nothing mattered: that the great void would never be
filled up again: and that time would not restore to him a single desire
or hope. Nothing matters, he often said to himself, as he sat drawing
patterns in the gravel with his stick. Yet he had no will to die, only
to believe he was the victim of some powerful malign influence.

One day as he sat watching the wind in the palm-trees, it seemed to him
that this influence, this demon, was always moving behind his life,
disturbing and setting himself to destroy any project that Joseph might
form. Another day it seemed to Joseph that the demon cast a net over
him, and that--entangled in the meshes--he was being drawn--Somebody
spoke to him, and he awoke so affrighted that the gossip could hardly
keep himself from laughing outright. If the end of the world were at
hand, let the end come to pass! he said; but he did not go to John for
baptism. He knew not why, only that he could not rouse himself! And it
was not till it came to be rumoured in Jericho that a prophet was gone
to Egypt to learn Greek that he awoke sufficiently to ask why a Jewish
prophet needed Greek. The answer he got was that the new doctrine
required a knowledge of Greek; Greek being a world-wide language, and
the doctrine being also world-wide. As there was but one God for all
the world, it was reasonable to suppose that every man might hope for
salvation, be he Jew or Gentile. It seemed to Joseph that this doctrine
could only emanate from the young shepherd he had met in the cenoby, and
he joined a caravan, and for fifteen days dreamed of the meeting that
awaited him at the end of the journey--and of the delightful instruction
in Greek that he was going to impart to Jesus. The heights of Mount
Sinai turned his thoughts backward only for a moment, and he continued
his dream of Jesus, continuing without interruption along the
shell-strewn shores of the Sea of Arabah, on and on into the peninsula,
till he stepped from the lurching camel into the great caravanserai in
Alexandria.

Without exactly expecting to find Jesus waiting for him in the street,
he had dreamed of meeting him somewhere in the city. He was sure he
would recognise that lean face, lit with brilliant eyes, in any crowd,
and the thought of getting news of Jesus in the synagogues in some sort
drowsed in his mind. As Jesus did not happen to be waiting outside the
caravanserai, Joseph sought him from synagogue to synagogue, without
getting tidings