1 result for (book:ur2 AND session:724 AND stemmed:behind)
[... 5 paragraphs ...]
“Not long after I closed my eyes I saw, almost in silhouette, a Roman soldier standing on the top of a square, crenelated tower that formed a corner or angle in a massive stone wall. My position was at ground level. I’d lost all sensation of my body lying on the cot. The scene was very faint, so much so that it might almost be called more of an idea than an image. The sky behind the soldier was darkly overcast; I was aware of very little color. I ‘knew’ that the tower I faced marked the southeastern corner of Jerusalem, and I ‘knew’ that the wall itself was an enormous fortification that had surrounded that ancient city sometime during the first half of the first century A.D.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
“There was something very contradictory about the affair: The soldier-self I saw atop the tower was a Roman — whereas, according to the little I know of those times, such a position should have been occupied by a native Jew, who was perhaps a lookout for the city behind him. I saw, dimly, the outline of the typical Roman helmet, what seemed to be a leather vestment or short-sleeved garment, the upper portion of the shaft of a spear. I don’t think the ‘me’ I watched was an officer, as had been the case in my third Roman, of October 30.
[... 5 paragraphs ...]
“When I got up half an hour later I hurriedly typed the first version of this account. I also tried to capture the overcast mood of the entire episode in a couple of quick drawings done on typing paper with a ballpoint pen. First I drew my Roman soldier standing half-visible behind the squared crenelations on top of the tower; then I drew him falling, poised face up against the tower wall.6
[... 37 paragraphs ...]