A woman came, who confessed that she was too prone to anger and bad language, and then quarrels arose between herself and her husband, and caused a scandal and trouble in the house: and she begged him some good counsels to reform this bad temper: and the monk, as if impatient, replied: "Ask your mother-in-law!"
Another woman, who after having enumerated a great number of sins, kept on so long that it would seem she never would end, he stopped short by asking:—"How old are you?"—"Sixty-five, Father, next August." "So much the better for you; for, since you are not able to leave sin, sin will soon leave you."
To a man, who with tears in his eyes confessed to having betrayed a relative by accusing him to the justice as a rebel and conspirator against the state, he shut the gate in his face, saying:—"Hell is wide enough!"
And lastly we will add what he said to a lawyer:—"Father,"—said the lawyer,—"in a certain lawsuit in which I knew that I was wrong, I deceived my adversary, and succeeded in getting a sentence in my favor." "My son; forensic defence seems to me sometimes like a game at cards played by two shrewd old gamblers. It is of no use! A sin more, or a sin less, more pulleys would be needed to hoist up a soul like yours into heaven, than to pull up the bells to the top of the belfry: you may go, it is all lost time."
It is not to be said how astonished the penitents went off. Is this,—thought they,—the holy man? This the great theologian and learned divine? Is he the man able to know our moral infirmities, pitiful in hearing them, benign in treating them? He appears more like a man-at-arms than anything else; and he would look better with a helmet and sword than the cowl upon his head, and the breviary in his hand.
Suddenly, two women wrapped in ample mantillas of black silk, little heeding the crowd that stood kneeling and crowded around the confessional, passed by; and whilst one entered the confessional, the other knelt on one side in the attitude of prayer. The crowd, knocked on each side, did not dare to murmur, but gave way respectfully, saying to themselves:—"These must be two great ladies; they pass and trample on us!"
"Father!" began the one who went to the confessional. The confessor started visibly; he carried the hem of his garment to his mouth, took it between his teeth, and thus repressing his emotion replied:
"Say on!"
"Father!..." And her words failed again. The confessor, no longer impatient, after a suitable space of time, repeated in a low tone:
"Say on!"