The Silver Cross; Or, The Carpenter of Nazareth. Эжен Сю

A boaster,' said Pontius Pilate, shrugging his shoulders after emptying his cup, 'a fool, who talks to geese: nothing more.'

      'Seigneur Pontius Pilate!' exclaimed the doctor of law in a tone of reproach: 'I do not comprehend you! What! You who represent here the august Emperor Tiberius, our protector, among us honest and peaceable people, for without your troops, the populace would long ago have risen against Herod; but prince, you pretend to be indifferent to the words and acts of this Nazarene; you treat him as a madman. Ah! Seigneur Pontius Pilate, to-day is not the first time I have told you this; madmen like this one are public pests!'

      'And I repeat to you, seigneurs,' replied Pontius Pilate, extending his empty cup to his slave standing behind him, 'I repeat that you are wrong to alarm yourselves; let the Nazarene speak, and his words will pass like the wind.'

      'Seigneur Baruch, you wish much harm to this young man of Nazareth, then!' said Jane in her gentle voice; 'you cannot hear his name pronounced without getting in a rage.'

      'Certainly, I wish him harm,' replied the learned doctor; 'and it is but justice, for this Nazarene, who respects nothing, has not only insulted me, personally, but he has also insulted all my brethren of the senate in my person. For do you know what he dared to say in the Temple on seeing me pass?'

      'Let us hear the terrible words, Seigneur Baruch,' said Jane, smiling; 'for they must indeed be frightful!'

      'Frightful is not enough; ‘tis abominable, monstrous, you must say!' replied the doctor of law; 'I was passing the Temple, then, the other day; I had just been dining with my neighbor, Samuel; at a distance I saw a group of beggars in rags, workmen, camel-drivers, men who let out asses, disreputable women, tattered children, and other individuals of the most dangerous sort; they were listening to a young man mounted on a stone. He was holding forth with all his power. Suddenly he pointed at me; all the vagabonds turn round towards me, and I hear the Nazarene, for it was he, I could have divined him simply from the circle round him, I heard the Nazarene say to these good-for-nothings, 'Beware of these doctors of the law, who love to parade in their long robes, to be saluted on the public place, to have the highest seats in the synagogues, and the best places at the feasts.'

      'You will admit, Seigneur Pontius Pilate,' said Jonas the banker, 'that it is impossible for audacity and personality to go further.'

      'But it seems to me,' said Aurelia to Jane quietly, in remarking to her that the learned doctor had precisely the seat of honor at the feast, 'it seems to me that the Seigneur Baruch has a great affection for these places.'

      'That is the very reason why he is so furious against the young man of Nazareth, who has a horror of all hypocrisy,' replied Jane.

      Baruch continued, more and more furious: "But here, dear seigneur, is something more abominable still: 'beware,' added the seditious vagabond, 'beware of those doctors of the law who devour the houses of the widows under pretence of making long prayers. These persons,' and the audacious fellow again pointed me out, 'these persons will be punished more rigorously than the others.' Yes, this is what I heard the Nazarene say in direct words. And now, Seigneur Pontius Pilate, I declare to you, if you do not repress at once this unbridled license, which dares attack the authority of the doctors of the law, that is, law and authority themselves, if they are thus allowed to signalize the senators with impunity to public scorn and contempt we are treading on a precipice!"

      'Let him talk,' said Pontius Pilate, again emptying his cup; 'let him talk, and let us live and enjoy!'

      "To live and enjoy is not possible, Seigneur Pontius Pilate, when we foresee great disasters,' replied the banker Jonas; 'I declare that the fears of my worthy friend Baruch are well-founded. – Yes, and like him I repeat, 'we are treading on a precipice;' this carpenter of Nazareth has an audacity that passes all bounds; he respects nothing, nothing; yesterday 'twas the law, authority, he attacked in their representatives; to-day ‘tis the rich against whom he excites the dregs of the populace. Has he not dared to pronounce these execrable words: 'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.'"

      At this citation of the Seigneur Jonas, all the guests exclaimed, at one moment, '‘Tis abominable!'

      'What shall we come to?'

      'To an abyss; as the Seigneur Baruch has so well demonstrated!'

      'And so, all of us, who possess gold in our coffers, are thus doomed to eternal fire!'

      'Compared to camels, that cannot pass through the eye of a needle!'

      'And these monstrosities are said and repeated by the Nazarene to the dregs of the populace; to excite them to the pillage of the rich. Is it not basely flattering the detestable passions of these tattered vagabonds, whom Jesus of Nazareth takes such delight in, and with whom, they say, he gets drunk?'

      'I cannot find fault with the fellow for being fond of wine,' said Pontius Pilate, laughing, and extending his cup to his slave. 'Drinkers are not dangerous men.'

      "But this is not all," said Caiphus, the high priest: "not only does this Nazarene outrage law, authority, and the possession of riches; he attacks no less audaciously the religion of our fathers. Thus Deuteronomy explicitly says, 'You shall not lend in usury to your brother, but only to strangers' – remark well this, 'but only to strangers.' Well, despising the precepts of our holy religion, the Nazarene arrogates to himself the right of saying: 'Do good to all, and lend without expecting anything;' and he took care to add: 'You cannot serve God and Mammon.' So that religion declares formally that it is lawful to obtain a profit for one's money from strangers; whilst the Nazarene, blaspheming the holy scriptures in one of its most pre-eminent dogmas, denies what it affirms, and defends what it permits."

      'My condition as a heathen,' replied Pontius Pilate, more and more good-humored, 'does not permit me to take part in such a discussion; I will inwardly invoke our god Bacchus. Some wine, slave! some wine!'

      'Nevertheless, Seigneur Pontius Pilate,' said the banker, Jonas, who seemed with difficulty to restrain the rage which the indifference of the Roman caused him, 'even putting aside whatever sacrilege there may be in the proposition of the Nazarene, you will admit that it is one of the most outrageous; for, my seigneurs, I ask you, what would then become of our commerce?'

      '‘Tis the ruin of public wealth!'

      "What would they have me do with the gold in my coffers if I made no profit from it; if I lend 'without expecting anything,' as this audacious reformer says? It would make one laugh if it was not so odious."

      'And it does not even concern an isolated attack, directed against our holy religion,' said Caiphus, the priest. 'With the Nazarene ‘tis a settled plan to outrage and undermine at its base the faith of our fathers; here is a fresh proof: lately the sick were plunged into the pool of Bethesda.'

      'Near the Gate of the Lambs?'

      'Precisely; and the day was the Sabbath. Now you know, seigneurs, how sacred and solemn is the prohibition against doing anything whatsoever on the Sabbath day.'

      'For a religious man, ‘tis doing a terrible impiety.'

      'Now judge of the Nazarene's conduct,' continued Caiphus: 'he goes to the pool, and observe, too, that by a cunning villany, and in order to ruin the physicians, he never receives a penny for cures, for he is deeply skilled in the healing art.'

      'How could you imagine, Seigneur Caiphus, that a man who respects nothing would respect even the physicians?'

      'The Nazarene arrives at the pool, then; he finds there, amongst others, a man whose foot was dislocated; he replaces it for him.'

      'What! on the Sabbath day?'

      'He dared!'

      'Abomination of desolation!'

      'Heal the sick on the Sabbath day!'

      'What sacrilege!'

      'Yes, seigneurs,' replied the high priest, in a mournful voice; 'he has committed this sacrilege.'

      'Now, if the young man had not healed the sufferer,' said Aurelia to Jane, smiling, 'I could understand their rage.'

      'Such an impiety deserves the worst punishment;