“Now forgive me,” said Michael, “if I remind you that you have given away many hundred crown pieces to beggars and other rabble. What good has it done you? They blessed you and wished you good health. Did that do you any good? What was it prompted you to put your hand in your pocket every time a beggar held out his ragged hat to you? Your heart, I tell you. Neither your eyes, nor your tongue, nor your arm, nor your leg, but your heart. You took things to heart as the saying is.”
“But how can I help it? I try my best to suppress it; but my heart beats until it hurts me.”
“You poor fellow,” laughed Michael, “give me that little palpitating thing and see how much better you will feel without it!”
“Give you my heart!” screamed Peter in horror, “why, I should die on the spot. No, that I will not!”
“Of course, you would die if an ordinary physician were to cut out your heart. But with me it is quite a different matter. Come with me, and I will convince you.”
He rose and beckoned to Peter to follow him into another room. Peter’s heart contracted painfully as he crossed the threshold of this room; but he paid no heed to it, such astonishing sights claimed his attention. There were rows of shelves, and upon these stood glass bottles filled with transparent fluid, and in each of these bottles there was a heart. Every bottle was labelled and Peter read the names with the greatest curiosity. There was the name of the Chief Magistrate, Fat Ezekiel’s, the Dance King, in fact all the principal people in the neighbourhood.
“Observe,” said Michael, “all these people have rid themselves of fear and sorrow for life. Not one of these hearts beats with fear or sorrow any more, and their former possessors are very well off without such unquiet guests to disturb them.”
“But what do they carry in their breasts in place of them?” enquired Peter, who felt faint and giddy.
“This,” replied Michael, and he showed him a heart of stone he had taken from a drawer.
“Oh!” said Peter with a shudder, “a heart of stone? But that must be very cold in one’s breast.”