Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/150

144 opened behind it. Servants entered carrying in a wretch in rags, who, as he staggered forward, roared like a beast: "Give me food, food! drink! drink! My father died of hunger yesterday,—this morning my mother perished,—fever consumes me,—I must die ere night!"

The Official made a sign, a drapery of azure was suddenly opened before him, behind which stood a table, glittering and groaning under the weight of its dishes of silver, its cups of crystal. The famished man darted forward, but they held him back: "First swear fealty to us!"

"Food! food! afterwards I will swear!" The slight Official broke into a laugh at these words, pointed him to the cross, and the dying man fell on his knees before it.

It seemed to the Young Man that the voice of the Official sounded like the hissing of a serpent as he dictated the oath: "In the name of the Holy Trinity and the Passion of our Lord, I swear to report here all I shall see, all I shall hear, all I may divine, were it the groans of my brother, or the sighs of my sister! Should my friends or relations imagine anything in secret, I swear to reveal it, though I know I should thus place their heads under the axe of the executioner! Should I conceal anything from you, may I be tortured, nailed to the cross, burned by fire, and fed on poison!"

But the kneeling wretch would not repeat the words, and, falling upon the earth, he gasped: " I die!" And the slight Official cried: "Die!" and calmly crossing his hands, he waited!

A great silence followed; and it seemed to the Young Man that he asked the Shade: "Master, where are the souls of these men? I do not see them, though thou hast lent me the power to perceive spirits."

And the Shade replied: "In the justice of God, no punishment has been found sufficiently severe for them, therefore, abandoned to eternal contempt, their souls are identified with their bodies. From them alone, among the myriads, has the holy gift of life been taken, and when their first bodies shall fall into corruption, these beings will no longer exist!"

At this moment the starving man, stiffening himself,