shudder, and cried out with a tormented, exhausted voice:

— "It is finished..."

And it was as though the world had darkened; the people fell silent, and dread and disquiet seized them. And when darkness closed in and the crowd dispersed and she went to the cross with those who went, that lifeless body rested upon her frail shoulder for a moment of eternity; but in the twinkling of an eye they took him, and wrapped him in the white shrouds, and laid him in the cave of the garden, and rolled a heavy stone against its door, while she stood with his mother and many women and virgins, looking on from afar...

*

-5-

And as a dreamer turns when she wakes, Mary turned — and behold, she had reached the edge of the garden, and the world around her was shadows and phantoms and lights of every color, spreading across the far-flung horizons, flooding little groves scattered here and there, and floating upon the blue of the sky and the green of the knolls and hills...

She hurried toward the tomb, choking back her tears, at a loss as to who would roll away the heavy stone for her; but she had gone no great distance when she saw the stone rolled away, and the tomb empty, with nothing in it but cast-off shrouds and a folded napkin. And she sank down upon the cold stone, watering it with her hot tears, pouring out to it all the misery, disappointment, and deprivation in her heart.

And the moments passed like ages...

And there passed across her hearing a calm, serene whisper:

— "Why do you weep, woman?!..."

She thought she was imagining, and did not answer; but the voice returned, caressing her ear, calmer and more serene than before:

— "Why do you weep, woman?!... Whom do you seek?!..."

— "They have taken my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him..."

And she raised her head, and through her tears she saw a man standing near her, and said, supposing him to be the gardener:

— "Sir... if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him..."