Niza said nothing in reply and quickened her step.

The Master and Margarita

" Why don't you speak, Niza? " asked Judas plaintively, trying to keep pace with her.

" But won't I be bored with you? " asked Niza suddenly and stopped. Here Judas's thoughts became utterly confused.

" Well, all right, " said Niza, finally softening, " Let's go."

" But where, where to? "

" Wait... let's step into this yard here and dedde, otherwise I'm afraid that someone I know will see me and say later that I was out on the street with my lover."

And here Niza and Judas disappeared from the marketplace. They talked in whispers in the gateway of some courtyard.

" Go to the olive estate, " whispered Niza, pulling her shawl down over her eyes and turning away from some man with a pail who was entering the gateway, " to Gethsemane, beyond Kedron, do you know where I mean? "

" Yes, yes, yes."

" I'll go on ahead, " Niza continued, " but don't follow right behind me, keep a distance between us. I'll leave first... When you cross the stream... you know where the grotto is? "

" Yes, I know, I know..."

" Go up past the olive press and turn towards the grotto. I'll be there. Only don't follow at my heels. Be patient, wait here awhile." And with these words, Niza left the entranceway as if she had never spoken to Judas.

Judas stood there alone for awhile, trying to collect his scattered thoughts, one of which was how he would explain his absence from the holiday table to his family. Judas stood and tried to think up some lie, but in his excitement he couldn't think of anything suitable, and his legs moved of their own accord and carried him out of the gateway.

Now he changed his route, and instead of heading for the Lower City, he turned back toward Haifa's palace. The holiday was already in full swing in the city. Not only were lights glittering in all the windows around Judas, but prayers and blessings could already be heard. Latecomers were urging on their mules, whipping them, and shouting at them. Judas's legs carried him along by themselves, and he failed to notice the fearsome moss-covered Antonia towers as they flew past him, he did not hear the blast of trumpets in the fortress, and he paid no attention to the Roman cavalry patrol whose torch flooded his path with quivering light.

When Judas turned after passing the tower, he saw that two gigantic five-branched candelabra had been lit above the temple at a dizzying, fearsome height. But Judas saw them through a haze as well, and it seemed to him that ten immense lamps had been hung up over the city and were competing with the light of the single lamp rising higher and higher over Yershalaim—the moon.