hole time in view of all, but Judas imagined that it had been
impenetrably hidden from sight by some invisible, but thick and cunning
veil. But lo! now, as though creeping out from a ditch, he felt his
strange skull, and then his eyes, in the light: he stopped and then
deliberately exposed his whole face. Nothing happened; Peter had gone
away somewhere or other. Jesus sat pensive, with His head leaning on His
hand, and gently swayed His sunburnt foot. The disciples were conversing
together, and only Thomas gazed at him attentively and seriously, like
a conscientious tailor taking measurement. Judas smiled; Thomas did
not reply to the smile; but evidently took it into account, as he did
everything else, and continued to gaze. But something unpleasant alarmed
the left side of Judas' countenance as he looked round. John, handsome,
pure, without a single fleck upon his snow-white conscience, was looking
at him out of a dark corner, with cold but beautiful eyes. And though
he walked as others walk, yet Judas felt as if he were dragging himself
along the ground like a whipped cur, as he went up to John and said:
"Why are you silent, John? Your words are like golden apples in vessels
of silver filigree; bestow one of them on Judas, who is so poor."

John looked steadfastly into his wide-open motionless eye, and said
nothing. And he looked on, while Judas crept out, hesitated a moment,
and then disappeared in the deep darkness of the open door.

Since the full moon was up, there were many people out walking. Jesus
went out too, and from the low roof on which Judas had spread his couch
he saw Him going out. In the light of the moon each white figure looked
bright and deliberate in its movements; and seemed not so much to walk
as to glide in front of its dark shadow. Then suddenly a man would be
lost in something black, and his voice became audible. And when people
reappeared in the moonlight, they seemed silent--like white walls,
or black shadows--as everything did in the transparent mist of night.
Almost every one was asleep when Judas heard the soft voice of Jesus
returning. All in and around about the house was still. A cock crew;
somewhere an ass, disturbed in his sleep, brayed aloud and insolently as
in daytime, then reluctantly and gradually relapsed into silence. Judas
did not sleep at all, but listened surreptitiously. The moon illumined
one half of his face, and was reflected strangely in his enormous open
eye, as on th