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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58967 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Procurator of Judea
+
+
+Anatole France (1844-1924)
+
+
+Aelius Lamia, born in Italy of illustrious parents, had not yet
+put off the patrician's white toga with the purple stripe when
+he went to Athens to study philosophy there in the schools.
+He afterwards set up in Rome and, in his house in the Exquiliae,
+led the life of a voluptuary amid debauched youths.  But, after
+having been accused of being in an illegitimate relationship
+with Lepida, the wife of a consul, Sulpicius Quirinus, and when
+he was found guilty, he was exiled by Tiberius Caesar.  He was
+then in his twenty-fourth year.  For the eighteen years his
+exile lasted he wandered over Syria, Palestine, Cappadocia and
+Armenia, staying for long periods in Antioch, Caesarea Maritima
+and Jerusalem.  When, after the death of Tiberius, Caius Julius
+was raised to the imperial purple, Lamia was allowed to return
+to Rome.  He even recovered a part of his wealth.  His woes had
+made him wise.
+
+He avoided all dealings with free-born women, did not intrigue
+for public office, kept away from marks of favour and lived
+hidden in his house in the Exquiliae.  Putting into writing
+the noteworthy things he had seen in his far-off travels, he
+was creating, he said, from his past sufferings, a diversion
+for the hours he had these days at his disposal.  In the midst
+of these serene labours, and while he was assiduously thinking
+on the works of Epicurus, he saw, with a modicum of surprise
+and a certain amount of sadness, old age creeping up on him.
+In his sixty-second year, tormented by a quite inconvenient cold,
+he went to take the waters at Baiae. This shore, formerly dear
+to common kingfishers, was at that time frequented by wealthy,
+pleasure-seeking Romans.  For a week Lamia had been living alone
+and friendless in their brilliant company, when, one day, after
+dinner, feeling fit, he took it into his head to climb the hills
+which, covered with vines like devotees of Bacchus, overlook the
+waves of the sea.
+
+Having reached the summit, he sat down at the side of a path
+beneath a terebinth, and allowed his gaze to wander over the
+beautiful landscape. On his left the Phlegraean Fields, pallid
+and bare, stretched out as far as the ruins of Cumae.  On his
+right Cape Misenus dug its sharp spur into the Tyrrhenian Sea.
+At his feet, to the west, the rich town of Baiae, hugging the
+shoreline's graceful curve, displayed its gardens, its villas
+peopled with statues, its porticos and its marble terraces on
+the edge of the blue sea in which dolphins played.  In front
+of him, on the other side of the gulf, on the Campanian coast,
+gilded by the sun that was already low in the sky, shone the
+temples, crowned by the bay trees of the Pausilipon, and, on
+the far horizon, Vesuvius spluttered and laughed.
+
+Lamia pulled from a fold of his toga a roll containing the
+Treatise on Nature of Epicurus, stretched out on the ground
+and started to read. But the cries of a slave warned him to
+get up to make way for a litter that was coming up the narrow
+path through the vines.  As the open litter came nearer,
+Lamia saw, stretched out on the cushions, a hugely fat old
+man who, head in hand, looked out with an eye both sombre
+and proud.  His aquiline nose came down to his lips, made
+tight by a prominent chin and powerful jaws.
+
+Right away, Lamia was sure he knew that face.  He hesitated
+though for a moment in putting a name to it.  Then he all of
+a sudden rushed to the litter in a transport of surprise and
+joy:
+
+"Pontius Pilate!" he exclaimed.  "Gods be praised.  It has
+been given to me to see you again!"
+
+The old man motioned to the slaves to stop and focused his
+attention on the man now greeting him.
+
+"Pontius, my dear host," the latter continued.  "Have twenty
+years sufficed to make my hair white enough and my cheeks
+sunken enough for you to no longer recognize your friend
+Aelius Lamia?"
+
+On hearing this name, Pontius Pilate got down from the litter
+in as sprightly a manner as the weariness due to his age and
+the gravity of his bearing allowed him.  And he twice hugged
+Aelius Lamia.
+
+"It's certainly good to see you again," he said.  "Alas, you
+remind me of the old days, when I was procurator of Judea in
+the province of Syria.  I saw you for the first time thirty
+years ago.  It was in Caesarea where you came to drag out the
+vexations of your exile.  I was quite happy to mitigate them
+somewhat, and you, out of friendship, Lamia, followed me to
+that sad Jerusalem where the Jews filled me to the brim with
+bitterness and disgust.  You stayed as my guest and my
+companion for more than ten years, and we both of us, talking
+of Rome, consoled ourselves, you for your misfortunes, me for
+my promotions."
