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 b