“You want to be driven out with sticks!” cried Caiaphas.

Panting under the weight of the terrible words, which he was lifting higher and higher, in order to hurl them hence upon the heads of the judges, Judas hoarsely asked: 

“But you know... you know... who He was...  He, whom you condemned yesterday and crucified?”

“We know.  Go away!”

With one word he would straightway rend that thin film which was spread over their eyes, and all the earth would stagger beneath the weight of the merciless truth!  They had a soul, they should be deprived of it; they had a life, they should lose their life; they had light before their eyes, eternal darkness and horror should cover them.  Hosanna!  Hosanna!

And these words, these terrible words, were tearing his throat asunder—­

“He was no deceiver.  He was innocent and pure.  Do you hear?  Judas deceived you.  He betrayed to you an innocent man.”

He waits.  He hears the aged, unconcerned voice of Annas, saying: 

“And is that all you want to say?”

“You do not seem to have understood me,” says Judas, with dignity, turning pale.  “Judas deceived you.  He was innocent.  You have slain the innocent.”

He of the bird-like face smiles; but Annas is indifferent, Annas yawns.  And Caiaphas yawns, too, and says wearily: 

“What did they mean by talking to me about the intellect of Judas Iscariot?  He is simply a fool, and a bore, too.”

“What?” cries Judas, all suffused with dark madness.  “But who are you, the clever ones!  Judas deceived you—­hear!  It was not He that he betrayed—­but you—­you wiseacres, you, the powerful, you he betrayed to a shameful death, which will not end, throughout the ages.  Thirty pieces of silver!  Well, well.  But that is the price of your blood—­blood filthy as the dish-water which the women throw out of the gates of their houses.  Oh!  Annas, old, grey, stupid Annas, chock-full of the Law, why did you not give one silver piece, just one obolus more?  At this price you will go down through the ages!”

“Be off!” cries Caiaphas, growing purple in the face.  But Annas stops him with a motion of the hand, and asks Judas as unconcernedly as ever: 

“Is that all?”

“Verily, if I were to go into the desert, and cry to the wild beasts:  ’Wild beasts, have ye heard the price at which men valued their Jesus?’—­what would the wild beasts do?  They would creep out of the lairs, they would howl with anger, they would forget their fear of mankind, and would all come here to devour you!  If I were to say to the sea:  ’Sea, knowest thou the price at which men valued their Jesus?’ If I were to say to the mountains:  ’Mountains, know ye the price at which men valued their Jesus?’ Then the sea and the mountains would leave their places, assigned to them for ages, and would come here and fall upon your heads!”