nded so forcibly, that it seemed as though he were driving
them in with nails. When Peter moved, or did anything, he made a noise
that could be heard afar, and which called forth a response from the
deafest of things: the stone floor rumbled under his feet, the doors
shook and rattled, and the very air was convulsed with fear, and roared.
In the clefts of the mountains his voice awoke the inmost echo, and
in the morning-time, when they were fishing on the lake, he would roll
about on the sleepy, glittering water, and force the first shy sunbeams
into smiles.

For this apparently he was loved: when on all other faces there still
lay the shadow of night, his powerful head, and bare breast, and freely
extended arms were already aglow with the light of dawn.

The words of Peter, evidently approved as they were by the Master,
dispersed the oppressive atmosphere. But some of the disciples, who
had been to the seaside and had seen an octopus, were disturbed by the
monstrous image so lightly applied to the new disciple. They recalled
the immense eyes, the dozens of greedy tentacles, the feigned
repose--and how all at once: it embraced, clung, crushed and sucked,
all without one wink of its monstrous eyes. What did it mean? But Jesus
remained silent, He smiled with a frown of kindly raillery on Peter, who
was still telling glowing tales about the octopus. Then one by one
the disciples shame-facedly approached Judas, and began a friendly
conversation, with him, but--beat a hasty and awkward retreat.

Only John, the son of Zebedee, maintained an obstinate silence; and
Thomas had evidently not made up his mind to say anything, but was still
weighing the matter. He kept his gaze attentively fixed on Christ and
Judas as they sat together. And that strange proximity of divine beauty
and monstrous ugliness, of a man with a benign look, and of an octopus
with immense, motionless, dully greedy eyes, oppressed his mind like an
insoluble enigma.

He tensely wrinkled his smooth, upright forehead, and screwed up his
eyes, thinking that he would see better so, but only succeeded in
imagining that Judas really had eight incessantly moving feet. But that
was not true. Thomas understood that, and again gazed obstinately.

Judas gathered courage: he straightened out his arms, which had been
bent at the elbows, relaxed the muscles which held his jaws in tension,
and began cautiously to protrude his bumpy head into the light. It had
been the w