difference was that at the hospital those casts were made when the patients
came in, while these casts that were kept in the heart were made as the good
people departed. For every physical or mental fault of the friends she had
lost had been carefully stored away.
He quickly passed on to another woman's heart, which seemed like a
great holy cathedral. Over the high altar fluttered the white dove of
innocence, and the interne would have gone down on his knees except that
he had to hurry on to the next heart. However, he still heard the organ roll.
And he felt that it had made a new and better man of him-a man not too
unworthy to enter the next sanctuary. This was a poor garret where a mother
lay ill, but through the windows the sun shone, warm and bright. Lovely
roses bloomed in the little wooden flower box on the roof, and two
bluebirds sang of happy childhood, while the sick woman prayed for a
blessing on her daughter.
Next the interne crawled on his hands and knees through an overcrowded
butcher shop. There was meat, more meat, and meat alone, wherever he
looked in this heart of a wealthy, respectable man, whose name you can find
in the directory.
Next he entered the heart of this man's wife, and an old tumble-down
dove-cot he found it. Her husband's portrait served as a mere weathervane,
which was connected with the doors in such a way that they opened and
closed as her husband turned round.
Then he found his way into a cabinet of mirrors such as is to be seen at
Rosenborg Castle, though in this heart the mirrors had the power of
magnifying objects enormously. Like the Grand Lama of Tibet, the owner's
insignificant ego sat in the middle of the floor, in admiring contemplation of
his own greatness.
After this he seemed to be crammed into a narrow case full of sharp
needles. “This,” he thought, “must certainly be an old maid's heart,” but it
was nothing of the sort. It was the heart of a very young officer who had
