human
How dare you laugh!
gpt
I laugh--who would not--that such a witless baby should talk of his sin. You know not what sin is, you silly innocent!
human
You do not know how wicked I am--I am so wholly forward the wonder is the devil does not take me at once. I live only in what my father calls the lust of the eye. I--I would rather look at a haw-tree in bloom than meditate on the Almighty! He brought out this awful confession with a gasp at its enormity, but hurried on to a yet more terrible climax.
gpt
I cannot be righteous, but many times there are those who cannot--but oh, worse than that, I cannot even _wish_ to be! I can only wish to be a painter.
human
But, boy, lad, what's your name? However did you learn that there are painters in the world, here in this prison-house of sanctity?
gpt
Two years ago, when I was but a little child, there came a man to our town, a Frenchman, they said, and his horse fell lame, and he stopped two days at my Uncle Elzaphan's. My Uncle Elzaphan asked him what business did he in the world, and he said he put down on cloth or paper with brushes and colors all the fair and comely things he saw. And he showed a piece of paper with on it painted the row of willows along our brook. I sat in the chimney-corner and no one heeded me. I saw--oh, then I _knew_! I have no paint, but ever since I have made pictures with burnt sticks on birchbark--though my father says that of all the evil ways of evil men none lead down more swift to the chambers of death and the gates of hell than that. Every night I make a vow unto the Lord that I will sin no more; but in the morning the devil whispers in my ear and I rise up and sin again--no man knows this--and I am never glad unless I think I have done well with my pictures, and I hate the meeting-house and--
human
Two years ago, was't? asked the old man.
gpt
And the man was French?
human
Aye.