When Pilate led Jesus out of his palace and placed Him in full view of the people, Judas, pinned to a column by the heavy backs of some soldiers, frenziedly twisted his head in order to see something between two shining helmets. He suddenly realized that now all was over indeed. The sun shone high over the heads of the multitude and under its very rays stood Jesus, bloodstained, pale, with a crown of thorns the sharp points of which had pierced His brow. He stood at the very edge of the elevation, visible from His head to His small sunbrowned feet, and so calmly expectant He was, so radiant in His sinlessness and purity that only a blind man unable to see the very sun could fail to see it, only a madman could fail to realize it. And the people were silent, so silent that Judas heard the breathing of the soldier in front of him, and the scraping of his belt as he took each breath.
“That’s it. It is all over. They will now understand,” thought Judas; and suddenly some strange sensation not unlike the blinding joy of falling from an infinite altitude into the gaping abyss of blue stopped his heart.
Contemptuously stretching his lip down to his clean-shaven, rotund chin, Pilate flings at the people dry curt words as one might cast bones at a horde of hungry hounds to cheat their thirst for fresh blood and living quivering flesh.
“Ye have brought unto me this Man as a corrupter of the people. I have examined Him before you and have found the Man guilty of nothing whereof ye accuse Him..”
Judas closed his eyes. He was waiting.
And the whole people began to shout, scream and howl with a thousand bestial and human voices:
“Death unto Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
And now, as if deriding their own souls, as if craving to taste to the dregs in one moment all the infinity of fall, frenzy and shame, these very people screaming and howling demand:
“Release unto us Barabbas. But Him crucify! Crucify!”
But the Roman has not yet spoken his final word. His haughty clean-shaven face is twitching with loathing and wrath. He understands.. He has comprehended. There He is speaking softly to the servants of the temple, but his voice is drowned in the uproar of the multitude. What is he saying? Does he command them to take up their swords and to fall upon the madmen?