“‘Lo there!’ she exclaimed joyously,—‘how is it that ye could not find Him? There is the King!’
“Throwing up her arms, she ran eagerly along a few steps, ... tottered, ... then fell face forward in the dust, and there lay; ... motionless forever! She had prayed for the pardon of Judas,—she had sought,—and found—the ‘King!’”
The conception of the character of “Judith” in “Barabbas” is fret with strong and sympathetic points. She is the mainspring of the work. The idea of the “Betrayal” emanates from her, yet the æsthetic treatment at the finale with the symbol of the cross, while closing her eyes in death, is poetry in itself.
Listen to Peter’s definition of a lie:
“The truth, the truth,” cried Peter, tossing his arms about; “lo from henceforth I will clamor for it, rage for it, die for it! Three times have I falsely sworn, and thus have I taken the full measure of a Lie! Its breadth, its depth, its height, its worth, its meaning, its results, its crushing suffocating weight upon the soul! I know its nature,—’tis all hell in a word! ’tis a ‘yea’ or ‘nay,’ on which is balanced all eternity! I will no more of it,—I will have truth, the truth of men, the truth of women,—no usurer shall be called honest,—no wanton shall be called chaste,—to please the humor of the passing hour! No—no, I will have none of this, but only truth! The truth that is seen as a shining, naked simitar in the hand of God, glistening horribly! I, Peter, will declare it!—I who did swear a lie three times, will speak the truth three thousand times in reprisal of my sin! Weep, rave, tear thy reverend hairs, unreverent Jew! Thou who as stiff-necked, righteous Pharisee, didst practice cautious virtue and self-seeking sanctity, and now through unbelief art left most desolate!”
The critics were as usual up in arms over “Barabbas,” but in spite of them its sale has been immense. The book has made such headway since its publication that it has been translated into more foreign tongues than any other novel of either the past or present—the translations comprising thirty to forty languages. As a matter of original conception, tragical effect and clearness of diction, “Barabbas” is considered by many the best of Marie Corelli’s works.
In “Barabbas” there is no loitering by the way, as it were, to argue, although the moral throughout is strong enough. The author’s sensibility grasps the situation of that potent day in the World’s era with a subtle reasoning of how to-day things are precisely the same, and would be precisely the same at the advent of a new Christus, save possibly as regards the execution. For our lunatic asylums afford an infinitely better kind of torture than the cross.
The character of Jesus of Nazareth, “the dreamy Young Philosopher” of his short day, is the poem of the tragedy. Barabbas himself is a character of much force, despite his weakness in the hands of Judith. The soliloquies of Melchior throughout the first part of the book are somewhat drastic, though the character bears out well its own mission.
There is extreme spirituality in the sayings of this somewhat important creation. He might be the Cicero of the work. One of his replies to Barabbas, showing the vesture of his thoughts, occurs again thus:
“If thou dost wait till thou canst ‘comprehend’ the mysteries of the Divine Will, thou wilt need to grope through æons upon æons of eternal wonder, living a thinking life through all, and even then not reach the inner secret. Comprehendest thou how the light finds its sure way to the dry seed in the depths of earth and causes it to fructify?—or how, imprisoning itself within drops of water and grains of dust, it doth change these things of ordinary matter into diamonds which queens covet? Thou art not able to ‘comprehend’ these simplest facts of simple nature,—and nature being but the outward reflex of God’s thought, how should’st thou understand the workings of His interior Spirit which is Himself in all? Whether He create a world, or breathe the living Essence of His own Divinity into aerial atoms to be absorbed in flesh and blood, and born as Man of virginal Woman, He hath the power supreme to do such things, if such be His great pleasure. Talkest thou of miracles?—thou art thyself a miracle,—thou livest in a miracle,—the whole world is a miracle, and exists in spite of thee! Go thy ways, man; search out truth in thine own fashion; but if it should elude thee, blame not the truth which ever is, but thine own witlessness which cannot grasp it!”