THE ROBE (13 page)
Authors: Unknown
'Do you mean that--seriously?' inquired Marcellus.
'Yes--and so do they. I tell you, sir, these rich Jews will go to more
bother about the external appearance of their religion than any people on
earth. And they do it with straight faces, too. It is a great mistake to be
playful with them about it. They've deceived themselves so long that they
really think they're honest. Of course,' he added, dryly, 'the opulent Jew has
no monopoly in self-deception. All our rich and influential men, whatever their
race or country, are subject to this unhappy malady. It must be a tragic
condition to possess great wealth and a sensitive conscience. I never thought
much about this before,' he rambled on, 'but I doubt not the sophists could
prove self-deception to rate high among the cardinal virtues. None but the
noble would heap upon himself so much sham and shame in the cause of
righteousness.'
'Paulus, you're a cynic--and an uncommonly bitter one,' drawled
Marcellus. 'By the way--what must these people along the roadside think of our
disregard of their holy Sabbath?'
'Pouf! They expect nothing better of us. And I'm not sure they'd like it
if we rested all day in honour of their beliefs. In their opinion, we could
defile their religion worse by recognizing it than by ignoring it. They don't
want anything from us--not even our respect. They can't be blamed, of course,'
Paulus added. 'No man should be asked to think highly of a master who has
robbed him of his liberty.'
Demetrius had turned his face away at that speech, pretending an
interest in a tented caravan resting on a neighbouring slope. He wondered
whether his master thought this remark of the Centurion's was injudicious;
wondered whether he wished his slave had not overheard it.
Early the next morning, the militia from Minoa broke camp and prepared
to complete the journey into the city. Demetrius had been glad to see the
sunrise. It was the first night, since he had been the slave of Marcellus, that
he had slept beyond the sound of his master's call. After the encampment had
been made, late yesterday afternoon, the Legate and four of the senior staff
officers had decided to ride on into Jerusalem. None of the slaves, except the
Syrian camel-boys, had gone with them. Demetrius, left to guard Marcellus's
effects, had slept in the ornate tent alone.
Rousing at dawn, he had drawn the curtains aside, and was amazed at the
tide of traffic already on the highway; processions of heavily laden camels,
rhythmically lifting their haughty noses at every step; long trains of
pack-asses, weighted with clumsy burdens; men, women, children, slaves--all
carrying bundles and baskets and boxes of every shape and size. The
pestilential dust rolled high.
With the speed and skill of long experience, the contingent from Minoa
levelled their camp, rolled up the tents, packed the stores, and took to the
road. Proudly the uniformed company marched down the highway, the pilgrims
scurrying to the stone fences at the trumpet's strident command. But the
pack-train did not fare so well. The laden asses from Minoa, not carrying
banners or blowing trumpets or wearing the Roman uniform, were considered by
the travellers as of no more importance than a similar number of pack-asses
from anywhere else.
Melas, ever anxious to display large knowledge to the newcomer, seemed
highly amused by Demetrius's efforts to keep his string of donkeys in hand. It
was quite apparent that the unkempt Thracian was enjoying the Corinthian's
dilemma. At a disadvantage in Demetrius's company, the odds were all in his
favour now. He wasn't as cultured as the Legate's slave, but when it came to
managing pack-asses in a dense crowd of uncivil travellers, Melas was in a
position to offer counsel. He looked back and grinned patronizingly.
It was a peculiar crowd! In Rome, on a feast-day, there was plenty of
rough jostling and all manner of rudeness. Arrogant charioteers thought nothing
of driving their broad iron wheels over the bare feet of little children.
People on foot treated one another with almost incredible discourtesy. One
favourite method of making one's way through a crowd was to dive in with both
hands full of mud and filth scooped up from the street. Few cared to debate the
right of way with persons thus armed. No, Rome had won no prizes for the
politeness of her gala-day multitudes. But, in spite of her forthright
brutality, Rome, on such occasions, was hilarious. Her crowds sang, cheered,
laughed! They were mischievous, merciless, vulgar--but they were merry!
There was no laughter in this pilgrim throng that crowded the widening
avenue to-day. This was a tense, impassioned, fanatical multitude; its voice a
guttural murmur as if each man hid his own distresses, indifferent to the
mumbled yearnings of his neighbours. On these strained faces was an expression
of an almost terrifying earnestness and a quality of pietistic zeal that seemed
to burst forth into wild hysteria; faces that fascinated Demetrius by the very
ugliness of their unabashed contortions. Not for all the wealth of the world
would he have so bared his private griefs and longings to the cool stare of the
public. But apparently the Jews didn't care who read their minds. All this,
thought the Corinthian, was what the sight of their holy city had done to their
emotions.
