But Jesus might pass away in his swoon.  If he had some water to give him.  But he had none, and he sat by the couch waiting for Jesus to open his eyes.  At last he opened them.

The twilight had vanished and the stars were coming out, and Joseph said to himself:  there will be no moon, only a soft starlight, and he stood gazing at the desert showing through a great tide of blue shadow, the shape of the hills emerging, like the hulls of great ships afloat in a shadowy sea.  A dark, close, dusty night, he said, and moonless, deserted by every man and woman; a Sabbath night.  On none other would it be possible.  But thinking that some hours would have to pass before he dared to enter his gates with Jesus on his shoulder, he seated himself on the great stone.  Though Jesus were to die for lack of succour he must wait till his servants were in bed asleep.  And then?  The stone on which he was sitting must be rolled into the entrance of the tomb before leaving.  He had told the carrier that he would have no trouble with it, and to discover that he had not boasted he slid down the rock, and, putting his shoulder to it, found he could move it, for the ground was aslant, and if he were to remove some rubble the stone would itself roll into the entrance of the tomb.  But he hadn’t known this when he refused the carrier’s help.  Then why?...  To pass away the time he fell to thinking that he had refused the carrier’s aid because of some thought of which he wasn’t very conscious at the time; that he had been appointed watcher, and that his watch extended through the night, and through the next day and night, until Mary and Martha came with spices and linen cloths.

The cycle of his thoughts was brought to a close and with a sudden jerk by some memory of his maybe dying friend; and in his grief he found no better solace than to gaze at the stars, now thickly sown in the sky, and to attempt to decipher their conjunctions and oppositions, trying to pick out a prophecy in heaven of what was happening on earth.

His star-gazing was interrupted suddenly by a bark.  A jackal, he said.  Other jackals answered the first bark; the hillside seemed to be filled with them; but, however numerous, he could scare them away; a wandering hyena scenting a dead body would be more dangerous, for he was weaponless.  But it was seldom that one ventured into the environs of the city; and he listened to the jackals, and they kept him awake till something in the air told him the hour had come for him to go into the tomb and carry Jesus out of it ... if he were not dead.  He slid down from the rock again, and no sooner did he reach the ground than he remembered having left Galilee to keep his promise to his father; but, despite his obedience to his father’s will, had not escaped his fate.  In vain he avoided the Temple and refused to enter the house of Simon the Leper....  If he were to take Jesus to his house and hide him he would become a party to Jesus’ crime, and were Jesus discovered