Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  Genevieve, confounded among those who filled the hall, heard them say to one another:

  ‘He is at last taken, then, this Nazarene, who preached revolt!’

  ‘Oh! he is less haughty now than when he was at the head of his troop of vagabonds and abandoned women!’

  ‘He preaches against the rich,’ said a servant of the high priest; ‘he commands the renunciation of riches; but if our masters were to keep poor cheer, we servants should be reduced to the lot of hungry beggars, instead of fattening on the many feasts given by our masters.’

  ‘And this is not all,’ said another; ‘if we listened to this cursed Nazarene, our masters, voluntarily impoverished, would denounce all pleasures; they would not throw away every day superb robes or tunics because the embroidery or color of these garments did not please them. Now, who profits by these caprices of our ostentatious masters, unless ourselves, since tunics and robes all fall to our share?’

  ‘And if our masters renounced pleasures, to live on fasting and prayer, they would have no more gay mistresses, they would no longer charge us with those amorous commissions, recompensed magnificently in case of success!’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ they all cried together; ‘death to the Nazarene who would make of us, who live in idleness, abundance and gaiety, beggars or beasts of burthen!’

  Genevieve heard many other remarks, spoken half aloud and menacing for the life of Jesus; one of the two mysterious emissaries, behind whom she stood, said to his companion: ‘Our evidence will now suffice to condemn this cursed fellow; I have come to an understanding with Caiphus.’

  At this moment one of the officers of the high priest, placed by the side of the Nazarene and charged to watch him, struck with his mace on the floor of the hall; immediately there was a dead silence. Then Caiphus, after a few words exchanged in a low voice with the other pharisees composing the tribunal, said to those assembled: ‘Who are they who can depose here against the man called Jesus of Nazareth?’

  One of the two emissaries advanced to the foot of the tribunal and said in a solemn voice:

  ‘I swear having heard this man affirm that the high priests and doctors of the law were all hypocrites, and that he treated them as a race of serpents and vipers!’

  A murmur of indignation rose from the soldiers and servants of the priests, the judges looked at one another, appearing to ask each other if it were possible that such words could have been pronounced. The other emissary approached near his companion and added in a voice not less solemn:

  ‘I swear having heard this man affirm that they must revolt against Prince Herod and against the Emperor Tiberius, the august protector of Israel, in order to proclaim Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews.’

  While a smile of pity crossed the lips of Mary’s son at these false accusations, since he had said: ‘Render unto Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s, and unto God that which is God’s!’ the pharisees of the tribunal lifted up their hands to heaven as if to invoke it as a witness of such enormities. One of the high priest’s servants, advancing in his turn, said to the judges:

  ‘I swear having heard this man say, that they must massacre all the pharisees, pillage their houses and violate their wives and daughters!’

  A fresh movement of horror manifested itself amongst the judges and those of the auditory who were devoted to them.

  ‘Pillage! massacre! and violation!’ exclaimed some.

  ‘Such is the object of the Nazarene! ’Tis for this he drags after him this band of wretches.’

  ‘He would some day, at their head, give up Jerusalem to fire, pillage and blood!’

  The high priest Caiphus, president of the tribunal, signed to one of the officers to demand silence; the officer again struck the floor with his mace, all were silent. Caiphus, addressing the young Nazarene in a menacing voice, said to him:

  ‘Why do you not reply to what these persons depose against you?’

  Jesus said to him in an accent full of gentleness and dignity:

  ‘I have spoken publicly to every one; I have always taught in the temple and in the synagogue in which all the Jews were assembled; I have said nothing in secret, why, then, do you question me? Question those who have heard me, to ascertain what I have said to them: these know what I have taught.’

  Scarce had he spoken these words when Genevieve saw one of the officers, furious at this reply, so just and so calm, raise his hand against Jesus and strike him in the face, exclaiming:

  ‘Is it thus you reply to the high priest?’

  At this infamous outrage, to strike a man bound, Genevieve felt her heart leap, her tears stream, whilst on the contrary, loud bursts of laughter rose from amidst the soldiers and servants of the high priest.

