Barabbas

by Pär Lagerkvist

  —Yes, Sahak answered in a shaking voice, but it did not tremble as much as before.

  —And you stick to this?

  —Yes.

  —But don’t you understand what you are letting yourself in for by doing so?

  —Yes. I understand.

  The Roman paused, thinking of this slave’s god, whom as a matter of fact he had heard spoken of quite a lot recently, this madman in Jerusalem who had himself died a slave’s death. “Loose all chains” … “God’s own slave, whom he will set free” … Anything but a harmless doctrine, in fact … And faces such as that slave’s had no appeal for a slave-owner.…

  —If you renounce your faith no harm shall come to you, he said. Will you do it?

  —I cannot, Sahak replied.

  —Why not!

  —I cannot deny my God.

  —Extraordinary man … Surely you must be aware of the punishment you force me to sentence you to. Are you really so brave that you can die for your faith?

  —That is not for me to decide, said Sahak quietly.

  —That doesn’t sound so very brave. Is life not dear to you?

  —Yes, answered Sahak. It is.

  —But if you do not forswear this god of yours, nothing can save you. You will lose your life.

  —I cannot lose the Lord my God.

  The Roman shrugged his shoulders.

  —Then there is nothing more I can do for you, he said, going over to the table at which he had been sitting when they came. He struck its marble top with a little ivory hammer.

  —You are just as crazy as your god, he added, half to himself.

  While they were waiting for the guard to come, the governor went up to Barabbas, turned the slave’s disk over, drew out his dagger and scratched the point of it across the words “Christos Iesus.”

  —There’s really no need, as you don’t believe in him in any case, he said.

  While this was happening Sahak looked at Barabbas with an expression that seared through him like fire and which he was never to forget.

  And so Sahak was led away by the guard and Barabbas was left standing there. The governor commended him for his sensible behaviour and said that he wished to reward him for it. He was to report to the foreman of the slaves here in the house and have other and better work assigned to him.

  Barabbas gave him a quick look and the Roman found that the man’s eyes did in fact have an expression, harmless though it was. Hatred was quivering there like the point of an arrow that would never be shot.

  And so Barabbas went to do as he had been commanded.

  When Sahak was crucified Barabbas stood concealed behind some hibiscus bushes a little distance away, so that his friend on the cross should not be able to see him. But Sahak had already been tortured so much beforehand that he was unlikely to have been aware of him. This had been done from force of habit and because they had thought that the governor had simply forgotten to give the order. Actually the governor had not meant anything like that, though he had not bothered either to give an order to the contrary. And so for safety’s sake they had done as usual. What the slave was sentenced for they had no idea, nor did they care. They were doing this sort of thing continually.

  Half of his head had been shaved again and the white hair was stained with blood. The face expressed nothing, really, but Barabbas who knew it so well understood what it would have expressed had it been able. He stood gazing at it the whole time with burning eyes, if it can be said that eyes such as Barabbas’s are burning, and it could be said now. He also gazed at the emaciated body; he could not have torn himself away even if he had wanted to, and he didn’t want to. The body was so scraggy and feeble that it was hard to imagine what crime it could have committed. But on the chest, where every rib was visible, the State’s insignia were branded, to show that it was a case of high treason. The slave’s disk, on the other hand, had been removed for the sake of the metal and because it was no longer needed.

  The place of execution was a small rise outside the town, surrounded here and there at the foot by one or two bushes and thickets. Behind one of these stood Barabbas the acquitted. Apart from him and those who had charge of the crucifixion there was not a soul there, no one had bothered to witness Sahak’s death. Otherwise people often collected, especially when the victim was guilty of a heinous crime. But Sahak had committed neither murder nor anything else, and nobody knew him or what he had done.

  It was spring again now, just as it had been when they came up out of the mine and Sahak had fallen on his knees and exclaimed “He has come!” The earth was green and even the execution-hill was full of flowers. The sun was shining on the mountains and across the sea that lay not far below. But it was the middle of the day, the heat was already oppressive and big swarms of flies rose up the moment anyone moved on the befouled slope. They were all over Sahak’s body, and he was past being able to move sufficiently to drive them away. No, there was nothing great or uplifting about Sahak’s death.

  It was all the more curious, therefore, that Barabbas could be so moved by it. But he was. He followed it with eyes that were resolved to remember every detail—the sweat that ran down the forehead and from the deep, hollow armpits; the heaving chest with its marks from the State’s branding-irons; the flies that no one chased away. The head hung down and the dying man groaned heavily, Barabbas heard every breath right down where he was standing. He too breathed jerkily and heavily, and his mouth was half-open like his friend’s up there. He even thought he felt thirsty, as the other undoubtedly did. It was remarkable that Barabbas could feel as he did, but he had been shackled together with him for so long. He thought he still was, for that matter, that he and the crucified man were united again with their iron chain.

