The arrest clearly took away all future from being-with-Jesus, and Peter seems to have lost even the memory of his past being with him. He answers, as if in a dream, like a man who no longer knows where he is and what is wrong with him: "I do not know and do not understand what you are saying." Perhaps he really doesn't understand. He is in a state of deprivation and deprivation, reduced to a vegetative existence, to elementary reflexes. It's cold, and he goes to the fire. To squeeze closer to the fire, to stretch your hands to the fire with others, means to behave as if you are already one of them, as if you are already with them. The simplest gestures have their own logic, and it is always not only biological, but also sociological, and all the more authoritative, because it is located far below the threshold of consciousness.

Peter wants only one thing, to bask with others, and since he has lost Mitseina because of the collapse of his universe, he cannot, while warming himself, help but vaguely dream of the existence that shines there, in this fire, and it is to this existence that all the eyes directed into the fire, all the hands stretched out to the fire, silently point.

Fire in the night is much more than a source of heat and light. As soon as it lights up, we position ourselves around it; Beings and things are built in a new configuration. A moment before there was a simple crowd of people, a crowd where everyone was on his own, and suddenly a community was outlined. Hands and faces turn to the flame and are illuminated by it in response; it is like a benevolent response of a certain god to a prayer addressed to him. People, since they all look into the fire, can no longer help seeing each other; they can exchange glances and words; community and communication are established.

Because of this fire, new Mitsevina capabilities vaguely arise. "Being-s" is re-outlined for Peter, but in a different place and with different participants.

Mark, Luke, and John again mention fire at the moment when (in Mark and Luke) the maidservant intervenes for the first time. It can be said that her intervention was caused not by Peter's presence in the courtyard, but by his presence by the fire: "... One of the high priest's maidservants came, and when she saw Peter warming himself and looked at him, she said, 'And you were with Jesus of Nazareth' (Mk 14:66).

Peter, apparently, pushed closer to the fire and found himself in a bright light, that is, in full view of everyone. Peter, as usual, went too fast and went too far. Fire allows the maid to recognize him in the dark, but this is not the main role of fire. The servant girl herself probably does not fully understand what scandalizes her in Peter's behavior, what exactly makes her address him so boldly, but in Mark's work, fire certainly plays a role here. The Nazarene's companion acts like he's at home, like he has a place around that fire. In the absence of the fire, the servant girl would not have experienced, or would not have experienced such indignation against Peter. Fire is not just a decoration, it is something much more important. "Being-s", if it became universal, would lose its value, so it is based on exclusion. The handmaiden speaks only of "being-with-Jesus," but there is also a second "being-with"—being around fire; it is what really interests the servant, because it is her own "being-with"; she decides to protect his inviolability — and denies Peter the right to warm himself by this fire.

John makes the servant a "doorkeeper", a guardian of the entrance. It is she who allows Peter to enter the courtyard on the recommendation of another student. That is, the maid plays the role of a guard. This idea is excellent in itself, but it leads the evangelist to assert that Peter was recognized immediately, before he approached the fire. That is, the maid does not recognize a stranger by the light of the fire, which means that her indignation, unlike in the version of Mark and Luke, is not caused by the intimacy and ritualism of the scene. On the other hand, in John, it is not the common voice of all the servants who calls out to Peter for the third time, but one person, a relative of the one whose ear Peter cut off in a vain attempt to protect Jesus by violence at the time of his arrest. John's version reinforces the traditional interpretation, which sees in Peter's denial the only motive: fear. Without excluding fear as one of the motives, it should not be given decisive importance, and all four versions taken together, if read carefully, oppose this interpretation, and even the version of John, which at first seems to confirm it. If Peter had really feared for his life, as most commentators believe, he would never have entered this courtyard, especially if he had been recognized right at the entrance. He would have felt threatened at once; He would have run away without hesitation.

After the maid's call, the circle by the fire, of course, loses its fraternal character. Peter would like to slip away unnoticed, but the crowd crowds behind him. He stays too close to the center, and the maid will easily follow him with her eyes as he walks towards the gate. He hesitates again, he waits for the continuation of events. This is not the behavior of a person who is gripped by fear. Peter moves away from the light and warmth, because he vaguely guesses why the servant girl is angry, but still he does not leave. That is why she can repeat the accusation. She does not want to intimidate Peter, but to embarrass him in order to force him to get away.

