own thoughts, which, so it seemed to Joseph, he could not share with anybody. Not one of the men he had gathered about him, neither Peter, nor John, nor James, had noticed the notable words: “And the form of the fourth is like the son of God.” It was for these words, Joseph felt sure, that Jesus had related the story of Daniel in the furnace. But his disciples had not apprehended the significance; and like one whose confidence was unmoved by the slowness or the quickness of his listeners, almost as if he knew that the real drift of his speech was beyond his hearers, Jesus began to tell that Darius’ counsellors had combined into a plot against Daniel and succeeded in it so well that Daniel and his companions were cast in a den of lions. But there being nothing in the story that pointed to the setting up of the Kingdom of God upon earth, Joseph was puzzled to understand why Jesus was at pains to relate it at such length. Was it to amuse his disciples? he asked himself, but no sooner had he put the question to himself than the purpose of the relation passed into his mind. Jesus had told the marvellous stories of Daniel’s escapes from death so that his disciples might have no fear that the priests of Jerusalem would have power to destroy him: whomsoever God sends into the world to do his work, Jesus would have us understand, are under God’s protection for ever and ever; and Joseph rejoiced greatly at having discovered Jesus’ intent, and for a long time the glen, the silent forest and the men sitting listening to the Master were all forgotten by him. He even forgot the Master’s presence, so filled was he by the abundant hope that his divination of the Master’s intent marked him out as one to be associated with the Master’s work–more than any one of those now listening to him, more than Peter himself.

And so sweet was his reverie to him that he regretted the passing of it as a misfortune, but finding he was in spirit as well as in body among realities, he lent his ear to the story of the four winds that had striven upon the great sea and driven up four great beasts. These beasts Joseph readily understood to be but another figuration of the four great empires; the Babylonian, the Persian, and the Grecian had been blown away like dust, and as soon as the fourth, the Roman Empire, was broken into pieces the kingdom of the whole world would be given to the people of the saints of the Most High. It was Philip the nearly hunchback that asked Jesus for an explanation of this vision–saying, and obtaining the approval of several for the question, would he, Jesus, acquiesce in this sharing of the earth among the angels who had not seen him, nor heard him, nor served him upon earth. If the earth is to be shared among the angels we follow thee in vain, he muttered; and Joseph felt that he could never speak freely again with Philip for having dared to interrupt the Master and weary him with questions that a child could answer. To whom Philip said: but you, young Master, that have received good instruction in Hebrew and Greek from the scribe Azariah, and have travelled far, do you answer my question. If the earth is to be shared among angels—- He was not allowed to repeat more of his question, for a clamour of explanation began among the disciples that the earth would not be shared among the angels of God–God would find his people repentant when he arrived with his son. At last the assembly settled themselves to listen to the story of the vision in which a ram pushed westward and northward and southward, till a he-goat came from the west–one with a notable horn between the eyes, and butted the ram till he had broken his two horns. Joseph had forgotten these visions, and he learnt for the first time, so it seemed to him, that the goat meant the Syrian king, Antiochus, who had conquered Jerusalem, polluted the sanctuary and set up heathen gods. But how are all these visions concerned with the setting up of the Kingdom of God on earth? and Jesus’ purpose did not appear to him till Daniel heard a voice between the banks of the Ula crying: make this man understand. Joseph understood forthwith that Jesus’ purpose was still the same, to make it plain to the disciples that Daniel was protected and guided by God, and, that being so, Jesus could go to Jerusalem fearing nothing, he being greater than Daniel. So he sat immersed in belief, hearing but faintly the many marvellous things that Daniel heard and saw, nor did he awake from his reverie till Jesus announced that Gabriel flew about Daniel at the hour of the evening oblation, telling him that seventy weeks was the measure of time allowed by God to make reconciliation for iniquity and bring everlasting righteousness, and build Jerusalem unto the Messiah; and that after three score and two weeks the Messiah should be cut off but not for himself.

The words “cut off but not for himself” troubled Joseph, and he pondered them, while the disciples marvelled at hearing Jesus speak of these things (he seemed to know the Scriptures by rote), and his voice went upward into the silence of the firs, and they heard as if in a dream that the king of the south should come into his kingdom and return to his own land. But his sons shall be stirred up and shall revolt against him, Jesus said, and the disciples marvelled greatly, for Jesus made clear the meaning that lay under these dark sayings, and they heard and understood how the robbers of the people should exalt themselves and establish a vision; but these shall fall and the king of the north shall come and cast up mounds and take the fortified cities. And they heard of destructions and leagues and armies and sanctuaries that were polluted, and of peoples who did not know their God, but who nevertheless became strong; and they heard of Edom and Moab and the children of Ammon, but at the end of all these troubles the Tabernacle was placed between the seas of the glorious holy mountain. And that day the fishers from the lake of Galilee and others heard that Michael had told the people of Israel that those that were dead should rise out of the earth and come into everlasting life. But can the dead be raised up and come to life in their corruptible bodies? asked the Samaritans that sat by Joseph, and their mutterings grew louder, and they denied that the prophet Daniel had spoken truth in this and many other things, and as he had not spoken truth he was a false prophet; whereupon so great a clamour arose that the wild beasts in the ravine began to growl, being awaked in their lairs. The disciples, foreseeing that it would soon be dark night in the forest, fell to seeking the way back to Capernaum, the Galileans in one group with Jesus among them, the Samaritans speeding away together and stopping at times for fresh discussion with the Galileans, asking among many other things how the corruptible body might be raised up to heaven and live indulging in the many imperfections inherent in our bodies. It was vain to ask them what justice there would be if the men that had died before the coming of the Kingdom of God were not raised up into heaven. If this were true the dead had led virtuous lives in vain; they might for all it had profited them have lived like the heathen.

It was at Capernaum that the truth became manifest that not only was Daniel denied, but Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, all the prophets since Moses, at which the disciples were greatly incensed and raised their staves against the Samaritans, but Jesus dissuaded his followers, and the dissidents were suffered to depart unhurt. Let them go, Jesus said, for they are in the hands of God, like ourselves, and he bade them all good-night, and there seemed to Joseph to be a great sadness in Jesus’ voice, as if he felt that in this world there was little else but leave-taking.

Joseph too resented this parting, though it was for but a few hours; he would unite himself to Jesus, become one, as the mother and the unborn babe are one–he would be of the same mind and flesh; all division seemed to him loss, till, frightened at his own great love of Jesus, he stopped in the Plain of Gennesaret, star-gazing. But the stars told him nothing, and he walked on again. And it was about a half-hour’s walk from Magdala that he overtook the Samaritans, who sought to draw him into argument. But he was in no humour for further discussion, and dismissed them, saying: what matter if all the prophets were false since the promised Messiah is among us. He has come, he has come! he repeated all the way home: and at every flight of the high stairs he tried to collect his thoughts. But his brain was whirling, and he could only repeat: he has come, he has come!

CHAP. XIV.

It seemed to Joseph as he hurried along the Plain of Gennesaret that the sun shone gayer than his wont, but as he approached Capernaum he began to think that the sun had risen a little earlier than his wont. Nobody was about! He listened in vain for some sound of life, till at last his ear caught a sound as of somebody moving along the wharves, and, going thither, he came upon Peter storing his oars in the boathouse. Making ready, Joseph said, for fishing? You don’t see, Master, that I’m putting my oars away, but I’d as lief take them out again and fish till evening. Here was a mysterious answer from the least mysterious of men, and Peter continued in his work, throwing the oars into a corner like one that cared little if he broke them, and kicking his nets aside as if he were never going to let them down again into the lake: altogether his mood was of an exasperation such as Joseph had never suspected to be possible in this good-humoured, simple fellow. Had he been obliged to leave the community or sell his boats? If that were so, his chance (Joseph’s chance) of entering the community was a poor one indeed; and he begged Peter to relate his trouble to him–for trouble there had been last night, he was sure of it.

