駈込み訴え English

I must tell you.

I must tell you.

My lord.

That man is cruel.

Cruel.

Yes.

A hateful fellow.

A wicked man.

Ah.

I cannot bear it.

He must not be allowed to live.

Yes, yes.

I will tell it calmly.

That man must not be allowed to live.

He is an enemy of the world.

Yes, I will tell you everything — all of it, entirely, every last bit.

I know where that man is.

I will guide you there at once.

Cut him to pieces and kill him.

That man is my teacher.

My master.

And yet he is the same age as I.

Thirty-four.

I was born only two months after him.

There can be no great difference between us.

There should be no such cruel distinction between one man and another.

And yet, to this very day, how spitefully he has worked me, how he has used me!

How he has mocked me!

Ah, I can bear it no longer.

I have endured as far as endurance would go.

If a man does not grow angry when he ought to be angry, what good is it to be human?

How secretly I have shielded that man, again and again, until now!

No one knows of it.

That man himself does not even notice it.

No — he knows.

He knows perfectly well.

And precisely because he knows, he despises me all the more spitefully.

That man is arrogant.

It galls him, that he owes so much to me.

That man is vain to the point of foolishness.

He has convinced himself that to receive help from someone like me is some dreadful humiliation to himself.

He cannot bear for others to see him as anything less than a man who can do everything by himself.

What foolishness.

The world is not made that way.

To live in this world, a man must bow his head to someone whether he likes it or not, and press on step by step, painfully, holding others down — there is no other way.

What, after all, can that man do?

Nothing at all.

To my eyes he is a mere stripling.

If I had not been there, that man, together with those useless, blockheaded disciples of his, would long ago have died in some field by the roadside.

"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."

There, there, that's it.

He's confessed it himself, plain as day.

What can Peter do?

James, John, Andrew, Thomas — a gathering of fools, trailing after that man in a row, mouthing sickly-sweet flatteries that make my spine go cold, believing in mad rapture some idiotic thing called the kingdom of heaven, and when that heaven draws near, I suppose every one of those fools intends to become some grand minister of state, right hand or left — what fools they are.

That very day they hadn't enough bread, and if it weren't for me scraping and contriving, wouldn't they all simply starve to death?

I made him preach, I quietly wrung offerings out of the crowds, I collected tribute from the rich men of the villages, and I took care of everything from lodgings down to daily food and clothing, sparing myself no trouble — and yet neither that man nor his idiot disciples ever spoke me a single word of thanks.

Far from thanking me, that man pretends not to know of all my hidden daily toil, and is forever making the most extravagant demands — even when there were only five loaves and two fishes, he would order that food be given to the whole vast crowd before him, an impossible task — and I, behind the scenes, through truly agonizing contrivance, would somehow manage to procure the food he had commanded.

In a word, I have played, again and again, the assistant to that man's miracles — the accomplice in his precarious sleight of hand.

Whatever I may look like, I am by no means a stingy man.

Quite the opposite — I am, in fact, a man of rather refined taste.

I think that man beautiful.

To my eyes he is without desire, like a child, and however diligently I scrape together the money for our daily bread, he lets it be spent at once, down to the last farthing, on the most useless things.

And yet I bear him no grudge for it.

That man is beautiful.

Though I am, by origin, only a poor merchant, I believe I understand what it is to be a man of spirit.

So however foolishly he squanders the small coins I have painstakingly saved, I think nothing of it.

I think nothing of it — and yet, if only, once in a while, he would offer me one kind word in return, but that man is forever bent on treating me spitefully.

Once, as that man was strolling idly along the spring seashore, he suddenly called my name: "I owe you much, don't I. I know how lonely you are. But you must not always wear such a sullen face. To put on a lonely look when you are lonely — that is the way of a hypocrite. It is only showing your face on purpose, so that others will notice your loneliness and pity you. If you truly believe in God, then even when you are lonely, you should pretend not to notice, wash your face clean, anoint your head with oil, and smile. Don't you understand? Even if no one else ever learns of your loneliness, is it not enough that your true Father, unseen, somewhere, knows of it? Is that not so? Loneliness — everyone has it."