Suddenly, for no reason at all that Demetrius could observe, there was a
wave of excitement. It swept down over the sluggish swollen stream of zealots
like a sharp breeze. Men all about him were breaking loose from their families,
tossing their packs into the arms of their overburdened children, and racing
forward toward some urgent attraction. Far up ahead the shouts were increasing
in volume, spontaneously organizing into a concerted reiterated cry; a single,
magic word that drove the multitude into a frenzy.
Unable to keep his footing in this onrushing tide, Demetrius dragged and
pushed his stubborn charges to the roadside where Melas stood savagely
battering his tangled donkeys over their heads with his heavy cudgel.
'Crack them on the nose!' yelled Melas.
'I have no club,' shouted Demetrius. 'You take them!'
Melas, pleased to have his competence appealed to, grasped the lead-strap
to the other string of donkeys and began laying on the discipline with a
practised hand. While he was thus engaged, Demetrius set off after the hurrying
crowd, forcing his way with the others until the congestion was too dense for
further progress. Wedged tight against his arm, and grinning up into his face,
was another Greek, older but smaller than himself; a slave, easily recognizable
as such by the slit in his ear-lobe. Impudently the ill-scented little fellow
bent about for a glimpse of Demetrius's ear; and, having assured himself of
their social equality, laughed fraternally.
'Athens,' he announced, by way of introduction.
'Corinth,' returned Demetrius, crisply. 'Do you know what is going on?'
'They're yelling something about a king. That's all I can make of it.'
'Understand their language?'
'A little. Just what I've picked up on these trips. We come up every
year with a load of spices.'
'You think they've got somebody up in front who wants to be their king?
Is that it?'
'Looks like it. They keep howling another word that I don't
know--Messiah. The man's name, maybe.'
Demetrius impulsively turned about, thrust a shoulder into the streaming
mass, and began pushing through to the side of the road, followed closely--to
his distaste--by his diminutive countryman. All along the way, men were
recklessly tearing branches from the palms that bordered the residential
thoroughfare, indifferent to the violent protests of property-owners. Running
swiftly among the half-crazed vandals, the two Greeks arrived at the front of
the procession and jammed their way into it.
Standing on tiptoe for an instant in the swaying crowd, Demetrius caught
a fleeting glimpse of the obvious centre of interest, a brown-haired,
bareheaded, well-favoured Jew. A tight little circle had been left open for the
slow advance of the shaggy white donkey on which he rode. It instantly occurred
to Demetrius that this coronation project was an impromptu affair for which no
preparation had been made. Certainly there had been no effort to bedeck the pretender
with any royal regalia. He was clad in a simple brown mantle with no
decorations of any kind, and the handful of men--his intimate friends, no
doubt--who tried to shield him from the pressure of the throng wore the
commonest sort of country garb.
The huzzas of the crowd were deafening. It was evident that these
passionate zealots had all gone stark, raving mad! Paulus had drawn a very
clear picture of the Jew's mood on these occasions of the holy festival
commemorative of an ancient flight from bondage.
Again Demetrius, regaining his lost balance, stretched to full height
for another look at the man who had somehow evoked all this wild adulation. It
was difficult to believe that this was the sort of person who could be expected
to inflame a mob into some audacious action. Instead of receiving the applause
with an air of triumph--or even of satisfaction--the unresponsive man on the
white donkey seemed sad about the whole affair. He looked as if he would gladly
have had none of it.
'Can you see him?' called the little Athenian, who had stuck fast in the
sticky-hot pack an arm's length away.
Demetrius nodded without turning his head.
'Old man?'
'No, not very,' answered Demetrius, candidly remote.
'What does he look like?' shouted the Athenian, impatiently.
Demetrius shook his head--and his hand, too--signalling that he couldn't
be bothered now, especially with questions as hard to answer as this one.
'Look like a king?' yelled the little Greek, guffawing boisterously.
Demetrius did not reply. Tugging at his impounded garments, he crushed
his way forward. The surging mass, pushing hard from the rear, now carried him
on until he was borne almost into the very hub of the procession that edged
along, step by step, keeping pace with the plodding donkey.
Conspicuous in the inner circle, as if they constituted the mysterious
man's retinue, were the dozen or more who seemed stunned by the event that
obviously had taken them by surprise. They too were shouting, erratically, but
they were puzzled faces, and appeared anxious that their honoured friend would
play up a little more heroically to the demands of this great occasion.
It was clear now to Demetrius that the incident was accidental. It was
quite understandable, in the light of Paulus's irreverent comments on the
Passover celebration. All these proud, poverty-cursed, subjugated pilgrims,
pressing toward their ancient shrine, would be on the alert for any movement
that savoured of revolt against their rapacious foe. It needed only the shout,
'Messiah!', and they would spring into action without pausing to ask questions.
That explained it all, believed Demetrius. In any case, whoever had started
this wild pandemonium, it was apparent that it lacked the hero's approbation.