Trouble there always is in this world, Peter answered, so long as I’ve known it, and will be till God sets up his kingdom. The sooner he does it the better, so say I. But I don’t know about the saints we heard of yesterday, what they have to do with it. The Master’s mood is stranger than I ever can recollect it, he said, standing up straight and looking Joseph in the eyes. It was yourself that said it yesterday, Peter, Joseph rejoined. I’m thinking it may have been the Samaritans that vexed him. Peter lifted his heavy shoulders and muttered: the Samaritans? We give no heed to them: and he began to speak, at first with diffidence; Joseph had to woo him into speaking, which he did; but after the first few minutes Peter was glib enough, telling Joseph that last night there had been stirs and quarrels among the disciples regarding his boats, and John’s and James’ boats too, he said, and by the jealous and envious, he muttered, who would like to come between us and the Master. Joseph asked who had raised the vexatious question, but Peter avoided it, and went about the wharf grunting that none could answer it: was it to Matthew, the publican, he was to give his boats? one, he said, who never was on the water in his life till I took him out for a sail a week come Tuesday. A fine use they’d be to him but to drown himself. A puff of wind, and not knowing how to take in a reef, the boat would be over in a jiffy and the nets lost. Now who would be the better for the loss of my nets? answer me that. And I’d like to be told when my boats and nets were at the bottom of the lake to whom would the Son of Man turn for a corner in which to lay his head, or for a bite or a sup of wine. John and James would give their boats to Judas belike, and he’d bring home about as much fish as would—- But I’m thinking of your father. What will he be saying to all this, and his business dwindling all the while, and we beggars?–the words with which my wife roused me this morning. Of course, says she, if the stone that never was cut out of the mountain with hands is going to be slung and send the Romans toppling, I’ve naught to say against sharing, but the Kingdom had better come quickly, Simon Peter, if thou’lt fish no more; and the woman is right, say I, though I hold with every word that falls from the Master’s lips, only this way it is, he looks to my fishing for his support, and Miriam is quick to remind me of that. A good woman, one that has been always yielding to my will and never had a word against our lodger, but sets the best before him out of thankfulness for his saving of her mother’s life, though one more mouth in a house is always a drain, if the Master is as easily fed as a sparrow. But restive she is now about the delay: as I was saying just now she wakes me up with a loud question in my ear: now, Simon Peter, answer me, art thou going into Syria to bid the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the palsied to shake no more, or art thou going to thy trade? for in this house there be four little children, myself, their mother, and thy mother-in-law. I say nothing against the journey if it bring thee good money, or if it bring the Kingdom, but if it bring naught but miracles there’ll be little enough in the house to eat by the time ye come back. And, says she, the feeding of his children is a nobler work for a married man (she speaks like that sometimes) than bidding those to see who would belike be better without their eyes than with them. You wouldn’t think it, but ’tis as I say: she talks up to me like that, and ofttimes I’ve to go to the Master and ask him to quiet her, which he rarely fails to do, for she loves him for what he has done for her mother, and is willing to wait. But last night when the busybodies brought her news that the Master had been preaching in the forest, of the sharing of the world out among the holy saints, she gave way to her temper and was violent, saying, by what right are the saints of the most high coming here to ask for a share of this world, as if they hadn’t a heaven to live in. You see, good Master, there’s right on her side, that’s what makes it so hard to answer her, and I’m with her in this, for by what right do the holy saints down here ask for a share in the world, that’s what keeps drumming in my head; and, as I told you a while ago, I’d as lief put out upon the lake and fish as go to Syria for nothing, say the word—- And leave the Master to go alone? Joseph interposed. Well, I suppose we can’t do that, Peter answered, and then it seemed to Joseph wiser not to talk any more, but to allow things to fashion their own course, which they did very amiably, in about an hour’s time the little band going forth, Joseph walking by Peter’s side, hoping that he would not have to wait long before seeing a miracle.

Their first stop was at Chorazin, about five miles distant, and the sick began to rise quickly from their beds, and Jesus had only to impose his hands for the palsied to cease quivering. The laws of nature seemed suspended and Joseph forgot his father at Magdala and likewise Pilate’s business which had brought him to Galilee. It will have to wait, he said, talking with himself, and now certain that he had come upon him whom he had always been seeking; it was as lost time to look at anything but Jesus, or to hear any words but his, or to admire aught but the manifestations of his power; and every time a sick man rose from his bed Joseph thanked God for having allowed him to live in the days of the Messiah. He saw sight restored to the blind, hearing to the deaf, swiftness of foot to cripples, issues of blood that had endured ten years stanched; the cleansing of the leper had become too common a miracle; he looked forward to seeing demons taking flight from the bodies of men and women, and accepted Peter’s telling that the day could not be delayed much longer when he would see some dead man rise up in his cere-clothes from the tomb. He found no interest but in the miraculous, and his one vexation of spirit was that Jesus forbade his disciples (among whom Joseph now counted himself) to tell anybody that he was the Messiah.

In every town they were welcomed by the Gentiles as well as by the Jews, which was surprising, and set Joseph’s wits to work; and these being well trained, he soon began to apprehend that the Jews accepted the miracles as testimony that Jesus was really the Messiah and that his teaching was true; whereas the Gentiles admired the miracles for their own sake, failing, however, and completely, to see that because he cured the blind, the palsied, the scrofulous and the halt, they should no longer visit their temples and sacred groves, and admire no more Pan’s huge sexuality and hang garlands upon it, nor carve images of Diana and Apollo. Such abstinence they could not comprehend, and deemed it enough that they were ready to proclaim him a god on the occasion of every great miracle, a readiness that gave great scandal and caused many Jews to turn away from Jesus. It was not enough that he should repudiate this godhead; and the hardness of heart and narrowness of soul that he encountered among his own people afflicted Jesus as much as did the incontinency of the Gentiles, whom he sometimes met, bearing images in procession, going towards some shrine–the very same who had listened to his teaching in the evening. Joseph once dared throw himself in front of one of these processions, and he begged the processionists to Pan to throw aside the garlands and wreaths they had woven. This they would not do, but out of respect to the distinguished strangers that had come to their town they listened for some minutes to his relation that on the last day the dead would be roused by the trumpets of angels to attend the judgment and that the man Jesus before them–the Messiah announced hundreds of years ago in many a prophetic book–would return to earth in a chariot of fire by his Father’s side, the Judgment Book in his hands. May we now proceed on our way? they asked, but Joseph besought them to listen to him for another few minutes, and thinking he had perhaps explained the resurrection badly, and forthwith calling to mind the philosophy of Egypt and Mathias, he asked them to apprehend that it would not be the corruptible body that would rise from the dead but the spiritual body, whereby he only succeeded in perplexing still further the minds of the worthy pagans of Caesarea Philippi, and provoking stirs and quarrels among his own people.

The processionists took advantage of this diversion of opinion among the Jews to pass on and dispose of their wreaths and votive offerings as it pleased them to do. But on their way back they begged Jesus to perform some more miracles, which he refused to do, and to their great amazement he left them for the Tyrians and Sidonians. But the same difficulties occurred in Tyre and Sidon, the Gentiles accepting the miracles with delight but paying little heed to the doctrine. They begged him to remain with them and offered gifts for his services as healer, but he refused these and returned to Galilee, having performed miracles of all sorts, without, however, having bidden a dead man rise from the grave, to the great disappointment of Joseph, who would have liked to witness this miracle (the greatest of all); seemingly it was not his lot. Peter bade him hope!–the great miracle might happen in Galilee, and as such a miracle would evince the truth of Jesus’ Messiah-ship even to his father, Joseph remained in Capernaum, going out in the boats with Jesus and his disciples, sailing along the shores till the people gathered in numbers sufficient for an exhortation. As there were always many Pharisees and Sadducees among the crowds assembled to hear the Master, he did not land, but preached standing up in the bow, Peter vigilant with an oar, for priests are everywhere enemies of reformation and instigate attacks upon reformers, and those made on Jesus were often so violent that Peter had to strike out to the right and left, but he always managed to get free, and they sailed for less hostile coasts or back to the wharf at Capernaum.