Hearing him say that, I know not why, but I wanted to weep aloud — no, even if the Father in heaven never knows, even if no one in this world ever knows, if only you, you alone, understand me, then that is enough, that is all I need.

I love you.

However deeply the other disciples may love you, my love is beyond all comparison with theirs.

I love you more than anyone.

Peter and James and the rest, they only follow after you wondering if some good thing might come of it — that is all they ever think of.

But I alone know.

I know that there is nothing at all to be gained by following you.

And yet, knowing that, I cannot bring myself to leave your side.

What is the matter with me?

If you were to vanish from this world, I would die at once, too.

I could not go on living.

There is a thing I have always thought about, secretly, alone.

It is that you should leave behind all those worthless disciples, and give up preaching the teachings of the Father in heaven, and live instead as one humble soul among the people — with your mother, the Lady Mary, and with me, just the two of us, and pass your whole life long in quiet.

In my village, my small house still stands.

My aged father and mother are still living there.

There is a good broad peach orchard, too.

In spring, just about this time of year, the peach blossoms are in glorious bloom.

You could live out your whole life there in ease.

I would stay always at your side and serve you.

Take a good wife, I beg you.

"Peter and Simon are fishermen. They have no beautiful peach orchard. James and John too are fishermen, poor as poverty itself. None of them has any such land, anywhere, where they might live out a life of ease."

So he murmured, low, as though to himself, and walked on quietly along the shore once more — but before that time and since, that was the only occasion on which I was able to speak with him so intimately; never again did he open his heart to me.

I love that man.

If he dies, I will die with him.

He belongs to no one.

He is mine.

Rather than hand him over to others, I will kill him myself, before I ever let him go.

I abandoned my father, abandoned my mother, abandoned the land of my birth, and to this very day I have followed after that man.

I do not believe in heaven.

Nor do I believe in God.

Nor do I believe in his resurrection.

How could that man possibly be King of Israel?

Those foolish disciples believe him to be the Son of God, and whenever they hear from him some so-called gospel of the kingdom of God, they leap and dance for joy, shamelessly.

I know full well they will soon be bitterly disappointed.

He has promised that whoever exalts himself shall be abased, and whoever abases himself shall be exalted — but how could the world ever be so kind as that?

That man is a liar.

Everything he says, every last word of it, from first to last, is nonsense.

I do not believe a bit of it.

But there is one thing I believe — his beauty.

There is no one so beautiful in all this world.

I love that man's beauty, purely, for its own sake.

That is all.

I seek no reward whatsoever.

I harbor no such petty ambition as those who follow him hoping that, once the kingdom of heaven draws near, they might at last become some grand minister of state, right hand or left.

I simply do not want to be parted from him.

Only to be at his side, to hear his voice, to gaze upon his form — that alone would be enough for me.

And if it were possible, I would have him give up all his preaching, and live out his whole long life with no one but me, just the two of us alone.

Ah, ah — if only that could be!

How happy I would be.

I believe only in this joy, here and now, in this present world.

I fear not at all the judgment of the world to come.

Why will that man not accept this pure, unrewarded love of mine?

Ah, kill that man, I beg you.

My lord.

I know where that man is.

I will guide you there.

That man despises me, and hates me.

I am hated.

I take care of the bread for him and for his disciples, I save them from hunger and thirst day after day — and yet why does he despise me so spitefully?

Listen to me.

It was six days ago.

That man was dining at the house of Simon in Bethany, when Mary, the sister of that Martha woman from the village, came slipping quietly into the banquet room carrying an alabaster jar brimful of spikenard ointment, and without a word of warning poured it splashing over his head, soaking even his feet — and far from apologizing for such rudeness, she calmly knelt down and wiped his wet feet carefully with her own hair, and the smell of the ointment hung thick in the room, a truly bizarre spectacle, so that I found myself seized with a senseless fury: "Don't you dare do such a rude thing!"

