Out of the Past — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Out of the Past. 21 written. Let me forget it all. And yet they would make of me a priest and promise me a great future—prefer- ment, etc. The irony of misconception.” * * * ‘“ “To-day I have disgraced myself and the fathers, and I am told that the monastery will soon be in disfavor be- cause of my deeds. I did but trounce a fellow who richly deserved it. Let me get away; where my life belongs only to the Law and myself.2 * * * “*The day is black with the stain of yesterday—not of the fight, but of its vile cause. JI am sick to the heart - with this knowledge that whoever has an evil thought may cast it upon me with a show of justice. It is worse than a live flesh wound—lI could cauterize that. But how cauterize this wound that opens now in my heart, now in my very soul? Yet I look respectable. My parentage cannot have been absolutely low. Slender hands, and a head with features regular and sane, hardly can be the product of low-born individuals. Yet how came I here otherwise? God! How deep a punishment my father has laid upon me.’ * * * “*To-day I am free of that terrible impulse to punish others for my misfortune. My violin helps me. It sings of another world. It knows no baseness, a paladin or paradise living for perfection only. * * * “Another doubtful day, and, as usual, I am at odds GOMmicbdoo cs) (E(0)