It once occurred to them to try their luck with the Gadarenes, and it was in returning from their coasts one evening that Peter’s boat was caught in a great storm and that Joseph was met by one of his father’s servants as he jumped ashore. The man had come to tell him that if he wished to see his father alive he must hasten to Magdala, and Joseph glared at him dumbfounded, for he had suspected all along that he had little or no right at all to leave his father for Jesus. I did not know I was like this, he blurted out to himself. And as much to silence his accusing conscience as anything else he questioned the stupid messenger, asking him if his father had seen a physician, and if the physician had held out any hopes of a recovery. But the thin and halting account which was all the messenger could give only increased Joseph’s alarm, and it was with much difficulty that he learnt from him that the master had brought some walnuts to the parrots, and just after giving a nut to the green parrot had cried out to Tobias that a great pain had come into his head. Joseph dug his heels into his ass’s side and cried to the messenger: and then? The messenger answered that the pain in the back of his father’s head had become so great that he had begun to reel about, overthrowing one of the parrots on its perch. The parrot flew at master, thinking he had done it—- Never mind the parrot, Joseph replied angrily, confusing the messenger, who told him that the master had entered the house on Tobias’ arm, and had sat down to supper but had eaten nothing to speak of. None of us dared to go to bed that night, the messenger continued. We sat up, expecting every moment somebody to come down from the room overhead to tell us that the master was dead. The next part of the messenger’s story was like a tangled skein, and Joseph half heard and half understood that the great physician that had come from Tiberias had said that he must awaken the master out of the swoon and at any cost. He kept bawling at him, the messenger said. Bawling at him, Joseph repeated after the messenger, and the messenger repeated the words, bawling at him, and saying that the physician said the master’s swoon was like a wall and that he must get him to hear him somehow. He said the effort would cost your father, Sir, a great deal, but he must get him to hear him. The story as the servant related it seemed incredible, but he reflected that servants’ stories are always incredible, and Joseph learned with increasing wonder that Dan had heard the physician and sat up in bed and spoken reasonably, but had fallen back again unconscious, and that the physician on leaving him said that they must get his mouth open somehow and pour a spoonful of milk into his mouth, and call upon him as loudly as they could to swallow. What physician have they sent for? Joseph asked the messenger, but he could not remember the name.

It was Ecanus who was sitting by Dan’s bedside when Joseph arrived, and Joseph learnt by careful nursing and feeding him every ten minutes there was just a chance of saving Dan’s life.

For seven days Dan’s life receded, and it was not till the eighth day the wheel of life paused on the edge of the abyss. Dan, with his eyes turned up under the eyelids, only the white showing, lay motionless; and it was not till the morning of the ninth day that the wheel began to revolve back again; but so slow were its revolutions that Joseph was in doubt for two or three days. But on the fifth day he was sure that Dan was mending, and in about three days more the pupils of Dan’s eyes looked at his son’s from under the eyelids. He spoke a few words and took his milk more easily, without being asked to swallow. The pains in his head returned with consciousness; he often moaned; the doctor was obliged to give him opiates, but he continued to mend and in three weeks was speaking of going out to walk in the garden. To gain his end he often showed a certain childish cunning, urging Joseph on one occasion to go to the verandah to see if somebody was coming up the garden, and as soon as Joseph’s back was turned he slipped out of bed with the intention of getting to his clothes. He fell, without, however, hurting himself, and was put back to bed and kept there for three more weeks before he was allowed a short walk. Even then the concession seemed to be given too soon; for he could not distinguish the different trees, nor could he see the parrots, though he could hear them, and he remained in purblindness for some two or three weeks; but his sight returned, and he said to Joseph: that is a palm-tree and that is a pepper-tree. Joseph answered that he said truly and hastened across the garden to meet Ecanus, for he desired to ask him privily if his father were out of all danger; and the answer to his question was that Dan’s life would pass away in a swoon like the one he had just come out of, but he might swoon many times–two or three times, perhaps oftener–before he swooned for the last time. More than that Ecanus could not say. A silence fell suddenly between them, and wondering what term of life his father had still to traverse before he swooned into eternity, Joseph followed the physician through the wilting alleys, seeking the shadiest parts, for the summer was well-nigh upon them now.

At the end of one of these, out of the sun’s rays, the old man lay propped up among cushions, dreaming, or perhaps only conscious, of the refreshing breeze that came and went away again. But he awoke at the sound of their steps on the sanded paths, and raised his stick as a sign to them to come to him, and, seeing that he wished to speak, Joseph leaned over his chair, putting his ear close to his father’s face, for Dan’s speech was still thick and often inarticulate. Thou wast nearly going down in the storm, he said, and Joseph could hardly believe that he heard rightly, for what could his father know of the storm on the lake, he being in a deep swoon at the time beyond the reach of words. He asked his father who had told him of the storm, but Dan could say no more than that a voice had told him that there was a great storm upon the lake and that Joseph was in it. Miracle upon miracle! Joseph cried, and he related his escape from shipwreck; how when coming in Peter’s boat from the opposite shores the wind had risen, carrying the lake in showers over the boat till all were wetted to their skins. But, unmindful of these showers, Jesus had continued his teaching, even after a great wave wrenched away a plank or part of one. Master, if the boat be not staunched we perish, Peter said, for which Jesus rebuked Peter and called them all to come forward and kneel closer about him. Kneel, he said, your faces towards me, and forget the plank and remember your sins. We could not do else but as we were bidden, and we all knelt about him, our thoughts fixed as well as we were able to fix them on our sins, but the water was coming into the boat all the while, and in the midst of our prayers we said: in another moment we perish if he stay not the wind and waves. We thought that he would stand up in the bow and command, but he remained seated, and continued to teach us, but the wind lulled all the same, and when we looked round the boat was staunch again, and we made the wharf at Capernaum easily.

Ecanus, who was a man of little faith, asked Joseph if he had seen anybody put his hand to the plank and restore it to its place, and Joseph answered that all were grouped round the Master praying, and that none had fallen away from the group. But there were some in the boat that saw a little angel speeding over the waves. Philip saw both wings and the angel’s feet, but I had only a glimpse. If you would only let me bring him to you—- But, reading his father’s face, Joseph continued: if you haven’t faith, Father, he couldn’t do anything for thee. Father, let me bring him. This shows no distrust in your power, he interjected suddenly, turning to Ecanus. Each man has powers given to him; some are physical and some spiritual; some are powerful in one element and some in another. But no magician that I have met has power over fire and water. Only those into whom God has descended can command both fire and water alike. And he related that when they passed through Chorazin and a woman ran out of her house crying that her little boy had fallen into the fire, Jesus had asked her if she had applied any remedy, and on her saying she had not, he had said: then I will cure him. With his breath he restored him, and five minutes after the child was playing with his little comrades in the street. If, however, she had poured oil on the wounds he couldn’t have cured them, Joseph explained, for his affinity with fire would have been interrupted. In the village of Opeira a child while carrying a kettle of boiling water from the fire tipped it over, burning a good deal of the flesh of one foot, which, however, healed under Jesus’ breath almost as soon as he had breathed upon it. And yet another child was healed of the croup, but this time it was John who imposed his hands: Jesus had transmitted some of his power over the ills of the flesh to the disciples. On Dan asking if Joseph had seen Jesus cast out devils, Joseph replied that he had, but it would take some time to tell the exordium. Whereupon Ecanus remembered that other patients waited for his attendance and took his leave, warning Joseph before leaving against the danger of tiring his father, a thing that Joseph promised not to do; but as soon as the door closed after the physician Dan began to beg so earnestly for stories that Joseph could not do else than tell him of the miracle he had witnessed. Better to submit, he thought, than to agitate his father by refusal; and he began this narrative; the morning of the storm, which they would not have succeeded in weathering had it not been for the intervention of the angel. Jesus and some of the disciples, including Joseph, had set their sail for the Gadarene coasts; and finding a landing-place by a shore seeming desolate, they proceeded into the country; and while seeking a sufficient number to exhort and to teach, their search led them past some broken ruins, shards of an old castle, apparently tenantless. They were about to pass it without examination when a wailing voice from one of the turrets brought them to a standstill. They were not at first certain whether the wailing sound was the voice of the wind or a human voice, but they had hearkened and with difficulty had separated the doleful sound into: woe! woe! woe! unto thee Jerusalem, woe! woe! It sounds to me, Peter said, like one that is making a mock of thee, Master. Having heard that thou foretellest woe to Chorazin—- But Judas, seeing a cloud gathering on Peter’s face, nudged Peter, and the twain went up together and some minutes after returned with a half-naked creature, an outcast whom they had found crouching like a jackal in a hole among the stones, one clearly possessed by many devils. Now as all were in wonder what his history might be, a swineherd passing by at the time told them how the poor, naked creature would take a beating or a gift of food for his singing with the same gentle grace. The words had hardly passed the swineherd’s lips than the possessed began to sing:

