oon. If he had some water to give
him. But he had none, and he sat by the couch waiting for Jesus to open
his eyes. At last he opened them.

The twilight had vanished and the stars were coming out, and Joseph said
to himself: there will be no moon, only a soft starlight, and he stood
gazing at the desert showing through a great tide of blue shadow, the
shape of the hills emerging, like the hulls of great ships afloat in a
shadowy sea. A dark, close, dusty night, he said, and moonless, deserted
by every man and woman; a Sabbath night. On none other would it be
possible. But thinking that some hours would have to pass before he
dared to enter his gates with Jesus on his shoulder, he seated himself
on the great stone. Though Jesus were to die for lack of succour he must
wait till his servants were in bed asleep. And then? The stone on which
he was sitting must be rolled into the entrance of the tomb before
leaving. He had told the carrier that he would have no trouble with it,
and to discover that he had not boasted he slid down the rock, and,
putting his shoulder to it, found he could move it, for the ground was
aslant, and if he were to remove some rubble the stone would itself roll
into the entrance of the tomb. But he hadn't known this when he refused
the carrier's help. Then why?... To pass away the time he fell to
thinking that he had refused the carrier's aid because of some thought
of which he wasn't very conscious at the time; that he had been
appointed watcher, and that his watch extended through the night, and
through the next day and night, until Mary and Martha came with spices
and linen cloths.

The cycle of his thoughts was brought to a close and with a sudden jerk
by some memory of his maybe dying friend; and in his grief he found no
better solace than to gaze at the stars, now thickly sown in the sky,
and to attempt to decipher their conjunctions and oppositions, trying to
pick out a prophecy in heaven of what was happening on earth.

His star-gazing was interrupted suddenly by a bark. A jackal, he said.
Other jackals answered the first bark; the hillside seemed to be filled
with them; but, however numerous, he could scare them away; a wandering
hyena scenting a dead body would be more dangerous, for he was
weaponless. But it was seldom that one ventured into the environs of
the city; and he listened to the jackals, and they kept him awake till
something in the air told him the hour had come for him to g