Seeing that Peter is not leaving, the maidservant persists and utters her accusation a second time, stating that Peter belonged to a group of disciples: "This is one of them!" It was them she wanted to mobilize against the alien. This time she addresses them directly and achieves the desired result; the whole group, in unison, repeats, addressing Peter: "You are one of them!" In the ensuing conversation, it is Peter who first raises his tone; It was he who "began to swear and swear"—but if he had feared for his life, or even for his freedom, he would have spoken with less force.

The superiority of Mark's version is that he gives the floor to the same maid twice in a row, and does not pass the word to other characters. His maid is drawn more vividly. She takes the lead, she excites the whole group. Today we would say that she has leadership qualities. But, as always, one should not fall into psychologism: Mark is not interested in the personality of the servant, but in how she activates group dynamics, in how she uses collective mimeticism.

Already at her first intervention, she, as I said, tried to wake up the group, which was probably dazed from the late hour, from the warmth of the fire. She wants others to follow her example, and when she doesn't, she's the first to follow her own example. Her lesson has not been learned, so she gives a second one, which consists in repeating the first. Leaders know that supporters need to be treated like children; Imitation must be constantly encouraged. The second example reinforces the action of the first, and this time the result is achieved, all those present join in unison: "As if you are one of them; and besides, you are a Galilean" (Mk 14:70*).

Mimeticism is characteristic not only of Mark's story; the scene of renunciation is entirely mimetic in all four Gospels, but in Mark the mimetic springs are better revealed from the very beginning, in the role of fire and in the role of the servant. Mark is the only one of all the evangelists who makes the servant girl go twice to start the mimetic machine. It presents itself as a model, and in order to make this model more effective, it is the first to imitate it, it emphasizes its role as a model, it mimetically clarifies what it expects from its comrades.

Students repeat what the teacher tells them. The words of the handmaiden are repeated, but with one addition, which perfectly illustrates what is meant in the scene of renunciation: "And besides, you are a Galilean." At first illuminated by fire, recognized by his face, now Peter is also recognized by his tongue. Matthew dots the i's (as he often does) when he makes Peter's persecutors say: "Your speech convicts you" (Mt 26:73). All those who warm themselves by the fire with a clear conscience are residents of Jerusalem. They're all from here. Peter spoke only twice, and both times only a few words, but this is enough for his interlocutors to unmistakably recognize in him a man "not from here," always a little despised provincial, a Galilean. The one who has an accent, any accent, is always the one who is not from here. Language is the most reliable indicator of "being-s". That is why Heidegger and the schools close to him attach such importance to the linguistic dimension of being. The specificity of a national language or even a dialect is fundamental. We are constantly told that the most essential thing in a text or even in a language, everything that makes it valuable, is untranslatable. And so the Gospels cannot be considered essential, since they are written in a degenerate Greek language, cosmopolitan and devoid of literary prestige. And the main thing is that they are excellently translated, and when we read them, we quickly forget in what language we read them, if only we knew it—in the Greek original, in the Latin translation of Jerome, in French, in German, in Italian, in Spanish, and so on. If we are familiar with the Gospels, translating them into a language we do not know is the best way to penetrate the heart of that language at the lowest cost. The Gospels are all things to all; They don't have an accent as they have all the accents. Peter is an adult, and his way of speaking is established once and for all. He cannot change anything in it. It cannot accurately imitate the capital's accent. To have the desired "being" is not only to always say what everyone else says, but to say it in the same way. The slightest shade of intonation can give you away. Language is either a traitorous servant or a servant who is too faithful, which constantly announces the true identity of anyone who tries to hide this identity.

A mimetic rivalry begins between Peter and his interlocutors, in which the stake is "being-s", dancing in the flames of the fire. Peter is furiously trying to "integrate," that is, to demonstrate the high quality of his imitation, but his antagonists inexorably turn to the most unimitable aspects of cultural mimeticism, such as language rooted in the unconscious areas of the psyche.