Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita

     Pilate pulled his  cowl over his slightly  balding head and  began  the

conversation, which was conducted in Greek.

     Pilate remarked that  he had examined the case  of Yeshua Ha-Notsri and

had confirmed the sentence  of death.  Consequently those due for  execution

that day were the three robbers--Hestas, Dismas and Bar-Abba--and  now this

other man, Yeshua  Ha- Notsri. The first two, who had  tried  to incite  the

people to rebel against Caesar, had  been forcibly apprehended by  the Roman

authorities; they were  therefore the  Procurator's responsibility and there

was no reason to  discuss their case.  The  last  two, however, Bar-Abba and

Ha-Notsri, had been  arrested by the local authorities and tried before  the

Sanhedrin. In  accordance  with law  and custom, one of  these two criminals

should be  released in honour of the imminent great feast of  Passover.  The

Procurator therefore wished to know which of these two felons the  Sanhedrin

proposed to discharge--Bar-Abba or Ha-Notsri?

     Caiaphas inclined  his head as a sign  that he  understood the question

and replied:

     ' The Sanhedrin requests the release of Bar-Abba.' The  Procurator well

knew  that this would be  the High Priest's reply;  his problem was  to show

that the request aroused his astonishment.

     This  Pilate  did  with  great  skill.  The eyebrows rose on his  proud

forehead and the Procurator looked the High Priest straight  in the eye with

amazement.

     ' I confess that your reply surprises me,' began the Procurator softly.

' I fear there may have been some misunderstanding here.'

     Pilate stressed that the  Roman  government wished  to make no  inroads

into the  prerogatives of the local  priestly authority, the High Priest was

well aware of that,  but  in this particular case an obvious error seemed to

have  occurred.  And  the Roman  government  naturally  had  an  interest in

correcting  such an error. The crimes of Bar-Abba and Ha-Notsri  were  after

all not comparable in gravity.  If the latter, a man who was clearly insane,

were guilty of making some absurd speeches in Jerusalem  and  various  other

localities, the former stood convicted of offences that were infinitely more

serious.  Not  only  had he  permitted himself to  make  direct  appeals  to

rebellion,  but he had killed a sentry while resisting arrest.  Bar-Abba was

immeasurably more dangerous  than Ha-Notsri. In view of all these facts, the

Procurator requested  the High  Priest  to  reconsider his  decision  and to

discharge  the  least  dangerous  of  the two  convicts  and  that  one  was

undoubtedly Ha-Notsri . . . Therefore?

     Caiaphas said in  a quiet but  firm voice that the  Sanhedrin had taken

due cognisance of the case and repeated its intention to release Bar-Abba.

     '  What?  Even  after  my   intervention?   The  intervention  of   the

representative  of the Roman government?  High Priest,  say it for the third

time.'

     ' And  for the third  time I say that we shall release Bar-Abba,'  said

Caiaphas softly.

     It was over  and there was no more to be discussed. Ha-Notsri had  gone

for ever  and there was no one  to  heal the  Procurator's terrible,  savage

pains ;  there was no cure for them now  except  death. But this thought did

not strike  Pilate immediately. At first his whole being was seized with the

same incomprehensible sense of grief which had come to him  on  the balcony.

He at once sought for its explanation and its  cause was a strange one : the

Procurator was obscurely aware that he still  had something to  say  to  the

prisoner and that perhaps, too, he had more to learn from him.

     Pilate banished the thought and it passed as quickly as it had come. It

passed, yet that  grievous ache  remained a  mystery, for  it  could not  be

explained  by  another thought that had flashed  in and out of his mind like

lightning--' Immortality ... immortality  has come .  . .' Whose immortality

had come? The Procurator could not understand it, but  that puzzling thought

of immortality sent a chill over him despite the sun's heat.

     ' Very well,' said Pilate. ' So be it.'

