“I jumped to my feet. The sacred fury had seized me again. Removing my belt and all my clothes, I stood before God’s eyes just as I was when my mother begot me. I wanted him to see how I had aged, how I’d withered and shriveled up like a fig leaf in autumn, like the bare dangling stem of a cluster of grapes which has been plundered by birds. I wanted him to see me, pity me, and move quickly!

“And as I stood there stark naked before the Lord, I felt the moonlight penetrate my flesh. I had become wholly spirit: one with God, I heard his voice, not from outside or above, but from within me. Within me! God’s true voice always comes to us from within. ‘Simeon, Simeon,’ I heard, ‘I shall not let you die before you have seen the Messiah, heard him, and grasped him with your hands!’

“ ‘Lord, say that again!’ I cried.

“ ‘Simeon, Simeon, I shall not let you die before you have seen the Messiah, heard him, and grasped him with your hands!’

“I was so happy, I went out of my mind. Stark naked, I began to dance under the moon, clapping my hands and stamping my feet on the ground. I don’t know if this dance lasted a split second or a thousand years, but in any case I had enough finally-I found relief. Putting on my clothes and buckling my belt, I went down to Nazareth. The moment the cocks saw me from their perches high up on the rooftops they began to crow. The sky laughed, the birds awoke, doors opened and bade me good morning. My shabby house glittered from top to bottom-doors, windows, everything: all rubies. Wood, rocks, men, birds: all smelled the presence of God around me. The centurion himself, bloodsucker that he is, halted with astonishment. ‘What’s the matter with you, rabbi?’ he asked me. ‘You’re a lighted torch. Watch out, don’t set Nazareth on fire!’ But I said nothing: I did not want him to soil my breath.

“I’ve kept this secret hidden close to my skin for years and years. I’ve enjoyed it all by myself, jealously and proudly-and I’ve waited. But today, this black day that has seen a new cross nailed into our hearts, I am unable to guard it any longer. I pity the people of Israel. Therefore I unveil to you the joyous news: he is coming, he is no longer far away. He has probably stopped for a drink of water at some near-by well, or for a slice of bread at some oven where the loaves have just been removed. But no matter where he is, he will appear-because God said so, and what he says, he does not unsay. ‘Simeon, you will not die before you have seen the Messiah, heard him, and grasped him with your hands!’… I feel my strength leaving me day by day, but to the degree it departs, by so much does the Saviour approach. I am eighty-five years old. He cannot delay any more!”

A hairless cross-eyed man with a sharp, skinny snout jumped up. He looked as though someone had forgotten to add the yeast when he was kneaded.

“But what if you live a thousand years, Father?” he interrupted. ‘What if you never die? We’ve seen that happen. Enoch and Elijah are still alive!” His tiny wry eyes flitted slyly from side to side.

The rabbi pretended that he had not heard, but the cross-eyed man’s hissed words were knives in his heart. He lifted his hand commandingly. “I want to be alone with God. Leave-all of you!”

The place emptied out, the crowd dispersed, the old rabbi remained all by himself. He locked the street door and fell deep into thought, leaning against the wall where the prophet Ezekiel hovered in the air. He is God, he reflected, and omnipotent: he does what he likes. Can that rascal Thomas be right? Woe is me if God decides I should live a thousand years! And if he decides I should never die-then the Messiah… Are the great hopes of the race of Israel all in vain? It has held the Word of God in its womb for thousands of years, nourishing it as a mother nourishes her seed. Our flesh and bone have been devoured: we have melted away, living only for this Son. But now the race has gone into labor; Abraham’s seed cries out. Release it, Lord, release it at last! You are God, you can endure-we cannot. Mercy!

He paced up and down the synagogue. The day had finally waned. The shadows snuffed out the paintings and swallowed Ezekiel. The old rabbi looked at the penumbra which descended about him, and suddenly all that he had seen and suffered in his life rushed into his mind. How many times and with what longing he had run from Galilee to Jerusalem, then from Jerusalem to the desert in pursuit of the Messiah! But without fail a cross had put an end to his hopes and he had returned to Nazareth ashamed. Today, however…

He squeezed his head between his hands.

“No, no,” he murmured in terror, “no, no, it’s impossible!”

For days and nights now his mind had been drumming and ready to split. A new hope had come to him, a hope too large for his mind-a madness, a demon which was devouring him. But this was not the first time. This madness had been digging its claws into his mind for years. He would banish it, and it would come again. But it had never dared appear during the day; it had always come in the darkness of night, or in his dreams. Today, however, today-at noon, in broad daylight!… Was he the one?

He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. There he was, passing once more in front of him, gasping, with the cross on his back; and all about him the air trembled, just as it must tremble around the archangels… Look! he raised his eyes. Never had the old rabbi seen so much of heaven in the eyes of man! Was he the one? “Lord, Lord,” the rabbi murmured, “why do you torment me? Why don’t you answer?”

The prophecies tore like lightning flashes through his mind. At one moment his aged head filled with light, at the next it sank without hope into the darkness. His bowels opened and the patriarchs came forth. Within him, his hard-necked persevering race, covered with wounds and led by Moses, the head ram with the twisted horns, started again on its endless journey from the Land of Slavery to the Land of Canaan; then the journey continued from the Land of Canaan to the future Jerusalem. In this new march, however, it was not the patriarch Moses who blazed the trail, but another-the rabbi’s mind throbbed-another, bearing a cross upon his shoulder…

He reached the street door with one bound and opened it. The wind hit his face; he inhaled deeply. The sun had set; the birds were going home to sleep. The narrow streets filled with shadows; the earth grew cool. He locked the door and slipped the heavy key under his belt. For an instant he lost courage, but then all at once he made his decision. Head bowed, he set out toward Mary’s house.

Mary sat on a high stool in the tiny yard of her house. She was spinning. It was still bright outside: the summer light drew slowly away from the face of the earth and did not wish to leave. Men and oxen were returning from their work in the fields. Housewives lighted fires for the evening cooking; the fragrance of burning wood invaded the afternoon air. Mary spun, and her mind twirled now this way, now that-together with the spindle. Memory and imagination joined: her life seemed half truth, half fable. The petty round of daily tasks had lasted for years, and then suddenly the stunning uninvited peacock-the miracle-had come and covered her tormented existence with its long golden wings.

“Take me where you want, Lord; do with me what you will. You chose my husband, you presented me with my son, you gave me my suffering. You tell me to cry out and I cry out; you tell me to keep still and I keep still. What am I, Lord? A handful of mud in your hands, and you knead me as you please. Do what you want. There is only one thing I beg of you: Lord, pity my son!”

A brilliantly white dove flew down from the roof opposite, beat its wings for a moment over her head and then alighted with dignity on the pebbles of the yard and began to walk methodically around and around Mary’s feet. It spread its tail feathers, bent its neck, turned its head and looked at Mary, its round eye flashing in the evening light like a ruby. It looked at her, spoke to her. It must want to inform me of some secret, she said to herself. Oh, if the old rabbi would only come. He knows all about the language of the birds and could interpret for me… She looked at the dove and felt sorry for it. Leaving her spindle, she called the bird in a very tender voice, and the delighted dove took a hop and landed on her joined knees. And there, as though its whole secret was that it had been longing to reach those knees, it squatted, drew in its wings, and remained motionless.