The face of the enigmatic Jew seemed weighted with an almost
insupportable burden of anxiety. The eyes, narrowed as if in resigned
acceptance of some inevitable catastrophe, stared straight ahead toward
Jerusalem. Perhaps the man, intent upon larger responsibilities far removed
from this pitiable little coronation farce, wasn't really hearing the racket at
all.
So deeply absorbed had Demetrius become, in his wide-eyed study of the
young Jew's face, that he too was beginning to be unmindful of the general
clamour and confusion. He moved along with creeping steps, slanting his body
against the weight of the pressing crowd, so close now to the preoccupied rider
that with one stride he could have touched him.
Now there was a temporary blocking of the way, and the noisy procession
came to a complete stop. The man on the white donkey straightened, as if roused
from a reverie, sighed deeply, and slowly turned his head. Demetrius watched,
with parted lips and a pounding heart.
The meditative eyes, drifting about over the excited multitude, seemed
to carry a sort of wistful compassion for these helpless victims of an
aggression for which they thought he had a remedy. Everyone was shouting,
shouting--all but the Corinthian slave, whose throat was so dry he couldn't
have shouted, who had no inclination to shout, who wished they would all be
quiet, quiet! It wasn't the time or place for shouting. Quiet! This man wasn't
the sort of person one shouted at, or shouted for. Quiet! That was what this
moment called for--Quiet!
Gradually the brooding eyes moved over the crowd until they came to rest
on the strained, bewildered face of Demetrius. Perhaps, he wondered, the man's
gaze halted there because he alone--in all this welter of hysteria--refrained
from shouting. His silence singled him out. The eyes calmly appraised Demetrius.
They neither widened nor smiled; but, in some indefinable manner, they held
Demetrius in a grip so firm it was almost a physical compulsion. The message
they communicated was something other than sympathy, something more vital than
friendly concern; a sort of stabilizing power that swept away all such
negations as slavery, poverty, or any other afflicting circumstance. Demetrius
was suffused with the glow of this curious kinship. Blind with sudden tears, he
elbowed through the throng and reached the roadside. The uncouth Athenian,
bursting with curiosity, inopportunely accosted him.
'See him--close up?' he asked.
Demetrius nodded; and, turning away, began to retrace his steps toward
his abandoned duty.
'Crazy?' persisted the Athenian, trudging alongside.
'No.'
'King?'
'No,' muttered Demetrius, soberly, 'not a king.'
'What is he, then?' demanded the Athenian, piqued by the Corinthian's
aloofness.
'I don't know,' mumbled Demetrius, in a puzzled voice, 'but--he is
something more important than a king.'
After the camp had been set up near the suburban village of Bethany,
Marcellus and his staff continued down the long hill into the city. There was
very little traffic on the streets, for the people were keeping the Sabbath.
Though Paulus had not exaggerated Jerusalem's provision for the
representatives of her Roman Emperor, the young Legate of Minoa was not
prepared for his first sight of the majestic Insula of the Procurator.
As they halted their weary camels at twilight before the imposing façade
of Rome's provincial seat, Marcellus sat in speechless admiration. No one
needed to inform a stranger that this massive structure was of foreign origin,
for it fairly shouted that it had no relation whatever to its mean environment.
Apparently the architects, sculptors, and landscape artists had been
advised that expense was the least of their problems. Seeing the Jews had to
pay for it, explained Paulus, the Emperor had not been parsimonious, and when
Herod, the first Procurator, had professed a grandiose ambition 'to rebuild
this brick city in marble,' Augustus had told him to go as far as he liked.
'And you can see that he did,' added Paulus, with an inclusive gesture
made as proudly as if he had done it himself.
True, Jerusalem wasn't all marble. The greater part of it was decidedly
shabby, dirty, and in need of repair. But Herod the Great had rebuilt the
Temple on a magnificent scale and then had erected this Insula on a commanding
elevation far enough away from the holy precincts to avoid any unhappy
competition.
It was a huge quadrangle stronghold, dominating the very heart of
Jerusalem. Three spacious levels of finely wrought mosaic pavement, united by
marble steps and balustrades with pedestals bearing the exquisitely sculptured
busts of eminent Romans, terraced up from the avenue to the colonnaded portal
of the Praetorium. On either side of the paved area sloped an exotic garden of
flowers and ornamental shrubbery, watered from marble basins in which lavish
fountains played.
'These fountains,' said Paulus, in a discreet undertone, 'were an
afterthought. They were installed only seven years ago, when Pilate came. And
they caused an uprising that brought all the available troops to the new
Procurator's rescue.'
'Were you in it, too, Paulus?' asked Marcellus.
'Indeed, yes! We were all here, and a merry time it was. The Jew has his
little imperfections, but he is no coward. He whines when he trades, but he is
no whimperer in battle. He hates war and will go to any length to preserve the
peace; but--and this was something Pontius Pilate didn't know--there is a point
where you'd better stop imposing on a Jew.'
