He rushes off as Adam enters bearing the body of Abel; and his mother,
sitting down beside the dead body, makes a most touching picture of
a _Pieta_. Adam with upstretched arms appeals to God, and the curtain
falls. This was the "Blutschuld"--the crime of blood--and prefigured
the betrayal of Christ by Judas for the thirty pieces of silver.
After a most beautiful prelude by the orchestra, the Chorus again
enters; the leader expresses his horror at Cain's action and his
pity for a fate thus given over to Satan; they again divide, and the
curtain rises on the tableau of Judas receiving the money. At the end
the high priest and other priests, in appropriate costume, stand on a
platform beyond a railing. Judas in the centre, by a table, is
taking the money from an attendant: all around are groups, admirably
arranged, expressing, in face and attitude, wonder or pleasure or
disgust. The same artistic ideas and beautiful arrangement and the
same unaffected simplicity. This tableau lasted one minute and a half,
while the tenor sang an aria, "Oh, better for him that he had never
been born.
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