The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays (New York Review Books Classics) by Simon Leys Page A

head of the judiciary. As supreme ruler, he is concerned with issues of public order and security; as supreme judge, he should ensure that the demands of justice are being met. Then there is his own personal situation: the Jews naturally see him for what he is—an odious foreign oppressor. And he distrusts and dislikes these quarrelsome and incomprehensible natives who give him endless trouble. During his tenure, twice already there have been severe disturbances; the governor handled them badly—he was even denounced in Rome. He cannot afford another incident. And this time, he fears a trap.
    The Jewish leaders present themselves as loyal subjects of Caesar. They accuse Jesus of being a rebel, a political agitator who tells the people not to pay taxes and who challenges Caesar’s authority by claiming that he himself is a king. Now, if Pilate does not condemn him, Pilate himself would be disloyal to Caesar.
    Pilate interrogates Jesus. Naturally, he finds Jesus’ notion of a spiritual kingdom quite fanciful, but it seems also harmless enough. The accused appears to be neither violent nor fanatic; he has poise; he is articulate. Pilate is impressed by his calm dignity, and it quickly becomes obvious to him that Jesus is entirely innocent of all the crimes of which he has been accused. Pilate repeats it several times: “I can find no fault in this man.” But the mob demands his death, and the Gospel adds that, hearing their shouts, “Pilate was more afraid than ever.” Pilate is scared: he does not want to have, once again, a riot on his hands. Should this happen, it would be the end of his career.
    In the course of his interrogation, as Pilate questions Jesus on his activities, Jesus replies: “What I came into the world for, is to bear witness of the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth, listens to my voice.” To which Pilate retorts: “The truth! But what is the truth?” He is an educated and sophisticated Roman; he has seen the world and read the philosophers; unlike this simple man, this provincial carpenter from Galilee, he knows that there are many gods and many creeds under the sun . . .
    However, beware! Whenever people wonder “What is the truth?” usually it is because the truth is just under their noses—but it would be very inconvenient to acknowledge it. And thus, against his own better judgement, Pilate yields to the will of the crowd and lets Jesus be crucified.
    Pilate’s problem was not how to ascertain Jesus’ innocence. This was easy enough: it was obvious. No, the real problem was that, in the end—like all of us, most of the time—he found it more expedient to wash his hands of the truth.

Part II
LITERATURE

BALZAC *
    A RTHUR Waley said that he preferred to read Dickens in Chinese translation (Dickens’s first Chinese translator was indeed an exquisite writer). I wonder if Balzac does not also belong to the category of writers who actually benefit from being translated. I suspect that his visionary imagination would remain unaffected by the transposition into another language, whereas it would be relatively easy for tactful translators to soften the jarring notes and straighten the blunders that, in the original, frequently jolt the reader or threaten, at the most dramatic moments, to set off anticlimactic laughter.
    Balzac’s prose is littered with ludicrous conceits, mixed metaphors, clichés and various manifestations of naïveté and bad taste. Mere haste and negligence cannot fully account for so much awkwardness; although his first drafts were often dashed off at astounding speed and in enormous creative bursts, Balzac was also a painstaking, obsessive—and notorious—re-writer. His revisions, corrections, re-corrections and corrections of re-corrections that swelled into the margins of his galley proofs, smothering the printed text under their exuberant growth, famously drove typesetters to fury and despair.
    That such a great writer should have written so badly was a source