Not knowing how to respond to that, the secretary deemed it obligatory to smile as Pilate had.

" But he said that money had become hateful to him, " said Yeshua in explanation of Levi Matvei's strange behavior, and then he added, " Since then he has been my traveling companion."

His teeth still bared, the procurator glanced first at the prisoner, and then at the sun, which was rising steadily over the equestrian statues of the hippodrome located far below to the right, and suddenly, as an agonizing wave of nausea swept over him, the procurator realized that the simplest way to get this strange miscreant off his balcony was with two words, " Hang him." Get rid of the escort too, leave the colonnade, go inside the palace, order the room to be darkened, collapse on the bed, ask for some cold water, call piteously for the dog Banga, and complain to him about his hemicrania. Suddenly the thought of poison flashed seductively through the procurator's aching head.

He looked at the prisoner with lusterless eyes and was silent for awhile, trying desperately to recall why this prisoner with a face disfigured by beatings was standing before him in Yershalaim's pitiless morning sun, and what other pointless questions had to be addressed to him.

" Levi Matvei, did you say? " the sick man asked in a hoarse voice and shut his eyes.

" Yes, Levi Matvei, " came the high voice that was tormenting him.

" But still, what was it that you said about the temple to the crowd in the marketplace? "

The voice of the man answering seemed to pierce the side of Pilate's forehead. Inexpressibly tormenting, that voice said, " I said, Hegemon, that the temple of the old faith will fall and that a new temple of truth will be created. I said it that way to make it easier to understand."

" Why did you, a vagrant, stir up the crowds in the marketplace by talking about truth, when you have no conception of what it is? What is truth? "

And here the procurator thought, " O my gods! I am questioning about something irrelevant to the case... My brain isn't working anymore..." And again he had a vision of a cup of dark liquid. " Poison, give me poison..."

And again he heard the voice, " The truth is, first of all, that your head aches, so badly, in fact, that you're having fainthearted thoughts about death. Not only are you too weak to talk to me, but you're even having trouble looking at me. That I, at this moment, am your unwilling executioner upsets me. You can't think about anything and the only thing you want is to call your dog, the only creature, it seems, to whom you are attached. But your sufferings will soon end, and your headache will pass."

18 The Master and Margarita