I.N.R.I. | Page 3

reaps.
The prisoner stood up quickly and looked distractedly about him. When he recognised the gaoler he felt for his hand. He grasped it firmly, and said hoarsely: "I want to ask something. Send me a priest."
"Oh, at last!" grumbled the old man. "These atheists! In the end they crawl to the Cross."
"I'm not an atheist," calmly replied the prisoner.
"No? Well, it's all the same. You shall have a father-confessor."
Konrad had not meant a confessor. To set himself right with God? That might come with time. But what he now most desired was a human being. No one else would come. No one will have anything to do with a ruined man. Each man thanks God that he is not such a one. But the priest must come.
In about half an hour the condemned man started, every sound at the door alarmed him--some one came. A monk quietly entered the cell. He slipped along in sandals. The dull light from the window showed an old man with a long, grey beard and cheerful-looking eyes. His gown of rough cloth was tied round the waist with a white cord, from which a rosary hung. He greeted the prisoner, reaching for his hand: "May I say good evening? I should like to, if I may."
"I sent for you, Father. I don't know if you are aware how things are with me," said Konrad.
"Yes, I know, I know. But the Lord is nearer to you to-day than He was yesterday," replied the monk.
"I have many things to say," said Konrad, hesitatingly. "But I don't want to confess. I want a man to talk to."
"You want to ease your heart, my poor friend," said the monk.
"You come to me because it's your duty," returned Konrad. "It's not pleasant. You have to comfort us, and don't know how to do it. There's nothing left for me."
"Don't speak like that," said the Father. "If I understand rightly, you have not summoned me as a confessor. Only as a man, isn't that it? And I come willingly as such. I can't convert you. You must convert yourself. Imagine me to be a brother whom you haven't seen for a long time. And now he comes and finds you here, and wellnigh weeping asks you how such a thing could have happened."
The prisoner sat down on the bench, folded his hands, and bent his head and murmured; "I had a brother. If he had lived I should not be here. He was older than I."
"Have you no other relatives?" asked the monk.
"My parents died before I was twelve years old. Quickly, one after the other. My father could not survive my mother. My mother--a poor, good woman; always cheerful, pious. In the village just outside. No one could have had a happier childhood. Ah! forgive me----" His words seemed to stick in his throat.
"Compose yourself!" counselled the priest. "Keep your childhood in your memory! It is a light in such days."
"It is over," said Konrad, controlling his sobs. "Father, that memory does not comfort me; it accuses me more heavily. How can such misfortune come from such blessing? If only I dared kneel now before my God--and thank Him that she did not live to see this day."
"Well, well!" said the Father. "Other mothers had different experiences with other sons."
"I would sacrifice everything too for the sake of our dear Lady," muttered Konrad.
"That's right," returned the Father. "Now tell me more. Quite young, then, you lived among strangers, eh?"
He uttered confusedly: "After the deaths of my father and mother I was apprenticed. To a joiner. That was a splendid time. Only I read a great deal too much to please the master--all sorts of things, and dreamed about them. And I didn't wish to do anything wrong, at least so I imagined. The master called me a stupid visionary, and gave me the sack. Then came a period of wandering--Munich, Cologne, Hamburg. I was two years with a master at Cologne. If only I had stayed with him! He didn't want to let me go--and there was a daughter. Then to Hamburg. That was bad luck. I was introduced into a Society for the protection of the people against traitors. To be a saviour, to risk one's life! It came to me very slowly, quite gradually, what was the misery of living under such tyranny. When a boy I once killed a dog that bit some poor people's children in the street. A dog belonging to gentlefolk! I was whipped, but it scarcely hurt--there was always in my mind; 'You freed them from the beast!' And I felt just the same about the Society. I can't tell you what went on in me. I'm all bewildered. Everything was laid bare at the trial, the whole horrible story. Only I