Dying is not easy, of course; you should be glad that there's someone
by to help. And then--who knows whether you won't live after all. Do
be sensible!"

When at last deep silence again gathered round him, the prisoner tried
his books afresh. The Father had provided for a varied taste. The
"Devotion to the Holy Rosary," the "Prayers to the Virgin's Heart,"
"Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell," the "Life of St. Theresa," "The
Seven Bolts of Heaven," and "Prayers of Intercession for Souls in
Distress." What a wealth of edification! The joiner's apprentice had
always loved books. He had once reckoned out as a joke that three
asses could not carry the books which he had read since his childhood.
They had afforded him a glimpse of all times and places, and of all
provinces of human life. Now he asked himself what it had all brought
him. Confusion, perplexity, nothing besides. He had thought about
everything, but he could not be clear about anything. That was not
generally possible, he had read in one of the books, and the statement
pacified him. He had read all kinds of theological books, had easily
and trustfully given himself up to the echo of words heard in
childhood, but it had not gone deeper. Now that they ought to prove
their worth, they left him in the lurch. He turned over the pages, he
read and prayed and sought, and found nothing to relieve his need.
Discouraged, he pushed the books away from him, and some of them fell
over the edge of the table on to the brick floor.

In the night that followed Konrad had a dream, vivid and clear as never
dream had been. It was a dark country, and he had lost his way. He
wandered about amid cold, damp rocks, and could not find a path. Then
his fingers felt a thread; he seized it, and it guided him through the
darkness. The land grew brighter and brighter; the thread brought him