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The son of Mary shook his head. “I do not think I shall be cured so easily,” he murmured. He remained silent, as did the rabbi next to him. They were both breathing rapidly, gasping.
“I don’t know where to begin,” said the youth, starting to rise, “I shall never begin: I’m too ashamed!”
But the rabbi kept a firm hold on the youth’s knee. “Don’t get up,” he commanded, “don’t go away. Shame is also a temptation. Conquer it-stay! I’m going to ask you some questions; I’ll do the asking and you’re going to be patient and answer me… Why did you come to the monastery?”
“To save myself.”
“To save yourself? From what? From whom?”
“From God.”
“From God!” the rabbi cried out, troubled.
“He’s been hunting me, driving his nails into my head, my heart, my loins. He wants to push me-”
“Where?”
“Over the precipice.”
“What precipice?”
“His. He says I should rise up and speak. But what can I say? ‘Leave me alone; I have nothing to say!’ I shouted at him, but he refused. ‘Aha! so you refuse, do you?’ I said to him. ‘All right, then, now I’ll show you-I’ll make you detest me, and then you’ll leave me alone…’ I fell, therefore, into every conceivable sin.”
“Into every conceivable sin?” cried the rabbi.
But the young man did not hear. He had been carried away by his indignation and pain.
“Why should he choose me? Doesn’t he uncover my breast and look in? All the serpents are entwined and hissing there, hissing and dancing-all the sins. And above all…”
The word stuck in his throat. He stopped. Sweat spouted from the roots of his hair.
“And above all?” asked the rabbi softly.
“Magdalene!” said Jesus, raising his head.
“Magdalene!”
The rabbi’s face had grown pale.
“It’s my fault, mine, that she took the road she did. I drove her to the pleasures of the flesh when I was still a small child-yes, I confess it. Listen, Rabbi, if you want to be horrified. It must have been when I was about three years old. I slipped into your house at a time when no one was home. I took Magdalene by the hand; we undressed and lay down on the ground, pressing together the soles of our naked feet. What joy that was, what a joyful sin! From that time on Magdalene was lost; she was lost-she could no longer live without a man, without men.”
He looked at the old rabbi, but the other had placed his head between his knees and did not speak.
“It’s my fault, mine! mine!” the son of Mary cried, beating his chest. “And if it were only this!” he continued after a moment. “But ever since my childhood, Rabbi, I’ve not only kept the devil of fornication hidden deeply within me but also the devil of arrogance. Even when I was tiny-I could hardly walk at the time; I used to go along the wall, clinging to it to keep myself from falling-even then I shouted to myself-oh, what impudence! what impudence!-‘God, make me God! God, make me God! God, make me God!’ And one day I was holding a large bunch of grapes in my arms, and a gypsy woman passed by. She came over to me, squatted, and took my hand. ‘Give me the grapes,’ she said, ‘and I’ll tell you your fortune.’ I gave them to her. She bent over and looked at my palm. ‘Oh, oh,’ she cried, ‘I see crosses-crosses and stars.’ Then she laughed. ‘You’ll become King of the Jews!’ she said, and went away. But I believed her and swaggered; and ever since then, Uncle Simeon, I haven’t been in my right mind. You’re the first person I’ve told, Uncle Simeon-until now I hadn’t confessed it to a soul: ever since that day I haven’t been in my right mind.”
He was quiet for a moment, but then: “I am Lucifer!” he screamed. “Me! Me!”
The rabbi unwedged his head from between his knees and clamped his hand over the young man’s mouth.
“Be still!” he ordered.
“No, I won’t be still!” said the overwrought youth. “Now I’ve started, and it’s too late. I won’t be still! I’m a liar, a hypocrite, I’m afraid of my own shadow, I never tell the truth-I don’t have the courage. When I see a woman go by, I blush and lower my head, but my eyes fill with lust. I never lift my hand to plunder or to thrash or kill-not because I don’t want to but because I’m afraid. I want to rebel against my mother, the centurion, God-but I’m afraid. Afraid! Afraid! If you look inside me, you’ll see Fear, a trembling rabbit, sitting in my bowels-Fear, nothing else. That is my father, my mother and my God.”
The old rabbi took the youth’s hands and held them in his own, in order to calm him. But Jesus’ body was quivering convulsively. “Do not be frightened, my child,” the rabbi said, comforting him. “The more devils we have within us, the more chance we have to form angels. ‘Angel’ is the name we give to repentant devils-so have faith… But I would like to ask you just one thing more: Jesus, have you ever slept with a woman?”
“No,” the youth answered softly.
“And you don’t want to?”
The youth blushed and did not breathe a word, but the blood was throbbing wildly at his temples.
“You don’t want to?” the old man asked once more.
“I do,” the youth answered, so softly that the rabbi could hardly hear.
But all at once he gave a start as though he had just waked up, and cried, “No, I don’t, I don’t!”
“Why not?” asked the rabbi, who could find no other cure for the youth’s pain. He knew from his own experience and from the multitudes of those possessed with demons who came to him cursing, frothing at the mouth and screaming that the world was too small for them: they married, and suddenly the world was no longer too small; they had children, and grew calm.
“It’s not enough for me,” the youth said in a steady voice. “I need something bigger.”
“Not enough for you?” exclaimed the rabbi with surprise. “Well, then, what do you want?”
Proud-gaited, high-rumped Magdalene passed through the youth’s mind, her breasts exposed, her eyes, lips and cheeks covered with make-up. She laughed and her teeth flashed in the sunlight; but as she wriggled up and down before him, her body changed, multiplied, and the son of Mary now saw a lake, which must have been the lake of Ge
“What are you thinking about?” asked the rabbi. “Why don’t you answer me?”
The young man burst out, asking abruptly, “Do you believe in dreams, Uncle Simeon? I do; I believe in nothing else. One night I dreamed that invisible enemies had me tied to a dead cypress. Long red arrows were sticking into me from my head to my feet, and the blood was flowing. On my head they had placed a crown of thorns, and intertwined with the thorns were fiery letters which said: ‘Saint Blasphemer.’ I am Saint Blasphemer, Rabbi Simeon. So you’d better not ask me anything else, or I’ll start my blasphemies.”
“Go ahead, my child-start,” the rabbi said tranquilly, again taking hold of his hand. “Start your blasphemies and relieve yourself.”
“There’s a devil inside me which cries, ‘You’re not the son of the Carpenter, you’re the son of King David! You are not a man, you are the son of man whom Daniel prophesied. And still more: the son of God! And still more: God!’ ”
The rabbi listened, bowed over, and shudders passed through his ramshackle body. The youth’s chapped lips were rimmed with froth; his tongue adhered to his palate: he could no longer speak. But what else was he to say? He had already said everything; he felt that his heart had been drained. Jerking his hands free of the rabbi’s grip, he got up. Then he turned to the old man. “Have you anything else to ask?” he said sarcastically.