de the youth and began to speak.

"I am an old man, sir, my hoary hair speaks the truth. I have gone
through a great deal. My father also was an executioner, and my
grandfather before him. I inherited 'the business' so to speak. In my
younger years I was wild and frivolous. I loved racket, wine, and
boisterous mirth. A sort of heavy indescribable load oppressed my heart
continually, a sort of blinding darkness enveloped me which I would
gladly have chased away had I only known how. This heavy mental
oppression, this black weariness tortured me more and more, according as
my sad reminiscences multiplied with my advancing years, and I drank
more and more wine, and plunged all the more recklessly into vile
debauchery in order that I might not hear all round me those faint sighs
and moans which troubled and terrified me most when there was not a
sound in my room, and I was all alone. My acquaintances used to laugh at
me because I sat all alone drinking silently till far into the night,
just as they used to laugh at me afterwards for sitting by myself and
singing hymns."

The fellow sighed deeply and was silent for a time, as if he were trying
to gather up again the threads of his scattering thoughts.

"You may perhaps have noticed a woman outside there. That is my wife. I
married because I fancied that I should thereby find rest for my soul. I
imagined how happy I should be if I were to have a child. I should then
have something to knit me to life, to the world again. No, I said to
myself, he shall not inherit the curse of my abhorred existence. I will
choose for him a career in which he will be happy, honoured, and
respected. I will provide him with a comfortable maintenance and have
him educated far from me and my house. I will make a worthy, honest,
sensible man of him. For two years I comforted myself with such visions
and was happy. My mind shook off its horrors and became bright and
cheerful. And then--then I began drinking heavily again. Evil memories
commenced assailing me worse than ever, and my fair hopes abandoned
me--for life and death, sir, are both lodged in a woman's heart, and
some find the one and some the other. Once more I was visited by that
midnight sighing, by that speechless moaning, by those voices that
terrified my solitude and pursued me sleeping and waking, and I began to
drink and run riot again once more."

The man hid his drooping head in his hands. Even now those dreadful
memories weighed