stunned by the blow, for it was a very unpleasant surprise—­most unpleasant!  The note was lying in front of me on the table, and the letter lay beside it.  At first my eyes stared hopelessly at those lines that pronounced my doom—­that is, not a death-doom, of course, for I could easily find other securities, as many as I wanted—­but as I have already said, it was very annoying just the same.  And as I was sitting there quite unconscious of any evil intention, my eyes fastened upon the signature of the letter, which would have made my future secure if it had only appeared in the right place.  It was an unusually well-written signature—­and you know how sometimes one may absent-mindedly scribble a sheet of paper full of meaningless words.  I had a pen in my hand—­[picks up a penholder from the table] like this.  And somehow it just began to run—­I don’t want to claim that there was anything mystical—­anything of a spiritualistic nature back of it—­for that kind of thing I don’t believe in!  It was a wholly unreasoned, mechanical process—­my copying of that beautiful autograph over and over again.  When all the clean space on the letter was used up, I had learned to reproduce the signature automatically—­and then—­[throwing away the penholder with a violent gesture] then I forgot all about it.  That night I slept long and heavily.  And when I woke up, I could feel that I had been dreaming, but I couldn’t recall the dream itself.  At times it was as if a door had been thrown ajar, and then I seemed to see the writing-table with the note on it as in a distant memory—­and when I got out of bed, I was forced up to the table, just as if, after careful deliberation, I had formed an irrevocable decision to sign the name to that fateful paper.  All thought of the consequences, of the risk involved, had disappeared—­no hesitation remained—­it was almost as if I was fulfilling some sacred duty—­and so I wrote! [Leaps to his feet] What could it be?  Was it some kind of outside influence, a case of mental suggestion, as they call it?  But from whom could it come?  I was sleeping alone in that room.  Could it possibly be my primitive self—­the savage to whom the keeping of faith is an unknown thing--which pushed to the front while my consciousness was asleep—­ together with the criminal will of that self, and its inability to calculate the results of an action?  Tell me, what do you think of it?

Mr. X. [As if he had to force the words out of himself] Frankly speaking, your story does not convince me—­there are gaps in it, but these may depend on your failure to recall all the details—­ and I have read something about criminal suggestion—­or I think I have, at least—­hm!  But all that is neither here nor there!  You have taken your medicine—­and you have had the courage to acknowledge your fault.  Now we won’t talk of it any more.

Mr. Y. Yes, yes, yes, we must talk of it—­till I become sure of my innocence.

Mr. X. Well, are you not?