Читать книгу The Robber - Bertram Brooker - Страница 13

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Through the bronze bars Barabbas glimpsed a double row of white columns striping a marble wall with leaning shadows. They passed beyond the gate into a courtyard where a fountain was playing, the moonlight sparkling in every drop of spray. As soon as they stepped from the grandeur outside into the square hall within, which Judas called the "atrium", Barabbas felt enclosed in an alien atmosphere.

The rich hangings on the walls of the corridors, the mosaics on the ceilings, the marble and gold and silver everywhere, heightened his resentment against the pampered ones of the world. Everything about Prince Joseph's house, built in the Greek style, seemed strange to him and bewildering and hateful. Its costliness astounded him. His glance swept ahead, gulping down unbelievable luxuries at every step.

Judas, who had given the steward a message for the prince, was leading the way, and at last he turned into a room where Barabbas's eyes fell with delight on the first natural thing he had seen since entering the doors. On a divan, heaped with cushions, a Persian cat with glossy fur the colour of smoke, lay curled in sleep. He bent over it, and when it wakened with his stroking, he thrust his finger in and out of range of its sharp claws.

Behind him came a quick footfall, and he heard a quiet penetrating voice speaking to Judas in Greek, which Judas answered in the same strange tongue.

Barabbas straightened as Judas said, in Hebrew: "This is Jeshua, the friend of my youth. I have told you of him. He has come across Jordan today with a message for the tetrarch from the prophet John."

Turning, Barabbas found the earnest glance of sorrowful eyes on him, as Judas added: "This is Prince Joseph of Arimathea."

Barabbas looked with wonder into a pallid delicate face which seemed at first glance as gentle as a woman's. The bony whiteness of the bridge of his nose, and the taut blue veins in his temples, added to a sensitiveness which lay far back in the prince's solemn eyes. His nearly bloodless lips were drawn in a wide line, as though frozen in grief. Although he was not yet thirty his hair was streaked with grey.

Joseph looked from one to the other, surprised that two men so unlike in appearance should have become friends.

"Judas has told us much concerning you," he said, slowly, as though groping in his memory. "You have come from the Baptist?"

"He did not send me. I have come to see for myself and speak for myself," Barabbas answered, a grim smile stirring the black tuft under his lips.

He felt the eyes of the prince fix themselves steadily on the scar in his beard.

"But you want an audience with the tetrarch," said Joseph, with grave patience.

"It was not John's intention that I be his spokesman but I came so that I may some day know that whoremonger's face ..."

"You have heard him," cried Judas, hoarsely. "He scorns kings. He will speak foolishly, because he is without fear. If he is taken before the tetrarch he will speak violently. He will curse the whole line of the Herods."

When Judas stopped, the prince turned to Barabbas. His brows arched upward in unbelief. "Surely you are not eager for death?" he said.

"But he is," Judas broke in again. "He has become even more fearless and strange than when I knew him. He has just now told me that he seeks death."

"Is this true?" asked the prince.

"Can a man full of fears judge a fearless man?" said Barabbas, looking scathingly at Judas.

"I have never met a man wholly without fear," said Joseph.

"You have not met a man, then, whose heart is full."

The prince leaned his head on one side, as though listening. "That is a difficult saying," he murmured. "You believe that a full heart casts out fear?"

"Yes, a heart full of hate. How can it hold fear? When I see misery and luxury side by side as it is in a city ..." he cast an insinuating glance about him.

"God of Sinai!" Judas gasped.

The prince reached out and put his hand restrainingly on Judas's arm, while his dark eyes searched the face of Barabbas.

"I had never thought of hate wholly possessing a man. You believe that hate can so fill the heart that ... yes, I see ... a heart so filled would have no room for fear. Yes, it would be true, but how could a man live, if he knew nothing but this?"

"Such a man is not concerned with living. Such a man is eager to die for his hate."

The prince drew his fingertips along the deep lines in his forehead. "I marvel at this," he said, speaking almost to himself. "Your hate is akin to love. It is for love of the oppressed you hate."

"When you look at the world's wretchedness do you wonder?"

The prince shook his head and said in a tired voice, "I have been all day at the Sanhedrin, where we have been listening to two rabbis from the north who brought news of a young preacher in Galilee. It seems that he speaks of love casting out fear. And you speak of hate making a man fearless. You hate wretchedness, but that is a kind of love. I can see that it could be a great love, a consuming love. That is what I marvel at, the thought that if love is wholly present, all else must be absent. Presence and absence! It astounds me. It has the power that belongs to all that is simple. You say to a man, the simplest man, fill your heart with love for everybody and everything, let there be no room for anything else! And there will not be room for anything else! Think of a world of men with every heart filled with love! We have never thought of love as a presence. The whole secret is in that. We have spoken of men being possessed, filled and driven by some demon of evil. We have believed in possession. But only by evil. Now I can see how this prophet of Galilee casts out devils. Many have testified that he has done it. He does not empty the heart of evil. He fills it with another presence. This Nazarene teaches, they say, by parables. I am going to Galilee to hear him. I am eager to learn more of his sayings. I have studied the Greeks, and in Egypt with Philo, but this—its simplicity astounds me. The simplest man can grasp it. The whole world can grasp it!"

He ceased, but his lips remained half open, as though he were far from finished.

"Jesus Bar-Joseph!" said the prince. "Have you heard of him?"

"He is a kinsman of John of Jordan. A blood kinsman," said Barabbas. "John has spoken to me of him."

"I must hear what he said," murmured the prince. He glanced frowningly around at the stools and the divan, and said, quickly: "Here we are standing, forgive me. When you came I had just returned from the Council, I was changing my robe. I hurried down. Shall we stay here, or ..."

He broke off, staring at the scarred side of Barabbas's face. To hide a gleam of recognition in his eyes, he turned to Judas. "It will be better in the garden," he said. "It is not cold tonight. There is a moon. Zimri will bring us wine."

He motioned to the door, but let his hand drop, turning again with eagerness to Barabbas. "You knew that the rabbi Nicodemus and I were sent by the Council to listen to John."

"He told me of both your visits," said Barabbas.

"They want us to go now to Galilee. We have been talking all day of the teaching of Jesus. Have you met him? Have you talked with him?"

"I have never seen him."

"What does John say of him?" said the prince, lightly touching Barabbas's elbow and leading him to the door.

"He says he is an unearthly man, a man too gentle for this world. He prophesies that he will suffer. It needs no gift of prophecy to foretell that he will die. He is accused of blasphemy already."

"He will be punished because he preaches that a full heart will cast out fear."

"Fear will never be cast out," said Barabbas, severely, "until we have a world without want."

"True," said the prince, glancing with compassion at Judas, who was moving in step with him, his eyes fixed on the ground.

"You are silent, Judas. But no wonder. I have a long tongue. Take your friend into the garden. I will go and call Zimri."

As they went out together, Barabbas said: "You were right, Judas. And John was right. It is not easy to hate your prince."