A young woman with her hair flowing loose lay among the rocks. She kneeled, and, supporting her elbows on the ground, wailed softly: "O Saviour, Saviour! My sins!"
He looked once again at His dear ones. Then He lifted His head quickly and uttered a cry to Heaven: "Father, receive My soul! My Father! Do not forsake Me!" He looked upwards, gazed at the heavens with wide-opened eyes, then His head dropped and fell on His breast.
John sank to the ground, covering his face with his hands. All was over!
The crowd was almost motionless. They stood and stared, and their faces were white. The town walls were dun-coloured, the shrubs were grey, the young buds were pale and closed.
A lustreless sun stood in the sky like a moon, and its shadows were ghostly. Terrified rooks and bats flew around, and hovered about the cross in this horrible twilight. Rocks on the hills broke away, and skulls rolled down the slope. As for the people, they seemed to have lost the power of speech, they stood dumb and looked at one another.
"Something has happened," said an old man to himself.
The crowd began to move, uncertainly at first, then with more animation and noise.
"What has happened?" asked a bystander.
"My friend, what has happened now has thrown the world off its balance. I do not know what it is, but it has thrown the world off its balance. If it is not the end of the world, then it must be its beginning."