The Professor spoke impressively:
"It is my duty both towards you and others to speak out. What you have done to my fellow professors, and what you have prepared for similar attempts, cannot remain secret. Honorable men must be warned against the art which you have been led by a demon to exercise. But in this last hour in which you stand before me, I feel that I have done too little to help you against temptation. Without intending to be unkind, I have perhaps sometimes undervalued you, in comparison with others, and have forgotten how hard was your daily life. If you have ever felt depressed and embittered by my severity, I now atone for it. For when I, short-sighted, erring man, advised you to accept a position which was to raise you out of external need, I participated in your guilt, by exposing you to new temptation here. That gives me bitter pain, Magister, and I feel the anguish of this hour."
Magister Knips sat exhausted and cowering on the chest: the Scholar stood over him, and his words sank like blows on the Magister's head.
"I cannot conceal the fact, Magister, that you are a forger; you can never again move in our circle; your career is closed by your transgression, you are lost to learning, lost to all who took an interest in your work. You have vanished from the place which you held amongst us; nothing remains but a black shadow. Human powers laboriously trained, a spirit of uncommon acuteness and fullness, are lost and dead to us; and I mourn over you as over a dead man."
The Scholar wept, and Knips covered his face with his hands. Werner hastened to his writing-table.
"If you require means to maintain your ruined life in some other neighborhood, here it is. Take what you require."
He threw some money on the table.
"Try to conceal yourself where no member of our community will meet you. May all the good become your portion, which is still possible for you to have on earth. But fly, Magister; avoid those places where one shall think of you with the sorrow and repugnance that the faithful workman feels towards one who is untrue."
Knips rose; his face was paler than usual, and he looked distractedly about him.
"I need no money," he said, with faint voice; "I have enough for my journey. I beg of the Professor to care for my mother."