+
+Lamia again embraced him.
+
+"That's not all, Pontius.  You fail to recall that you used
+in my favour your credit with Herod Antipas and opened your
+purse to me liberally."
+
+"Don't even mention it," Pontius replied, "since, when you
+were back in Rome, you sent me by one of your freed men a sum
+of money that paid me off with interest."
+
+"I don't think I'm out of your debt for any amount of money,
+Pontius. But tell me, have the gods granted what your heart
+desired?  Do you enjoy all the happiness that you deserve?
+Speak to me of your family, your fortune, your health!"
+
+"I've retired to Sicily where I own lands that I cultivate and
+sell the wheat.  My eldest daughter, my very dear Pontia, now
+a widow, lives with me and keeps house for me.  Thanks be to
+the gods, I have not lost the strength of my faculties or my
+memory.  But old age does not come without a long procession
+of aches and pains.  I suffer atrociously from gout.  And you
+see me at present seeking in the Phlegraean Fields a remedy for
+my afflictions.  This land that burns, from which, at night,
+flames escape, exhales acrid vapours of sulphur which, so they
+say, soothe pain and restore flexibility to joints and limbs.
+That's what the doctors assure me of anyway."
+
+"May it be what you experience yourself, Pontius!  But, gout
+and insect bites notwithstanding, you hardly look as old as me,
+though you are, in fact, ten years older.  It's certain you've
+retained more vigour than I ever had, and I'm glad to find you
+still so robust.  Why, dear heart, did you so prematurely reject
+public office?  Why, after you left your governorship in Judea,
+did you live on your estates in Sicily in voluntary exile?  Tell
+me what you got up to from the moment that I ceased to be there
+as a witness to your actions.  You were preparing to put down a
+Samaritan revolt when I left for Cappadocia, where I was hoping
+to derive some profit from raising mules and horses.  Since
+then I haven't laid eyes on you.  What was the success of that
+expedition?  Tell me about it.  I'm interested in everything
+that's happened to you."
+
+Pontius Pilate shook his head sadly.
+
+"A natural solicitude," he said, "and a feeling of duty led me
+to perform my public functions not only diligently but with love
+of them too.  But hatred dogged me constantly.  Intrigue and
+slander broke my life while the sap was still rising and blasted
+the fruit it should have made ripe.  You've asked me about the
+Samaritan revolt.  Let's sit down on this mound.  I can tell
+you about it in just a few words.  Those events are as fresh
+in my mind today as if they had happened yesterday.  A man of
+the people, potently eloquent, as many are in Syria, persuaded
+the Samaritans to take up arms and gather on Mount Gerizim,
+which is held to be a holy place in this region, and he swore
+to show them the sacred vessels that an eponymous hero, or
+rather a local prophet by the name of Moses, had hidden there
+back in the time of Evander and Aeneas, our founding father.
+On the strength of this assurance the Samaritans revolted.
+But, warned in time to stop them, I had the mountain occupied
+by infantry detachments and positioned cavalry to keep watch
+over approaches to it.  These prudent measures were needed
+urgently.  Already the rebels were besieging the town of
+Tyrathaba, to be found at the foot of Mount Gerizim.  I
+dispersed them easily and nipped the revolt in the bud.
+Then, to make an example with a minimum of victims, I had the
+revolt's leaders executed. But you know, Lamia, how dependent
+I was on the goodwill of Proconsul Vitellius who governed the
+province of Syria not for Rome but against Rome and thought
+that the provinces of the Empire could be portioned out like
+farms to tetrarchs.  The principal men among the Samaritans
+fell weeping with hatred of me at his feet.  To hear them,
+nothing was further from their mind than to disobey Caesar.
+I had acted provocatively, and it was to resist my violent
+attack on them that they had gathered about Tyrathaba. And
+Vitellius heard their complaints and, entrusting the affairs
+of Judea to his friend Marcellus, he ordered me to justify
+how I had acted before the emperor.  My heart heavy with
+pain and resentment, I took to the sea.  As I drew near to
+the coast of Italy, Tiberius, worn out by age and the cares
+of empire, died suddenly on Cape Misenus, the horn of which
+you can see from here lengthening in the evening mist.  I
+pleaded my case to Caius, his successor, who was naturally
+bright and was well acquainted with the affairs of Syria.
