“Truly, truly, Mary. And what thinkest thou, thirty pieces of silver ... is it a large sum of money?”
“I think it is not so much.”
“Truly, truly. And what didst thou earn when thou wast a sinner? Five pieces of silver or ten? Wast thou high in price?”
Mary Magdalene blushed and dropped her head till her luxuriant golden hair hid her entire face leaving merely the rounded white chin visible:
“How mean art thou, Judas. I seek to forget it, but thou remindest me.”
“No, Mary, thou shouldest not forget it. Why? Let others forget that thou wast a sinner, but thou forget not. It is meet that others forget it, but why shouldest thou?”
“I lived in sin.”
“Let him fear who has committed no sin. But he who has committed sin, why should he fear? Do the dead fear death and not the living? No, the dead mock the living and their fear of death.”
Thus cordially talking they sat together for hours, he, well on in years, gaunt hideous to behold, with illshaped head and weirdly disproportioned face, she youthful, coy, gentle, fascinated with life as though with some legend or strange dream.
But the time passed heedlessly and the thirty pieces of silver were reposing under the stone, and the terrible day of betrayal was approaching inexorably. Already Jesus had entered Jerusalem riding on the foal of an ass, and the people had acclaimed Him, spreading their garments in His path, with cries of triumphant welcome: