"To instruct your son in the true faith, and in worldly knowledge."
"I understand. They are afraid that if I get angry, I will take my son with me to Saros-Patak, and make a Calvinist of him; and will my wealth to that college; they have a holy dread of that."
"But you have still another sacred mission. As I understand from their letter, the Jesuits never send an instructor into a family except with the title of Father Confessor. You are to be my Father Confessor."
"I know it."
"You know it. And do not suspect that what I shall whisper in your ear day after day, will be not only my curse, but also yours. That you who must absolve my soul of the sin, if sin it is, renew that sin day by day; that when you lay your hand upon my head in blessing, every one of your five fingers will burn in my red hair as in glowing coals. Do you know that?"
"I know it."
"And yet you venture to incline your ear when I kneel before you and venture to hear me when I whisper, 'Father I have sinned;' I love a man with a maddening love that sets my brain on fire; I cannot pray, for his name ever rushes to my lips; I cannot look to the saints above, for everywhere I see his face; I cannot do penance, for I love my sin, and am ever returning to it; I had a good, true husband who was as gentle as a lamb; this good and gentle husband I tortured to death—perhaps I even caused his death—I exulted and rejoiced in my widow's veil for I thought, Now he whom I seek can be mine; ah, my sin, my sin! But his heart would not incline to me for he loved another,—a more beautiful, a better, an innocent maiden; and I disturbed their union, I roused her father and brother against him, I sowed enmity between them, and he killed the brother of his betrothed, and so I tore them from each other. My sin! My sin! Hear me, God in Heaven! I did not come to you to pray, but I will contend with you. This man I love more than my soul's salvation, the man to whom I pray rather than to Heaven, whose heart Thou first didst take from me, and now dost take him too. Thou hast chained him to Thine altar, but I will not leave him to Thee, I will tear him from Thine altar, and if Thou wilt not permit me to be happy on earth, to be blessed in Heaven with him, then will I be damned in Hell with him. Father, I will sin!"
The woman rocked on her knees in the dust before the man, kissing his feet, and with her hand beating her unrepentant breast.
A deep sigh was wrung from the heart of Father Peter. He turned his face away, and laying a trembling hand on the woman's head, sobbed with stifled voice, "May God pity you your sins, poor wretched woman!" And then he let her lie sobbing on the ground, and let her drag herself along the marble floor, following his footsteps and kissing them, one after the other.