Mr. X.—­any longer!  This is the fifth time you have refused to write your own name.  The first time nothing more serious was involved than the receipt for a registered letter.  Then I began to watch you.  And since then I have noticed that you have a morbid fear of a pen filled with ink.  You have not written a single letter since you came here—­only a post-card, and that you wrote with a blue pencil.  You understand now that I have figured out the exact nature of your slip?  Furthermore!  This is something like the seventh time you have refused to come with me to Malmo, which place you have not visited at all during all this time.  And yet you came the whole way from America merely to have a look at Malmo!  And every morning you walk a couple of miles, up to the old mill, just to get a glimpse of the roofs of Malmo in the distance.  And when you stand over there at the right-hand window and look out through the third pane from the bottom on the left side, yon can see the spired turrets of the castle and the tall chimney of the county jail.—­And now I hope you see that it’s your own stupidity rather than my cleverness which has made everything clear to me.

Mr. Y. This means that you despise me?

Mr. X. Oh, no!

Mr. Y. Yes, you do—­you cannot but do it!

Mr. X. No—­here’s my hand.

(Mr. Y. takes hold of the outstretched hand and kisses it.)

Mr. X. [Drawing back his hand] Don’t lick hands like a dog!

Mr. Y. Pardon me, sir, but you are the first one who has let me touch his hand after learning—­

Mr. X. And now you call me “sir!”—­What scares me about you is that you don’t feel exonerated, washed clean, raised to the old level, as good as anybody else, when you have suffered your punishment.  Do you care to tell me how it happened?  Would you?

Mr. Y. [Twisting uneasily] Yes, but you won’t believe what I say.  But I’ll tell you.  Then you can see for yourself that I am no ordinary criminal.  You’ll become convinced, I think, that there are errors which, so to speak, are involuntary—­[twisting again] which seem to commit themselves—­spontaneously—­without being willed by oneself, and for which one cannot be held responsible—­ May I open the door a little now, since the storm seems to have passed over?

Mr. X. Suit yourself.

Mr. Y. [Opens the door; then he sits down at the table and begins to speak with exaggerated display of feeling, theatrical gestures, and a good deal of false emphasis] Yes, I’ll tell you!  I was a student in the university at Lund, and I needed to get a loan from a bank.  I had no pressing debts, and my father owned some property—­not a great deal, of course.  However, I had sent the note to the second man of the two who were to act as security, and, contrary to expectations, it came back with a refusal.  For a while I was completely