Woe! woe! woe! the winds are wailing. The four great sisters, the winds of the world, Call one to the other, and it is thy doom They are calling, Jerusalem.
Woe! woe! woe!
The North brings ruin, the South brings sorrow, The East wind grief, and the West wind tears For Jerusalem.
Woe! woe! woe!

And he sung this little song several times, till the hearts of the disciples hardened against the outcast and they were minded to beat him if he did not cease; but the swineherd warned them that a surer way to silence him was by giving him some food; and while he stood by eating, the swineherd confided the story of the fool, or as much of it as he knew, to Jesus. The fool, he said, came from Jerusalem some two years ago. He had been driven out of the Temple, which he frequented daily, crying about the courts the song with which he wearied you just now, till the most patient were unable to bear it any longer; and every time he met a priest he looked into his face and sang: woe! woe! woe! unto Jerusalem, and whenever he met a scribe he would cry: woe! woe! woe! unto Jerusalem, hindering them in their work about the Temple. Some stones were thrown, but enough life was left in him to crawl away, and as soon as he recovered from his wounds he was about again, singing his melancholy ditty (he knows but one). He was told if he did not cease he would be beaten with rods, but he could not cease it, and started his ditty again as soon as he could bear a shirt on his back; and then he must have travelled up here afoot, picking up a bit here and a bit there, getting a lift in an ox-cart. He is without memory of anything, who he is, where he came from, or who taught him his song. He does not know why he chose that broken tower for a dwelling, nor do we, but fortunately it stands in a waste. We hear him singing as we go by to our work and pitch him scraps of food from time to time. We hear him as we return in the evening to our homes making his melancholy dwelling sadder with his song. But he is a harmless, poor fool, save for the annoyance of his song, which he cannot stanch any more than the wind in the broken turrets. A harmless fool who will follow whosoever asked him to follow, unafraid, and taking a blow or a hunch of bread in the same humour, and distinguishing no man from the next one.

As the swineherd said these words the fool said: Jesus, thou hast come to my help, but woe to thee, Son of God, thou wilt suffer thy death in Jerusalem; and looking up into Jesus’ face more intensely: oh, Son of Man, what aileth thee or me? And knowest thou anything of the cloud of woe that hangs over Jerusalem? To which Jesus made no answer, but called upon the devils to say how many there were, and they answered: three. Then depart ye three, Jesus replied, and was about to impose his hands when the three devils asked whither they should go, to which Jesus answered: ye must seek another refuge, for here ye cannot remain. Seek among the wolves and foxes. But these will flee from us, the devils answered; allow us to enter the hogs rooting the ground before thee. But at this the swineherd cried out: forbid the devils to enter into my hogs, else they will run over the cliffs and drown themselves in the sea. Though you are Jews, and do not look favourably on hogs, they are as God made them. To which Jesus answered, turning to his disciples: the man speaks well, for if unclean they be, it was the will of God that made them so. And taking pity on the hogs that were rooting quietly, unaware of the devils eager to enter into them, he said: there are statues of gods and goddesses in Tiberias, enter into them. And immediately the devils took flight, giving thanks to Jesus as they departed thither.

Joseph waited a moment and tried to read his father’s face. But Dan’s face remained fixed, and as if purposely, which vexed Joseph, who cried: now, Father, you may believe or disbelieve, or be it thou’rt naturally averse from Jesus, but thou knowest as well as I do that two days after the great storm a statue of the goddess Venus fell from her pedestal in the streets of Tiberias and was broken. But, Joseph, when the statue fell I was sick and had no knowledge of the fall. But if a statue of the goddess Venus did fall from her pedestal, I’d ask why the devils should choose to destroy false gods? Were it not more reasonable for them to uphold the false gods safe and secure on their pedestals? The gods were overthrown for a sign that the devils had left the fool’s body, Joseph answered. But why, Dan replied, didn’t three statues fall?–a statue for each devil–and whither did the devils go? That one statue should fall was enough for a sign, Joseph said, but no more would he say, for his father’s incredulity irritated him, and seeing that he had angered his son, Dan stretched his hand to him and said: perhaps we are more eager to believe when we are young than when we are old. And he asked Joseph to tell him of some other miracle that he might have seen Jesus perform.

Joseph had seen Jesus perform many other miracles, but he was loath to relate them, for none, he felt sure, would impose upon his father the belief that Jesus was the Messiah that was promised to the Jews. All the same the miracle of the woods rose in his mind, and so plainly that he could not keep the story back, and almost before he was aware of it he began the relation, telling how Jesus, James, John, Andrew, and himself were at table, mingling jest with earnest (Peter was not with them, being kept at home, for his wife was in child-birth at the time), when the women of the village were heard running up the street crying together to the men to take part in the chase of the wild man of the woods, who had come down amongst them once more questing the flesh of women. But this time we’ll put a stop to his leaping, they cried. A goatherd coming from the hills has seen him enter a cave and as soon as he has folded his goats he will lead us to it. But the villagers were in no mood for waiting; the goats could be folded by another; and the goatherd was bidden and obliged to leave his goats and lead the way, Jesus and his disciples following with the others through the forest till we came to a ravine. And the goatherd said: look between yon great rocks, for it was between them he passed out of my sight. And let one of you creep in after him, but I must return to my goats, having no confidence that they have been properly folded for the night. The goatherd would have run away if he hadn’t been held fast, and there were questions as to who would enter. The first said “no,” the second the same, giving as reason that they were not young or strong enough, whereas the goatherd was both, and none better endowed for the struggle; and the people became of one mind that they must beat the goatherd with the crows if he did not go down into the cave, but Jesus, arriving in time, said: it is not lawful to break into any man’s dwelling with crows, nor to kill him because his sins affront you; let us rather give him means to cut himself free from sins. At which words the people were near to jeering, for it seemed to them that Jesus knew little of the man they were pursuing, and they knew not what to understand when he asked if any among them had a long, sharp knife, and there was a movement as if they were about to leave him; but one man said: thou shalt have mine, Master, and, taking it out of his girdle, he gave it to Jesus, who tested it with his thumb, and, satisfied with it, laid it on the rock beside the cave. But the people began to mutter: he will use the knife against us, Master. Not against you, Jesus answered, but against himself, thereby defending himself against himself. There were mutterings among the people, and some said that his words were too hard to understand, but all were silent as soon as Jesus raised his hands and stepped towards the cave, and began to breathe his spirit against the lust that possessed the man’s flesh. We must return here, he said, with oil and linen cloths. At which all wondered, not knowing what meaning to put upon his words, but they believed Jesus, and came at daybreak to meet him at the edge of the forest and followed the path as before till they came to the hillside. The man was no longer hidden in his cave, but sat outside by the rock on which Jesus had laid the knife, and Jesus said: happy is he born into the world without sting, and happy is he out of whom men have taken the sting before he knew it, but happier than these is the man that cuts out the part that offends him, setting the spirit free as this man has done.

