Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (1997) -
56 >
of the legion and the tribune of the cohort, as well as the two members of
the Sanhedrin and the head of the temple guard, who had been awaiting his
summons on the lower garden terrace, in a round gazebo with a fountain. To
this Pilate added that he himself would come out to the garden at once, and
withdrew into the palace.
While the secretary was gathering the conference, the procurator met,
in a room shielded from the sun by dark curtains, with a certain man, whose
face was half covered by a hood, though he could not have been bothered by
the sun's rays in this room. The meeting was a very short one. The
procurator quietly spoke a few words to the man, after which he withdrew and
Pilate walked out through the colonnade to the garden.
There, in the presence of all those he had desired to see, the
procurator solemnly and drily stated that he confirmed the death sentence
on
Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and officially inquired of the members of the Sanhedrin as
to whom among the criminals they would like to grant life. Having received
the reply that it was Bar-Rabban, the procurator said:
Very well,' and told the secretary to put it into the record at once,
clutched in his hand the clasp that the secretary had picked up from the
sand, and said solemnly: Tt is time!'
Here all those present started down the wide marble stairway between
walls of roses that exuded a stupefying aroma, descending lower and lower
towards the palace wall, to the gates opening on to the big, smoothly paved
square, at the end of which could be seen the columns and statues of the
Yershalaim stadium.
As soon as the group entered the square from the garden and mounted the
spacious stone platform that dominated the square, Pilate, looking around
through narrowed eyelids, assessed the situation.
The space he had just traversed, that is, the space from the palace