“Lord, Lord,” he murmured, biting the sand, “Father, have you no mercy? Your will be done: how many times have I said this to you until now, how many times shall I say it in the future? All my life I shall quiver, resist and say it: Your will be done!”

In this way, murmuring and swallowing the sand, he fell asleep; and as the eyes of his body closed, those of his soul opened and he saw the specter of a serpent as thick as the body of a man and extending in length from one end of the night to the other. She was stretched out on the sand with her wide, bright-red mouth opened at his side. Opposite this mouth hopped an ornate, trembling partridge struggling in vain to open its wings and escape. It staggered forward uttering small, weak cries, its feathers raised out of fear. The motionless serpent kept her eyes glued on it, her mouth opened. She was in no hurry, for she was sure of her prey. The partridge advanced little by little directly toward the opened mouth, stumbling on its crooked legs. Jesus stood still and watched, trembling like the partridge. At daybreak the bird had at last reached the gaping mouth. It quivered for a moment, glanced quickly around as though seeking aid; then suddenly stretched forth its neck and entered head first, feet together. The mouth closed. Jesus was able to see the partridge, a ball of feathers and meat and ruby-colored feet, descend little by little toward the dragon’s belly.

He jumped up, terrified. The desert was a mass of swelling rose-colored waves.

The sun was rising. “It is God,” he murmured, trembling. “And the partridge is…

His voice broke. He did not have the strength to complete his reflection. But inside himself he thought:… man’s soul. The partridge is man’s soul!

He remained plunged in this reflection for hours. The sun came up, set the sand on fire; it pierced Jesus’ scalp, went inside him and parched his mind, throat and breast. His entrails were suspended like bunches of left-over grapes after the autumn vintage. His tongue had stuck to his palate, his skin was peeling off, his bones emerging; and his fingertips had turned completely blue.

Time, within him, had become as small as a heartbeat, as large as death. He was no longer hungry or thirsty; he no longer desired children and a wife. His whole soul had squeezed into his eyes. He saw-that was all: he saw. But at precisely noon his sight grew dim; the world vanished and a gigantic mouth gaped somewhere in front of him, its lower jaw the earth, its upper jaw the skies. Trembling, he dragged himself slowly forward toward the opened mouth, his neck stretched forward…

The days and nights went by like flashes of white and black lightning. One midnight a lion came and stood in front of him, proudly shaking its mane. Its voice was like a man’s: “Welcome to my lair, victorious ascetic. I salute the man who conquered the minor virtues, the small joys, and happiness! We don’t like what’s easy and sure; our sights are on difficult things. Magdalene isn’t a big enough wife for us: we wish to marry the entire Earth. Bridegroom, the bride has sighed, the lamps of the heavens are lighted, the guests have arrived: let us go.”

“Who are you?”

“Yourself-the hungry lion inside your heart and loins that at night prowls around the sheepfolds, the kingdoms of this world, and weighs whether or not to jump in and eat. I rush from Babylon to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Rome, shouting: I am hungry; everything is mine! At daybreak I re-enter your breast and shrink; the terrifying lion becomes a lamb. I play at being the humble ascetic who desires nothing, who seems able to live on a grain of wheat, a sip of water and on a naïve, accommodating God whom he tries to flatter with the name of Father. But secretly, in my heart, I am ashamed; I grow fierce and yearn for nightfall when I can throw off my sheepskin and begin once more to roar, roam the night and stamp my four feet down on Babylon, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Rome.”

“I don’t know who you are. I never desired the kingdom of this world. The kingdom of heaven is sufficient for me.”

“It is not. You deceive yourself, friend. It is not sufficient for you. You don’t dare gaze within yourself, deep within your loins and heart-to find me… Why do you look askance and think ill of me? Do you believe I am Temptation, an emissary of the Sly One, come to mislead you? You brainless hermit, what strength can external temptation have? The fortress is taken only from within. I am the deepest voice of your deepest self; I am the lion within you. You have wrapped yourself in the skin of a lamb to encourage men to approach you, so that you can devour them. Remember, when you were a small child a Chaldean sorceress looked at your palm. ‘I see many stars,’ she said, ‘many crosses. You shall become king.’ Why do you pretend to forget? You remember it day and night. Rise, son of David, and enter your kingdom!”

Jesus listened with bowed head. Little by little he recognized the voice, little by little he recalled having heard it sometimes in his dreams and once when he was a child and Judas had thrashed him, and one other time when he had left his house and roamed the fields for days and nights pinched by hunger, then returned shamefully home, to be greeted with hoots by his brothers, lame Simon and pious Jacob, who were standing in the doorway. Then, truly, he had heard the lion roar inside him… And only the other day, when he carried the cross to the Zealot’s crucifixion and passed before the stormy crowd, everyone looking at him with disgust and moving out of his path, the lion had again jumped up within him, and with such force that he was thrown down.

And now, in this forsaken midnight-look! The bellowing lion inside him had come out and stood before him. It rubbed itself against him, vanished and reappeared, as though going in and out of him, and playfully tapped him with its tail… Jesus felt his heart grow more and more ferocious. The lion is really right, he thought. I’ve had enough of all this. I’m fed up with being hungry, with wanting to play at humility, with offering the other cheek only to get it slapped. I’m tired of flattering this man-eating God with the name of Father in order to cajole him to be more gentle; tired of hearing my brothers curse me, my mother weep, men laugh when I go by; sick of going barefooted, of not being able to buy the honey, wine and women I see when I pass by the market, and of finding courage only in my sleep to have God bring them to me, so that I can taste and embrace the empty air! I’m sick of it all! I shall rise, gird myself with the ancestral sword-am I not the son of David?-and enter my kingdom! The lion is right. Enough of ideas and clouds and kingdoms of heaven. Stones and soil and flesh-that is my kingdom!

He rose. Somewhere he found the strength to jump up and gird himself, gird himself interminably with an invisible sword, bellowing like a lion. He was ready. “Forward!” he cried. He turned, but the lion had disappeared. He heard pulsating laughter above him and a voice: “Look!” A flash of lightning knifed through the night and stood fixed, motionless. Under it were cities with walls and towers, houses, roads, squares, people; and all around, plains, mountains, sea. Babylon was to the right, Jerusalem and Alexandria to the left, and across the sea was Rome. Once more he heard the voice: “Look!”

Jesus raised his eyes. A yellow-winged angel dropped headfirst from the sky. Lamentations were heard: in the four kingdoms the people lifted their arms to heaven, but their hands fell off, gnawed away by leprosy. They parted their lips to cry Help! and their lips fell, devoured by leprosy. The streets filled with hands and noses and mouths.

And while Jesus cried with upraised arms, “Mercy, Lord, have pity on mankind!” a second angel, dapple-winged, with bells around his feet and neck, fell headfirst from heaven. All at once laughter and guffawing broke out over the entire earth: struck down by madness, the lepers were running helter-skelter. Whatever remained of their bodies had burst into peals of laughter.