Joseph ceased speaking suddenly and stood waiting for his father to admire the miracle he had related, but Dan’s tongue struggled with words; and Joseph, being taken as it were with another flux of words, and like one apprehensive of the argument that none shall undo God’s handiwork, set out on the telling that the cause of man’s lust of women was that God and the devil had a bet together–the devil saying that if God let him sting a man in a certain part of his hide he would get him in the end despite all that God might do to save him from hell. To which God, being in the humour, consented, and the sting was put into nearly all men. A few the devil overlooked, and these have much spared to them, and those out of whom the sting is taken in childhood are fortunate, but those who, like the wild man of the wood, cut the sting out of their own free will are worthy of all praise; and he cited the authority of Jesus that man should mutilate his body till it conform perforce to his piety. But the story of man’s fall is told differently in the Book of Genesis, my son. The admonition that he was laying violent hands on a sacred book startled Joseph out of his meditations, and in some confusion of words and mind he began to prevaricate, saying that he thought he had made himself clear: the release of pious souls from the bondage of the flesh was more important than the continuance of the impious. Moreover in the days of Moses, Israel was not steeped in as many iniquities as she is now, and the Day of Judgment was not so close at hand. More men meant more sins, and sin has become so common that God can endure the torture no longer…. Again Joseph ceased speaking suddenly and, almost agape, stood gazing into his father’s face, reading therein a great perplexity, for Dan was asking himself for what good reason had God given him so strange a son. He would have been content to let the story pass into another, but Joseph was waiting for him to speak, and speaking incontinently he said he had heard that in the Temple of Astoreth the Phoenician youths often castrated themselves with shards of shells or pottery and threw their testicles in the lap of the goddess crying out: art thou satisfied now, Astoreth? But he did not know of any text in their Scriptures that counselled such a practice; and the introduction of it seemed to savour of borrowing from the heathen. Whereupon Joseph averred that whereas the wont of the Phoenician youths is without reason, the same could not be said of Jesus’ device to save a soul. To which Dan rejoined that the leaving of the knife for the man to mutilate himself with, seemed to him to be contrary to all the rumours of Jesus that had come to his ears. I have heard that he would set the law aside and the traditions of our race, declaring the uncircumcised to be acceptable to God as the Jew; that he sits down to food with the uncircumcised and lays no store on burnt offerings. Nor did Isaiah, Joseph interrupted, and circumcision is itself a mutilation. I do not contest its value, mark you; but if thou deny’st that Jesus was right to leave a knife whereby the sinner might free himself from sin thou must also deny circumcision. Circumcision is the sign of our race, Dan answered. A physical sign, an outward sign, Joseph cried, and he asked his father to say if the Jews would ever forget priests and ritual; and he reminded his father that the once sinner, now a holy anchorite, did not bring an appetency into the world that could be overcome by prayer, and so had to resort to the knife that he might live in the spirit. It seems to me, Joseph, that we should live as God made us, for better or worse. But, Father, once you admit circumcision—- A man should not be over-nice, Joseph, and though it be far from my thought to wish to see thee a fornicator or adulterer it would rejoice me exceedingly to see grandchildren about me. There is a maiden—- Another reason, Father, of which I have not yet spoken makes the marriage of the flesh seem a vanity to me, and that is—- I know it well, Joseph, that the great day is coming when the world will be remoulded afresh. But, Father, do ye believe in nothing but observances? Tell me, Joseph, did thy prophet ever raise anybody from the dead? Yes, and hoping to convince his father by another miracle he fell to telling eagerly how a young girl who was being carried to the grave was called back to life.

She was, he said, coming from her wedding feast. And he told how there were in the village two young girls, one as fair as the other, rivals in love as well as in beauty, both having the same young man in their hearts, and for a long time it seemed uncertain which would get him; for he seemed to favour them alternately, till at length Ruth, unable to bear her jealousy any longer, went to the young man, saying that she was close on a resolve to see him no more. Your lover? he answered, his cheek blanching, for he dearly loved her. I haven’t gotten a lover, she said; only a share in a lover. Your words, Ruth, relieve me of much trouble, he replied, and took her in his arms and said: it was a good thought that brought you hither, for if you hadn’t come I might never have been able to decide between you, but your coming has given me strength, and now I know which I desire. And then it was the girl’s cheek that grew pale, for he hadn’t answered at once which he would have. Which? she asked, and he replied: you, not Rachel. If that be so, she answered, I am divided between joy and sorrow; gladness for myself, sorrow for my friend; and it behoves me to go to her and tell her of her loss. I am the chosen one, she said to Rachel, who turned away, saying: had I gone to him and asked him to choose between us he would have chosen me. He couldn’t do else.

She began to brood and to speak of a spell laid upon the young man, and her visits to a sorceress came to be spoken about so openly that it was against the bridegroom’s wish that Rachel was asked to the wedding feast; but Ruth pleaded, saying that it would be no feast for her if Rachel did not present herself at the table. The twain sat opposite each other at table, Rachel seemingly the happier, eating, drinking, laughing, foretelling that Mondis would fill Ruth’s life with happiness from end to end. Thou wilt never see the face of an evil hour, she said, and Ruth in her great joy answered: Rachel, I know not why he didn’t choose thee; thou’rt so beautiful; and the young Mondis wooed her at the table, to Ruth’s pleasure, for she knew of his thankfulness to Rachel for allowing the wedding to pass in concord, without a jarring note.

She seemed to listen to him as a sister might to a beloved brother, and as the wedding feast drew to a close she said: Ruth shall drink wine with me, and the cups were passed across the table, and laughter and jest flowed on for a while. But soon after drinking from Rachel’s cup Ruth turned pale and, leaning back into the arms of her bridegroom, she said: I know not what ails me…. And then a little later on she was heard to say: I am going, and with a little sigh she went out of her life, lying on her bridegroom’s arm white and still like a cut flower. The word “poison” swelled up louder and louder, and all eyes were directed against Rachel, who to prove her innocence drank the wine that was left in Ruth’s glass; but it was said afterwards that she had not drunk out of the cup that she had handed to Ruth. Be this as it may, a house of joy was turned into a house of tears. Bridegroom, parents and friends fell into procession, and we who were coming down the street met the bier, and after hearing the story of the girl’s death Jesus said: let me speak to her, and, leaning over her, he whispered in her ear, and soon after we thought it was the wind that stirred the folds of her garments, but her limbs were astir in them; the colour came back to her cheeks; she raised herself on her bier, and with his bride in his arms the bridegroom worshipped Jesus as a god; but Jesus reproved him, saying: it was by the power of God working through me that she was raised from the dead: give thanks to him who alone merits our thanks. But Rachel, who had been following the bier in great grief, hanging on the bridegroom’s arm could not contain herself at the sight of Ruth raised from the dead, and it wrenching her reason out of her control compelled her to call upon the people to cast out the Nazarene, who worked cures with the help of the demons with whom he was in league, which proved to everybody that her friendly words to Ruth at the feast were make-believe, and that she had been plotting all the while how she might ruin her.

At the sight of Ruth beautiful and living naught mattered to Rachel but revenge, and she crossed the street as if with the intention of striking her with a dagger, but as she approached Jesus the flame of fury died out of her face, and like one overwhelmed with a great love she cast herself at his feet, and could not be removed. Why do you turn the woman from me? he asked. Whatever her sins may have been they are forgiven, for she loves me. But she loved the other man five seconds before, Dan submitted, and Joseph replying to him said: she only knew that passion of the flesh which we share with the beasts of the fields, the fowls of the air and the fish in the sea. But now she loves Jesus as we love him–with the spirit. And next day she brought all her wealth to him; the golden comb she was wont to wear in her hair she would place in his; and the silks and linen in which she was wont to clothe herself she laid at his service; but he told her to sell all these things and give the money to the poor. Give to the poor! That is what I hear always, cried Dan; but if we gave all to the poor we would be as poor as the very poorest; and where, then, would the money come from with which we now help the poor?