     With that  he looked round. The visible  world vanished from  his sight

and an astonishing change occurred. The  flower-laden rosebush  disappeared,

the cypresses fringing the upper terrace disappeared, as did the pomegranate

tree, the white  statue among  the foliage and the foliage  itself. In their

place came a kind of dense purple mass in which seaweed waved and swayed and

Pilate himself was swaying with  it. He was seized, suffocating and burning,

by the most terrible rage of all rage--the rage of impotence.

     ' I am suffocating,' said Pilate. ' Suffocating! '

     With  a cold damp hand he tore the buckle from the collar  of his cloak

and it fell on to the sand.

     '  It  is  stifling  today,  there  is  a thunderstorm  brewing,'  said

Caiaphas, his gaze fixed on the Procurator's  reddening face, foreseeing all

the discomfort that the weather was yet  to bring. '  The month of Nisan has

been terrible this year! '

     ' No,' said Pilate. ' That  is not why I am suffocating. I feel stifled

by your  presence, Caiaphas.'  Narrowing his eyes Pilate  added  : ' Beware,

High Priest! '

     The  High Priest's dark eyes  flashed  and--no less cunningly  than the

Procurator--his face showed astonishment.

     ' What do I hear, Procurator? ' Caiaphas answered proudly and calmly. '

Are you threatening me--when sentence has been duly pronounced and confirmed

by yourself? Can  this be  so?  We  are accustomed  to the  Roman Procurator

choosing his words carefully before saying anything. I trust no one can have

overheard us, hegemon?'

     With lifeless  eyes Pilate  gazed at the High Priest and manufactured a

smile.

     ' Come now. High Priest! Who can overhear us here? Do you take me for a

fool, like  that crazy  young  vagrant  who is  to be executed today? Am I a

child, Caiphas? I know what I'm saying and where I'm saying it. This garden,

this whole palace is so  well cordoned that there's not a crack for a  mouse

to slip through.  Not a mouse--and  not even that man--what's his name  . .?

That man from Karioth.  You do know him, don't you,  High Priest? Yes ... if

someone like that  were to  get in here,  he would  bitterly  regret it. You

believe me when I say that, don't you?  I tell you,  High  Priest, that from

henceforth you  shall  have no peace! Neither you nor your  people '--Pilate

pointed  to  the  right  where the  pinnacle  of  the temple flashed  in the

distance. ' I, Pontius Pilate,  knight of the Golden Lance, tell you so! ' '

I know it! ' fearlessly replied the bearded Caiaphas. His eyes flashed as he

raised his hand to the sky and went on :  ' The Jewish people knows that you

hate  it  with  a  terrible  hatred  and  that  you  have  brought  it  much

suffering--but you will  never destroy it! God will protect it. And he shall

hear  us--mighty  Caesar  shall  hear us  and  protect  us from  Pilate  the

oppressor! '

     ' Oh no! ' rejoined Pilate,  feeling more and more relieved with  every

word that he spoke; there was  no longer any need to dissemble, no  need  to

pick his words : ' You have complained of me to  Caesar too often and now my

hour has come, Caiaphas! Now  I  shall send word--but not to the  viceroy in

Antioch,  not even to Rome  but straight to Capreia, to the emperor himself,

word  of  how you in Jerusalem are saving  convicted rebels from death.  And

then it will not be  water from Solomon's pool, as I once intended for  your

benefit,  that I  shall give Jerusalem to  drink--no, it will  not be water!

Remember how thanks  to  you  I was  made to  remove  the  shields  with the

imperial cipher from the walls, to transfer troops, to come and  take charge

here myself! Remember my  words. High Priest: you are going to see more than

one cohort here in Jerusalem! Under the city walls you are going to see  the

Fulminata legion at full strength and Arab cavalry too. Then the weeping and

lamentation will be bitter! Then you  will  remember that you saved Bar-Abba

and you will regret that you sent that preacher of peace to his death!

     Flecks of colour spread over the High  Priest's face, his eyes  burned.

