Short Fiction, Leonid Andreyev [good e books to read .TXT] 📗

of us twain, Peter or I, will be nearest to Christ in His heavenly kingdom?”

Judas thought for a moment and replied:

“I think thou wilt.”

“And Peter thinks he will,” smiled John.

“No. Peter’s shouting would scatter the angels. Hearest thou him? Of course, he will dispute with thee and will strive to come first and occupy the place, for he claims that he too loves Jesus. But he is growing old, while thou art young. He is slow, while thou art fleetfooted and thou wilt be the first to enter with Christ. Am I not right?”

“Yes. I shall never leave Jesus’ side,” assented John.

That same day Simon Peter addressed the very same question to Judas. But fearing that his loud voice would be heard by others he led Judas to the furthest corner of the house.

“Well how thinkest thou?” he inquired anxiously. “Thou art wise. Even the Teacher praises thy wisdom. Thou wilt tell me the truth.”

“Thou, of course,” the Iscariot replied without hesitation. And Peter indignantly exclaimed:

“I told him so.”

“But, of course, even there he will try to dispute the first place with thee.”

“Of course he will.”

“But what can he do if he find the place already occupied by thee? Thou wilt not leave Him alone. Did he not call thee a Rock?”

Peter laid his hand on Judas’ shoulder and fervently exclaimed:

“I tell thee, Judas, thou art the wisest among us. Pity thou art so malevolent and sneering. The Teacher does not like it. And thou couldst be a beloved disciple no less than John. But even unto thee I shall not yield my place by the side of Jesus, neither here on earth nor over there. Hearest thou me?” And he raised his hand with a threatening gesture.

Thus Judas sought to please both, the while he was harboring thoughts of his own. And remaining the same modest, quiet and unobtrusive Judas, he strove to say something agreeable to all.

Thus he said to Thomas: “The fool believeth every word, but the man of wisdom takes heed of his ways.” But to Matthew who loved to eat and drink and was ashamed of this weakness he cited the words of Solomon.

“The righteous shall eat his fill, but the seed of the lawless is in want.”

But such pleasant words he spoke rarely, which lent to them a special value. Now he remained silent for long periods and listened attentively to others, though he kept thinking thoughts of his own. Judas in his musing mood had a disagreeable and ludicrous, and at the same time a disconcerting appearance. While his cunning live eye was mobile he appeared to be genuine and gentle, but when both of his eyes assumed that fixed and rigid look, and the skin on his forehead gathered into queer wrinkles and folds, one received the disquieting impression that within that skull there swarmed very peculiar thoughts, utterly strange, quite peculiar thoughts that had no language of their own and they enveloped the cogitating Iscariot with a shroud of mystery so disturbing that the beholder longed to have him break the silence quickly, to stir a little or even to lie. For even a lie uttered by a human tongue seemed truth and light in the face of this hopelessly mute and unresponsive silence.

“Lost in thought again, Judas?” rang out the sonorous voice of Peter, suddenly breaking through the dull silence of the Iscariot’s musing. “What art thou thinking of?”

“Of many things,” replied the Iscariot with a quiet smile. And observing the unpleasant effect of his silence upon the others, he began more and more frequently to separate himself from the disciples, taking lonely walks or spending hours alone on the flat roof of the house. More than once Thomas collided on the roof with a grey bundle out of which suddenly disentangled themselves the ungainly limbs of Judas and was startled by the well known mocking accents of the Iscariot’s voice.

Only once again the man of Kerioth oddly and abruptly recalled to the memory of the disciples the Judas of former days, and this occurred during the dispute concerning the first place in the Kingdom of heaven. In the presence of the Teacher, Peter and John hotly and with mutual recriminations defended their claims to the place nearest to Jesus. They enumerated their merits, compared the degree of their love of Jesus, shouted angrily and even abused one another incontinently⁠—Peter, all flushed with wrath and thundering, John pale and still, with trembling hands and stinging words. Their dispute was fast becoming unseemly and the Teacher was commencing to frown, when Peter chanced to look up at Judas and laughed out exultingly. John also glanced at Judas and smiled contentedly. Each remembered what the wise Iscariot had told him. With the foretaste of certain triumph they both summoned Judas to be their judge, and Peter cried out: “Hey, thou wise Judas. Tell us who will be first and nearest to Jesus, he or I?”

But Judas was silent. He breathed heavily and fixed his gaze longingly, questioningly, on the deep and calm eyes of Jesus.

“Yes,” condescendingly agreed John, “tell him who will be the first and nearest to Jesus.”

With his glance still fixed on Christ, Judas rose slowly to his feet and replied calmly and gravely:

“I.”

Jesus slowly dropped his eyes, while the Iscariot, beating his breast with a bony finger sternly and solemnly repeated:

“I! I shall be near Jesus.”

And with these words he went out leaving the disciples dumbfounded by this insolent outbreak. Only Peter, as if suddenly recollecting something, whispered to Thomas in an unexpectedly quiet tone:

“This is then what he is thinking about. Didst thou hear him?”

V

It was just about this time that Judas Iscariot took his first decisive step towards betrayal: he paid a secret visit to the high priest Annas. He was received very sternly, but this did not disconcert him and he demanded a prolonged private interview. Left alone with the stern ascetic old man who eyed him contemptuously from under his bushy