'Yes, in the kingdom of heaven,' said Jane, in a mild but firm voice: '‘tis thus I understand the young master.'
"Ah! really?' said the Seigneur Chusa, her husband, in a sardonic tone, 'it simply alludes to the kingdom of heaven? You think so? Why then, some time ago, did one named Peter, one of his disciples, I believe, say to him in plain terms, 'Master, if we abandon all and follow thee, what shall we have in return for it?'"
'This Peter was a cautious man,' said Jonas the banker, in a tone of raillery; 'this worthy didn't like working for nothing.'
'To this question of Peter's,' said Chusa, 'what did the Nazarene reply, in order to excite the cupidity of the brigands, whom sooner or later he will make his instruments?'
"He replied in these very words: 'He who abandons house, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children and fields for me and for the gospel, shall receive for the present a hundred fold more than he abandons, and in future ages, life eternal.'"
'For the present, that's quite clear,' said Doctor Baruch, 'he promises for the present to the men of his band a hundred houses in lieu of one they quit to follow him; a field a hundred times larger than that they abandon; and, in addition, for the future, in after ages, he assures these miscreants a life eternal! Now where will he obtain these hundred houses for one?' continued Jonas the banker: 'yes, where will he get them; these fields promised to the vagabonds? He will take them from us, the possessors of wealth, us, the camels, for whom the entrance to Paradise is as narrow as the eye of a needle, because we are rich.'
'I think, seigneurs,' said Jane, 'that you do not rightly interpret the words of the young master: they have a figurative sense.'
'Really!' exclaimed Jane's husband in a tone of irony: 'well, let us try this wonderful figure.'
'When Jesus of Nazareth says, that those who will follow him shall have for the present a hundred times more than what they abandon, he means by that, I think, that the consciousness of preaching good news, the love of our neighbor, the compassion for the suffering and the feeble, will compensate fourfold for the renunciation we have imposed on ourselves.'
These wise and gentle words of Jane were but ill received by the guests of Pontius Pilate; and the high priest exclaimed: