The geniuses of all ages and
countries speak in different languages; but in them all burns the same
flame. Oh, if you knew my heavenly happiness now that I can understand
them!" The prisoner's desire was fulfilled. Two shots were fired in
the garden by the banker's order.
Later on, after the tenth year, the lawyer sat immovable before his
table and read only the New Testament. The banker found it strange
that a man who in four years had mastered six hundred erudite volumes,
should have spent nearly a year in reading one book, easy to
understand and by no means thick. The New Testament was then replaced
by the history of religions and theology.
During the last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an
extraordinary amount, quite haphazard. Now he would apply himself to
the natural sciences, then he would read Byron or Shakespeare. Notes
used to come from him in which he asked to be sent at the same time a
book on chemistry, a text-book of medicine, a novel, and some treatise
on philosophy or theology. He read as though he were swimming in the
sea among broken pieces of wreckage, and in his desire to save his
life was eagerly grasping one piece after another.
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