"Hear my confession! But by night the gloomy one suffers me not to tell the truth,—he comes certainly, he comes to take me, Pater! fumigate me, baptize me against the devil!"
"Step-penitent and thief, am I not father-confessor and Pater enough for thee, who will soon baptize thee? Just say all, hound, I absolve thee, and then strike thee dead for penitence. Say on, thou coronation-mint of the Devil, art thou not the Baldhead, and the Father of Death, and the monk at the same time, whose figure full of gas went up toward heaven in Mola, and hadst ventriloquism and wax-moulding and considerable knavery at hand?"
"Yes, father, ventriloquism and wax-images and the knave. But the evil spirit was always by; often I said nothing, and yet it was said, and the figures ran."
"Mordian," said Schoppe, waxing furious upon this subject, "seize the hound! Dost thou still lie,—thou cloaca dug in Paradise!—into the ear of the great Fatal Sister, thou mimic mummery? Does thy death's head without lip and tongue still bestir itself to lie? O God, what are thy human creatures!"
"O Pater, they are no lies! but the gloomy one wills them by night; I have made a league with him,—I have seen him this evening; he looked like you, and was in green. Holy Mary, O Pater, I have spoken the truth; there he comes in green,—O Pater, O Mary, and has your form and a fiery eye in his hand—"
"No one has my form," said Schoppe, agitated, "but the 'I.'"
"O glance round! The evil spirit comes to me—absolve—stab—I will die off!"
Schoppe at last looked behind him. The striding cast of his form came moving along towards him,—the fiery eye in the hand ascended into the face,—the mask of the I was clad in green. "Evil spirit, I am just in the act of auricular confession; thou canst not come hither; I am holy," cried the Spaniard, and grasped Schoppe. The dog seized him. Schoppe stared at the green form,—the sword fell from his hand. "My Schoppe," it cried, "I seek thee, dost thou not know me?"
"Long enough! Thou art the old I,—only bring thy face along hither and put it to mine, and make this stupid existence cold," cried Schoppe, with a last effort of manly force. "I am Siebenkäs," said the Fac-simile, tenderly, and stepped quite near. "So am I; I resemble I," said he once more, in a low tone; but at that moment the overpowered man collapsed, and this cleansing storm became a sighing, still breath of air. With a face growing white, spasmodically shutting-to his stiff eyes, he fell; the playing fingers seemed still to be calling the dog, and the lips were just making themselves up for a joke which they did not utter. His friend Siebenkäs, who could not guess anything of the matter, raised, weeping, the cold, fast-closed hand to his heart, to his mouth, and cried: "Brother, look up, thy old friend from Baduz stands verily beside thee, and sees thee in the pangs of death; he bids thee a thousand times farewell,—farewell!"
This seemed to convey into the breaking heart, through the ears still open to life, sweet tones of the dear old times and pleasant dreams of eternal love;—the mouth began a faint smile, traced at once by pleasure and death,—the broad breast filled, and heaved once more for a sigh of pleasure: it was the last sigh of life, and the dead one sank back, smiling, on the earth.