"Then you lied in your confession!" I said to Kaunigl, reproachfully.
"That doesn't matter," Kaunigl replied, promptly. "I can easily mention the lie next time: I'll get that through the grating right enough. The thing is to have the card-playing off my chest. Hang it all, though, I was nearly caught: Old Nick might have grabbed me finely!"
I based my own inferences upon this experience. If card-playing was no sin in itself—and we did not play for money—then there was no need to confess the story. Nor is it stated in either the Lesser or the Greater Catechism that man shall not play cards on altars. However, this subtle interpretation helped me not at all. When I thought of that Corpus Christi sacrilege, in which I had so foolishly taken part, I often felt quite ill. I dreamt of it at nights, in the most uncomfortable way, and, sitting in church on Sundays, I dared not look at that little altar-table, which stood there so oddly, as though at any moment it might burst into speech and betray me. Moreover, about this time, I read in an old devotional book the story of a blasphemous shoemaker's assistant who had mimicked the elevation of the Host in a public-house and how his upraised arms had stiffened in the act, so that he could not bend them back again and had to go about with his arms sticking up in the air, until he was released by receiving absolution from a pious father. It was much as though I were doomed to go about with arm uplifted, holding the best trump in my hand, while the people laughed at me: "Now then, Peter, play! Why don't you play?" and as though I played the card, at last, and, in so doing, played my poor soul to perdition. That was the sort of thing; and a nice thing too!
I could never manage to settle it by myself: that was quite clear. So, one evening, after working-hours, I went to see the parish-priest at St. Catherine's. He was standing just outside the house, beside his fish-pond, which was covered over with a rusty wire netting, while a fine spring bubbled away in the middle. The priest no doubt thought that I was merely passing by accident, for he beckoned to me with his black straw hat to come to him.
"What do you say, Peter?" he cried to me, in his soft voice. "Nine and five and seven: doesn't that make twenty-one?"
I was never much good at mental arithmetic; however, this time, I hazarded, on the off-chance:
"Yes, that should be about right. Twenty-one."
"Now then," he said, "just look here." And he pointed to the fish-pond. "A fortnight ago, the Blasler boy sold me nine live trout and I put them in the pond. A week ago, he sold me five more and I put them in too; and, to-day, he sold me seven and I put them in as well. And how many are there now, all told? Eight, eight; and not one more! And I know all about it: they are the same which he brought me a fortnight ago; and it must be so: the scoundrel, I was almost saying, stole the fish each time out of the pond and sold them to me over again. It's a … a …"
And he shook his fist in the air.
The fact was that the Blasler boy must have stolen the trout to begin with, before he sold them for the first time, for Blasler had no fishing licence. This, I dare say, hardly occurred to the good priest's mind: he was thinking only of his fast-days. The commandments of the Church allow fish on Fridays and Saturdays,[12] but do not say whether the fish may be stolen or not.