+But marvel with me at this, Lamia, at how my misfortune
+persisted till it brought about my downfall.  Caius had
+kept close to him in Rome the Jew Agrippa, his companion,
+his childhood friend, whom he loved more than his life.
+Agrippa looked with favour on Vitellius because Vitellius
+was the enemy of Antipas, whom Agrippa hated most intensely.
+The emperor sided with his Jewish friend and would not even
+grant me an audience.  I was forced to stay under a cloud
+of undeserved disgrace.  Swallowing my tears, nourished by
+gall, I retired to my lands in Sicily where I should have
+died of regret had my sweet Pontia not come to console her
+father.  I planted wheat and grew the fattest ears of it
+in all the island.  Today my life is done.  Posterity will
+judge between Vitellius and me."
+
+"Pontius," Lamia replied, "I'm convinced that you acted towards
+the Samaritans to the best of your ability and in the sole
+interest of Rome.  But did you not on that occasion give in too
+easily to that impetuous bravery that always dragged you into
+things?  You know that in Judea, even though younger than you
+were and therefore more ardent, it often fell to me to enjoin
+on you mildness and leniency."
+
+"Leniency to Jews!" cried Pontius Pilate.  "Despite your having
+lived among them, you know little of these enemies of the human
+race.  Both proud and base, combining ignominious cowardice with
+invincible obstinacy, they undermine both love and hate.  My way
+of thinking, Lamia, is founded on the maxims of the divine
+Augustus.  Already, when I was appointed procurator of Judea,
+the earth was majestically robed in the Pax Romana.  Proconsuls
+no longer got rich from the sack of provinces as they were seen
+to do during our civil wars.  I was careful only to use wisdom
+and moderation. As the gods are my witnesses, I was only stiff
+necked in holding back.  What good did these benevolent thoughts
+do me?  You saw me, Lamia, at the beginning of my governorship,
+when the first revolt broke out.  Do I need to remind you of the
+circumstances?  The garrison in Caesarea had gone to take up its
+winter quarters in Jerusalem.  The legionaries carried on their
+standards pictures of Caesar.  These images gave offence to the
+Jerusalemites who did not recognize the emperor's divinity, as
+if, under orders to obey, it was not more honourable to obey a
+god than a man.  The nation's priests came before my tribunal
+to ask me with haughty humility to have the standards removed
+from the sacred precincts. I refused out of respect for the
+divinity of Caesar and the majesty of the Empire. Then the
+plebs, joining forces with the priests, raised their voices
+threateningly round the praetorium.  I ordered the soldiers
+to form a phalanx in front of the Antonia Tower, and to go,
+armed with sticks, like lictors, to disperse that insolent
+crowd.  But, oblivious to the blows, the Jews kept on begging
+me and the most stubborn among them lay on the ground, held out
+their throats and let themselves be beaten to death by the rods.
+You then witnessed my humiliation, Lamia.  On Vitellius's order,
+I had to send the standards back to Caesarea.  Surely that was
+a shame that I did not deserve.  Here, in full view of the
+immortal gods, I swear that, during my governorship, I did not
+offend once against justice and the laws. But I am old.  My
+enemies and all those who informed on me are dead.  I shall
+die unavenged.  Who will defend my memory?"
+
+He groaned and stopped speaking. Lamia answered him:
+
+"It is wise not to place either fear or hope in an uncertain
+future. What does it matter what men will think of us?  Our
+only witnesses and judges are ourselves.  Rest assured, Pontius
+Pilate, of the witness you yourself have borne to your virtue.
+Be content with your own esteem and that of your friends.
+Besides, peoples are not governed by gentleness alone. That
+love of humanity philosophy counsels us to show has little to
+do with the actions of public figures."
+
+"Let's talk about something else," said Pontius. "The sulphurous
+vapours exhaled by the Phlegraean Fields are more efficacious when
+they come up from a ground still made warm by the rays of the sun.
+I'd better hurry. Goodbye!  But, since I've found a friend, I want
+to take advantage of this piece of luck.  Aelius Lamia, do me the
+honour of coming to take supper with me tomorrow.  My house is to
+be found on the sea shore, at the end of the town, going towards
+Misenus.  You will recognize it easily from the portico on which
+you'll see a painting showing Orpheus among lions and tigers he is
+charming with the sounds of his lyre. Till tomorrow, Lamia," he
+said, climbing back in his litter. "Tomorrow we shall talk of Judea."
