The procurator’s visitor required very little time to dry his hair, change his clothes and shoes, and generally put himself in order, and he soon appeared on the balcony in dry sandals, a dry crimson military cloak, and with slicked-down hair.
Just then the sun returned to Yershalaim, and, before going to drown in the Mediterranean Sea, sent farewell rays to the city hated by the procurator and gilded the steps of the balcony. The fountain revived completely and sang away with all its might, doves came out on the sand, cooing, hopping over broken branches, pecking at something in the wet sand. The red puddle was wiped up, the broken pieces were removed, meat steamed on the table.
‘I wait to hear the procurator’s orders,’ said the visitor, approaching the table.
‘But you won’t hear anything until you sit down and drink some wine,’ Pilate replied courteously and pointed to the other couch.
The visitor reclined, a servant poured some thick red wine into his cup. Another servant, leaning cautiously over Pilate’s shoulder, filled the procurator’s cup. After that, he motioned for the two servants to withdraw.
While the visitor drank and ate, Pilate, sipping his wine, kept glancing with narrowed eyes at his guest. The man who had come to Pilate was middle-aged, with a very pleasant, rounded and neat face and a fleshy mouth. His hair was of some indeterminate colour. Now, as it dried, it became lighter. It would be difficult to establish the man’s nationality. The chief determinant of his face was perhaps its good-natured expression, which, however, was not in accord with his eyes, or, rather, not his eyes but the visitor’s way of looking at his interlocutor. Ordinarily he kept his small eyes under his lowered, somewhat strange, as if slightly swollen eyelids. Then the slits of these eyes shone with an unspiteful slyness. It must be supposed that the procurator’s guest had a propensity for humour. But occasionally, driving this glittering humour from the slits entirely, the procurator’s present guest would open his eyelids wide and look at his interlocutor suddenly and point-blank, as if with the purpose of rapidly scrutinizing some inconspicuous spot on his interlocutor’s nose. This lasted only an instant, after which the eyelids would lower again, the slits would narrow, and once again they would begin to shine with good-naturedness and sly intelligence.
The visitor did not decline a second cup of wine, swallowed a few oysters with obvious pleasure, tried some steamed vegetables, ate a piece of meat. Having eaten his fill, he praised the wine:
‘An excellent vintage, Procurator, but it is not Falerno?’1
‘Caecuba,2 thirty years old,’ the procurator replied courteously.
The guest put his hand to his heart, declined to eat more, declared that he was full. Then Pilate filled his own cup, and the guest did the same. Both diners poured some wine from their cups on to the meat platter, and the procurator, raising his cup, said loudly:
‘For us, for thee, Caesar, father of the Romans, best and dearest of men! ...’
After this they finished the wine, and the Africans removed the food from the table, leaving the fruit and the jugs. Again the procurator motioned for the servants to withdraw and remained alone with his guest under the colonnade.
‘And so,’ Pilate began in a low voice, ‘what can you tell me about the mood of this city?’
He inadvertently turned his eyes to where the colonnades and flat roofs below, beyond the terraces of the garden, were drying out, gilded by the last rays.
‘I believe, Procurator,’ the guest replied, ‘that the mood of Yershalaim is now satisfactory.’
‘So it can be guaranteed that there is no threat of further disorders?’
‘Only one thing can be guaranteed in this world,’ the guest replied, glancing tenderly at the procurator, ‘the power of great Caesar.’
‘May the gods grant him long life!’ Pilate picked up at once, ‘and universal peace!’ He paused and then continued: ‘So you believe the troops can now be withdrawn?’
‘I believe that the cohort of the Lightning legion can go,’ the guest replied and added: ‘It would be good if it paraded through the city in farewell.’
‘A very good thought,’ the procurator approved, ‘I will dismiss it the day after tomorrow, and go myself, and — I swear to you by the feast of the twelve gods,3 by the lares4 I swear - I’d give a lot to be able to do so today!’
‘The procurator doesn’t like Yershalaim?’ the guest asked good-naturedly.
