The adolescents went in and out of the yard, naked, hairy, with a colored rag around their loins. They listened to these disconnected discussions and laughed. They too had a Paradise inside them, but they did not confess what it was. They shoveled the hampers into the press and then with one bound were over the threshold and off to rejoin the pretty vintagers.

Zebedee parted his lips to add a clever remark but remained standing with gaping mouth. A strange visitor had appeared at the door and was listening to them. He wore a black goatskin which hung from his neck; his feet were bare, his hair disheveled and his face yellow, like sulphur. His eyes were large, black, and fiery.

The feet ceased treading, Zebedee swallowed his witticism, and everyone turned toward the door. Who was this living corpse who stood on the threshold? The laughter came to a standstill. Old Salome appeared at the window, looked, and suddenly cried, “It’s Andrew!”

“Good God, Andrew,” shouted Zebedee, “just look at you! Are you returning to us from the underworld? Or maybe you’re on your way down there!”

Peter jumped out of the wine press, clasped his brother’s hand without uttering a word, and looked at him with love and fright. Oh, God, was this Andrew, Andrew the chubby young hero, the celebrated athlete, first in work and play? Was this the Andrew who had been engaged to flaxen-haired Ruth, the prettiest girl in the village? She had been drowned on the lake together with her father, one night when God raised a terrible wind, and Andrew had left in despair in order to surrender himself, bound hand and foot, to God. Who could tell, he thought. If I join God perhaps I shall find her with him. Obviously, he was seeking his fiancée, not God.

Peter stared at him in terror. He remembered how he had been when they surrendered him to God; and now, look how God had returned him to them!

“Hey,” Zebedee shouted at Peter, “are you going to stare at him and finger him all day long? Let him come in; out there a wind might blow and knock him down! Come in, Andrew my boy, bend over, take some grapes and eat. We have bread too, glory be to God. Eat and put some color in your cheeks, because if your poor old father sees you in the state you’re in, he’ll be so scared he’ll burrow right back into his shark!”

But Andrew raised his bony arm: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves!” he shouted to them all. “Don’t you fear God? The world is perishing, and you tread grapes here and laugh!”

“The saints preserve us, here’s another one come to give us a hard time!” grumbled Zebedee, and now he turned to Andrew in a rage. “You won’t leave us alone either, eh? We’re stuffed to the gills, if you want to know. Is this what your prophet the Baptist proclaims? Well, you’d better tell him to change his tune. He says the end of the world has come, that the tombs will open and the dead fly out; he says God will descend-Second Coming!-to open the ledger, and then woe is us! Lies! Lies! Lies! Don’t listen to him, lads. On with our work! Tread the grapes!”

“Repent! Repent!” bellowed the son of Jonah. He shook himself out of his brother’s embrace and stood in the middle of the yard, directly in front of old Zebedee, with his finger lifted toward the sky.

“For your own good, Andrew,” said Zebedee, “sit down, eat, drink a bit of wine and come to your senses. Poor thing, hunger has driven you mad!”

“Easy living has driven you mad, Zebedee,” replied the son of Jonah. “But the ground is opening under your feet, the Lord is an earthquake, he’ll swallow your wine press and your boats and you too, you and your confounded belly!”

He had caught fire. Shifting his eyes from side to side, he pinned them now on one, now on another, and shouted, “Before this must turns to wine, the end of the world will come! Put on hair shirts, spread ashes over your heads, beat your breasts and shout ‘I have sinned! I have sinned!’ The earth is a tree, it has grown rotten, and the Messiah is coming with the ax!”

Judas stopped his hammering. His upper lip had rolled back and his sharp teeth gleamed in the sunlight. But Zebedee could control himself no longer.

“For the love of God, Peter,” he shouted, “take him and get out of here. We’ve work to do. ‘He’s coming! He’s coming!’ Sometimes be holds fire, sometimes a ledger and now-what next! An ax. Why can’t you leave us alone, you impostors, you deceivers of the people? This world is holding up fine, just fine-that’s what I say!… Tread the grapes, men, and rest assured!”

Peter patted his brother tenderly on the back to calm him. “Be still,” he said to him softly, “be still, Brother; don’t shout. You’re tired from your trip. Let’s go home so that you can get some rest and so Father can see you and quiet his heart.”

He took him by the hand and slowly, carefully, guided his way as though he were blind. They went up the narrow street and disappeared.

Old Zebedee burst into laughter. “Eh, miserable Jonah, my poor old fish-prophet, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes for all the world!”

But now it was old Salome’s turn to open her mouth. She still felt Andrew’s large eyes hanging over her and burning her. “Zebedee,” she said, shaking her white-haired head, “mind what you say, old sinner. Do not laugh. An angel stands above us and writes. You will be paid in kind for your scoffing.”

“Mother is right,” said Jacob, who until now had kept his mouth locked. “You were within a hair’s breadth of suffering the same thing with John, your pet; and as far as I can see, you’re still not out of danger. He isn’t helping with the vintage, so I’m told by the carriers; he’s sitting with the women and slobbering about God and fasting and immortal souls. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes either, Father!”

He laughed dryly. He could not stomach his lazy, pampered brother, and started furiously to stamp the grapes.

The blood rose to Zebedee’s large head. He, in his turn, could not stomach his eldest son-they resembled each other too much. A quarrel would have broken out if at that moment Mary, the wife of Joseph of Nazareth, had not appeared at the door, leaning on John’s arm. Her thin feet were bloody and covered with dust from her long journey. For days now she had abandoned her house and gone from village to village, weeping, in search of her unfortunate son. God had robbed him of his senses; he had departed from the ways of men. Sighing, the mother sang her son’s dirge while he was still alive. She asked, asked everywhere, if anyone had seen him: “He’s tall, thin, barefooted; he was wearing a blue tunic and a black leather belt. Have you noticed him, perhaps?”… No one had seen him, and it was only now, thanks to Zebedee’s younger son, that she had got on his trail. He was at the monastery in the desert. He had donned the white robe and was prostrate, face down on the earth, praying… John, feeling sorry for her, had revealed everything. Now, leaning on his arm, she entered Zebedee’s yard for a bit of rest before she set out for the desert.

Old Salome rose majestically. “Welcome, Mary dear,” she said. “Come inside.”

Mary lowered her kerchief to her brows, bowed her head and passed through the yard with her eyes on the ground. Grasping her elderly friend’s hand, she began to cry.

“It’s a great sin for you to cry, my child,” said old Salome. She placed her on the divan and sat down by her side. “Your son is in safety now; he’s under God’s roof.”

“A mother’s pain is heavy, Salome,” Mary answered with a sigh. “God sent me but one boy, and he a blemished one.”

Old Zebedee heard her complaint (he was not a bad man if one did not interfere with his profits) and came down from his platform in order to comfort her. “It’s his youth, Mary,” he said, “his youth. Don’t worry about it-it will pass. Youth, bless it, is like wine, but we sober up soon enough and slide under the yoke without any more kicking. Your son will sober up too, Mary. Take my own son, the one you see before you: he’s beginning now to get sober, glory be to God.”