The window of the inner house which gave onto the yard was open, and stretched on the divan was old Salome, the mistress of the house. She gazed outside and listened to all that went on in the yard; in this way she forgot the pains which tortured her knees and other joints. She must have been exceedingly beautiful in her youth-slim-boned, tall, with olive skin and large eyes: of a good stock. Three villages- Capernaum, Magdala and Bethsaida -had vied for her. Three suitors had set out at the same time and found her old father, the wealthy ship-owner. Each came with a rich train of friends, camels and overflowing hampers. The shrewd old man carefully weighed in his mind the body, soul and fortune of each, and chose Zebedee, who wed her. She had pleased him, but now the exquisite girl had grown old, her beauty, eaten by time, had fallen away, and now and then, during the important festivals, her vigorous, still-juicy husband made the rounds at night and played with the widows.

Today, however, old Salome’s face was aglow. John, her favorite son, had arrived the day before from the holy monastery. He was truly pale and skinny. Prayer and fasting had broken him, but she would keep him near her now and never let him go away again. She would nourish him with food and drink, and he would grow strong; his cheeks would sparkle once more. God is good, she said to herself, and we worship his grace. Yes, he is good-but he must not want to drink the blood of our children. Fasting in moderation, prayer in moderation: that would be fine for both man and God, and they should arrange things in this way-sensibly. She looked anxiously at the door, waiting for John, her baby, to return from the vineyards where he too was helping to bring in the vintage.

In the middle of the yard, beneath the large almond tree, which was heavy with fruit, Judas the redbeard was bent over, silent, swinging his hammer and fitting iron bands around the wine barrels. If you looked at him from the right, his face was sullen and full of malice; if you looked at him from the left, it was uneasy and sad. Many days had passed since he fled like a thief from the monastery. During this time he had gone around the villages fitting up barrels for the new must. He would enter the houses, work, listen to the talk and register in his mind the words and deeds of each man, in order to inform the brotherhood of everything. But where was the old redbeard-the rowdy, the wrangler! Ever since the day he left the monastery, he had been unrecognizable.

“Damn it, Judas Iscariot, open your mouth, devil-hair,” Zebedee yelled at him. “What are you thinking about? Two and two make four-haven’t you realized that yet? Open your mouth, you blessed ruffian, and say something. This is the vintage-no small matter. On a day like this everyone laughs, even the sullen black sheep.”

“Don’t lead him into temptation, Zebedee,” Philip interrupted. “He went to the monastery; it seems he wants to don the robe. Haven’t you heard? When the devil gets old, he becomes a monk!”

Judas turned and threw a venomous glance at Philip but did not speak. He detested him. He wasn’t a man; no, he was all words and no action, a prattler. At the last minute he’d become paralyzed with fear and had refused to enter the brotherhood. “I have sheep,” was his excuse. “I have sheep; how can I leave them?”

Old Zebedee burst out laughing and turned to the redbeard. “Take care, wretch,” he shouted at him. “Monasticism is a contagious disease. Look out you don’t catch it! My own son escaped by a hair’s breadth. My old lady got sick, bless her, and her pet learned about it. He had already finished his schooling in herbs with the Abbot, so he came home to doctor her. He won’t leave here again, mark my words. Where to go? He’s not insane, is he? There, in the desert, there’s hunger, thirst, prostrations-and God. Here there’s food, wine, women-and God. Everywhere God. So, why go look for him in the desert? What’s your opinion, Judas Iscariot?”

But the redbeard swung his hammer and did not answer. What could he say to him? Everything came to this filthy dog just as he wanted it. How could he understand the next man’s troubles? Even God, who wiped others off the face of the earth for the jump of a flea, flattered and coddled this swine, this parasite, this lickpenny; kept him from suffering the slightest harm, fell over him like a woolen cloak in the winter, like cool linen in the summer. Why? What did he see in him? Was the old bastard devoured with concern for Israel? Why, he wouldn’t lift his little finger to help Israel -he loved the Roman criminals because they guarded his wealth. May God protect them, he said, for they maintain order. If not for them, the mob of ruffians and barefooted riffraff would fall all over us, and that would be the last we’d see of our property… But, never fear, you old bastard, the hour will come. What God forgets and leaves undone the Zealots, bless them, will remember and do. Patience, Judas; do not breathe a word. Patience. Jehovah Sabaoth’s day will come!

Raising his turquoise eyes, he looked at Zebedee and saw him in the wine press, floating on his back in his own blood. His whole face smiled.

By this time the four giants had carefully scrubbed their legs and jumped into the press. Sunk up to the knees, they stamped and trampled the grapes, stooping to pick up whole fistfuls, which they ate, filling their beards with the stems. Sometimes they danced hand in hand, sometimes each screamed and jumped by himself. The smell of the must had made them drunk-and the must was not all: as they looked through the opened front door toward the vineyards they saw the girls bend over to pick the grapes, and their beauty was visible even above the knees, and their breasts, like clusters of grapes, swung back and forth over the vine leaves.

The treaders saw them, and their minds grew turbid. This was not a wine press, that was not land and vineyard, but Paradise, with old Jehovah Sabaoth sitting on the platform holding a long stick and a penknife and marking his exact obligation to each: how many hampers of grapes each had brought and how many jugs of wine, day after tomorrow when they died, he would offer them-how many jugs of wine, how many cauldrons of food, how many women!

“On my honor,” snapped Peter, “if God came this very moment and said to me, ‘Hey, Peter, my little Peter, I’m in the best of moods today, ask me a favor, any favor, and I’ll do it for you. What do you want?’-if he asked me that I should answer him, ‘To tread grapes, Lord, to tread grapes for all eternity!’ ”

“And not to drink the wine, blockhead?” Zebedee rudely asked him.

“No, from the bottom of my heart: to tread the grapes!” He did not laugh; his face was serious and absorbed. He stopped treading for a moment and stretched in the sun. His upper body was bare, and tattooed over his heart was a large black fish. An artisan, formerly a prisoner, had tapped it on years before with a needle, so skillfully that you thought it moved its tail and swam happily, all tangled up in the curly hairs of Peter’s chest. Above the fish was a small anchor with four crossed arms, each with a barb.

But Philip remembered his sheep. He did not like to plow the land, care for vineyards or tread grapes.

“Good God, Peter,” he scoffed, “some job you found yourself-treading grapes for all eternity! I should have asked the Lord to make heaven and earth a green meadow full of goats and sheep. I should then milk them and send the milk flowing down the mountainside. It would run like a river and form lakes on the plain so that the poor could drink. And every night all of us should gather-all the shepherds, together with God the chief shepherd; we should light a fire, roast a lamb and tell stories. That is the meaning of Paradise!”

“A plague on you, moron!” grumbled Judas, and he threw another fierce glance at Philip.