Give to the poor that thou mayest become worthy of a place in the world to come. This world is but a shadow–an illusion, Joseph answered defiantly. Thou hast that answer for everything, Joseph; and another day when I’m stronger I’ll argue that out with thee. I have tired thee, Father; but if I’ve told you many stories it was because—- Because, Dan retorted, thou wouldst have Jesus cast his spells over me. But I’ve no use for them; thou art enough.

And while Joseph debated how he might convince his father that the girl was really dead, Dan asked for news of Rachel, and Joseph answered that she was with them every day, that their company had been increased by several devoted women. Thou hast talked enough, Father, and more than enough; if Ecanus were to return he would accuse me of planning to talk you to death.

CHAP. XV.

Like every other old Jew, Dan liked the marvellous, and listened to his son’s stories, not knowing whether he believed or disbelieved, nor seeking to inquire; content to enjoy the stories as they went by, he listened, suffering such a little disappointment when his son’s voice ceased as he might at the death of a melodious wind among the branches, the same little sadness. Moreover, while Joseph talked he had his attention, and it irritated him to see Joseph’s thoughts wander from him in search of parrots and monkeys; and he begged his son to tell him another miracle, for he was sure that Joseph had not told him the last one. Joseph pleaded that there was no use relating miracles to one who only believed in ancient miracles, a statement that Dan combated, saying that one could like a story for its own sake. Like a Gentile, Joseph interposed gaily, bringing all the same a cloud into his father’s face, which he would have liked to disperse with the relation of another miracle, but he continued to plead that he had told all his stories. There was, however, a certain faint-heartedness in his pleading, and Dan became more certain than ever that his son was holding back a miracle, and becoming suddenly curious, he declared that Joseph had no right to hold back a story from him, for to do that provoked argument, and argument fatigued him.

Joseph thought the device to extort a story from him, which he did not wish to tell, a shabby one, but, fearing to vex his father in his present state of health, he began to think it would be better to tell him the miracle he had heard of that morning at Capernaum; but, still loath, he tried instead to divert his father’s attention from Jesus, reminding him of the numerous matters that would have to be settled up between them, especially Dan’s responsibility in the new adventure, the transport of grain from Moab to Jerusalem. Dan’s curiosity was not to be diverted, and seeing him give way to his rage like a petulant child, Joseph decided that he must tell him, and he began with a disparagement of his story, the truth of which he did not vouch for. At Capernaum they were all telling how some two or three weeks ago Jesus heard God speaking within him, and, naming those he wished to accompany him, led them through the woods, up the slow ascending hills in silence, no word being exchanged between him and them. Every one of the disciples was aware that the Master was in communion with his Father in heaven, and that his communion was shared by them as long as a word was not spoken. A word would break it; and so they journeyed with their eyes set upon the stars or upon the ground, never daring to look for Jesus, who remained amongst them for an hour or more and then seemed to them to pass into shadow, only his voice remaining with them bidding them to journey on, which they did, each man in his faith, until they reached a lonely hill on the top of which stood a blighted tree. Why, Master, they asked, have you led us hither? and, receiving no answer, they looked round for Jesus, but he was missing, and, thinking they walked too fast and had left him on the road behind them, they returned to the place where he had last spoken to them; and, not finding him there, they returned to the hill-top, and, seeing him among the white branches waiting for them, they knelt and prayed. When the stars began to grow dim they heard a voice cry out: behold he is with you, he who brings salvation to all men, Jew and Gentile; and ye twelve are bidden to carry the joyful tidings to the ends of the earth.

At these words the disciples rose from their knees and looked round astonished, for only four had gone with Jesus up the hillside, but twelve were kneeling at the foot of the tree, and the four that had come with Jesus knew not how the eight were gathered with them, nor could the eight tell how they reached the hill-top, nor what spirit guided them thither. The day is breaking, someone said; and looking towards the east they saw innumerable angels and all of them singing hosanna; hosannas fell from the skies and blossoms from the tree; for the tree was no longer a blighted but a quickened tree. Jesus was amongst them, talking to them, telling those who were standing around him that they were chosen by his Father in heaven first of all, and then by him, to carry the joyful tidings to the ends of the earth, and they all answered: we heard the words that thou hast spoken, Master. And he answered: ye have heard truly, and I am here to carry out my Father’s will; ye shall go forth and bring salvation to all, Jew and Gentile alike.

Father, of what art thou thinking–that the twelve slept and dreamed? But before Dan could find an answer to his son’s question Joseph sank away into regrets that he had acceded to his father’s request and told him this last miracle, and that he had not been able to disguise the fact, in the telling, that Jesus had chosen as his apostles those who accompanied him into the mountains. He intended to omit all mention of this election, but it slipped from him unawares in the excitement of the telling, and now to divert his father’s thoughts from the unfortunate admission Joseph called to one of the parrots and spoke cheerfully to the bird, and to the monkey that came hopping across the sward and jumped into his arms; but Dan knew his son’s face too well to be deceived by the poor show Joseph could paint upon it, and guessing that his father divined the truth, words deserted him altogether. He sat striving against regret and hoping that his father did not think he loved him less than he loved Jesus. At last something had to be said, and Dan could find nothing better to say than: Joseph, there is gloom in thy face; but be not afraid to tell me if thou art disappointed that thou wert not with Jesus when his Father spoke to him out of heaven, and thereby missed being among the apostles. For this suspicion Joseph rebuked his father, but as it was his dearest wish to be numbered amongst the apostles his rebukes were faint, and feeling he was making bad worse, he put as bold a face upon it as he could, saying to his father that he would have liked to have been numbered among the twelve, but since it did not befall he was content; and to himself that he was younger than any that were elected, and if one of them were to die he would be called to fill his place.

So much admission was forced upon him, for it was important that his father should accept his absence from the mountain that day as a sufficient reason for his not having been elected an apostle, the real reason being, not his absence from the mountain, but the fact that he chose to turn aside from Jesus and leave him to attend his father’s sick-bed. That was the sin he was judged guilty of, an unpardonable act in Jesus’ mind, and one that discredited Joseph for ever, proving him for good and all to be unworthy to follow Jesus, which might be no more than the truth. He could follow Jesus’ way of thinking, apprehending it remotely; but to his father, Jesus present teaching, that one must learn to hate one’s father and one’s mother, one’s wife and one’s children before one can love God, would be incomprehensible; and he would be estranged from Jesus for ever, as many of the disciples had been that morning by such ultra-idealism. It would have been better to have withheld the miracle, he said to himself, and then he lost himself thinking how the election of the apostles had dropped from him, for it had nothing to do with the miracle, and then awakening a little from his reverie he assured himself that his father must never know, for Dan could never understand Jesus in his extravagant moods. But if some accident should bring the knowledge to his father? It wasn’t likely that this could happen, for who knew it? Hardly was it known among those whom he had met that morning as he crossed the Plain of Gennesaret. He had seen the disciples with Jesus, Jesus walking ahead with Peter and with James and John, to whom he addressed not a word, the others following him shamefacedly at a little distance. One of his black moods is upon him, Joseph said to himself, and gliding in among the crowd he questioned the nearest to him, who happened to be Judas, who told him that Jesus didn’t know for certain if he were called to go to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacles. The Master foresees his death in Jerusalem, but he is not sure if it be ordained for this year or the next. Peter would dissuade him, he added, and in the midst of his wonderment Joseph heard from Judas that Jesus had elected his apostles, and now Joseph remembered how, speaking out of his heart, he uttered a little cry and said: it was because I am a rich man that he didn’t think of me. But Judas answered that there might be another reason, to which he replied: there can be no other reason except the simple one–I wasn’t there and he didn’t think of me. But Judas murmured that there might be another reason–he never allows a disciple to desert him, whatever reason may be for so doing. But there was no desertion on my part. My father’s illness! Wait in any case, Judas had said, till the Master has fallen out of his mood, for he is in his blackest now; we dare not speak to him. But I couldn’t believe that that could make any difference, Joseph said to himself, and he put the monkey away from him somewhat harshly, and fell to thinking how he ran to Jesus, his story on his lips. But it all seemed to drift away from him the moment he looked upon Jesus, so changed was he from the Jesus he had seen in the cenoby, a young man of somewhat stern countenance and cold and thin, with the neck erect, walking with a measured gait, whose eyes were cold and distant, though they could descend from their starry heights and rest for a moment almost affectionately on the face of a mortal. That was two years ago. And the Jesus whom he met in rags by the lake-side one evening and journeyed with as far as Caesarea Philippi, to Tyre and Sidon, was no doubt very different from the severe young man he had seen in the monastery. He had grown older, more careworn, but the first Jesus still lingered in the second, whereas the Jesus he was looking at now was a new Jesus, one whom he had seen never before; the cheeks were fallen in and the eyes that he remembered soft and luminous were now concentrated; a sort of malignant hate glowered in them: he seemed to hate all he looked upon; and his features seemed to have enlarged, the nose and chin were more prominent, and the body was shrunken. A sword that is wearing out its scabbard was the thought that passed through Joseph’s frightened mind; and frightened at the change in Jesus’ appearance, and still more by the words that were hurled out at him, when intimidated and trembling, he babbled out: my father lay between life and death for eight days and came out of his swoon slowly. He could say no more, the rest of his story was swallowed up in a violent interruption, Jesus telling him that there was no place among his followers for those who could not free themselves from such ghosts as father, mother and children and wife.

