[118] In the MS. this date '1667' is in the _margin_, not in the text.
The afternoon was not very cheerful to us. The woman was depressed. I begged her to be calm, told her there was no danger in such madness, though it was very annoying, and harder to bear than my captivity; but that still I would be a match for the rogue. She took her book and read, and I sat down and wrote a hymn upon Christ's sufferings, to the tune 'As the hart panteth after the water-springs.'[119]
[119] In the margin is added: 'This very hymn was afterwards the cause of Christian's being again well-behaved, as he subsequently himself told me, for he heard me one day singing it, and he said that his heart was touched, and that tears filled his eyes. I had at that time no other writing-materials than I have before mentioned.'
Christian had before been in the habit of bringing me coloured eggs on Easter-Eve; at this time he was not so disposed. When the door was locked, I said to Chresten, 'Do not forget the soft-boiled eggs to-morrow.' When the dinner was brought up on Easter-Day, and the eggs did not come at once (they were a side dish), Christian looked at me, and made a long nose at me three or four times. (I was accustomed to go up and down in front of the door of my room when it was unlocked.) I remained standing, and looked at him, and shrugged my shoulders a little. Soon after these grimaces, Chresten came with a dish full of soft-boiled eggs. Christian cast down his eyes at first, then he raised them to me, expecting, perhaps, that I should make a long nose at him in return; but I intended nothing less. When the woman went to the stairs, he said, 'There were no coloured eggs there.' She repeated this to me at once, so that I begged her to say that I ate the soft-boiled eggs and kept the coloured ones, as he might see (and I sent him one of the last year's, on which I had drawn some flowers; he had given it to me himself for some candles). He accepted it, but wrote me a note in return, which was very extraordinary. It was intended to be a highflown composition about the egg and the hen. He tried to be witty, but it had no point. I cannot now quite remember it, except that he wrote that I had sent him a rotten egg; that his egg would be fresh, while mine would be rotten.[120] He threw the slip of paper into my room. I made no answer to it. Some days passed again, and he said nothing angry; then he recommenced. I think he was vexed to see Chresten often receive my wine back again in the cup. At times I presented it to the prison governor. Moreover, he received no food, either for himself or his boy. One day he said to the woman, 'What do you think the prison governor would say if he knew that you give the prisoners some of his food to eat?' (The food which came from my table was taken down to the prison governor.) 'Tell her that!' The woman asked whether she was to say so to me, as a message from him. 'As whose message otherwise?' he answered. I sent him word that I could take as much as I pleased of the food brought me: that it was not measured out and weighed for me, and that those who had a right to it could do what they liked with what I did not require, as it belonged to no one. On this point he could not excite our fear. Then he came back again one day to the old subject, that he would have the scissors and the knife, and threatening to give himself up; and as it was almost approaching the time when I received the Lord's Supper, I said to the woman: 'Tell him once for all, if he cannot restrain himself I will inform against him as soon as the priest comes, and the first Karen shall be made to give evidence; she shall, indeed, be brought forward, for she had no rest on his account until I entered into his proposals. Whether voluntarily or under compulsion, she shall say the truth, and then we shall see who gets into trouble.' He might do, I sent word, whatever he liked, but I would be let alone; he might spare me his notes, or I would produce them. When the woman told him this, he thought a little, and then asked, 'Does she say so?' 'Yes,' said the woman, 'she did. She said still further: "What does he imagine? Does he think that I, as a prisoner who can go nowhere, will suffer for having accepted the services of a prisoner who enjoys a liberty which does not belong to him?"' He stood and let his head hang down, and made no answer at all. This settled the fellow, and from that time I have not heard one unsuitable word from him.