"Listen, and you will understand. I ask you to be my father confessor because you are the only one who does not love me, the only one who has no pity on me; now do you understand? The others love me too much and they show mercy to me. But I ask for no mercy, I desire only stern inexorable justice--that is why I seek you."
Correntian turned towards him at last, and looked astonished at his agitated countenance.
"Are you so much in earnest?" he said.
"In fearful earnest!" cried the young man with a burst of despair, leaning his forehead against the bare wall. "Oh, Correntian, for years I have hated, abhorred you; only a few days ago I was angry with you because one of the brethren told me that you wanted to blind me, when I was first brought here. Oh! would you had done so, it would have been better for me."
"I understand," said Correntian coldly. "The tempter seeks you in woman's form, and you are weak. The curse will run its course as sure as the stars, and you cannot escape it."
"No, no! for God's sake, not that, only not that. Correntian, I will perform any penance you lay upon me, for none can be too great for my sins. The Lord hath loved me, and drawn me to Him as he did Peter, and like Peter I have betrayed Him at the first cock-crow. I was not faithful even so long as I wore the festal robe, not so long as while I stood before the altar, not so long as the breath which wafted my vows to Heaven! Cast me out into misery as my father did, I am worthy of nothing better, unworthy of the compassion of men. I am mere dust, flung to every wind; cast it out and scatter it to the blast!"
Correntian slowly nodded his head.
"It has all happened just as I said it would.
"You are not made of the stuff from which the Conqueror chooses his fighting men. Begotten among the wanton joys of a frivolous court, nourished at the breast of a wanton woman, your whole breeding has been wantonness. The loving glances that you raise to Heaven are wanton, they wanton with the sun and the blue sky that soothe your senses; the last looks you send after your dead brethren in the grave are wanton, they wanton with the roses that the wind bends over it. Nay, even the gaze you fix in devout prayer on the image of our Mother Mary is wanton, as it looks at the fair woman, at the lovely work of the painter's brush. And how then should it not wanton with the first living woman of flesh and blood who comes before you, as the first woman in Paradise appeared to the first man. You are yourself as fair to see as sin, and pleasure-loving women will everywhere run after you; for the doors by which sin may enter into you and go forth from you, are in truth fair and enticing, and those doors are your love-inviting eyes."
"True, alas! too true. But what am I to do? Can I shut my eyes?" asked the youth.