Jesus had flung his father’s wealth and his own in his face, and his own pitiful understanding that had not been able to see that this world and the world to come were not one thing but twain. And whosoever chooses this world must remain satisfied with its fleshly indulgences and its cares and its laws and responsibilities, and whoso ever chooses the Kingdom of Heaven must cast this world far from him, must pluck it, as it were, out of his heart and throw it away, bidding it depart; for it is but a ghost. All these, he said, pointing to his apostles, have cast their ghosts into the lake. The apostles stood with eyes fixed, for they did not understand how they had despoiled themselves of their ghosts, and only Peter ventured into words: all my family is in the lake, Master; and at his simplicity Jesus smiled, then as if to compensate him for his faith he said: I shall come in a chariot sitting on the right hand of our Father, the Judgment Book upon my lap. As the rocks of this world are shaken and riven by earthquakes, my words shall sunder father from son, brother from brother, daughter from mother; the ties that have been held sacred shall be broken and all the things looked upon as eternal shall pass away even as the Temple of Jerusalem shall pass away. My words shall sunder it Beam by beam, pillar by pillar, and every stone of it shall be scattered. For I say unto you that God is weary of the fat of rams and goats, and incense delights his nostrils; it is not our flocks and herds that our Father desires nor the sweet-smelling herbs of this world, but a temple in which there shall be nothing but the love of God. It is for the building of this temple that I have been called hither; and not with hands during laborious years will it be built, but at once, for the temple that I speak to you of, is in the heart of every man; and woe, woe, woe, I say unto you who delay to build this temple, for the fulfilment of the prophecies is at hand, and when the last day of this world begins to dawn and the dead rise up seeking their cere-clothes it will be too late. Woe! woe! woe! unto thee, Chorazin, Bethsaida and Magdala, for you have not repented yet, but still choose the ghosts that haunt the sepulchres out of which ye shall be called soon; too soon for many; for I say unto you that it is not the dead that sleep but the living. At these words there were murmurings among the disciples, and they said, turning from one to the other: he says we sleep, brother, but this is not true. He mocks at us. But Jesus, as if he did not hear these rebukers, and moved as if by a sudden sympathy for Joseph, said: here is one that left me to attend his father’s sick-bed, but I would have you understand me in this, that if we would love God we must abandon father, mother, wife and children, for there is not room in our hearts for two loves. Ye say that I lay heavy burdens on your backs, but I say unto you that I lay no burdens on your backs that I did not first weigh upon my own shoulders; for have I not denied myself brothers and sisters, and did I not say to my mother, who came to dissuade me: God chose thee as a vehicle to give to man a redeemer to lead him out of this kingdom of clay. Thou hast done it and so there is no further need of thee. Out of this corruptible body I shall rise in Jerusalem, my mission accomplished, into the incorruptible spirit. His passion rising again and into flood, he seemed like one bereft of reason, for he said that all men must drink of his blood if they would live for ever. He who licked up one drop would have everlasting life. Joseph recalled the murmurings that followed these words, but Jesus would not desist. These murmurings seemed to sting him to declare his doctrine to the full, and he added that his flesh, too, was like bread, and that any crumb would give to him who ate it a place before the throne of the Almighty. Whereupon many withdrew, murmuring more loudly than before, saying among themselves: who is this man that asks us to assuage our thirst with his blood and our hunger with his flesh? Moses and Elijah did not ask such things. Who is he that says he will scatter the Temple to build up another?

Many other animadversions Joseph remembered among the multitude, and he recalled them one by one, pondering over each till one of the monkeys sprang into his arms and snatched some flowers out of his hand and hobbled away shrieking, awaking Dan, who had been dozing, and who, seeing whence the shrieking came, closed his eyes again. While his father slept Joseph remembered that Peter, John and James stood by the Master throughout the dissidence. But what answer will they give, Joseph asked himself, when they are questioned as to what the Master meant when he said that they must drink his blood and eat his flesh? What answer will they make when the people question them in the different countries?–for they are to go to every part of the world, carrying the joyful tidings. It seemed to Joseph that the apostles would be able to make plain these hard sayings even less well than he, and he could not make plain to anybody what the Master had meant, and still less would he be able to convince others that the Master had said well that a man must leave his father though he were dying. He said that he should leave his father unburied, the dead not needing our care, for they are the living ones, and the hyenas and crows would find to eat only that which had always been dead. Of course if the old world were going out and the new coming in, it mattered very little what happened within the next twenty-four hours. But was the new world as near as that? He wondered! It might be nearer still without his being able to leave his father to die among strangers, and a feeling rose up within him that he knew he would never be able to subdue though he were to gain an eternity of happiness by subduing it; and, pursuing this thread of thought, he came to the conclusion that he was a very weak creature, neither sufficiently enamoured of this world nor of the next; so he supposed Jesus was right to discard him, for, as he knew himself, he would be an insufficient apostle, just as he was an insufficient son. But his father did not think him a bad son. He raised his eyes, and, finding his father’s eyes upon him, he remembered that he had left him because he wished to see the world, to go to Jerusalem, to live with the Essenes, to go to Egypt; and that he had remained away for nearly two years, and had returned to settle a business matter between himself and his father. Therefore it was not love of his father but a business matter that brought him back from Egypt; and now he was going to leave his father again, though he knew that his father wished him to marry some lusty girl, who would bear healthy children.

