This evening the village was all astir. Young girls had begun to don their jewelry and make ready their lamps for the wedding. Nathanael’s nephew was getting married. A cobbler like his uncle, he was a chubby, brown, overgrown child with a nose like a cudgel. The bride, covered with a veil so thick that you could see only the two eyes which bored through it and the large silver rings on her ears, sat on a raised armchair in the middle of her home, waiting for the gentlemen guests and the village girls with their lighted lamps, waiting for the rabbi to come to unroll the Scriptures and read the blessing, waiting, finally, for the moment when everyone would decamp and she would remain all alone with her cudgel nose.

Nathanael heard the children shout, “He’s coming, he’s coming!” and ran out to invite his friends to the wedding. He found them sitting by the well at the entrance to the village, drinking water to quench their thirst. Magdalene was kneeling in front of Jesus. She had washed his feet and was now wiping them dry with her hair.

“Tonight my nephew is getting married,” he said. “If you’ll be so kind, please come to the wedding. We’ll drink the wine made from the grapes I trod in Zebedee’s yard this summer.”

He turned to Jesus. “We hear a great deal about your sanctity, son of Mary. Do me the honor of coming to bless the new couple so that they will give birth to sons, for Israel ’s glory.”

Jesus rose. “The joys of men please us,” he replied. “Companions, let us go.”

He grasped Magdalene’s hand and helped her up. “Join us, Mary,” he said.

Feeling in good spirits, he took the lead. He liked festivities. He loved the people’s glowing faces; he loved to see the young marry and keep the fires burning in the hearth. Plants, beetles, birds, animals, men-all are sacred, he reflected as he proceeded to the wedding; all are God’s creatures. Why do they live? They live to glorify God. May they continue to live, therefore, forever and ever!

The freshly bathed girls already stood in their white robes outside the closed richly ornamented door. They held their lighted lamps in their hands while they sang the ancient wedding songs which praised the bride, teased the groom and called on God to deign to come in and join the rest of the company. A wedding was taking place, an Israelite was being married, and the two bodies which would couple that night might engender the Messiah… The girls sang to deceive the time, for the groom was late. They were waiting for him to come and throw open the door so that the ceremony could begin.

But while they were singing, Jesus appeared with his train. The virgins turned. As soon as they saw Magdalene their song came to an abrupt standstill and they recoiled, glowering. What business had this slut among virgins? Where was the old village chief to bar her? The wedding was soiled! The married women turned also and eyed her fiercely; wave after wave of movement could be seen in the murmuring crowd of guests, the respectable householders, who were also waiting outside the closed door. Magdalene, however, was resplendent, a lighted torch. Standing by Jesus’ side, she felt her soul newly virgin and her lips unkissed. Suddenly the crowd made way and the village chief, a tiny, desiccated old man whose nose dripped venom, came up to Magdalene, touched her with the end of his staff and nodded for her to leave.

Jesus felt the envenomed glances of the people on his hands, face and uncovered chest. His body became inflamed, as though pricked by countless invisible thorns. Looking at the old chief, the honest wives, the scowling men and flustered virgins, he sighed. How long would the eyes of men remain blind and fail to see that all were brothers?

The murmur had now grown intense; the first threats already resounded in the darkness. Nathanael went up to speak to Jesus, but the teacher calmly pushed him aside and, making his way through the crowd, approached the virgins. Lamps swayed; room was made for him to pass. He stopped in their midst and raised his hand. “Virgins, my sisters, God touched my mouth and confided a kind word to me to present to you on this holy wedding night. Virgins, my sisters, open your ears, open your hearts; and you, my brothers, be quiet, for I shall speak!”

They all turned, uneasy. From his voice the men divined that he was angry, the women that he was sad. No one spoke. The two blind musicians in the courtyard of the house could be heard tuning their lutes.

Jesus raised his hand. “Virgins, my sisters, what do you suppose the kingdom of heaven is like? It is like a wedding. God is the bridegroom, and the soul of man is the bride. A wedding takes place in heaven, and the whole of mankind is invited. Forgive me, my brothers, but God speaks to me thus, in parables, and it is in parables that I shall speak now.

“There was to be a wedding in a certain village. Ten virgins took their lamps and went out to receive the bridegroom. Five were wise and took along flasks filled with oil. The other five were foolish and carried no extra oil with them. They stood outside the house of the bride and waited and waited, but the bridegroom was late and they grew tired and slept. At midnight there was a cry, ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming! Run out to receive him!’ The ten virgins jumped up to fill their lamps, which were about to go out. But the five foolish virgins had no more oil. ‘Give us a little oil, sisters,’ they said to the wise virgins, ‘for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘We haven’t any left for you. Go and get some.’ And while the foolish virgins ran to find oil, the bridegroom arrived, the wise virgins went in, and the door was shut.

“A little while later the foolish virgins returned, their lamps lighted, and began to pound on the door. ‘Open the door for us!’ they cried and pleaded. But inside, the wise virgins laughed. ‘It serves you right,’ they answered them. ‘Now the door is closed. Go away!’ But the others wept and begged, ‘Open the door! Open the door! Open the door!’ And then…”

Jesus stopped. Once more he surveyed the old chief, the guests, the honest housewives, the virgins with the lighted lamps. He smiled.

“And then?” said Nathanael, who was listening with gaping mouth. His simple, sluggish mind had begun to stir. “And then, Rabbi, what was the outcome?”

“What would you have done, Nathanael,” Jesus asked, pinning his large, bewitching eyes on him, “what would you have done if you had been the bridegroom?”

Nathanael was silent. He still was not entirely clear in his mind what he would have done. One moment he thought to send them away. The door had definitely been closed, and that was what the Law required. But the next moment he pitied them and thought to let them in.

“What would you have done, Nathanael, if you had been the bridegroom?” Jesus asked again, and slowly, persistently, his beseeching eyes caressed the cobbler’s simple, guileless face.

“I would have opened the door,” the other answered in a low voice so that the old chief would not hear. He had been unable to oppose the eyes of the son of Mary any longer.

“Congratulations, friend Nathanael,” said Jesus happily, and he stretched forth his hand as though blessing him. “This moment, though you are still alive, you enter Paradise. The bridegroom did exactly as you said: he called to the servants to open the door. ‘This is a wedding,’ he cried. ‘Let everyone eat, drink and be merry. Open the door for the foolish virgins and wash and refresh their feet, for they have run much.’ ”

Tears welled up between Magdalene’s long eyelashes. Ah, if she could only kiss the mouth that uttered such words! Simple Nathanael glowed from head to toe as though he were actually in Paradise already. But old poison nose, the village chief, lifted his staff.

“You’re going contrary to the Law, son of Mary,” he screeched.