you like to see how the little object called the human heart looks?
[Steps into hut and returns presently with a casket and a lantern,
which he hangs on a tree.]

You see the little three-cornered muscle, which now has ceased to
beat--Once it throbbed with rage, thumped with joy, cramped with
sorrow, swelled with hope. You see that it is divided into two
large chambers: In one lives the good, in the other the evil--or,
with a word, there sits an angel on one side of the wall and a
devil on the other. When they chance to be at odds with each other--
which happens quite often--there is unrest in the person and he
fancies the heart will burst--but it doesn't, for the walls are
thick. Oh, yes, look at this one! Do you see thousands of little
scars from needle thrusts? They did not go through, but the pricks
remain nevertheless.

PEHR. Who has borne this heart, Wise Man?

WISE MAN. The unhappiest of humans.

PEHR. And who was that?

WISE MAN. It was a man. Do you see the marks of a heel; do you see
the nail-prints? It was a woman that trampled on this heart for
twenty-six years.

PEHR. And he did not tire?

WISE MAN. Yes, he grew weary one Christmas Eve and freed himself
from her. As a punishment, he came under the ban of the Powers; he