CONFESSOR speaks to the STRANGER in a low voice
while the music goes on.)

Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando judex est venturus
Cuncta stricte discussurus,
Tuba mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulchra regionum
Coget omnes ante thronum.
Mors stupebit et natura,
Cum resurget creatura
Judicanti responsura
Liber scriptus proferetur
In quo totum continetur
Unde mundus judicetur.
Judex ergo cum sedebit
Quidquid latet apparebit
Nil inultum remanebit.

(He goes to the desk by the table, right, and opens his breviary. The
music ceases.)

We will continue the reading.... 'But if thou wilt not hearken unto the
voice of the Lord thy God all these curses shall overtake thee. Cursed
shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field; cursed
shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed when thou goest out.'

OMNES (in a low voice). Cursed!

CONFESSOR. 'The Lord shall send upon thee vexation and rebuke in all
that thou settest thy hand for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until
thou perish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby
thou hast forsaken me.'

OMNES (loudly). Cursed!

CONFESSOR. 'The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine
enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways
before them, and shalt be moved into all the kingdoms of the earth. And
thy carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts
of the earth, and no man shall fray them away. The Lord will smite
thee with the botch of Egypt, the scab and the itch, with madness and
blindness, that thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in
darkness. Thou shalt not prosper in thy ways, and thou shalt be only
oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee. Thou shalt
betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an
house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard,
and shalt not gather the grapes thereof. Thy sons and thy daughters
shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes fail with longing for
them; and there shall be no might in thy hand. And thou shalt find no
ease on earth, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: the Lord
shall give thee a trembling heart, and failing of eyes and sorrow of
mind. And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fea