Spring came and the snow cover faded from the fields and leas, and even its remnants on the mountain peaks melted, flowing into streams in winding ravines and gathering into full rivers that roared out that nature had awakened. Almond and apple trees came into bloom, twigs of white poplar and willow put out their leaves, and knolls grew their grasses and flowers. Yuhanna tired of sitting next to the hearth, and he knew that his calves had grown bored of being penned up in the corral and yearned for green pastures, for the bales of straw had run low and the baskets of grain were exhausted. He went and freed them from their feedstalls and led them into the open country, concealing beneath his cloak a copy of the New Testament, that no one might see it. He reached the meadow spread out on the mountain slope above the gorge, near to the fields of a monastery⁷ that stood like an awesome tower among those hills. His calves scattered, grazing on the grass, while he sat leaning against a boulder, meditating at one time on the beauty of the valley and at another on verses of his book, which spoke of the kingdom of the heavens.

That afternoon was one of the last days of the fast. The inhabitants of those villages were abstaining from meat and were eagerly anticipating, with the last remnants of their patience, the arrival of Easter. As for Yuhanna, like the rest of the destitute peasants he made no distinction between days of fasting and other days, for his life was one long fast. His fare never exceeded a crust of bread leavened with the sweat of his brow and some fruit bought with the blood of his heart. He naturally abstained from meats and delicacies, so that the pleasures of fasting were not bodily but emotional, for they reminded him of the passion of the Son of Man and the end of his life on earth.

Sparrows fluttered, whispering around Yuhanna. A flock of doves hurriedly took flight, and the flowers bowed with the breeze as though sunning themselves in the daylight, while he became engrossed in reading his book. He looked up and saw the domes of the churches in the scattered cities and villages to either side of the valley, listening to the peal of their bells. He closed his eyes, and his soul floated above the generations to ancient Jerusalem, following the footsteps of Jesus in the streets, asking passersby about him.

They replied, “Here the blind were healed and the lame walked. Here they wove for him a crown of thorns and placed it on his head. In this quarter of the city, he halted and spoke to the masses in parables, and in that palace they shackled him to a column, spat in his face, and flogged him. In this street he forgave the sinful adulteress, and in that he fell to the earth under the weight of his cross.”