But lo! with a grating sound, iron strikes against iron, time after time, dull, short blows, and then the sharp nail penetrating the soft wood and separating its particles is distinctly heard.

One hand.  It is not yet too late!

The other hand.  It is not yet too late!

A foot, the other foot!  Is all lost?

He irresolutely opens his eyes, and sees how the cross is raised, and rocks, and is set fast in the trench.  He sees how the hands of Jesus are convulsed by the tension, how painfully His arms stretch, how the wounds grow wider, and how the exhausted abdomen disappears under the ribs.  The arms stretch more and more, grow thinner and whiter, and become dislocated from the shoulders, and the wounds of the nails redden and lengthen gradually—­lo! in a moment they will be torn away.  No.  It stopped.  All stopped.  Only the ribs move up and down with the short, deep breathing.

On the very crown of the hill the cross is raised, and on it is the crucified Jesus.  The horror and the dreams of Judas are realised, he gets up from his knees on which, for some reason, he has knelt, and gazes around coldly.

Thus does a stern conqueror look, when he has already determined in his heart to surrender everything to destruction and death, and for the last time throws a glance over a rich foreign city, still alive with sound, but already phantom-like under the cold hand of death.  And suddenly, as clearly as his terrible victory, Iscariot saw its ominous precariousness.  What if they should suddenly understand?  It is not yet too late!  Jesus still lives.  There He gazes with entreating, sorrowing eyes.

What can prevent the thin film which covers the eyes of mankind, so thin that it hardly seems to exist at all, what can prevent it from rending?  What if they should understand?  What if suddenly, in all their threatening mass of men, women and children, they should advance, silently, without a cry, and wipe out the soldiery, plunging them up to their ears in their own blood, should tear from the ground the accursed cross, and by the hands of all who remain alive should lift up the liberated Jesus above the summit of the hill!  Hosanna!  Hosanna!

Hosanna?  No!  Better that Judas should lie on the ground.  Better that he should lie upon the ground, and gnashing his teeth like a dog, should watch and wait until all these should rise up.

But what has come to Time?  Now it almost stands still, so that one would wish to push it with the hands, to kick it, beat it with a whip like a lazy ass.  Now it rushes madly down some mountain, and catches its breath, and stretches out its hand in vain to stop itself.  There weeps the mother of Jesus.  Let them weep.  What avail her tears now? nay, the tears of all the mothers in the world?

“What are tears?” asks Judas, and madly pushes unyielding Time, beats it with his fists, curses it like a slave.  It belongs to some one else, and therefore is unamenable to discipline.  Oh! if only it belonged to Judas!  But it belongs to all these people who are weeping, laughing, chattering as in the market.  It belongs to the sun; it belongs to the cross; to the heart of Jesus, which is dying so slowly.