my knowledge that His representative
was a baker--moving amid the ancient peasant and fisher life of
Galilee; I saw Him draw men and women, saints and sinners, by the
magic of His love, the simple sweetness of His inner sunshine; I saw
the sunshine change to lightning as He drove the money-changers from
the Temple; I watched the clouds deepen as the tragedy drew on; I saw
Him bid farewell to His mother; I heard suppressed sobs all around me.
Then the heavens were overcast, and it seemed as if earth held its
breath waiting for the supreme moment. They dragged Him before Pilate;
they clothed Him in scarlet robe, and plaited His crown of thorns, and
spat on Him; they gave Him vinegar to drink mixed with gall; and He so
divinely sweet and forgiving through all. A horrible oppression hung
over the world. I felt choking; my ribs pressed inwards, my heart
seemed contracted. He was dying for the sins of the world, He summed
up the whole world's woe and pitifulness--the two ideas throbbed and
fused in my troubled soul. And I, a Jew, had hitherto ignored Him.
What would they say, these simple peasants sobbing all around, if they
knew that I was of that hated race? Then something broke in me, and I
sobbed too--sobbed with bitter tears that soon turned sweet in strange
relief and glad sympathy with my rough brothers and sisters." He
paused a moment, and sipped silently at his absinthe. I did not break
the silence. I was moved and interested, though what all this had to
do with his glowing, joyous picture I could only dimly surmise. He
went on--

"When it was all over, and I went out into the open air, I did not see
the sunlight. I carried the dusk of the theatre with me, and the gloom
of Golgotha brooded over the sunny afternoon. I heard the nails driven
in; I saw the blood spurting from the wounds--there was realism in the
thing, I tell you. The peasants, accustomed to the painful story, had
quickly recovered their gaiety, and were pouring boisterously down the
hill-side, like a glad, turbulent mountain stream, unloosed from the
dead hand of frost. But I was still ice-bound and fog-wrapped. Outside
the _Gasthaus_ where I went to dine, gay groups assembled, an organ
played, some strolling Italian girls danced gracefully, and my
artistic self was aware of a warmth and a rush. But the inmost Me was
neck-deep in gloom, with which the terribly pounded steak they gave
me, fraudulently overlaid with two showy fried eggs, seemed only in