n
it?"

And raising my hand I replied solemnly:

"Foolish youth, I have done that which I would have done to my heart if
it wanted to jest and mock me! Unfortunate youth, can you not see that
your art has long been mocking you, that from that slate of yours the
devil himself was making hideous faces at you?"

"Yes. The devil!"

"Being far from your wonderful art, I did not understand you at first,
nor your longing, your horror of aimlessness. But when I entered your
cell to-day and noticed you at your ruinous occupation, I said to
myself: It is better that he should not create at all than to create in
this manner. Listen to me."

I then revealed for the first time to this youth the sacred formula
of the iron grate, which, dividing the infinite into squares, thereby
subjects it to itself. K. listened to my words with emotion, looking
with the horror of an ignorant man at the figures which must have seemed
to him to be cabalistic, but which were nothing else than the ordinary
figures used in mathematics.

"I am your slave, old man," he said at last, kissing my hand with his
cold lips.

"No, you will be my favourite pupil, my son. I bless you."

And it seemed to me that the artist was saved. True, he regarded me with
great joy, which could easily be explained by the extreme respect with
which I inspired him, and he painted the portrait of the Warden's wife
with such zeal and enthusiasm that the esteemed lady was sincerely
moved. And, strange to say, the artist succeeded in making so strangely
beautiful the features of this woman, who was stout and no longer young,
that the Warden, long accustomed to the face of his wife, was greatly
delighted by its new expression. Thus everything went on smoothly, when
suddenly this catastrophe occurred, the entire horror of which I alone
knew.

Not desiring to call forth any unnecessary disputes, I concealed from
the Warden the fact that on the eve of his death the artist had thrown
a letter into my cell, which I noticed only in the morning. I did not
preserve the note, nor do I remember all that the unfortunate youth told
me in his farewell message; I think it was a letter of thanks for
my effort to save him. He wrote that he regretted sincerely that his
failing strength did not permit him to avail himself of my instructions.
But one phrase impressed itself deeply in my memory, and you will
understand the reason for it when I repeat it in all its terrifying
simplicity.

"