+
+
+
+The following day, at suppertime, Aelius Lamia went to the house
+of Pontius Pilate.  Two couches only awaited the supper guests.
+The table, unobtrusive but decently laid, supported silver plates
+in which had been prepared warblers in honey, thrushes, oysters
+from Lake Lucrino and lampreys from Sicily.  Pontius and Lamia
+questioned each other as they ate about their infirmities whose
+symptoms they described at length and they told each other of
+various remedies which had been recommended to them.  Then,
+congratulating themselves on having been brought back together
+again in Baiae, they vied with one another in praising the
+beauty of this coastline and the mildness of the air one breathed
+there. Lamia vaunted the grace of the courtesans who went by on
+the beach, laden with gold and dragging behind them trains
+embroidered by barbarians. But the old procurator deplored an
+ostentatiousness that, for the sake of tawdry stones and spiders'
+webs woven by hand, made Roman coinage circulate among foreign
+peoples and even among enemies of the empire. They afterwards
+came to talk about the great feats of civil engineering carried
+out in the region, that huge bridge that Caius had had built
+between Puteoli and Baiae, and the canals ordered dug by Augustus
+to bring water from the sea to the lakes of Avernus and Lucrino.
+
+"I too," said Pontius with a sigh, "wanted to undertake great
+public works.  When I was given, for my sins, the governorship
+of Judea, I traced the plan for an aqueduct two hundred stadia
+long that was to have brought to Jerusalem an abundant supply of
+pure water.  Height of levels, capacity of modules, obliquity of
+bronze containers for the pipes to be adjusted to, I had studied
+everything and, in the opinion of the engineers, solved all the
+problems myself.  I prepared a statute to regulate the use of
+the water, so that no one individual could make illegal use of
+it.  The architects and workers were ordered and I gave the
+command to start the work.  But, far from watching satisfied
+that conduit was being erected which, on powerful arches, was
+to bring health as well as water to their town, the people of
+Jerusalem cried out in loud lamentations.  Tumultuously,
+accusing us of sacrilege and impiety, they attacked the
+workers and scattered the foundation stones.  Can you imagine
+filthier barbarians, Lamia?  Nevertheless Vitellius took their
+part and I received the order to discontinue the work."
+
+"It's a big question," said Lamia, "as to whether one should make
+people happy in spite of themselves."
+
+Pontius Pilate carried on regardless:
+
+"What madness to refuse an aqueduct!  But everything Roman is
+hateful to the Jews.  We are for them impure beings and our very
+presence is a profanity for them.  You know they did not dare to
+enter the praetorium for fear of defiling themselves and that I
+had to hold court in an open air tribunal, upon that marble
+pavement that you so often trod. They fear us and despise us.
+Yet is not Rome the mother and the tutor of peoples who all,
+ike children, rest and smile at her venerable breast?  Our eagles
+have carried peace and freedom to the limits of the known world.
+Seeing only friends in those we vanquish, we leave to conquered
+peoples and ensure their customs and their laws.  Is it not only
+since Pompey conquered it that Syria, formerly torn apart by a
+multitude of warring kings, has begun to taste peace and plenty?
+And even when Rome could sell its benefits for gold, has it
+plundered the treasures that the temples of barbarians overflow
+with?  Has it looted that of the Great Mother Goddess in Galatia,
+or that of Jupiter in Cappadocia and Cilicia, or that of the God
+of the Jews in Jerusalem?  Antioch, Palmyra, Apamea have all been
+left alone despite their wealth, and, no longer afraid of the
+incursions of desert Arabs, raise temples to the genius of Rome
+and the divine Caesar.  Only the Jews hate us and defy us. We
+have to wrest the tribute from them, and they stubbornly refuse
+to do military service."
+
+
+"The Jews," replied Lamia, "are very attached to their ancient
+customs. They suspected you, for no good reason, I agree, of
+wanting to abolish their law and to change their habits.  Let me
+tell you, Pontius, that you did not always act in a way designed
+to dispel their unfortunate error.  You took pleasure, in spite
+of yourself, in fuelling their anxieties, and I saw you more than
+once fail to hide before them the contempt that their beliefs and
+religious ceremonies inspired in you. You particularly annoyed
+them by having the vestments and priestly adornments of the high
+priest in the Antonia Tower guarded by your legionaries.  You
+must admit that, without having risen as we have to contemplate
+divinity, the Jews still celebrate mysteries that are venerable
+in their antiquity."