— that is what I shouted at that younger sister of hers.

"Look, see how his robe is soaked through! And to pour out such costly oil like that — have you no sense of waste? What a fool you are."

"Oil like this would fetch three hundred denarii. Sell it, make your three hundred denarii, and give the money to the poor — think how the poor would rejoice."

"You mustn't waste things so," I scolded her, on and on.

Then that man turned and looked straight at me: "Do not scold this woman. She has done a truly good thing. Giving money to the poor is something you will be able to do again and again, in all the days to come. But I — I will not be given to much longer. I will not say why. Only this woman knows. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has prepared me for burial. Remember this, all of you: wherever in all the world my brief life is told, there this woman's deed today will surely be told as well, in memory of her."

When he finished speaking so, his pale cheeks had flushed, ever so slightly, with color.

I do not believe that man's words.

As always, I took it for some exaggerated performance, and could hear it out unmoved — but more than that, in that man's voice, in the color of his eyes, I sensed something strange, something I had never felt before, and for a moment I was thrown off balance; I looked again, closely, at his faintly reddened cheeks and his eyes faintly wet with tears, and all at once something struck me.

Ah, how loathsome — it galls me even to speak of it.

Could it be that man had fallen — not in love, no, that could never, absolutely never be so — but had felt some dangerous emotion resembling it, for this poor peasant woman?

A man like him, of all people.

If he had felt even the faintest special affection for a wretched, ignorant peasant woman like that, what a disgrace it would be.

An irreparable, monstrous scandal.

I am, by nature, a man skilled at sniffing out the feelings that shame people.

I know it for a vulgar sort of instinct myself, and I dislike it in myself — but I possess a keen talent for catching, at a single glance, a person's weakness, without ever being wrong.

That that man's heart had been stirred, even faintly, by that unlettered peasant woman — of this, after all, there can be no mistake.

My eyes cannot be wrong.

It is certainly so.

Ah, I cannot bear it.

I cannot forgive it.

I thought that, in such a wretched state, that man too was finished.

I thought it the very height of disgrace.

However much women had liked him until now, he had always remained beautiful, calm as still water.

Never once had he lost his composure.

He has lost his edge.

Slovenly, that's what it is.

That man is still young, one might say it cannot be helped — but then, I am the very same age.

And what's more, I was born only two months after him.

Our youth cannot differ.

And yet I endure.

I have given my heart to him alone; never once, until now, have I let my heart be stirred by any woman.

Martha's sister Mary was nothing like Martha, who was big-boned and large as an ox, rough-tempered, whose only virtue was clattering about at her work — a peasant woman with nothing at all to recommend her. Mary was different: slight of bone, her skin so pale it seemed almost transparent, her small hands and feet soft and round, and her large eyes, deep and clear as a lake, forever gazing dreamily off into some distant place — a girl of such noble bearing that the whole village marveled at her.

I too had thought of her.

I had thought, when next I went to town, I might secretly buy her some white silk.

Ah, now I no longer understand myself.

What am I saying?

Yes — I am mortified.

I do not know why.

I am so chagrined I could stamp my feet on the ground.

If that man is young, then I am young too.

I am a young man of talent, with a house and fields of my own, a fine young man.

And yet, for that man's sake, I have thrown away every privilege I had.

I have been deceived.

That man is a liar.

My lord.

That man took my woman from me.

No, that's wrong!

It was that woman who stole him from me.

Ah, that is wrong too.

Everything I say is nonsense.

Do not believe a word of it.

I no longer understand myself.

Forgive me.

I found myself speaking baseless things.

There is not the slightest truth to such a foolish thing.

I have blurted out something ugly.

And yet — I am mortified.

So mortified I wanted to claw at my own breast.

I do not know why.

Ah, jealousy — what an unbearable vice it is.