  Sahak was now trying to get something out, there was something he wanted to say; perhaps he wanted a drink, but no one could catch what it was. Nor could Barabbas hear what he was saying, in spite of straining his ears. Besides, he was standing much too far away. He could, of course, have rushed up the slope, up to the cross, and cried out to his friend up there, asked what he wanted, if there was something he could do for him—and he could at the same time have chased away the flies. But he didn’t. He stood there hidden behind his bush. He did nothing. He merely gazed at him the whole time with burning eyes and his mouth half-open from the other’s pain.

  Not so very long after this it was clear that the crucified man would not have to suffer much more. His breath came faintly; it was no longer audible down where Barabbas stood, and the chest was hardly moving. After a while it stopped altogether and one could take it that Sahak was dead. Without any darkness descending over the earth and without any miracles at all, he quietly and unobtrusively gave up the ghost. None of those who were waiting for him to die noticed anything; they lay playing dice just as they had done that time so long ago. But this time they did not start up and were not in the least alarmed that the man on the cross had died. They didn’t even notice it. The only one who did was Barabbas. And when he realized what had happened, he gave a gasp and sank down on his knees as though in prayer.

  Strange … And to think how happy Sahak would have been if he had lived to see it. Unfortunately he was already dead.

  And anyway, even though Barabbas was kneeling, he was not in fact praying. He had no one to pray to. But he knelt there for a while all the same.

  Then he hid his ravaged, grey-bearded face in his hands and seemed to cry.

  Suddenly one of the soldiers uttered an oath, on discovering that the crucified man was dead and that all they had to do was to take him down and go home. And so they did.

  Thus it was when Sahak was crucified and Barabbas the acquitted stood looking on.

  When the governor retired from his governorship and returned to Rome to spend his remaining years there, he had amassed a fortune which was greater than that of any previous ruler of the island; but at the same time he had administered the mines and the whole province with a profit to the State unknown
before. Innumerable overseers and slave-drivers had contributed to this success by their sense of duty, severity and perhaps even cruelty; thanks to them it had been possible to exploit fully the natural resources and squeeze both population and slaves to the utmost. But he himself was far from cruel. It was only his rule that was hard, not himself: if anyone blamed him for such a thing it was due to ignorance, to the fact that one didn’t know him. And to most people he was an unknown, half-mythical person. Thousands of human wrecks down in their mine-pits and at their ploughs out in the sun-baked fields gave a sigh of relief when they heard that he thought of going away; in their simplicity they hoped that a new ruler would be better. But the governor himself left the beautiful island with sadness and regret. He had been very happy there.

  He was particularly aware that he would miss his work, for he was a vigorous and active man who liked to have plenty to do. But he was also a highly cultured person and therefore looked forward at the same time to the possibilities Rome offered of a refined way of living and intercourse with cultivated equals. As he reclined in his comfortable easy chair on the shady poop deck of the ship his thoughts lingered on this with pleasure.

  He had taken with him the slaves he thought he would need for his own use and, among them, Barabbas. He had, however, put him down on the list more out of consideration and sentiment, for a slave of his age was not likely to be of much use to him. But he liked this sensible slave who had loyally allowed his god’s name to be crossed out, and decided that he should come too. No one could believe that Barabbas’s master was so considerate and unforgetful.

  The voyage took longer than usual as the ship was greatly becalmed, but after several weeks’ continuous rowing it glided into the port of Ostia with the galley-slaves bleeding, and the governor arrived in Rome the very next day, followed within a day or two by his retinue and possessions.

  The palace which he had arranged to buy was in the most fashionable quarter and in the very heart of the city. It was several storeys high and decorated inside with multi-coloured marble and in every way furnished with excessive luxury. Barabbas, who lived in the basement, like all the other slaves, never saw much more of it than this, but he realized that it must be a very sumptuous and magnificent house. It was quite immaterial to him. He was given light work to do, odd jobs of various kinds, and each morning he and several of the other slaves went with the superintendent of the kitchen, a haughty freedman, when the latter made his purchases in the market. In this way he got to see quite a lot of Rome.

  Perhaps it cannot be said that he really saw it. It merely flitted past his eyes without seeming to affect him. When jostled by the crowd in the narrow streets or walking about the clamorous market-places, which were so full of people that one could hardly push one’s way through, it all reached him as something extraneous and as though through a mist. The mighty, tumultuous capital never, in fact, became a reality to him, and he went about absently in the midst of it, engrossed in his own thoughts. Men and women from every country and of every race were mixed higgledy-piggledy, and anyone but Barabbas would probably have been fascinated by this seething mass and by all the wealth and splendour, by the stately buildings and the innumerable temples to every imaginable god, to which the nobility had themselves carried in costly, gilded litters to worship each his own—when they did not prefer the luxury shops in the Via Sacra or one of the resplendent baths. Eyes other than his would no doubt have reflected all this, enraptured. But Barabbas’s eyes reflected nothing; perhaps they were too deep-set to do so, and what they saw merely glided past like something that did not concern them. No, he didn’t care a straw for this world. He was indifferent to it. So he thought himself, at any rate.

  But he could not have been quite so indifferent to it as he thought, all the same. For he hated it.