+
+Pontius Pilate shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"They do not," he said, "have exact knowledge of the nature of
+the gods.  They worship Jupiter, but without giving him a name
+or face.  They do not even venerate him in the form of a stone
+as certain peoples do in Asia.  They know nothing of Apollo,
+Neptune, Mars, Pluto or of any goddess.  I do believe however
+that they once adored Venus.  For even today women offer doves
+as victims on the altar, and you know as I do that merchants
+with stalls under the temple's porticos sell pairs of these
+birds to be sacrificed.  I was even told one day that a madman
+had knocked over the stalls of these merchants with their cages.
+The priests complained of it to me as a sacrilegious act.  I
+think that that custom of sacrificing turtle doves was set up
+in honour of Venus.  Why are you laughing, Lamia?"
+
+"I'm laughing," said Lamia, "at an amusing idea that, I don't
+know how, has just gone through my mind.  I dreamt that one day
+the Jove of the Jews might come to Rome to persecute you.  Why
+not?  Asia and Africa have already given us a great many gods.
+We have seen temples erected in Rome in honour of Isis and the
+barking jackal god Anubis.  We find at crossroads and even in
+quarries the Good Mother goddess of the Syrians, carried by an
+ass.  And did you not know that, in the princedom of Tiberius,
+a young knight passed himself off as the horned Jupiter of the
+Egyptians and obtained with this disguise the favours of an
+illustrious lady, too virtuous to hold anything back from the
+gods!  Pray, Pontius, that the invisible God of the Jews does
+not disembark one day in Ostia!"
+
+At the idea that a God could come from Judea, a brief smile
+slid over the stern face of the procurator.  Then he solemnly
+made answer:
+
+"How would the Jews impose their holy law on outsiders when they
+themselves tear one another apart to interpret that law?  Split
+up into twenty rival sects, you've seen them, Lamia, holding their
+scrolls in public squares, insulting each other and pulling each
+other's beards.  You've seen them, on the top step of the temple's
+crepidoma, ripping their grimy robes in grief around some wretch
+in a prophetic trance.  They cannot imagine a peaceful argument,
+with a soul that's tranquil, about the numinous, which is veiled
+nevertheless and full of uncertainty.  The nature of the immortal
+gods remains a mystery to us that we are unable to penetrate.
+I do however think it wise to believe in divine providence.  But
+the Jews are devoid of philosophy and cannot tolerate a diversity
+of opinions.  On the contrary, they judge to be worthy of the
+ultimate penalty those who express feelings on the subject of God
+at odds with what their law states about Him.  And as, since they
+have been under Roman rule, the death sentences pronounced by
+their courts can only be carried out with the approval of the
+proconsul or the procurator they put constant pressure on Roman
+magistrates to support their lethal decrees.  They assail the
+praetorium with their demands for capital punishment.  A hundred
+times I've seen them, thronging round me, rich and poor, clinging
+to their priests, angrily laying siege to my ivory seat, pulling
+at the folds of my toga and the thongs of my sandals, clamouring
+for, demanding of me the death of some unfortunate whose crime
+I was unable to discern and whom I could only hold to be as mad
+as his accusers.  What am I saying?  A hundred times?  It was
+every day, every hour of the day.  And yet I had to implement
+their law as I did ours, since Rome had set me up not to destroy
+but to support their customs, and I had power to pardon or to
+punish over them.  At first I tried to make them see reason, I
+strove to save their wretched victims from punishment.  But this
+leniency on my part only annoyed them the more.  They battened on
+their prey beating with their wings and pecking with their beaks
+like vultures.  Their priests wrote to Caesar I was infringing
+their law, and their petitions, backed up by Vitellius, made me
+much frowned upon.  How often the desire came to me to make, as
+the Greeks say, both the accused and their judges food for the
+crows!  Don't think, Lamia, that I harbour feelings of rancour
+and senile rage against this people who got the better of all
+that was Roman and peaceable in me.  But I can foresee all too
+well the drastic action that they will oblige us to take with
+them sooner or later.  If we can't govern them, we'll have to
+destroy them.  Do not doubt that, ever rebellious, hatching
+plots against us in their overheated souls, they will burst out
+one day with a fury next to which the wrath of the Numidians
+and the threat posed by the Parthians will be child's play.
