MR. X. In that instance, yes.

MR. Y. But the feeling of guilt, the "restoration of balance?"

MR. X. I had no guilty feeling, its I had committed no crime. I had received and given blows as a boy, and it was only ignorance of the effect of blows on old people that caused the fatality.

MR. Y. Yes, but it is two years' hard labor for homicide--just as much as for--forgery.

MR. X. You may believe I have thought of that too, and many a night have I dreamed that I was in prison. Ugh! is it as terrible as it's said to be behind bolts and bars?

MR. Y. Yes, it is terrible. First they disfigure your exterior by cutting off your hair, so if you did not look like a criminal before, you do afterward, and when you look at yourself in the mirror, you become convinced that you are a desperado.

MR. X. It's the mask that they pull off; that's not a bad idea.

MR. Y. You jest! Then they cut down your rations, so that every day, every hour you feel a distinct difference between life and death; all life's functions are repressed; you feel yourself grovelling, and your soul, which should be bettered and uplifted there, is put on a starvation cure, driven back a thousand years in time; you are only allowed to read what was written for the barbarians of the migratory period; you are allowed to hear about nothing but that which can never come to pa.s.s in heaven, but what happens on earth remains a secret; you are torn from your own environment, moved down out of your cla.s.s; you come under those who come under you; you have visions of living in the bronze age, feel as if you went about in an animal's skin, lived in a cave, and ate out of a trough! Ugh!

MR. X. That's quite rational. Any one who behaves as if he belonged to the bronze age ought to live in the historic costume.

MR. Y. [Spitefully]. You scoff, you, you who have behaved like a man of the stone age! And you are allowed to live in the gold age!

MR. X. [Searchingly and sharp]. What do you mean by that last expression--the gold age?

MR. Y. [Insidiously]. Nothing at all.

MR. X. That's a lie; you are too cowardly to state your whole meaning.

MR. Y. Am I cowardly? Do you think that? I wasn't cowardly when I dared to show myself in this neighborhood, where I have suffered what I have.--Do you know what one suffers from most when one sits in there? It is from the fact that the others are not sitting in there too.

MR. X. What others?

MR. Y. The unpunished.

MR. X. Do you allude to me?

MR. Y. Yes.

MR. X. I haven't committed any crime.

MR. Y. No? Haven't you?

MR. X. No. An accident is not a crime.

MR. Y. So, it's an accident to commit murder?

MR. X. I haven't committal any murder.

MR. Y. So? Isn't it murder to slay a man?

MR. X. No, not always. There is manslaughter, homicide, a.s.sault resulting in death, with the subdivisions, with or without intent.

However, now I am really afraid of you, for you belong in the most dangerous category of human beings, the stupid.

MR. Y. So you think that I am stupid? Now listen! Do you want me to prove that I am very shrewd?

MR. X. Let me hear.

MR. Y. Will you admit that I reason shrewdly and logically when I say this? You met with an accident which might have brought you two years of hard labor. You have escaped the ignominious penalty altogether. Here sits a man who also has been the victim of an accident, an unconscious suggestion, and forced to suffer two years of hard labor. This man can wipe out the stain he has unwittingly brought upon himself only through scientific achievement; but for the attainment of this he must have money--much money, and that immediately. Doesn't it seem to you that the other man, the unpunished one, would restore the balance of human relations if he were sentenced to a tolerable fine? Don't you think so?

MR. X. [Quietly]. Yes.

MR. Y. Well, we understand each other.--H'm! How much do you consider legitimate?

MR. X. Legitimate? The law decrees that a man's life is worth at the minimum fifty crowns. But as the deceased had no relatives, there's nothing to be said on that score.

MR. Y. Humph, you will not understand? Then I must speak more plainly.

It is to me that you are to pay the fine.

MR. X. I've never heard that a homicide should pay a fine to a forger, and there is also no accuser.

MR. Y. No? Yes, you have me.

MR. X. Ah, now things are beginning to clear up. How much do you ask to become accomplice to the homicide?

MR. Y. Six thousand crowns.

Mr. X. That's too much. Where am I to get it? [Mr. Y. points to the case.] I don't want to do that, I don't want to become a thief.

MR. Y. Don't pretend. Do you want me to believe that you haven't dipped into that case before now?

MR. X. [As to himself]. To think that I could make such a big mistake!

But that's the way it always is with bland people. One is fond of gentle people, and then one believes so easily that he is liked; and just on account of that I have been a little watchful of those of whom I've been fond. So you are fully convinced that I have helped myself from that case?

MR. Y. Yes, I'm sure of it.

MR. X. And you will accuse me if you do not receive the six thousand crowns?

MR. Y. Absolutely. You can't get out of it, so it's not worth while trying to do so.

MR. X. Do you think I would give my father a thief for son, my wife a thief for husband, my children a thief for father, and my confreres a thief for comrade? That shall never happen. Now I'll go to the sheriff and give myself up.

MR. Y. [Springs up and gets his things together]. Wait a moment.

MR. X. What for?

M$. Y. [Stammering]. I only thought--that as I'm not needed--I wouldn't need to be present--and could go.

MR. X. You cannot. Sit down at your place at the table, where you've been sitting, and we will talk a little.

MR. Y. [Sits, after putting on a dark coat]. What's going to happen now?