  Jesus still remained placid, but he turned to the officer and said to him mildly:

  ‘If I have spoken evil show me the evil I have done; but if I have spoken well, why strikest thou me?’

  These words and his angelic sweetness did not disarm the persecutors of the young man; coarse laughter again burst from the hall and the insults recommenced on all sides.

  ‘Oh! the Nazarene, the man of peace, the enemy of war, does not belie himself; he is a coward and allows himself to be struck in the face.’

  ‘Call your disciples, then; let them come and avenge you if you have not the courage.’

  ‘His disciples,’ said one of the soldiers who had arrested Jesus. ‘His disciples! ah! if you had but seen them! At sight of our lances and our torches the vagabonds fled like a flight of owls!’

  ‘They were glad enough to escape the tyranny of the Nazarene, who kept them near him by magic!’

  ‘As a proof that they hate and despise him, not one dared accompany him hither.’

  ‘Oh!’ thought Genevieve, ‘how Jesus must suffer from this base ingratitude of his friends! It must be more cruel than the outrages of which he is the object.’ And turning her head towards the street door, she saw at a distance Peter, still seated on a bench, his face hidden in his hands and not having even the courage to assist and defend his kind master before this tribunal of blood. The tumult produced by the violence of the officer being somewhat appeased, one of the emissaries continued in a loud voice:

  ‘I swear, lastly, that this man has horribly blasphemed by saying that he is Christ, the son of God!’

  Then Caiphus, addressing Jesus, said to him in a tone still more menacing: ‘You reply nothing to what these persons say of you?’

  But the young man only shrugged his shoulders and still continued silent. This irritated Caiphus, he rose from his seat and exclaimed, pointing with his finger to the son of Mary: ‘On the part of the living God, I order you to tell us if you are the Christ, the son of God.’

  ‘You have said it, I am,’ replied the young man smiling.

  Genevieve had heard Jesus say, that like all men, his brothers, he was a son of God; just as the Druids teach that all men are sons of the same God. What then was the surprise of the slave, when she saw the high priest, when Jesus had replied that he was the son of God, rise up and tear his robe with all the appearance of horror and alarm, exclaiming, addressing the members of the tribunal:

  ‘He has blasphemed; what need have we of more witnesses? You, yourselves, have heard him blaspheme, how do you judge him?’

  ‘He deserves death!’

  Such was the reply of all the judges of this court of inquiry. But the voices of Doctor Baruch and of the banker Jonas rose above every other; they cried out, striking with their fist the marble table of the tribunal:

  ‘Death for the Nazarene! He has deserved death!’

  ‘Yes! yes!’ cried all the soldiers and the servants of the high priest, ‘he has deserved death!’

  ‘To death with the cursed blasphemer!’

  ‘Conduct this criminal instantly before the Seigneur Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judea, for the Emperor Tiberius,’ said Caiphus to the soldiers; ‘he alone can give orders to put the condemned to death.’

  At these words of
the high priest they dragged Jesus from the house of Caiphus to take him before Pontius Pilate. Genevieve, confounded with the servants, followed the soldiers. On passing the door she saw Peter, the cowardly disciple of Jesus (the least cowardly of all, however, she thought, since alone, he had at least followed him there), she saw Peter turn away his eyes, when Jesus seeking for a look from his disciple, passed before him, conducted by the soldiers. One of the female servants recognising Peter said to him:

  ‘You, too, were with Jesus the Galilean?’

  But Peter, reddening and casting down his eyes, replied:

  ‘I know not what you say.’

  Another servant, hearing Peter’s reply, said, pointing him out to the bystanders:

  ‘I tell you that this one was also with Jesus of Nazareth!’

  ‘I swear,’ exclaimed Peter, ‘I swear that I know not Jesus of Nazareth!’

  Genevieve’s heart heaved with indignation and disgust. This Peter, by a base weakness, or for fear of sharing the fate of his master, denying him twice and perjuring himself, for this indignity was in her eyes the worst of men: more than ever she pitied Mary’s son for having been betrayed, given up, abandoned, and denied by those whom he so much loved.

