There is a hush—and there sounds in front a new, soft, trembling voice: ‘Bontzye, my child!’ It speaks like a harp. ‘My dear child, Bontzye!’
And Bontzye’s heart melts within him. Now he would lift up his eyes, but they are blinded with tears; he never felt such sweet emotion before. ‘My child! Bontzye!’—no one, since his mother died, had spoken to him with such words in such a voice.
‘My child’, continues the presiding judge, ‘you have suffered and kept silent; there is no whole limb, no whole bone in your body without a scar, without a wound, not a fibre of your soul that has not bled—and you kept silent. There they did not understand. Perhaps you yourself did not know that you mighthave cried out, and that at your cry the walls of Jericho would have shaken and fallen. You yourself knew nothing of your hidden power.
‘In the other world your silence was not understood, but that is the World of Delusion; in the World of Truth you will receive your reward. The Heavenly Court will not judge you; the Heavenly Court will not pass sentence on you; they will not apportion you a reward. Take what you will! Everything is yours.’
Bontzye looks up for the first time. He is dazzled; everything shines and flashes and streams with light.
‘Taki—really?’ he asks, shyly.
‘Yes, really!’ answers the presiding judge, with decision; ‘really, I tell you, everything is yours; everything in heaven belongs to you. Because all that shines and sparkles is only the reflection of your hidden goodness, a reflection of your soul. You only take of what is yours.’
‘Taki?’ asks Bontzye again, this time in a firmer voice.
‘Taki! taki! taki!’ they answer from all sides.
‘Well, if it is so’, Bontzye smiles, ‘I would like to have every day, for breakfast, a hot roll with fresh butter.’