nails. 'Come, are you ready? Must we use violence to you, as to your two
companions?'

'What can they complain of?' replied the other executioner; 'we are so
much at our ease on a cross, with our arms extended, for all the world
like a man stretching himself after a long nap!'

Jesus made no reply; he stripped off his garments, placed himself on the
instrument of death, extended his arms on the cross, and turned toward
heaven his eyes drowned in tears.

Genevieve then saw the two executioners kneel on each side of the young
man of Nazareth, and seize their long nails and heavy hammers. The slave
closed her eyes, but she heard the dull sounds of the hammers, as they
drove the nails into the living flesh, whilst the two crucified thieves
continued their cries. The blows of the hammer ceased--Genevieve opened
her eyes: the cross to which they had attached the Nazarene had just
been erected between those of the two crucified thieves. Jesus, his
head crowned with thorns, his long chestnut hair glued to his temples by
a mixture of blood and sweat, his face livid and impressed with fearful
agony, his lips blue; seemed about to expire; the whole weight of his
body resting on his two hands nailed to the cross, as also his feet,
from whence the blood trickled; his arms stiffened by violent convulsive
movements, whilst his knees, half bent, occasionally knocked against
each other. Genevieve then heard the almost dying voice of the two
thieves who, addressing Jesus, said to him: 'Cursed be thou, Nazarene!
cursed be thou, who told us that the first should be last, and the last
first? Behold us crucified, what can'st thou do for us?'

'Cursed be thou, who told us that they alone who were sick had need of
the physician: behold us ill; where is the physician?'

'Cursed be thou who told us that the good shepherd abandons his flock to
find a single sheep that has strayed! we have strayed, and thou, the
good shepherd, leave us in the hands of butchers.'

And these wretched men were not the only ones to insult the agony of
Jesus; for, horrible as it is, and which Genevieve whilst writing this
can hardly believe, Doctor Baruch, Jonas the banker, and Caiphus the
high priest, joined the two thieves in assailing and outraging Jesus, at
the moment he was about to render up his soul.

'Oh! Jesus of Nazareth! Jesus the Messiah! Jesus the prophet? Jesus, the
Savior of the world!' said Caiphus: 'how was it you did not prophesy
your own fate?