Like the Procurator he grinned mirthlessly and replied:

     ' Do you really believe what you have just said, Procurator? No, you do

not! It was not peace  that this  rabble-rouser brought to Jerusalem and  of

that, hegamon,  you are  well aware. You wanted to  release  him  so that he

could  stir up the  people,  curse our faith and deliver the people to  your

Roman swords! But as long as  I, the High Priest of Judaea, am alive I shall

not  allow the faith to be defamed and  I shall  protect the people!  Do you

hear, Pilate?' With this Caiaphas raised his arm threateningly;

     ' Take heed. Procurator! '

     Caiaphas was  silent and again the  Procurator heard a murmuring  as of

the sea, rolling up to the very walls of Herod the Great's garden. The sound

flowed upwards from below until it  seemed  to swirl round  the Procurator's

legs  and into  his  face. Behind  his back,  from beyond the  wings of  the

palace, came urgent trumpet calls, the heavy crunch of hundreds of feet, the

clank of metal. It told  the Procurator that the Roman infantry was marching

out, on his  orders, to  the execution parade that was to strike terror into

the hearts of all thieves and rebels

     '  Do you  hear. Procurator?  ' the  High  Priest quietly  repeated his

words. '  Surely you are not trying to tell  me  that all this '--  here the

High Priest raised both arms and his dark cowl  slipped from his head--' can

have been evoked by that miserable thief Bar-Abba?'

     With  the  back of  his  wrist the  Procurator  wiped  his  damp,  cold

forehead,  stared at  the  ground, then frowning skywards  he  saw  that the

incandescent ball was nearly overhead,  that  Caiaphas' shadow had shrunk to

almost nothing and he said in a calm, expressionless voice :

     ' The execution will be at noon. We have enjoyed this conversation, but

matters must proceed.'

     Excusing  himself to  the High Priest in a few  artificial phrases,  he

invited him to sit down  on a bench  in the shade of a magnolia  and to wait

while he summoned the others necessary for  the final short consultation and

to give one more order concerning the execution.

     Caiaphas bowed politely, placing his hand on his heart, and remained in

the garden  while  Pilate  returned to  the  balcony.  There he  ordered his

waiting secretary to call the  Legate of the  Legion and  the Tribune of the

cohort  into  the  garden, also  the two  members of  the Sanhedrin and  the

captain of the temple guard, who were standing grouped round the fountain on

the lower terrace  awaiting  his  call. Pilate  added that he would  himself

shortly  return  to  join  them  in  the garden, and  disappeared inside the

palace.

     While  the  secretary  convened  the  meeting,  inside  his  darken-ed,

shuttered  room  the  Procurator spoke  to a  man  whose face,  despite  the

complete absence of sunlight from the room, remained half covered by a hood.

The  interview was very short. The Procurator whispered a  few words  to the

man,  who immediately departed. Pilate passed  through the arcade  into  the

garden.

     There  in  the  presence of all  the  men  he had  asked  to  see,  the

Procurator solemnly and curtly repeated that  he confirmed the  sentence  of

death  on Yeshua Ha-Notsri and enquired officially of  the Sanhedrin members

as to which of the prisoners it had  pleased them to  release. On being told

that it was Bar-Abba, the Procurator said:

     ' Very well,' and ordered the secretary to enter it  in the minutes. He

clutched the  buckle which  the secretary  had picked  up from  the sand and

announced solemnly : ' It is time! '

     At this all present set off down the broad marble staircase between the

lines of rose  bushes,  exuding  their stupefying  aroma,  down towards  the

palace wall, to a gate leading to the  smoothly  paved  square at whose  end

could be seen the columns and statues of the Jerusalem hippodrome.

     As  soon as the group entered the square and  began climbing  up to the

broad  temporary  wooden  platform  raised  high  above  the square,  Pilate

assessed the situation through narrowed eyelids.

     The cleared passage  that he had just crossed between the  palace walls

and  the scaffolding platform was empty, but  in front  of Pilate the square

could no longer  be  seen--it had been  devoured by the crowd. The mob would

have poured on to the platform and the passage too if there had not been two

triple rows of soldiers, one from  the Sebastian cohort on Pilate's left and

on his right another from the Ituraean auxiliary cohort, to keep it clear.