I have adored that man with a devotion that would gladly throw away my life, and followed him faithfully to this very day, and yet he has never given me a single kind word — while for that lowly peasant woman, he took her part, blushing to the very cheeks in her defense.

Ah, after all, that man is slovenly.

He has lost his edge.

There is no more hope for him.

He is only an ordinary man.

Just a man, nothing more.

It would be no loss if he died.

The moment I thought that, a terrible thought suddenly came to me.

Perhaps I had been bewitched by the devil.

From that moment on, I began to think I might as well kill that man with my own hands.

He is certain to be killed sooner or later, in any case.

And that man himself, too, seems now and then to be steering things so as to force his own killing.

I will kill him with my own hands.

I do not want anyone else's hands to do it.

I will kill that man, and I will die too.

My lord, I am ashamed to have wept before you so.

Yes, I will weep no more.

Yes, yes.

I will tell it calmly.

The next day, we set out at last for Jerusalem, the city we had so long yearned for.

A great multitude, old and young alike, followed after him, and by and by, as the Temple of Jerusalem drew near, that man came upon a broken-down old donkey by the roadside, and smiling, mounted it, saying this was the very fulfillment of the prophecy: "Fear not, daughter of Zion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt."

— so he explained to the disciples, his face shining with pride, that this was exactly the form the prophecy had foretold; but I alone felt strangely gloomy.

What a pitiful sight it was.

The long-awaited Passover feast, the triumphal entry into the Temple of Jerusalem — was this, then, the true form of the Son of David?

Was the glorious figure he had longed for his whole life nothing more than this pitiful spectacle — plodding along, straddling a broken-down old donkey?

I could feel nothing anymore but pity.

It felt as though I were watching some truly wretched, foolish farce — ah, this man too is past his prime, I thought.

Every day he goes on living, he will only go on exposing himself to shallow disgrace.

A flower is a flower only while it has not yet withered.

It must be cut while still beautiful.

I am the one who loves that man most.

Let others hate me for it however they like.

I must kill him as soon as possible — that was all I could do, harden myself, at last, to this painful resolve.

The crowd grew larger by the minute, and along the road where he passed, they flung down their garments — red, blue, yellow, every color — or cut branches of palm and spread them along his way, greeting him with a roar of cheering.

They went before him and followed after, clinging from the right and from the left, until at last, like a great wave, they surged and swayed around the donkey and the man, chanting: "Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest."

— so they sang, every mouth at once, in a frenzy.

Peter and John and Bartholomew, and all the rest of the disciples — fools that they were — as though they already saw the kingdom of heaven before their very eyes, as though they were following behind some triumphant general, embraced one another in ecstatic joy, exchanged kisses wet with tears, and stubborn Peter, clutching John in his arms, wailed and sobbed aloud in sheer happiness.

Watching this, even I, despite myself, found myself remembering the days of hardship and poverty I had endured, walking these same roads of preaching alongside these disciples through every trial — and my eyes, to my own dismay, grew hot with tears.

And so he entered the Temple, dismounted from the donkey, and — for some reason I could not guess — picked up a length of rope, swung it about, overturning the tables of the money-changers and the stools of those who sold doves, and drove out of the Temple, with that rope for a whip, all the oxen and sheep that were for sale, and turned upon the many merchants there in the courtyard: "Get out, all of you! You shall not make my Father's house a house of merchandise!"

— so he shouted, in a shrill, high-pitched voice.

That such a gentle man should carry on with such petty violence, like some drunkard, I could only think that he had gone a little mad.

Everyone nearby was startled too, and when they asked him what on earth was the matter, he answered, out of breath: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again."

Even the dull, honest disciples, hearing such a reckless statement, could not bring themselves to believe it, and stood there gaping.

But I knew.

In the end, it could only be some childish bravado of his.

He must only have wanted to show people, by means of that so-called faith of his, that nothing was beyond his power.

And yet, to raise a rope-whip and chase powerless merchants about — what a petty sort of bravado that is.

