He had seen the soldiers lead Jesus away with them to their guardroom.  The night was already nearly over, the fires had sunk down and were covered with ashes, but from the guardroom was still borne the sound of muffled cries, laughter, and invectives.  They were scourging Jesus.

As one who has lost his way, Iscariot ran nimbly about the empty courtyard, stopped in his course, lifted his head and ran on again, and was surprised when he came into collision with heaps of embers, or with the walls.

Then he clung to the wall of the guardroom, stretched himself out to his full height, and glued himself to the window and the crevices of the door, eagerly examining what they were doing.  He saw a confined stuffy room, dirty, like all guardrooms in the world, with bespitten floor, and walls as greasy and stained as though they had been trodden and rolled upon.  And he saw the Man whom they were scourging.  They struck Him on the face and head, and tossed Him about like a soft bundle from one end of the room to the other.  And since He neither cried out nor resisted, after looking intently, it actually appeared at moments as though it was not a living human being, but a soft effigy without bones or blood.  It bent itself strangely like a doll, and in falling, knocking its head against the stone floor it did not give the impression of a hard substance striking against a hard substance, but of something soft and devoid of feeling.  And when one looked long, it became like some strange, endless game—­and sometimes it became almost a complete illusion.

After one hard kick, the man or effigy fell slowly on its knees before a sitting soldier, he in turn flung it away, and turning over, it dropped down before the next, and so on and on.  A loud guffaw arose, and Judas smiled too,—­as though the strong hand of some one with iron fingers had torn his mouth asunder.  It was the mouth of Judas that was deceived.

Night dragged on, and the fires were still smouldering.  Judas threw himself from the wall, and crawled to one of the fires, poked up the ashes, rekindled it, and although he no longer felt the cold, he stretched his slightly trembling hands over the flames, and began to mutter dolefully: 

“Ah! how painful, my Son, my Son!  How painful!”

Then he went again to the window, which was gleaming yellow with a dull light between the thick grating, and once more began to watch them scourging Jesus.  Once before the very eyes of Judas appeared His swarthy countenance, now marred out of human semblance, and covered with a forest of dishevelled hair.  Then some one’s hand plunged into those locks, threw the Man down, and rhythmically turning His head from one side to the other, began to wipe the filthy floor with His face.  Right under the window a soldier was sleeping, his open mouth revealing his glittering white teeth; and some one’s broad back, with naked, brawny neck, barred the window, so that nothing more could be seen.  And suddenly the noise ceased.