And yet Jesus brought him near to Himself, and once even made him sit next to Him.  John, the beloved disciple, fastidiously moved away, and all the others who loved their Teacher cast down their eyes in disapprobation.  But Judas sat on, and turning his head from side to side, began in a somewhat thin voice to complain of ill-health, and said that his chest gave him pain in the night, and that when ascending a hill he got out of breath, and when he stood still on the edge of a precipice he would be seized with a dizziness, and could scarcely restrain a foolish desire to throw himself down.  And many other impious things he invented, as though not understanding that sicknesses do not come to a man by chance, but as a consequence of conduct not corresponding with the laws of the Eternal.  Thus Judas Iscariot kept on rubbing his chest with his broad palm, and even pretended to cough, midst a general silence and downcast eyes.

John, without looking at the Teacher, whispered to his friend Simon Peter—­

“Aren’t you tired of that lie?  I can’t stand it any longer.  I am going away.”

Peter glanced at Jesus, and meeting his eye, quickly arose.

“Wait a moment,” said he to his friend.

Once more he looked at Jesus; sharply as a stone torn from a mountain, he moved towards Judas, and said to him in a loud voice, with expansive, serene courtesy—­

“You will come with us, Judas.”

He gave him a kindly slap on his bent back, and without looking at the Teacher, though he felt His eye upon him, resolutely added in his loud voice, which excluded all objection, just as water excludes air—­

“It does not matter that you have such a nasty face.  There fall into our nets even worse monstrosities, and they sometimes turn out very tasty food.  It is not for us, our Lord’s fishermen, to throw away a catch, merely because the fish have spines, or only one eye.  I saw once at Tyre an octopus, which had been caught by the local fishermen, and I was so frightened that I wanted to run away.  But they laughed at me.  A fisherman from Tiberias gave me some of it to eat, and I asked for more, it was so tasty.  You remember, Master, that I told you the story, and you laughed, too.  And you, Judas, are like an octopus—­but only on one side.”

And he laughed loudly, content with his joke.  When Peter spoke, his words resounded so forcibly, that it seemed as though he were driving them in with nails.  When Peter moved, or did anything, he made a noise that could be heard afar, and which called forth a response from the deafest of things:  the stone floor rumbled under his feet, the doors shook and rattled, and the very air was convulsed with fear, and roared.  In the clefts of the mountains his voice awoke the inmost echo, and in the morning-time, when they were fishing on the lake, he would roll about on the sleepy, glittering water, and force the first shy sunbeams into smiles.