"Correntian, hear me. Yes, it is true, I have sinned; yes I have led you all into ruin for a girl's sake, and I will expiate it through all eternity. Not even my blindness could save me, Eusebius was right, the devil is more cunning than man, and yet I am innocent and pure!"
"Pure," shouted Correntian. "How dare you call yourself so, criminal," and with all the added horror of his suffering he raised the upper part of his body and stretched out his arm towards Donatus. "The curse that was upon you even in your mother's womb, I take it up and pour it, a double curse upon your head. Only your father's curse has weighed upon you hitherto, I add to it your mother's curse; for your mother is the Church you have brought to shame. An outcast shall you be, perjured wretch, an outcast from the Church, an outcast from humanity--an outcast from the flock of penitents who yet may hope. The grass shall wither under your feet; the hand be palsied that offers you the sacred Host; death and pestilence shall visit him who takes pity on your hunger. Your bones shall fall to dust, and that their pestilential reek may not poison the earth that yields food for other mortals, I bid you flee away to the ends of the earth, up to the realm of death, to the ice of the glaciers, as far as your feet can bear you, where not a blade can grow that can imbibe the poison of your corpse. All that is mortal of you shall be blotted out from creation to the very last jot, and what is immortal shall suffer to all eternity such torment as has racked my very marrow for these three days--" His voice failed, the rigor of death had fallen upon him, he fell back on the stone floor. Once more he raised himself, his clenched fists clutched at the fissures in the ground in his last agony.
"Oh, Lord God! have mercy on my sins!" he groaned, seized with sudden horror at the thought that he must depart without the last sacraments and with a curse on his lips. He felt that death had laid its icy hand on his heart; it was too late, his lips tried to stammer some words, but his jaws were clenched in a convulsion. Thus he gave up his cold and stubborn spirit, without consolation, without atonement, hoping for no mercy, for he had shown none; yet he had been true to himself and the Church, true even unto death.