Is that truly the very utmost of rebellion you are capable of, I wanted to ask him, with a pitying sneer — nothing more than kicking over a dove-seller's stool?

This man is finished now.

He is desperate, reckless, past caring.

He has forgotten all self-respect, all self-regard.

He has begun, of late, to sense that there is nothing more he can do by his own power, and so, before too much more comes unraveled, he has surely come to wish to be seized by the chief priests on purpose, and be done with this world.

When I thought of that, I found I could give up on that man, clearly, once and for all.

And I found I could laugh, easily enough, at my own foolishness, at having loved so single-mindedly, all this while, such a vain, posturing young master.

And then, before the great crowd of people gathered in the Temple, that man howled out, in wild disorder, the harshest, the most insolent and arrogant tirade of all the words he had ever spoken.

Yes, indeed — it was sheer desperation.

I found the sight of him almost squalid.

He is itching, aching, to be killed.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"

What foolishness.

It is laughable.

Even to mimic it is loathsome.

What a terrible thing for a man to say.

That man has gone mad.

And beyond that, too, he ranted on and on, spewing whatever came to his mouth — that there would be famines, that the earth would quake, that the stars would fall from the sky and the moon give no more light, that eagles would gather round the corpses that fill the earth to pick at them, that in that day men would wail and gnash their teeth — outrageous, reckless words, every one of them.

What thoughtless things to say.

Such overweening pride.

A fool.

He does not know his place.

How pleased with himself he is.

There is no escaping his guilt now.

The cross, surely.

It is decided.

The chief priests and the elders of the people, I heard, gathered in secret in the courtyard of Caiaphas the high priest and resolved to put that man to death — I heard it yesterday, from a peddler in the town.

I heard, too, that since seizing him before the eyes of the crowd might well provoke a riot among the people, they would give thirty pieces of silver to whoever found the place where that man and his disciples were alone, and informed the authorities.

There is no more time to hesitate.

That man is going to die regardless.

Rather than let some other man's hand hand him over to the officers, let it be I who does it.

This shall be the final greeting of the single-hearted love I have offered that man, up to this very day.

It is my duty.

I will sell that man myself.

What a bitter position to be in.

Who is there who could rightly understand this act of my single-minded love?

No — it does not matter if no one understands it.

My love is a pure love.

It is not a love that exists to be understood by others.

It is not so shabby, so grasping a love as that.

I shall earn men's hatred forever, I know.

But before this ravenous hunger of pure love, no punishment, no fire of hell itself, is of any consequence.

I will live out my own way of living, to the very end.

I resolved upon it, so firmly that I trembled.

And secretly, I began watching for a good occasion.

At last, the day of the festival arrived.

We thirteen, master and disciples together, borrowed the dim upstairs room of an old restaurant on the hill, to hold our festival banquet.

Just as we had all taken our seats at the table and were about to begin the festival supper, that man suddenly rose, and without a word, took off his outer garment; and while we sat watching, wondering what on earth he meant to do, he took up the water jar from the table, poured its water into a small basin that stood in the corner of the room, wound a pure white cloth about his own waist, and washed, one after another, the feet of his disciples with the water of that basin.

The disciples could not understand the reason for it, and only lost their composure, fidgeting in confusion — but I felt, somehow, that I could sense what secret thought lay behind that man's heart.

That man is lonely.

His spirit has grown weak, utterly weak; surely he feels now that he must cling even to us, his ignorant, stubborn disciples.

Poor man.

He knew his fate — knew there was no escaping it.

Watching him like that, I suddenly felt a powerful sob rise up in my throat.

I wanted, then and there, to seize him in my arms and weep together with him.

Oh, poor man — how could I ever condemn you?

You were always gentle.

You were always righteous.

You were always the friend of the poor.

And you were always, always, radiantly beautiful.

You are truly the Son of God.

I know it.

Forgive me.

These past two or three days I have been watching for a chance to sell you.

