Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/205

 part of my life I myself have served others, and carried loads like a camel.’

‘All that,’ the priest said impatiently, ‘is no doubt very interesting, but now God is bidding you to confess your grosser sins, such as murder, violence, rape or theft, also immorality, debauchery, lying and cheating; also gambling and swearing, hurting the undefended; godlessness, want of faith. Confess not only your sinful actions, but also where you have sinned in words and thoughts against the law and against virtue.’

‘No doubt I have committed deeds of that description too,’ said Manoel, ‘and if it is so very important that you should know, I will tell you that I have killed both in defence and also in offence, after all the rules of the game, and with much skill. If you ask me about immorality, I could describe to you the many different women I have met. Each one was like a fresh landscape, or an undiscovered island on which you set foot in wonder and curiosity. Those are details: in themselves worth telling and strange enough, but at this moment they do not seem important to me. I am wondering much more, and pondering upon it, that though the thought of the distances I was going to traverse made me