  She thus explained to herself the painful sadness she had remarked on his features. A great mind like this could not fear death, but despair at the ingratitude of those whom he thought his dearest friends.

  The slave quitted the house of the high priest, where Peter the renegade remained, and soon rejoined the soldiers who were leading away Jesus. The day began to break, several mendicants and vagabonds who had slept on the benches placed on each side of the door of the houses, awoke at the noise of the soldiers who were leading away Jesus. Genevieve hoped for a moment that these poor people who followed him everywhere, would call him their friend, whose misfortunes he so kindly pitied, would apprise their companions and assemble them to release Jesus; consequently she said to one of these men:

  ‘Know you not that these soldiers are leading away the young man of Nazareth, the friend of the poor and afflicted? They would kill him; hasten to defend him; release him; raise the people. These soldiers of Jerusalem will fly perhaps, but the soldiers of Pontius Pilate are tougher; they have good lances, thick cuirasses, and well tempered swords.’

  ‘What could we attempt?’

  ‘Why you can rise in a mass; you can arm yourselves with stones, with sticks!’ exclaimed Genevieve, ‘and at least you can die to avenge him who has consecrated his life to your cause!’

  The beggar shook his head and replied whilst one of his companions approached him:

  ‘Wretched as life may be, we cling to it, and ’tis running to meet death if we stake our rags against the cuirasses of the Roman soldiers.’

  ‘And then,’ said another vagabond, ‘if Jesus of Nazareth is a Messiah, as so many others have been before him, and so many others will be after him, ’tis a misfortune if they kill him; but Messiahs are never wanting in Israel.’

  ‘And if they put him to death!’ said Genevieve, ‘it is because he has loved you; it is because he pitied your wretchedness; it is because he has shamed the rich for their hypocrisy and their hardness of heart towards those who suffer!’

  ‘It is true; he constantly predicted for us the kingdom of God on earth,’ replied the vagabond again, reclining on his bench, as also his companion, to warm themselves by the rays of the morning sun; ‘yet these fine days he promised us do not arrive, and we are just as poor to-day as we were yesterday.’

  ‘Eh! and what tells you that these fine days, promised by him, will not arrive to-morrow?’ continued Genevieve; ‘does not the harvest require time to take root, to grow, and to ripen? Poor, blind and impatient that you are, recollect that to leave him to die, whom you call your friend, before he has fertilized the good seeds he has sown in so many hearts, is to trample under foot, is to destroy whilst yet only grass, a harvest perhaps magnificent.’

  The two vagabonds remained silent, shaking their heads, and Genevieve left them, saying to herself with profound grief:

  ‘Shall I encounter, then, everywhere nothing but ingratitude, forgetfulness, treason and cowardice? Oh! it is not the body of Jesus that will be crucified, it will be his heart.’

  The slave hastened to join the soldiers who were approaching the house of Pontius Pilate. — At the moment she doubled her pace, she remarked a sort of tumult amongst the Jerusalem militia, which suddenly stopped. She mounted on a bench and saw Banaias alone at the entrance of a narrow arcade which the soldiers had to cross to reach the governor’s house, audaciously barring the passage, brandishing his long stick terminated by a knob of iron.

  ‘Ah! this one at least does not abandon him he calls his friend!’ thought Genevieve.

  ‘By the shoulders of Samson!’ cried Banaias in his loud voice, ‘if you do not instantly set our friend at liberty, militia of Beelzebub! I’ll beat you as dry as the flail beats the wheat on the barn floor! Ah! if I had but time to collect a band of companions as resolute as myself to defend our friend of Nazareth, ’tis an order I would give you instead of a simple prayer, and this simple prayer I repeat: set our friend at liberty, or else by the jawbone used by Samson, I will destroy you all like he destroyed the Philistines!’

  ‘Do you hear the wretch! he calls this audacious menace a prayer!’ exclaimed the officer commanding the militia, who prudently kept himself in the middle of his troop; ‘run your lances through the miserable; strike him with your swords if he does not make way for you!’

