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

Peter sullenly replied to the frenzied harangue of Judas:

“I unsheathed the sword but He himself bade me put it up.”

“He bade thee? And thou didst obey?” laughed the Iscariot. “Peter, Peter, was it meet to obey Him? Does He understand aught of men and of fighting?”

“He who disobeys Him will go down to the Gehenna of fire.”

“Then why didst thou not go? Why didst thou not go, Peter? Gehenna of fire, indeed, what is Gehenna? And why didst thou not go? Why hast thou a soul if thou darest not throw it into the fire at will?”

“Silence, He himself desired this sacrifice,” exclaimed John rising to his feet. “And His sacrifice was beautiful.”

“Is there a beautiful sacrifice? What sayest thou, beloved disciple? Where there is a sacrifice, there is the slayer and the betrayer also. Sacrifice is suffering for one and shame for the others. Traitors, traitors, what have ye done with this earth? They are gazing upon this earth from above and from below with derision, saying: ‘Look at this earth, on it they crucified Jesus.’ And they spit upon it even as I do.”

Judas spat wrathfully.

“He took upon Himself the sins of all mankind. His sacrifice is beautiful,” insisted John.

“Nay, but ye upon yourselves have taken all sin. Beloved disciple! Will there not spring up from thee a race of traitors, a brood of little-souled liars? Ye blinded men, what have ye done with this earth? Ye compassed about to destroy it. You will soon kiss the cross whereon ye crucified Jesus. Yes, indeed, you will kiss the cross, Judas promises you that.”

“Judas, do riot blaspheme,” roared Peter flushing. “How could we kill all his foes? There were so many of them.”

“And thou, Peter,” angrily retorted John. “Dost thou not see that he is possessed of Satan. Get thee hence, tempter. Thou art full of lies. The Teacher commanded not to slay.”

“But did He forbid you to die? Why are ye living whereas He is dead? Why do your legs walk, your tongues utter folly, your eyes wink, whereas He is dead, immovable, voiceless? How dare thy cheeks be red, John, whereas His are pale? How darest thou shout, Peter, whereas He is silent? What ye should have done, ye ask of Judas? And Judas replies to you, beautiful, daring Judas of Kerioth: ye should have died. Ye should have fallen on the way, clutching the soldiers’ swords and hands. Ye should have drowned them in a sea of your own blood; ye should have died, died. His very Father should have called out with dread if ye all had entered.”

Judas paused, raised his hand, and suddenly noticed on the table the remains of a meal. And with a queer amazement, curiously, as if he were looking at food for the first time, he closely scrutinized it and slowly inquired: “What is this? Ye have eaten? Perhaps slept also?”

“I have slept,” curtly replied Peter, dropping his head, scenting already in Judas’ manner a tone of command. “I have slept and eaten.”

Thomas resolutely and firmly interposed: “This is all wrong, Judas. Think: if we had all died, who would have been left to tell about Jesus? Who would carry the teachings of Jesus to the people, if all of us had died, John and Peter and I?”

“And what is truth in the lips of traitors? Does it not turn to falsehood? Thomas, Thomas, dost thou not understand that thou art now a watchman at the grave of dead truth? The watchman falleth asleep, a thief cometh and carrieth away the truth⁠—tell me where is the truth? Be thou accursed, Thomas! Fruitless and beggarly wilt thou be forever, and ye are accursed with Him.”

“Be thou thyself accursed, Satan,” retorted John, and his words were repeated by James and Matthew and all the other disciples. Peter alone was silent.

“I go to Him!” said Judas raising aloft his masterful hand. “Who will follow the Iscariot to Jesus?”

“I! I! I am with thee,” cried Peter rising. But John and the others stopped him with terror, saying: “Madman, dost thou forget that he betrayed our Teacher into the hands of His enemies?”

Peter smote his breast with his fist and wept bitterly.

“Whither shall I go, Lord? O Lord, whither?”

Long ago, during his solitary rambles, Judas had picked out the spot whereon he intended to kill himself after the death of Jesus. It was on the side of the mountain, high over Jerusalem, and only one tree was growing there, twisted all out of shape, knocked about by the wind which tore at it from all sides and half-withered. One of its gnarled and leafbare branches it stretched cut over Jerusalem as though blessing the city or perhaps threatening it, and this one Judas selected whereon to fasten his noose. But the path to the tree was long and difficult, and Judas of Kerioth was very tired. Still the same sharp little stones rolled from under his feet as if dragging him back, and the mountain was high, windswept and gloomy. And Judas sat down for a rest several times, breathing heavily, while from the back through the crevices there swept over him the chilling breath of the mountain.

“Thou too, accursed hill,” contemptuously muttered Judas and breathing heavily he shook his benumbed head wherein all thoughts had turned to stone. Then suddenly he raised it, opening wide his chilled eyes and wrathfully growled:

“No, they are too bad altogether for Judas. Hearest thou, Jesus? Now wilt thou believe me? I am coming. Meet me kindly, for I am weary. I am very weary. Then together, with a brother’s embrace, we shall return to this earth. Is it well?”

And again opening wide his eyes he murmured:

“But perhaps even there thou wilt be angry with Judas of Kerioth? And perhaps thou wilt not believe? And peradventure, thou wilt send me to hell? Well, what then? I shall go to hell. And in the flames of thy hell I shall forge the iron to wreck thy heaven.