“Is there no salvation?” cried a young mother, squeezing her baby to her breast. “I’m not talking for myself, but for my son.”

“There is!” Jesus answered her. “In every flood God contrives an ark and entrusts to it the leaven of the future world. I hold the key!”

“Who’ll be saved as leaven? Whom will you save? Do we have time?” cried another old man, and his lower jaw trembled.

“The Universe passes before me and I choose. On one side, all those who overate, overdrank, overkissed. On the other, the starving and oppressed of the world. These, the starving and oppressed, I choose. They are the stones with which I shall build the New Jerusalem.”

“The New Jerusalem?” shouted the people, their eyes shining.

“Yes, the New Jerusalem. I did not know it myself until God confided the secret to me in the desert. Love comes only after the flames. First this world will be reduced to ashes and then God will plant his new vineyard. There is no better fertilizer than ashes.”

“No better fertilizer than ashes!” echoed a hoarse, joyous voice which seemed like his own, only deeper and happier. Surprised, Jesus turned and saw Judas behind him. He felt afraid, for the redbeard’s face flashed lightning, as if the coming flames had already fallen over him.

Judas rushed forward and clasped Jesus’ hand. “Rabbi,” he whispered with unexpected tenderness, “my rabbi…”

Never in his life had Judas spoken so tenderly to anyone. He felt ashamed. He stooped and pretended to ask something, though he himself did not know what; then, finding a small premature anemone, he pulled it up by the roots.

In the evening when Jesus returned and sat down once more on his stool in front of the hearth and stared into the fire, he suddenly felt that his inner God was in a hurry and would allow him to wait no longer. He was overcome by sorrow, exasperation and shame. Once more today he had spoken and waved the flames over the heads of the people. The simple fishermen and farmers had been frightened for a moment, but had then immediately regained their composure and quieted down. All these threats seemed to them like a fairy tale, and several of them had fallen asleep on the warm grass, lulled by his voice.

Uneasy and silent, he watched the fire. Magdalene stood in the corner and looked at him. She wanted to speak but did not dare. At times a woman’s speech gladdens a man; at times it makes him furious. Magdalene knew this and remained silent.

There was no sound. The house smelled of fish and rosemary. The window facing the courtyard was open. Somewhere nearby some medlar trees must have bloomed, for their aroma, sweet and peppery, entered with the evening breeze.

Jesus got up and closed the window. All these springtime perfumes were the breath of temptation; they were not the proper atmosphere for his soul. It was time to leave and find the air which suited him. God was in a hurry.

The door opened. Judas entered and flitted his blue eyes around the room. He saw the teacher with his eyes pinned on the fire; saw high-rumped Magdalene, Zebedee, who had fallen asleep and was snoring, and under the lamp, the scrivener scratching away and filling his paper with blots… He shook his head. Was this their great campaign? Was this the way they were setting out to conquer the world? One clairvoyant, one secretary, one woman of questionable morals, a few fishermen, one cobbler, one peddler-and all taking their ease at Capernaum! He curled himself up in a corner. Old Salome had already set the table.

“I’m not hungry,” he growled; “I’m sleepy,” and he shut his eyes so that he would not see the others, who presently sat down to dinner. A moth came in through the door, beat its wings around the flame of the lamp, went for a moment and fluttered in Jesus’ hair, then began to circle the room.

“We’re going to have a visitor,” said old Salome. “We’ll be pleased to see him.”

Jesus blessed the bread, divided it, and they began to eat. No one spoke. Old Zebedee, who had been awakened for the meal, felt suffocated by so much silence. He could stand it no longer.

“Talk, lads!” he said, banging his fist down on the table. “What’s wrong? Is there a corpse in front of us? Haven’t you heard: whenever three or four sit down and eat and do not talk about God, they might as well be sitting at a funeral supper. The old rabbi of Nazareth -God bless him-told me that once, and I still remember it. So speak, son of Mary. Bring God again into my house! Excuse me if I call you son of Mary, but I still don’t know what to call you. Some call you the son of the Carpenter, others the son of David, son of God, son of man. Everyone is confused. Obviously the world has not yet made up its mind.”

“Old Zebedee,” Jesus answered, “countless armies of angels fly around God’s throne. Their voices are silver, gold, clear running water, and they praise God-but from a distance. No angel dares come too close, except one.”

“Which?” asked Zebedee, opening wide his well-wined eyes.

“The angel of silence,” Jesus answered, and spoke no more.

The master of the house choked, filled his cup with wine, and emptied it in one gulp.

This visitor is certainly a kill-joy, he said to himself. You feel as if you’re sitting at table with a lion… No sooner had this thought come to him than he became frightened, and rose.

“I’m going to find old Jonah so that we can talk a bit like human beings,” he said, making for the door. But at that instant some light footsteps were heard in the yard.

“Look, here’s our visitor,” said old Salome, rising. They all turned. On the threshold stood the old rabbi of Nazareth.

How he had aged and melted away! There remained of him nothing but a few bones wrapped in a sun-baked hide-just enough to give the soul something to catch hold of so it would not fly away. Lately the rabbi had been unable to sleep, and when he sometimes did fall asleep, at dawn, he would have a strange and recurring dream: angels, flames… and Jerusalem in the form of a wounded, howling beast which had scrambled up Mount Zion. The other day at dawn he had dreamed the dream again and his endurance had given out. He jumped up, left his house, reached the fields, traversed the plain of Esdrelon. God-trodden Carmel towered before him. The prophet Elijah would surely be standing at its summit. It was he who dragged the rabbi onward and gave him the strength to mount. The sun went down when the old man reached the top of the mountain. He knew that three great upright rocks stood as an altar on the sacred summit and that around them were the bones and horns of the sacrifices. But as he approached and raised his eyes, he uttered a cry: the stones were gone! This evening three men with gigantic bodies stood on the summit. They were dressed all in white, like snow, and their faces were made of light. Jesus, the son of Mary, was in the center. To his left stood the prophet Elijah clutching burning coals in his fists; to his right Moses with twisted horns and holding two tables inscribed in letters of fire… The rabbi fell on his face. “Adonai! Adonai!” he whispered, trembling. He knew that Elijah and Moses had not died, and that they would reappear on earth on the fearful day of the Lord. It was a sign that the end of the world had come. They had appeared-there they were!-and the rabbi shook with fear. He raised his eyes to look. Gleaming in the dusk were the three gigantic sun-drenched rocks.

The rabbi had been opening the Scriptures for many years; for many years he had breathed in the breath of Jehovah. He had learned how to find God’s hidden meaning behind the visible and the invisible-and now he understood. He raised his crosier from the ground-where did his ramshackle body find such strength?-and set out for Nazareth, Cana, Magdala, Capernaum-everywhere-in order to find the son of Mary. He had heard of his return from the desert of Judea, and now as he followed his trail throughout Galilee he saw how the farmers and fishermen had already begun to compose the new prophet’s legend: what miracles he performed, what words he uttered, which stone he stood on to speak, and how the stone was suddenly covered with flowers… He questioned an old man whom he met on the road. The old man lifted his hands to heaven. “I was blind. He touched my eyelids and gave me my sight. Though he instructed me not to say a word about it, I’m making the rounds of the villages, telling everyone.”