I want no more of it now.

To sell you — what a monstrous, lawless thing I was thinking of doing.

Set your heart at ease.

From this moment on, though five hundred officers or a thousand soldiers should come, I will not let so much as a finger touch your body.

They are stalking you even now.

It is dangerous.

Let us flee from here at once.

Peter, come; James, come; John, come; all of you, come.

Let us guard our gentle Lord, and live out our lives together with him always — such words of love, welling up from the very bottom of my heart, though I could not bring myself to speak them aloud, surged and boiled within my breast.

Struck by a kind of exalted inspiration I had never felt before, hot tears of contrition ran pleasantly down my cheeks; and presently that man washed my feet too, quietly, carefully, and dried them gently with the cloth wound about his waist — ah, the feel of it, then.

Yes — perhaps, in that moment, I glimpsed heaven itself.

After me, it was Philip's feet, then next Andrew's, and then it came the turn to wash Peter's feet; but Peter, being the foolish, honest man he is, could not keep his misgivings hidden, and asked: Lord, why do you wash even my feet?

— so he asked, pouting a little, somewhat displeased.

That man said, "Ah, what I do, you cannot understand now. Later, you will come to understand it,"

— so he gently reasoned with him, and crouched at Peter's feet; but Peter still stubbornly refused, saying, No, this must not be.

You shall never, ever wash my feet.

It is too much for me — so he insisted, drawing his feet back.

Then that man, raising his voice a little, said, "If I do not wash your feet, then you and I shall have nothing more to do with one another,"

— such a strong, drastic thing to say, that Peter, thrown into a great fluster, cried out, Oh, forgive me — then wash not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well, as much as you please, and bowed his head low in entreaty; and I could not help bursting out laughing, and the other disciples, too, smiled quietly to themselves, and somehow the whole room seemed to grow brighter.

That man, laughing a little himself, said, "Peter, once your feet are washed, your whole body is clean already. Ah, and not you alone — James too, and John too, all of you now have bodies free of stain, made clean. But—"

— so he began to say, and then straightened his back abruptly, and for an instant wore an expression of such sorrow, as though he could scarcely bear some pain, and at once shut his eyes tight, and spoke on with his eyes still closed.

"If only all of you were clean."

I gasped.

He had struck home!

He was speaking of me.

He had seen through the dark thoughts I had harbored, plotting to sell him, only moments before.

But by that time, it was already different.

I was different now, utterly different!

I had become clean.

My heart had changed.

Ah, but that man did not know it.

He did not know.

It is not so!

It is not so — the cry rose to my throat, but my weak, cringing heart swallowed it down, as one swallows spit.

I could not say it.

I could say nothing.

Hearing him say that, a twisted, faint-hearted thought reared its head in me — that perhaps I was, after all, not yet clean — and in an instant that groveling self-reproach swelled up, ugly and black, and went coursing through my very bowels, until, in reaction, a surge of fury blazed up and burst into flame.

Ah — no good.

I am no good.

He hates me, from the very bottom of his heart.

I will sell him.

I will sell him.

I will kill him.

And I too will die with him — so my old resolve awoke in me once more, and I became now, utterly, a demon of vengeance.

That man seemed altogether unaware of the great upheaval within me, twisting and overturning itself again and yet again, and presently he put on his robe, set his dress in order, and seated himself at ease, his face terribly pale, and said, "Do you know why I have washed your feet? You call me Lord, and call me Teacher besides, and that much is true enough. Yet I, who am your Lord, or your Teacher, have washed your feet all the same, and so from now on you too must take care to wash one another's feet, in good fellowship. I may not be able to remain with you forever, and so, in this moment, I have shown you an example. You must take care to do as I have done. A teacher is always greater than his disciple, so listen well to what I say, and do not forget it."

He spoke in a voice heavy with weariness, and began to eat in silence, and then, quite suddenly, said, "One of you will sell me."

