She rose
and went to her sleeping-room, and knelt before a table on which stood a
crucifix with an image of the Saviour on it--the emblem of the religion
she had so great a quarrel with. But not to pray. Folding her arms on
the table and dropping her face on them she said: What have I done? And
again and again she repeated: What have I done? Was it indeed a monk who
taught her this deceit, or some higher being who put it in her mind to
whisper a hope to my soul? To show me a way of escape from everlasting
death--to labour in his fields and pleasure-grounds, a wretched slave
with irons on her feet, to be scourged and mocked at, and in this state
to cast out hatred and bitterness from my own soul and all remembrance
of the injuries he had inflicted on me--to teach myself through long
miserable years that this powerful enemy and persecutor is a kind and
loving master? This is the parable, and now my soul tells me it would be
a light punishment when I look at the red stains on these hands, and
when the image of the boy I loved and murdered comes back to me. This
then was the message, and I drove the messenger from me with cruel
threats and insult.
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