+They nurture in the shadow crazy hopes and madly conspire at
+our downfall.  How can it be otherwise, given they await, if
+their prophets are to be believed, a prince of their bloodline
+who will rule the world?  We shall never overcome this people.
+They need to be obliterated.  We need to raze Jerusalem to the
+ground.  Perhaps, old as I am, it will be given to me to see
+the day when its walls will fall, when flames will devour
+its houses, when its inhabitants will be struck down by the
+sword and salt will be strewn where the Temple once stood.
+And on that day I shall at last be justified."
+
+Lamia endeavoured to put the conversation back on a more even
+keel.
+
+"Pontius," he said, "I can easily explain to you both your old
+resentments and your sinister premonitions.  Certainly, what
+you knew of the character of Jews did them no favours.  But I,
+who was curious about Jerusalem and mingled with the people,
+was able to discover in these men hidden virtues, which were
+kept concealed from you.  I knew Jews full of gentleness, whose
+simple habits and faithful hearts reminded me of what our poets
+have to say about the old man of Ebalia.  And your yourself,
+Pontius, saw beaten to death by the rods of legionaries simple
+men, who, without even saying their name, died for a cause they
+thought just.  Such men do not deserve our contempt.  I talk
+like this because it is fitting to keep measure and balance in
+all things. But I'll admit I never felt much sympathy for Jewish
+men. Jewish women, on the other hand, I liked a lot.  I was young
+then, and Syrian women played havoc with my senses.  Their red
+lips, their damp eyes, and their long gazes shining in the shade,
+struck me to the marrow of my bones.  Made up and painted, and
+smelling of nard and myrrh, steeped in spices, their flesh is
+rare and delightful."
+
+Pontius listened to these praises impatiently:
+
+"I wasn't a man to fall into the honey traps set by Jewesses," he
+said, "and since you lead me to say it, Lamia, I never approved
+of your lack of self-restraint.  If I didn't emphasize enough to
+you in days gone by that I held you to be very much at fault for
+having seduced, back in Rome, the wife of a consul, I think it
+was because you were then paying dearly for that crime.  Marriage
+is a sacred institution for patricians, one that Rome counts on.
+As for slaves or foreign women, the relations you could strike up
+with them would count for little were it not that your body gets
+used to in them a shameful softness.  You sacrificed too freely
+to the goddess of crossroads, I must say, and what I find most
+to blame in you, Lamia, is that you did not marry legitimately
+and give children to Rome as every good citizen should do."
+
+But the man exiled by Tiberius was no longer listening to the old
+magistrate.  Having emptied his cup of its vinum Falernum, he was
+smiling at some invisible picture.
+
+After a moment of silence, he continued in a very low voice that
+gradually grew louder:
+
+"They dance so languorously, the women of Syria.  I knew then
+in Jerusalem a Jewess who, in a hovel, by the light of a small
+smoky lamp, on a bad carpet, danced raising her arms to clash
+her cymbals. Her back arched, her head thrown back and as if
+dragged down by her heavy auburn hair, her eyes drowned in
+voluptuousness, ardent and languishing, supple, she'd have made
+Cleopatra herself pale with envy.  I loved her barbaric dances,
+her slightly husky and yet so sweet singing, the smell of her
+incense, the semi-sleeping state she seemed to live in.  I
+followed her everywhere. I mixed in with the vile crowd of
+soldiers, boatmen and publicans she was surrounded with.  One
+day she disappeared and I never saw her again.  I looked for a
+long time for her in doubtful alleyways and taverns.  She was
+harder for me to do without than Greek wine.  A few months
+after I had lost track of her, I learned, quite by chance,
+that she had joined a small group of men and women who were
+followers of a young Galilean miracle worker.  He was called
+Jesus, came from Nazareth, and was crucified, for what crime
+I don't know.  Do you remember that man, Pontius?"
+
+Pontius Pilate frowned, bringing his hand to his forehead like
+someone who is trying to remember.  Then, after a few moments of
+silence, he murmured:
+
+"Jesus. Jesus. From Nazareth? No. I can't bring him to mind."
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+End of Project Gutenberg's The Procurator of Judea, by Anatole France
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58967 ***