     Pilate climbed the platform, mechanically clenching and unclenching his

fist  on  the useless  buckle and  frowning  hard.  The  Procurator was  not

frowning because  the  sun was blinding him but to  somehow avoid seeing the

group of prisoners which, as he well knew,  would shortly be led  out on the

platform behind him.

     The moment the white  cloak with the blood-red lining appeared atop the

stone block at the edge of that human sea a wave of sound--' Aaahh '--struck

the  unseeing Pilate's ears. It began softly, far away at the hippodrome end

of the square, then grew to thunderous volume and after a few seconds, began

to diminish again. ' They have seen me,' thought the Procurator. The wave of

sound did  not recede altogether and  began unexpectedly to  grow  again and

waveringly rose to  a higher pitch than the first and  on top of the  second

surge of noise, like  foam on  the  crest of a wave at sea, could  be  heard

whistles and the  shrieks of several  women  audible above the  roar. ' That

means  they have led them  out  on to the  platform,' thought  Pilate, ' and

those  screams are  from  women who  were  crushed  when  the  crowd  surged

forward.'

     He waited for a while, knowing  that  nothing  could silence the  crowd

until it had let loose its pent-up feelings and quietened of its own accord.

     When that moment came tlie Procurator  threw up his  right hand and the

last murmurings  of  the crowd expired. Then Pilate took as deep a breath as

he could of the hot air and his cracked voice rang out over the thousands of

heads :

     ' In the name of imperial Caesar! . . .'

     At  once his ears were struck by a  clipped,  metallic  chorus  as  the

cohorts, raising lances and standards, roared out their fearful response:

     ' Hail, Caesar! '

     Pilate jerked his head up straight  at the  sun. He had  a sensation of

green fire piercing his eyelids, his brain seemed to burn. In hoarse Aramaic

he flung his words out over the crowd :

     '  Four  criminals,  arrested in  Jerusalem for  murder,  incitement to

rebellion,  contempt of  the law  and blasphemy,  have been condemned to the

most  shameful form  of  execution--crucifixion! Their  execution  will  be

carried  out shortly on Mount Golgotha The names of these felons are Dismas,

Hestas, Bar-Abba and Ha-Notsri and there they stand before you! '

     Pilate pointed to  the right, unable to see  the prisoners but  knowing

that they were standing where they should be.

     The crowd responded with a long rumble that could have been surprise or

relief. When it had subsided Pilate went on :

     ' But only three of them are to be executed for, in accordance with law

and custom, in honour of the great feast  of Passover the emperor Caesar  in

his magnanimity will,  at the choice  of  the Lesser  Sanhedrin and with the

approval of the Roman government, render back to  one of these convicted men

his contemptible life!'

     As Pilate  rasped out his words he noticed that the rumbling  had given

way to a great  silence. Now  not a sigh, not a rustle reached  his ears and

there even came a moment when it seemed to Pilate that the people around him

had  vanished altogether. The city he so  hated might have died and  only he

alone  stood  there,  scorched  by the vertical  rays  of the  sun, his face

craning skywards. Pilate allowed the  silence to continue and  then began to

shout again: ' The name of the man who is about to be  released before you .

. .'

     He paused once more, holding back the name, mentally confirming that he

had said  everything, because he knew that as soon as he pronounced the name

of the fortunate man the lifeless city would awaken and nothing more that he

might say would be audible.

     ' Is that everything? ' Pilate whispered soundlessly to himself. ' Yes,

it is. Now  the name!  ' And rolling his ' r 's over the heads of the silent

populace he roared : ' Bar-Abba! '

     It was as though the  sun  detonated above him and drowned his  ears in

fire, a fire that roared, shrieked, groaned, laughed and whistled.

