o a thread, which, buzzing,
flies hither and thither, but cannot for one moment free itself from the
tractable but unyielding thread.

Certain stony thoughts lay at the back of his head, and to these he was
firmly bound; he knew not, as it were, what these thoughts were; he did
not wish to stir them up, but he felt them continually. At times they
would come to him all of a sudden, oppress him more and more, and begin
to crush him with their unimaginable weight, as though the vault of a
rocky cavern were slowly and terribly descending upon his head.

Then he would grip his heart with his hand, and strive to set his whole
body in motion, as though he were perishing with cold, and hasten to
shift his eyes to a fresh place, and again to another. When they led
Jesus away from Caiaphas, he met His weary eyes quite close, and,
somehow or other, unconsciously he gave Him several friendly nods.

"I am here, my Son, I am here," he muttered hurriedly, and maliciously
poked to some gaper in the back who stood in his way.

And now, in a huge shouting crowd, they all moved on to Pilate for the
last examination and trial, and with the same insupportable curiosity
Judas searched the faces of the ever swelling multitude. Many were quite
unknown to him; Judas had never seen them before, but some were there
who had cried, "Hosanna!" to Jesus, and at each step the number of them
seemed to increase.

"Well, well!" thought Judas, and his head spun round as if he were
drunk, "the worst is over. Directly they will be crying: 'He is ours, He
is Jesus! What are you about?' and all will understand, and--"

But the believers walked in silence. Some hypocritically smiled, as if
to say: "The affair is none of ours!" Others spoke with constraint, but
their low voices were drowned in the rumbling of movement, and the loud
delirious shouts of His enemies.

And Judas felt better again. Suddenly he noticed Thomas cautiously
slipping through the crowd not far off, and struck by a sudden thought,
he was about to go up to him. At the sight of the traitor, Thomas was
frightened, and tried to hide himself. But in a little narrow street,
between two walls, Judas overtook him.

"Thomas, wait a bit!"

Thomas stopped, and stretching both hands out in front of him solemnly
pronounced the words:

"Avaunt, Satan!"

Iscariot made an impatient movement of the hands.

"What a fool you are, Thomas! I thought that you had more sense than the
others. Satan