"I dare confide to none the doubts which consume me! My prisoner is my secret and if it escape I am lost!"
The power of God, wrestled within him.
"Lord! Lord!" he exclaimed in his despair, "be merciful, give me faith! I cast thy gifts of mercy from me and my vocation for this world! I prayed for strength and thou hast not given it to me. Immortality! The Psyche in my breast—away! away!—Must it be buried like yon Psyche, the light of my life? Never to arise from the grave!"
The star beamed in the rosy red atmosphere, the star which will be lost and will vanish, whilst the soul lives and emits light. Its trembling ray fell upon the white wall, but it spoke not of the glory of God, of the grace, the eternal love which beams in the breast of every believer.
"Can the Psyche never die?—Can one live with consciousness?—Can the impossible take place?—Yes! Yes! My being is inexplicable. Inconceivable art thou, oh Lord! A wonder of might, glory and love!"
His eyes beamed, his eyes closed. The peal of the church bells passed over the dead one. He was laid in holy ground and his ashes mingled with the dust of strangers.
Years afterwards, his bones were exhumed and stood in a niche in the cloisters, as had stood those of the dead monks before him; they were dressed in the brown cowl, a rosary of beads placed in his hand, the sun shone without, incense perfumed within, and mass was read.—
Years rolled by.
The bones and legs fell asunder. They stood up the skulls, and with them, formed the whole outside wall of a church. There he stood in the burning sunshine; there were so many, many dead, they did not know their names, much less his.
See, something living moved in the sunshine in the two eye sockets; what was that? A brilliant lizard was running about in the hollow skull, slipping in and out of the large, empty sockets. This was now the life in the head, where once elevated thoughts, brilliant dreams, love for art and the magnificent had been rife; from which hot tears had rolled and where the hope of immortality had lived. The lizard leaped out and disappeared; the skull crumbled away and became dust to dust.—