ul!" I prayed
for myself, and the owls screeched Amen, and meant me!

ROBERT (_recoils, horrified_).

Almighty God--he himself!--

STEIN.

You did not do it consciously. A fearful madness urged you against your
will.

PASTOR.

Do not be so obstinate, man; God does not measure the deed according to
a superficial standard. Innocence and crime are at the extreme poles of
human nature. But often it is merely a quicker pulse that separates the
innocent from the criminal.

FORESTER.

Give me words of life instead of your cobwebs of the brain--no If and
no But. Tell me something, so that I must believe it! Your words do not
convince me. Why do you offer consolation to my head? Offer consolation
to my heart, if you can. Can you with your consolation restore my child
to life, so that she will rush into my arms? In that case keep on
consoling me. Every word that fails to restore my child to life slays
her once more.

STEIN.

Flee to America; I will procure passports for you; all my money is
yours. Your wife and your children are mine!

FORESTER.

Do you hear, Andrew, what that man there is saying? He wants to give you
money. Buy a hand-organ with it. Go about to the fairs, and sing of the
old murderer who shot his child--for no reason, for no reason at all in
the world. You need no picture. Take the old woman there along with you.
No painter can paint the story as it stands written upon her face.
Praise the child. Represent her more beautiful than she was--if you
can--as you imagine the most beautiful angel, and then say: "And yet she
was a thousand times more beautiful!" And represent the old murderer so
that people will shed a waterfall of tears for the child, and that every
street-urchin will shake his fist at the old fellow. And he who hears
this story and does not give you with chattering teeth his last penny,
though he had ten starving children at home, and does not pray to God
for the child and curse the old murderer that shot her, must have a
heart like the old murderer's who committed the deed. Do not say: "The
man was honest throughout his life and avoided evil and believed in a
God, and did not permit the least taint upon his honor." If you do, they
will not believe you. Say: He looked like a wolf; do not say: His beard
was white when he committed the crime. If you do, no one will give you
anything; none will believe that one can be so old and yet such an
abandoned villain. And on the lower part of yo