Master and

40 Mikhail Bulgakov
‘The first I hear of it,’ Pilate said, grinning. ‘But perhaps I know too
little of life! ...
You needn’t record any more,’ he addressed the secretary, who had not
recorded anything anyway, and went on talking with the prisoner. ‘YOU
read that in some Greek book?’
‘No, I figured it out for myself.’
‘And you preach it?’
‘Yes.’
‘But take, for instance, the centurion Mark, the one known as Ratslayer
- is he good?’
‘Yes,’ replied the prisoner. ‘True, he’s an unhappy man. Since the good
people disfigured him, he has become cruel and hard. I’d be curious to
know who maimed him.’
‘I can willingly tell you that,’ Pilate responded, ‘for I was a witness to it.
The good people fell on him like dogs on a bear. There were Germans fastened
on his neck, his arms, his legs. The infantry maniple was encircled,
and if one flank hadn’t been cut by a cavalry turmae, of which I was the
commander - you, philosopher, would not have had the chance to speak
with the Rat-slayer. That was at the battle of Idistaviso, 20 in the Valley of
the Virgins.’
‘If I could speak with him,’ the prisoner suddenly said musingly, ‘I’m
sure he’d change sharply.’
‘I don’t suppose,’ Pilate responded, ‘that you’d bring much joy to the
legate of the legion if you decided to talk with any of his officers or soldiers.
Anyhow, it’s also not going to happen, fortunately for everyone,
and I will be the first to see to it.’
At that moment a swallow swiftly flitted into the colonnade, described
a circle under the golden ceiling, swooped down, almost brushed the face
of a bronze statue in a niche with its pointed wing, and disappeared behind
the capital of a column. It may be that it thought of nesting there.
During its flight, a formula took shape in the now light and lucid head
of the procurator. It went like this: the hegemon has looked into the case
of the vagrant philosopher Yeshua, alias Ha-Nozri, and found in it no
grounds for indictment. In particular, he has found not the slightest connection
between the acts of Yeshua and the disorders that have lately taken
place in Yershalaim. The vagrant philosopher has proved to be mentally
ill. Consequently, the procurator has not confirmed the death sentence
20 Idistaviso: Mentioned in Tacitus’s Annals (2:16) as the site of a battle between the
Romans and the Germani in AD 16, on the right bank of the Weser, in which the Roman
general Germanicus defeated the army of Arminius.