  Among the other things that seemed unreal to him were the many processions that passed through the streets, with their priests and believers and sacred emblems. To him who had no god it must have felt strange to be meeting them continuously and to have to make way for them. Pressed against the house walls, he watched them with a stealthy, averted look. Once he even followed one of these processions into a remarkable temple which he had never seen before, and when inside he, like the others, stopped in front of a picture of a mother with her boy-child in her arms; and when he asked who it was they said that it was the most blessed Isis with the child Horus. But then they began looking at him suspiciously, at someone who did not know the Holy Mother’s name, and a temple guard came and turned him out; by the copper portal the guard made a secret sign to protect himself and the temple. Perhaps he saw that Barabbas was conceived and born in hatred of all things created in heaven and earth and of the Creator of heaven and earth.

  With the scar down his cheek flaming red and the pupils of his fierce, hidden-away eyes quivering like arrowheads, Barabbas rushed away, and then through street after street and lane after lane. Get thee hence, thou reprobate! He lost his bearings and hadn’t the faintest idea where he was, and when at last he found his way home he only narrowly escaped being punished; but this they dared not do as they knew that he was in favour with the master of the house. And besides, they believed his muddled explanation that he had lost his way in the city that was still so strange to him. He crouched in his corner in the slave-cellar and as he lay there in the darkness he felt the crossed-out “Christos Iesus” burn like fire against his heaving chest.

  That night he dreamt that he was shackled to a slave who lay beside him praying, but whom he could not see.

  —What are you praying for? he asked him. What is the use?

  —I am praying for you, the slave answered out of the darkness in a well-known voice.

  Then he lay quite still so as not to disturb the praying man and felt his old eyes filling with tears. But when he awoke and fumbled about on the floor for the chain, it was not there, nor the slave either. He was not bound together with anyone. Not with anyone at all in the whole world.

  On one occasion when he was alone in one of the cellars underneath the palace, he found the sign of the fish carved into the wall in an out-of-the-way place. It was clumsily done but there was no doubt as to what it was intended to be and the meaning of it. He stood wondering which of the slaves could be a Christian. He wondered greatly over it during the days and weeks that followed and observed each one of them carefully to try and find out. But he asked no one. He didn’t ferret it out by making enquiries as to whether there was anyone who knew. In that case it would not have been so difficult. But he did nothing like that.

  He did not associate with them, with the other slaves, more than was absolutely necessary. He never spoke to any of them and therefore didn’t know them. And for this reason no one knew him or bothered about him.

  There were many Christians in Rome, that he knew. He knew that they assembled in their prayer-houses, in their brotherhoods in different parts of the city. But he made no effort to go along. It may have crossed his mind once or twice, but he never went. He bore the name of their God carved on his disk, but it was crossed out.

  Latterly they had apparently had to meet in secret, in other places, as they were afraid of persecution. Barabbas had heard about it in the market-place from several who had spaced out their fingers after them by way of protection, just as the temple guard in the Holy Mother’s temple had done to him. They were abhorred, hated, suspected of witchcraft and goodness knows what. And their god was a notorious malefactor who had been hanged a long time ago. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with them.

  One evening Barabbas overheard two of the slaves standing whispering together in the darkness of the cellar; they could not see him and believed themselves alone.

  Barabbas could not see them either, but he recognized them by their voices. They were two newly-bought slaves who had not been many weeks in the house.

  They were speaking of a meeting of the brethren that was to be held the following evening in Marcus Lucius’ vineyard on the App
ian Way. After a while Barabbas realized that it was not in the vineyard they were all to meet but in the Jewish catacombs that had their beginning there.

  Curious place at which to meet … Among the dead … How could they want to meet there …?

  On the evening of the next day, in good time before the slave-cellar was shut for the night, he slipped away from the palace at the risk of his life.

  When he came out on the Via Appia it was nearly dusk and there was scarcely any longer a soul to be seen. He found the vineyard by asking a shepherd who was driving his flock home along the road.

  Once down under the earth he groped his way along in the narrow, sloping passage. The daylight from the opening still guided him as he made his way down into the first burial gallery and saw how it extended into the darkness. He groped his way along in it, feeling with his hands against the cold, damp stone slabs of the walls. They were to gather in the first big burial chamber, he had understood from the two slaves. He went on.

  Now he thought he could hear voices. He stopped and listened; no, there wasn’t a sound. He continued. He had to go very warily the whole time as there were often steps, one or several steps, that always led still deeper down into the earth. He went on and on.

  But he didn’t come to any burial chamber. It was still the same narrow gallery. Now it was branching off, he could feel, and he didn’t know which way to choose. He stood hesitating, utterly at a loss. Then he saw a gleam of light in the distance, quite a long way off. Yes, it was a gleam of light! He hurried towards it. That’s where it must be!

  But suddenly there was no longer any light to be seen. It had vanished, perhaps because without his knowing he had turned into another passage-way, a side-passage to the first. He hurried back to see the light again. But it had disappeared; it was not there any more!