Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/74



Many a man who quietly lays his head on the block has swooned at a prick under the finger-nail. Nekir and Munkar, the angels who record the actions of mankind, had every day unconcernedly made entry of the heaviest sins, but they were much startled and became almost pale with terror when once upon a time they heard a pious man on the threshold of Paradise thank God that He had protected him against frivolity, the commonest sin on earth. Since Nekir and Munkar were not fully agreed as to what he meant by this never-before-mentioned sin, they commanded the most frivolous man on earth to show himself.

So Don Juan came, guffawing and whistling. It was impossible to get a serious word from him, but a Jew to whom he had pawned his plate pointed at him and whispered in passing: "Dot man amuses himself all de time und iss shoost mad about pretty vimmen! Coot-bye!"

Nekir answered: "To use every hour of his short life is, as long as others don't suffer from it, no sin in our sight, though it may be in that of the narrow but possibly needful laws of men. It was not he whom we meant."

After that the Recording Angels repeated their command. Thereupon, timid and trembling, came