"I have played cards," he confessed. "Once."
"Well," said the priest, "card-playing is no sin in itself, as long as you do not play for money."
"Was it on the Corpus Christi table, by any chance?" asked the priest.
"Then you lied in your confession!" I said to Kaunigl, reproachfully.
"That doesn't matter," Kaunigl replied, promptly. "I can easily mention the lie next time: I'll get that through the grating right enough. The thing is to have the card-playing off my chest. Hang it all, though, I was nearly caught: Old Nick might have grabbed me finely!"
I based my own inferences upon this experience. If card-playing was no sin in itself--and we did not play for money--then there was no need to confess the story. Nor is it stated in either the Lesser or the Greater Catechism that man shall not play cards on altars. However, this subtle interpretation helped me not at all. When I thought of that Corpus Christi sacrilege, in which I had so foolishly taken part, I often felt quite ill. I dreamt of it at nights, in the most uncomfortable way, and, sitting in church on Sundays, I dared not look at that little altar-table, which stood there so oddly, as though at any moment it might burst into speech and betray me. Moreover, about this time, I read in an old devotional book the story of a blasphemous shoemaker's assistant who had mimicked the elevation of the Host in a public-house and how his upraised arms had stiffened in the act, so that he could not bend them back again and had to go about with his arms sticking up in the air, until he was released by receiving absolution from a pious father. It was much as though I were doomed to go about with arm uplifted, holding the best trump in my hand, while the people laughed at me: "Now then, Peter, play! Why don't you play?" and as though I played the card, at last, and, in so doing, played my poor soul to perdition. That was the sort of thing; and a nice thing too!
I could never manage to settle it by myself: that was quite clear. So, one evening, after working-hours, I went to see the parish-priest at St. Catherine's. He was standing just outside the house, beside his fish-pond, which was covered over with a rusty wire netting, while a fine spring bubbled away in the middle. The priest no doubt thought that I was merely passing by accident, for he beckoned to me with his black straw hat to come to him.