He looked once again at His dear ones.  Then He lifted His head quickly and uttered a cry to Heaven:  “Father, receive My soul!  My Father!  Do not forsake Me!” He looked upwards, gazed at the heavens with wide-opened eyes, then His head dropped and fell on His breast.

John sank to the ground, covering his face with his hands.  All was over!

* * * * * *

The crowd was almost motionless.  They stood and stared, and their faces were white.  The town walls were dun-coloured, the shrubs were grey, the young buds were pale and closed.

A lustreless sun stood in the sky like a moon, and its shadows were ghostly.  Terrified rooks and bats flew around, and hovered about the cross in this horrible twilight.  Rocks on the hills broke away, and skulls rolled down the slope.  As for the people, they seemed to have lost the power of speech, they stood dumb and looked at one another.

“Something has happened,” said an old man to himself.

The crowd began to move, uncertainly at first, then with more animation and noise.

“What has happened?” asked a bystander.

“My friend, what has happened now has thrown the world off its balance.  I do not know what it is, but it has thrown the world off its balance.  If it is not the end of the world, then it must be its beginning.”

“Inri!  Inri!” shouted the voice of a shuddering lunatic.

Then there was a general shout.  “What is it?  It is dark!  I’ve never been so terrified in all my days.”

“Look at the cross!  It’s growing longer!  Higher, ever higher, higher!  I can’t see the top of it!  It’s a giant cross!”

Then came news.  “A pillar has fallen in the Temple.  The curtain of the Holy of Holies has been rent in twain.  Outside, in the cemetery, the tombs have opened and the dead wrapped in their white shrouds have risen from them.”

“The end of the world!”

“The beginning of the world!”

“Jesus Christ!”

* * * * * *

“JESUS CHRIST!” rustles through the crowd like the spring breezes over the desert.  The words sound through the whole of Jerusalem, they sound throughout the broad land of Judaea, these words of all power.  They kindle a fire which has lighted up the universe until the present day.

His dear and faithful ones assembled at the cross where the dead Master hung.  There are more of them than there were yesterday, among them even some who had shouted in the night:  “Crucify Him!” The disciples stood there silent, making no lamentation.  Mary, the mother, stood by John’s side, and Magdalen by him.  A marvellous quiet had come over their hearts, so that they asked themselves: 

“How can this be?  Is not our Jesus dead?”

“My brothers,” said Peter, “for me it is as if He still lives.”

“He in us, and we in Him,” said John.