  The Jerusalem militia was not a very valiant troop, for they had hesitated before arresting Jesus, who advanced towards them, alone and disarmed: so that, despite the orders of their chief, they remained a moment undecided before the menacing attitude of Banaias.

  In vain did Jesus, whose firm and gentle voice was heard by Genevieve, endeavor to appease his defender, and entreat him to retire. Banaias resumed in a threatening tone, thus replying to the supplications of the young Nazarene:

  ‘Do not trouble yourself about me, friend; you are a man of peace and quietness. I am a man of violence and battle, when the feeble are to be protected. Let me alone. I will stop these wicked soldiers here, until the noise of the tumult has apprised and brought my companions; and then, by the five hundred concubines of Solomon, who danced before him, you shall see these devils of the militia dance to the tune of our knobbed sticks, keeping time on their helmets and cuirasses.’

  ‘How much longer will you suffer yourselves to be insulted by a single man, you cowardly dogs?’ exclaimed the officer to his men.

  ‘Oh! if I had not orders not to quit the Nazarene more than his shadow, I would set you an example, and my long sword should already have cut the throat of this brigand!’

  ‘By Abraham’s nose! ’tis I who will rip open your belly, you who talk so big, and release my friend!’ exclaimed Banaias. ‘I am only one; but a falcon is worth much more than a hundred blackbirds.’

  And Banaias fell on the soldiers of the militia, swaying about his redoubtable stick, despite the prayers of Jesus.

  At first, surprised and shaken by so much audacity, some soldiers of the front rank of the escort gave way; but presently, ashamed at not resisting one man, they rallied, attacked Banaias in their turn, who, overcome by numbers, despite his heroic courage, fell dead, covered with wounds. Genevieve then saw the soldiers, in their rage, throw to the bottom of a well, near the arcade, the bleeding body of the only defender of Jesus. After this exploit, the officer, brandishing his long sword, placed himself at the head of his troop, and they arrived at the house of Pontius Pilate, where Genevieve had accompanied her mistress, Aurelia, a few days previous.

  The sun was already high. Attracted by the noise of the struggle of Banaias with the soldiers, several inhabitants of Jerusalem, issuing from their houses, had followed the militia. The house of the Roman governor was in the richest quarters of the town. The persons who, from curiosity, accompanied Jesus, far from pitying him, lo
aded him with insults and hootings.

  ‘At last, then,’ cried some, ‘the Nazarene, who brought so much trouble and confusion on our town, is taken!’

  ‘The demagogue who set the beggars against princes! The impious! who blasphemed our holy religion! The audacious! who brought trouble into our families, praising the prodigal and debauched sons,’ said one of the emissaries, who had followed the troop.

  ‘The infamous! who would pervert our wives,’ said the other emissary, ‘by encouraging adultery, since he snatched one of these sinners from the punishment she deserved!’

  ‘Thanks be to God!’ added a money-changer, ‘if this Nazarene is put to death, which will only be justice, we can then re-open our counters under the colonnade of the temple, whence this profaner and his band had driven us, and where we dared not return.’

  ‘What fools we were to fear his assemblage of beggars!’ added a dealer in merchandise.

  ‘See if one of them has simply dared rebel to defend this Nazarene, by whose name they were always swearing, he whom they called their friend!’

  ‘Let them finish with the brawler! Let him be crucified, and we shall hear no more of him!’

  ‘Yes, yes, death to the Nazarene!’ cried the people, amongst whom was Genevieve. And this assemblage still increasing, repeated, with greater fury, those fatal cries:

  ‘Death to the Nazarene!’

  ‘Alas!’ said the slave to herself, ’is there a more horrible fate than that of this young man; abandoned by the poor, whom he befriended; hated by the rich, to whom he preached humility and charity! How deep must be the bitterness of his heart!’

  The soldiers, followed by the crowd, had arrived opposite the house of Pilate.

  Several high priests, doctors of law, senators, and other pharisees, among whom were Caiphus, Doctor Baruch, and the banker Jonas, had joined the troop and walked at its head. One of these pharisees having cried:

  ‘Seigneurs, let us enter Pontius Pilate’s that he may instantly condemn the cursed Nazarene to death!’