“Do you know what I’m thinking about, Marit?”
“No,” came the rather sleepy answer.
“Why, that if we do something downright bad it’s not at all certain that the consequences will be obliterated if we die. It’s very likely they go on living and doing harm to others for a long time.”
“H’m!”
“But can you tell me then how such a man can have peace in his grave?”
Marit expressed her opinion that our intelligence was not sufficient for that, and turned over on the other side.
The old man lay long, however, seeing a long string of Wangen’s descendants having to suffer for this. Could he then at the same time be saved and sit in heaven? He lay there looking and looking, until he grew hot with anxiety lest he should not get any sleep that night either. He began to be sure that he had some disease or other, perhaps heart-disease. And then, while he stood in the witness-box and held up his fingers, it would come. He would drop down.
“Oh God, be merciful to my soul!”
At last he sat up in bed and quietly struck a match. Heaven help us! It was past two already, and he had not slept yet.
When he once more tried to go to sleep, he began to see how difficult it is honestly and fairly to put right a wrong done.