No, it is the other one: her name is Mary and, when the Nazarene stays at Bethany, she never leaves him. MARY MAGDALENE Is she young? SILANUS She is younger than Simon’s wife. MARY MAGDALENE Have you seen her? Do you know her?... SILANUS I have spoken to her more than once. But to return to the stone, which was enormous, flat and fastened into the walls of the cave: two men attacked it with levers. It resisted at first and then, suddenly, fell down all of a piece.... APPIUS We were quite close, hanging aslant over the cave. By all the gods who from heaven rule the earth and men, I swear that, at that moment, I felt the terrible breath of the dead man strike me in the face!... MARY MAGDALENE Did you see the dead man?... APPIUS As I see you now, lady!... VERUS I do not understand how you can seriously interest yourselves in these things which happen in an incongruous, mad world, where all is witchcraft, coarse illusions and barbarous lies.... APPIUS By Hades and Persephone, what my senses perceived was no illusion, I assure you!... We nearly fell from our rock!... The corpse was there, in the greedy light that devoured the cave, lying like a stiff and shapeless statue, closely bound in grave-clothes, the face covered with a napkin. The crowd, heaped up in a semicircle, irresistibly attracted and repelled, leaned forward, stretched its thousand necks, without daring to approach. The Nazarene stood alone, in front. He raised his hand, spoke a few words which I did not catch and then, addressing the corpse in a voice whose pent-up force I shall never forget, he cried, “Lazarus, come forth!” MARY MAGDALENE Did he come forth?... APPIUS We heard only the sound of the wind moving the garments of the multitude and the buzzing of the flies that swarmed into the grave. All eyes were so firmly fixed upon the corpse that I saw, so to speak, their motionless beams, as one sees the sunbeams in a dark room.... Suddenly, it became plain, terrifying, superhuman! The dead man, obeying the order, slowly bent in two; then, snapping the bandages that fastened his legs, he stood up erect, like a stone, all white, with his arms bound and his head veiled. With small, almost impossible steps, guided by the light, he came forth from the grave. The affrighted crowd gradually fell back, without being able to turn away its gaze. “Loose him and let him go,” said the Nazarene. And the two sisters of the dead man, releasing themselves from the human hedge, rushed to their brother. MARY MAGDALENE And he?... APPIUS He staggered, he stumbled at every step.... MARY MAGDALENE But the Nazarene?... APPIUS He went away without a word and withdrew into Simon’s house. VERUS And the dead man, how did he go?... APPIUS