said to-day it was my duty to die. My God! I think I have the right to die, and they're the criminals! They haven't secured me my rights at once! It would have been over by now. O God, my God, if only it were over!"
So he raged on, wringing his hands, groaning under the torture. Suddenly his face became deathly white and his features stiffened as if his heart had ceased beating.
"Poor fellow," said the priest, putting his arm round his neck and drawing his head down on his breast. "You mustn't talk like that. Think, if we've been sinners all our lives, oughtn't we to spend a few days in repenting? Tell me, brother, don't you desire the consolations of religion?"
"Indeed I do," stammered the poor sinner. "And so I asked——"
"You see, I am ready."
"And I also want the Gospels, if I may be allowed the book."
The monk looked at him, then demanded quietly:
"You want the New Testament?"
"I should like to read in it. My mother had one and used to read it aloud and explain it. It would give me a home-like feeling if I could read in it now."
The Father replied: "I'll tell you something, my dear friend. The Gospel is a very good book, not in vain is it called the glad tidings."
"My God! yes; what do I need more sorely now than glad tidings?" agreed Konrad.
"Of course. But the book's not an easy one. Out of ten readers there's hardly one who understands it. And even he doesn't really understand it. It's too profound, I might say, too divine a book; as they say, seven times sealed. Therefore it must be explained by experts. I will willingly go through certain parts of it with you occasionally, but I shall give you something else for your edification, from which you will derive comfort and peace."
Konrad covered his face with his hands, and said, almost inaudibly: "The Gospel is what I should have liked best."
And then the monk said gravely: "My friend, you are the sick man and I am the physician. And the physician knows best what will do the sick man good. You should also prepare yourself for taking the Sacrament."
As the poor sinner said no more, the priest spoke a few kind words and left him. An hour later the gaoler brought him a parcel of books. "The holy brother sends them so that you can amuse yourself a little."
Amusement! It was a cruel joke. Konrad gave a shrill laugh. It was the laugh of a despairing man who cannot shut out the vision of his last journey, which became more hideous every moment. What did the Father send? Simple prayer-books and religious manuals. Book-markers were placed to show the passages that applied especially to the penitent and the dying man, and also prayers for poor souls in purgatory. The soul physician, all unacquainted with souls, sent the inconsolable man new anguish of death instead of life. Konrad searched for the bread he needed, turned over the leaves of the books, began to read here and there, but always put them down sadly. The more eagerly did he exercise his memory in order to recall the pictures of his childhood. His mother, who had been dead many years, stood before him in order to help her unhappy child. Her figure, her words, her songs, her sacred stories from the Saviour's life on earth—brought peace to his soul. It suddenly came upon him; "God has not forgotten me." Just as before he had raged in despair, so now beautiful shadows out of the past appeared before him, and tears of redemption flowed from his eyes.
He did not have an hour's sleep the night of his condemnation. He prayed, he dreamed, and then the horrid terror, which made him shiver in all his limbs, came again. He kept looking towards the window to see if daylight was beginning. Early in the morning, just at the first dawn—so he had often heard—the warders come. The window showed only darkness. But look, in the little three-cornered bit of sky, there is a star. He had not seen it on other nights. It sailed up to the crack in the roof and shone down through the window in kindly fashion. His eye was riveted on the spark of light until it vanished behind the walls. When at length day dawned, and the key rattled in the door, Konrad's hands and feet began to tremble. It was the gaoler, who brought him a bundle of coarse cotton clothing.
When Konrad asked in a dull voice if it was his gallows dress, the old man answered roughly: "What are you chattering about? Put on your house clothes."
The convict went up to the gaoler, clasped his hands, and said: "Only one thing, if I knew—when, when? This suspense is unbearable!"
"Eh! how impatient we are!" mocked the old man. "My dear fellow, we don't do things so quickly. The decision was only made yesterday. Why, they haven't yet settled about the banquet."
"The banquet!"
"The bill of fare—don't you understand? No orders have come yet. You're safe for twenty-four hours. But if there's anything you'd like to eat—I'll make an exception for once. And now, get on with your toilet! You can will away your own things as you please," he pointed to his clothes. "Have you anyone? No? Well, I know some poor people. But get on, get on. The hot season is coming on, and cotton isn't bad wear then."
The rough gaoler's good-humoured chatter was particularly distasteful to the poor man. To be snubbed and railed at would have pointed to a long life to come, one not to be measured by hours. Did he know? And was he silent out of pity? or was it malice? Before, the old man had been easily moved to anger, and when heated would swing his arms up and down and plainly threaten to have the obstinate convict sent off. Now there was no more grim humour nor raging round. He looked at the poor sinner, sunk in deep gloom, with a sad calmness. "Poor devil!" Suddenly it was too much for him, and he broke out violently: "But come now! You must have known it. Be sensible; I can't stand this misery. Dying is not easy, of course; you should be glad that there's someone by to help. And then—who knows whether you won't live after all. Do be sensible!"
When at last deep silence again gathered round him, the prisoner tried his books afresh. The Father had provided for a varied taste. The "Devotion to the Holy Rosary," the "Prayers to the Virgin's Heart," "Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell," the "Life of St. Theresa," "The Seven Bolts of Heaven," and "Prayers of Intercession for Souls in Distress." What a wealth of edification! The joiner's apprentice had always loved books. He had once reckoned out as a joke that three asses could not carry the books which he had read since his childhood. They had afforded him a glimpse of all times and places, and of all provinces of human life. Now he asked himself what it had all brought him. Confusion, perplexity, nothing besides. He had thought about everything, but he could not be clear about anything. That was not generally possible, he had read in one of the books, and the statement pacified him. He had read all kinds of theological books, had easily and trustfully given himself up to the echo of words heard in childhood, but it had not gone deeper. Now that they ought to prove their worth, they left him in the lurch. He turned over the pages, he read and prayed and sought, and found nothing to relieve his need. Discouraged, he pushed the books away from him, and some of them fell over the edge of the table on to the brick floor.
In the night that followed Konrad had a dream, vivid and clear as never dream had been. It was a dark country, and he had lost his way. He wandered about amid cold, damp rocks, and could not find a path. Then his fingers felt a thread; he seized it, and it guided him through the darkness. The land grew brighter and brighter; the thread brought him into his sunny native valley, to the place with the old gabled houses, to his father's house which stood amidst the fruit-trees, and the thread to which his fingers still clung involuntarily led him into the room where it had been spun from his mother's distaff. And there she sat and span the thread, with her pale face and soft wrinkles and kind eyes, and directly the boy stood near her she told him tales of the Saviour. He listened to her and was a happy child. That was his dream. And when he awoke in the prison cell, his mother's gentle voice still
