ead as if to say "Yes," and put her
hand on her breast.

"And can I not obtain rest in the grave for you?"

"Yes," was the answer.

"And how?"

"Give me one hair--only one single hair--from the head of the
sinner for whom the fire shall never be extinguished, of the sinner
whom God will condemn to eternal punishment in hell."

"Yes, one ought to be able to redeem you so easily, you pure,
pious woman," he said.

"Follow me," said the dead woman. "It is thus granted to us. By my
side you will be able to fly wherever your thoughts wish to go.
Invisible to men, we shall penetrate into their most secret
chambers; but with sure hand you must find out him who is destined
to eternal torture, and before the cock crows he must be found!" As
quickly as if carried by the winged thoughts they were in the great
city, and from the walls the names of the deadly sins shone in flaming
letters: pride, avarice, drunkenness, wantonness--in short, the
whole seven-coloured bow of sin.

"Yes, therein, as I believed, as I knew it," said the pastor, "are
living those who are abandoned to the eternal fire." And they were
standing before the magnificently illuminated gate; the broad steps
were adorned with carpets and flowers, and dance music was sounding
through the festive halls. A footman dressed in silk and velvet
stood with a large silver-mounted rod near the entrance.

"Our ball can compare favourably with the king's," he said, and
turned with contempt towards the gazing crowd in the street. What he
thought was sufficiently expressed in his features and movements:
"Miserable beggars, who are looking in, you are nothing in
comparison to me."

"Pride," said the dead woman; "do you see him?"

"The footman?" asked the pastor. "He is but a poor fool, and not
doomed to be tortured eternally by fire!"

"Only a fool!" It sounded through the whole house of pride: they
were all fools there.

Then they flew within the four naked walls of the miser. Lean as a
skeleton, trembling with cold, and hunger, the old man was clinging
with all his thoughts to his money. They saw him jump up feverishly
from his miserable couch and take a loose stone out of the wall; there
lay gold coins in an old stocking. They saw him anxiously feeling over
an old ragged coat in which pieces of gold were sewn, and his clammy
fingers trembled.

"He is ill! That is madness--a joyless madness--besieged by fear
and dreadful dreams!"

They quickly wen