The Count was on his death bed with his whole life before him. While he saw clearly his many faults and weaknesses, when the priest was summoned, he had no desire to speak to him.
“I see your heart is heavy, figliolo.”
“My heart may be heavy,” said the Count, “But it is light with memory.”
The priest implored him to unburden his soul.
“Figliolo,” he said. “Your time is near. Soon you will go to meet your maker.”
The Count was too tired to rise to the bait of this tiresome platitude. The pain was too much to bear.
“Will you confess?” said the priest.
“I might,” said the Count. “However, my sin is too terrible.”
“What sin can be so terrible,” said the priest, “that you are unable to confess it?”
The Count sighed.
“While I have committed many sins,” he said, the most terrible sin I have committed is against my mother.”
Though prepared for the worst, the priest tried to commiserate with the Count.
“What is done is done,” he said. “God will forgive you as I am sure your mother has. Unburden your soul. What is this terrible sin that is plaguing you?”
The Count made one final effort; he drew himself up and looked at the priest with that old irony in his eyes.
“I detained my mother for nine months inside her womb. That is my terrible sin.”
*
“How can a child sin in the womb? It can’t even go to confession.”
“It’s utterly pointless,” said Maude. “Unless he’s trying to tell the priest something.”
“What do you think that is?”
“That he’s an eternal sinner.”
“We don’t know that.”
“He’s Casanova. Of course, we do.”
“Well, he can’t be all bad. He must have loved his mother.”