He bowed his face and spoke in a voice so pained it seemed a groan, seemed almost a sob, and all the disciples started back as if struck, and kicked back their seats as one, and crowded around him, each of them crying out, Lord, is it I? Lord, can it be I? — and that man, faintly, like a man already dying, shook his head, and said, "I will now give a morsel of bread to that man. That man is a most unfortunate man. Truly, it would have been better for that man had he never been born."

— so he said, in a tone unexpectedly clear and distinct, and took a morsel of bread, and stretched out his arm, and pressed it, unerring, straight against my mouth.

But by then, I too had already steeled myself.

I felt hatred, rather than shame.

I hated him for this spitefulness of his, coming now of all times.

This — humiliating me openly, before all the disciples — has always been his way, up to now.

Fire and water.

Between that man and me lies a fate that can never, through all eternity, be reconciled.

Was it, then, his one small spite — to push that pinch of bread into my mouth, as one throws crumbs to a dog or a cat?

Hah.

What a fool he is.

Master, he said to me, What you are going to do, do quickly.

I ran out of the restaurant at once, and ran and ran through the roads in the dusk, and have come here just now.

And in haste, I have laid this accusation before you, just as you have heard.

Now — punish him.

Punish him however you please.

Seize him, beat him with rods, strip him bare, and kill him.

I can bear it no longer, no longer.

He is a hateful man.

A terrible man.

He has tormented me so, all this while.

Ha, ha, ha, ha — damn him.

He is now on the far side of the Kidron brook, in the garden of Gethsemane.

The supper in that upstairs room is already over, and he has gone with his disciples to the garden of Gethsemane, and just now, surely, is the hour when he offers up his prayer to heaven.

There is no one there but the disciples.

Now you can seize him without any trouble at all.

Ah, the birds are crying — how they clamor.

Why is it that tonight the cries of the night birds strike so on my ear?

Even in the forest, on my way running here, the little birds were chirping, chirping.

A bird that sings by night — how rare that is.

With a child's curiosity, I wanted to catch just one glimpse of that bird, to see what it truly was.

I stopped, tilted my head, and peered up through the treetops.

Ah, I am saying foolish things.

Forgive me.

Master, are your preparations made?

Ah, how delightful.

What a fine feeling.

Tonight is, for me too, the last night.

Master, master, tonight — look well upon the sight of that man and me standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, splendidly.

Tonight I shall stand with him, shoulder to shoulder, exactly as his equal — you will see.

There is no need to fear him.

There is no need to abase myself before him.

I am the same age as that man.

The same, an equally fine young man.

Ah, the birds' cries — how they clamor.

They ring in my ears, so noisy.

Why are the birds making such a commotion?

Chirp, chirp — what can they be fussing over?

Oh — that money?

You are giving it to me? To me — thirty pieces of silver?

I see. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

No, I must refuse it.

You had better take that money back, before I strike you.

It was not for money that I came here to make my accusation.

Take it back!

No — forgive me, I will take it after all.

Yes, that is right — I was a merchant.

It was because of money that that graceful man always held me in contempt, was it not.

I will take it.

I am, after all, a merchant.

With this very money, despised as it is, I shall take my splendid revenge on him.

This is the means of revenge best suited to me.

Serves him right!

For thirty pieces of silver, he is sold.

I am not weeping, not in the least.

I do not love that man.

I never loved him, not one grain, from the very beginning.

Yes, master.

I have told you nothing but lies.

It was for money, only for money, that I followed after that man.

Oh, yes, that must be it.

Tonight I saw clearly, once and for all, that that man would never let me profit one whit — and so, merchant that I am, I turned my coat, swiftly.

Money.

The world is nothing but money.

Thirty pieces of silver — how splendid.

I will take it.

I am a petty, miserly merchant.

I want it, I cannot help wanting it.

Yes, I thank you deeply.

Yes, yes.

I have neglected to say.

My name is Judas, the merchant.

Heh, heh.

Judas Iscariot.