If he were a good son he would take a maid to bed. But that he couldn’t do! I am afraid, he said, speaking suddenly out of his thoughts, I’m not the son you deserve, Father. I’m not a bad son, but I’m not the son God should have given you. Thou shouldst not say that, Joseph, for we have loved each other dearly. It is true that I hoped to see little children about me, and it may be that hope will never be fulfilled, which is sad to think on. I’ve never seen thee over-busy with one of our serving girls, nor caught thee near her bed, and the family will end with, thee, and the counting-house will end with me, and these things will happen through no fault of mine or thine, Joseph. Our lives are not planned by ourselves, and when life comes sweetly to a man a bitter death awaits him, for death is bitter to those that have lived in ease and health as I have done. I am still obdurate, for I can sit down to a meal with pleasure, but a time will come when I shall not be able to do this, and then the sentence that the Lord pronounced over all flesh will seem easy to bear, and the grandchildren I have not gotten will be desired no longer; only the peace of the grave, where there is no questioning nor dainties. But, Father, this world is but the shadow of a reality beyond the grave, and I beseech you to believe in your eternity and in mine. In the eternity of my body or of my soul–which, Joseph? Thou knowest not, but of this we are sure, that there is little time left for me to love you in this comfortable land of Galilee. And, this being so, I will ask you to promise me that thou wilt not leave Judea in my lifetime. Thou’lt have to go to Jerusalem, for business awaits you there, and to Jericho, perhaps, which is a long way from Galilee, but I’d not have thee leave Judea to preach a strange creed to the Gentiles. I know no reason now, Father, for me to leave Judea, since I am not among the chosen. If thou hadst been, Joseph, thou wouldst not have left me in these last years of my life? Jesus is dear to thee, but he isn’t thy father, and every father would like his son to be by him when the Lord chooses to call him. I would have thee within a day’s journey or two; death comes quicker than that sometimes, but we must risk something. I’d have thee remain in Judea so that thou mayest come, if thou art called, to receive my last blessing. I’d have thee close my eyes, Joseph. The children I’ll forgive thee, if thou wilt promise me this. I promise it, Father, and will hold to my promise if I live beyond thee. If thou livest beyond me, Joseph? Of course thou wilt live many years after me. But, Joseph, I would have thee shun dangerous company. And guessing that his father had Jesus in his mind, Joseph asked him if it were so, and he answered that it was so, saying that Jesus was no new thing in Judea, and that the priests and the prophets have ever been in strife. That is my meaning, he said. The exactions of the priests weigh heavily, and Jesus is right in this much, that priests always have been, and perhaps always will be, oppressors of the poor; they are strong, and have many hirelings about them. Thou hast heard of the Zealots, Son, who walk in the streets of Jerusalem, their hands on their knives, following those who speak against the law and the traditions, and who, when they meet them, put their knives into their ribs, and when the murdered man falls back into their arms call aloud for help? So do the priests free themselves from their opponents, and, my good son, Joseph, think what my grief would be if I were to receive tidings that thou hadst been slain in the streets. Dost think that the news would not slay me as quickly as any knife? I ask little of thee, Joseph, the children I’ll forgo, but do thou separate thyself from these sectaries during my lifetime. Think of me receiving the news of thy death; an old man living alone among all his riches without hope of any inheritance of his name. But, Joseph, I can’t put away altogether the hope that the day will come when thou’lt look more favourably on a maid than now. Thy thoughts be all for Jesus, his teaching, and his return to this world, sitting by the side of his Father in a fiery chariot, but maybe the day will come when these hopes will fade away and thy eyes will rest upon a maid. It is strange that thou shouldst be so unlike me. I was warmer-blooded at thy age, and when I saw thy mother—-Father, the promise is given to thee already, and my hand upon it. I’ll not see Jesus during thy life. If the sudden news of my death were to kill thee, I should be thy murderer. Jesus will forgive thee these few years, Dan said. The expression on Joseph’s face changed, and Dan wondered if Jesus were so cruel, so hard, and so self-centred that he would not grant his son a few years, if he were to ask it, so that he might stay by his father’s bedside and close his eyes and bury him. It seemed from Joseph’s face that Jesus asked everything from his disciples, and if they did not give everything it was as if they gave nothing.

And while Dan was thus conferring with his own thoughts he heard Joseph saying that if he were to keep the promise he had just given, not to see Jesus again, he must not remain in his neighbourhood. Yes, that is so, Joseph; go to Jerusalem. And the old man began to babble of the transport of figs from Jericho, till Joseph could not do else than ponder on the grip of habit on a man’s heart, and ask himself if the news of his death would affect his father’s health more than the news that there was no further demand in Damascus for his salt fish. He repented the thought as soon as it had passed through his mind, and he understood that, however much it would cost him, he must go away to Jerusalem. He dared not risk the accusation that would for ever echo in his heart: my father has no peace by day, nor rest at night, he is thinking always that a Zealot’s knife is in my back. But after my father’s death–His thoughts brought him back again to a sudden shame of himself. I am like that, he said, and shall always be as I am. And, not daring to think of himself any more, he jumped to his feet: I must tell my servant that I shall start soon after daybreak.

CHAP. XVI.

And on his arrival in Jerusalem Joseph stood for a moment before his camel thanking the beast for his great, rocking stride, which has given me, he said, respite from thinking for two whole days and part of two nights. But I cannot be always on the back of a camel, he continued, and must now rely on my business to help me to forget; and he strove to apply his mind to every count that came before him, but in the middle of every one his thoughts would fly away to Galilee, and the merchant waiting to receive the provisions he had come to fetch wondered of what the young man was thinking, and the cause of the melancholy that was in his face.

He was still less master of his thoughts when he sat alone, his ledger before him; and finding he could not add up the figures, he would abandon himself without restraint to his grief; and very often it was so deep that when the clerk opened the door it took Joseph some moments to remember that he was in his counting-house; and when the clerk spoke of the camel-drivers that were waiting in the yard behind the counting-house for orders, it was only by an effort of will that he collected his thoughts sufficiently to realise that the yard was still there, and that a caravan was waiting for orders to return to Jericho. The orders were forgotten on the way to the yard, and the clerk had to remind him, and sometimes to say: Master, if you’ll allow me, I will settle this business for you.

Joseph was glad of his clerk’s help, and he returned to the ledger, and, staring at figures which he did not see, he sat thinking of Jesus, of the night they walked by the lake’s edge, of the day spent in the woods above Capernaum, and the various towns of Syria that they visited. It seemed to him that the good days had gone over for ever, and it was but a sad pleasure to remember the pagans that liked Jesus’ miracles without being able to abandon their own gods. Only Peter could bring a smile into his face; a smile wandered round his lips, for it was impossible to think of Peter and not to smile. But the smile faded quickly and the old pain gripped his heart.

I have lost Jesus for ever, he said, and at that moment a sudden rap at his door awoke him from his reveries. He was angry with his clerk, but he tried to disguise his anger, for he was conscious that he must present a very ridiculous appearance to his clerk, unless, indeed, which was quite likely, his clerk was indifferent to anything but the business of the counting-house. Be this as it may, he was an old and confidential servant who made no comments and asked no questions. Joseph was grateful to his clerk for his assumed ignorance and an hour later Joseph bade him good-night. I shall see thee in the morning, to which Samuel answered: yes, sir; and Joseph was left alone in the crowded street of Jerusalem, staring at the passengers as they went, wondering if they were realities, everyone compelled by a business or a desire, or merely shadows, figments of his imagination and himself no more than a shadow, a something that moved and that must move across the valley of Jehoshaphat and up the Mount of Olives. Why that way more than any other way? he asked himself: because it is the shortest way. As if that mattered, he added, and as soon as he reached the top of the Mount of Olives he looked over the desert and was surprised by the smallness of the hills; like the people who lived among them, they seemed to him to have dwindled. The world is much smaller than I thought, he said. That is it, the world seems to have dwindled into a sort of ash-heap; life has become as tasteless as ashes. It can only end, he said to himself, by my discovering something that interests me, but nothing interests me except Jesus. Lack of desire, he said, is my burden, for, desiring one thing too much, I have lost desire for all else, and that is why life has come to me like an ash-heap.

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 sex 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 passed 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 sex; 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 passes 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 pass 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 passed 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 manuscript. But he could not always keep his thoughts on the manuscript, and, forgetful of Heraclitus, he often sat thinking of Jesus’ promise–that one morning men would awake to find that God 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 manuscript 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. Heraclitus 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 passing 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 God 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 God 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 pass out of one life into another; therefore, if so, to die in this world only meant to pass 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 Heraclitus 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 Heraclitus, 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 Heraclitus 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 tassels 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 passionate 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 class, 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 hither.

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 substitute 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.