The outcast

by Selma Lagerlöf

"I will tear up this paper," he said. "Another shall be brought directly. And if the new one is properly answered and signed, then I fancy the walls will have heard nothing of the first. We will start again from the moment you sat down to write. The hour is not yet gone. You, Julius Martin Lamprecht, have still time to make a free confession."

* * * * * *

A little later, the murderer sat on a chair in his cell, facing the judge. His appearance was changed; he wore the look of a man washed and cleansed, though no such process had taken place outwardly. But he had confessed. Not only had he answered the two first questions in the affirmative, and the last in the negative, but he had delivered a full and free confession of the whole affair. He was exhausted now, and a chair had to be brought for him or he would have fallen to the floor. But for all that he looked happy and content. At that moment he bore no ill will to any living soul. He was cleansed and freed from sin. He had not felt such comfort since his first communion.

In addition to the judge, there were present in the cell a warder, a constable, the clerk, and Julia Lamprecht, and Sven Elversson. The prisoner loved them all, and most of all his daughter, to whom he had just given the sum of five thousand kronor. He found her beautiful to look at. Handsome, fair, with curly hair, and a queer shyness of manner. He had not yet spoken with her alone, but the judge had promised she should be allowed to sit in his cell as long as he pleased.

Now and again the murderer turned his eyes toward the man who had forced him to confess, and he could not help feeling a certain sympathy with him.

The very look of the man, as he stood there leaning against the cell wall, with his eyes cast down and his brow gloomily furrowed, was enough to inspire sympathy. The murderer felt he understood him better than any other. He, Lamprecht, a murderer, could confess his crime and atone for it, but this man would never be able to wipe away the stain that clung to his name.

The murderer had seen how the judge and all the other servants of the law had shaken hands with Sven Elversson and thanked him. The judge, especially, had been profoundly grateful. It was a great relief to him now to be able to give his decision without hesitation.

But Sven Elversson looked as humble and sad as ever—only more humble, if anything, than before. He looked like a man utterly weary of himself.

When Julia Lamprecht entered the cell to receive the five thousand kronor, Sven Elversson had stepped forward and declared that he had promised the prisoner to make his daughter an offer of marriage. But the girl had refused at once. She would not marry that man—never. And she had told him plainly what manner of man he was.

Sven Elversson had been deeply hurt at her refusal. It seemed to torture him. He drew back without a word, and stood leaning unsteadily against the cell wall. And the prisoner himself felt that he was revenged.