While yet the people were unafraid to speak to him, same one had asked
him: "Poor Lazarus! Do you find it pleasant to sit so, and look at the
sun?" And he answered: "Yes, it is pleasant."
The thought suggested itself to people that the cold of the three days
in the grave had been so intense, its darkness so deep, that there was
not in all the earth enough heat or light to warm Lazarus and lighten
the gloom of his eyes; and inquirers turned away with a sigh.
And when the setting sun, flat and purple-red, descended to earth,
Lazarus went into the desert and walked straight toward it, as though
intending to reach it. Always he walked directly toward the sun, and
those who tried to follow him and find out what he did at night in the
desert had indelibly imprinted upon their mind's vision the black
silhouette of a tall, stout man against the red background of an
immense disk. The horrors of the night drove them away, and so they
never found out what Lazarus did in the desert; but the image of the
black form against the red was burned forever into their brains. Like
an animal with a cinder in its eye which furiously rubs its muzzle
against its paws, they foolishly rubbed their eyes; but the impression
left by Lazarus was ineffaceable, forgotten only in death.
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