     Pilate  turned and walked back  along the platform towards  the  steps,

glancing only at the parti-coloured wooden  blocks  of the steps beneath his

feet to save  himself from stumbling. He knew that behind his back a hail of

bronze coins  and  dates  was showering  the  platform, that  people in  the

whooping crowd, elbowing each other aside, were climbing  on to shoulders to

see a miracle with their own eyes--a  man already in  the arms of  death and

torn  from  their  grasp!  They watched  the legionaries  as they untied his

bonds, involuntarily causing  him searing pain in his swollen  arms, watched

as  grimacing  and complaining he nevertheless  smiled an  insane, senseless

smile.

     Pilate knew that the escort was now marching  the three bound prisoners

to the side steps of the platform to lead them off on the road westward, out

of the city,  towards Mount Golgotha. Only when he stood beneath  and behind

the platform did Pilate  open his  eyes,  knowing  that he was  now safe--he

could no longer see the convicted men.

     As  the roar  of  the  crowd  began to  die down the separate, piercing

voices  of the heralds could be heard repeating, one in Aramaic, the  others

in Greek, the  announcement  that  the Procurator  had  just  made from  the

platform. Besides that his ears  caught the approaching irregular clatter of

horses' hoofs and the sharp, bright call of a trumpet. This sound was echoed

by  the  piercing whistles of boys from the rooftops and by shouts of ' Look

out! '

     A lone soldier, standing in the space cleared in the square,  waved his

standard in warning, at  which the  Procurator, the Legate of the Legion and

their escort halted.

     A squadron of cavalry entered the square at a fast trot, cutting across

it  diagonally,  past  a  knot  of people, then down a  side-street  along a

vine-covered  stone  wall in  order to gallop  on to  Mount  Golgotha by the

shortest route.

     As the squadron commander, a Syrian as small as a  boy and as dark as a

mulatto, trotted  past Pilate he gave a high-pitched cry and drew  his sword

from  its scabbard.  His sweating,  ugly-tempered black  horse  snorted  and

reared up on its hind  legs.  Sheathing his sword the commander  struck  the

horse's neck with his whip, brought its forelegs down and moved off down the

side street, breaking into a gallop. Behind him in columns of three galloped

the horsemen  in a ha2e  of dust, the  tips  of  their bamboo lances bobbing

rhythmically. They  swept past the Procurator, their  faces unnaturally dark

in contrast with their white turbans, grinning cheerfully, teeth flashing.

     Raising a cloud of  dust the squadron surged down the street,  the last

trooper to pass Pilate carrying a glinting trumpet slung across his back.

     Shielding  his face  from  the  dust with  his hand  and  frowning with

annoyance Pilate walked  on, hurrying  towards the gate of the palace garden

followed by the Legate, the secretary and the escort.

     It was about ten o'clock in the morning.

 

 

 

        3. The Seventh Proof

 

 

     '  Yes,  it  was  about  ten  o'clock  in  the morning,  my  dear  Ivan

Nikolayich,' said the professor.

     The poet drew his hand across his face like a man who has just woken up

and noticed that it was now evening. The water in the pond had turned black,

a little boat was gliding  across it  and he could hear the splash of an oar

and a girl's laughter  in the boat. People  were beginning  to appear in the

avenues and were sitting on the benches on all sides of the square except on

the side where our friends were talking.

     Over Moscow it was as if the sky had blossomed : a clear, full moon had

risen, still  white  and not  yet golden. It was  much  less stuffy  and the

voices under the lime trees now had an even-tide softness.

     ' Why didn't I notice what a long story he's been telling us? ' thought

Bezdomny in amazement. ' It's evening already! Perhaps he  hasn't told it at

all but I simply fell asleep and dreamed it?'

     But  if  the professor had  not  told the story Berlioz  must have been

having the identical  dream because  he said, gazing  attentively  into  the

stranger's face :

     '  Your  story is  extremely  interesting,  professor,  but  it  diners

completely from the accounts in the gospels.'

     '  But surely,' replied the professor with a condescending smile, ' you