The difficult path which leads to the gardens where the waters of life sparkle, takes us first to a big city in which the hearts of men pulsate with feverish unrest.
There is such a great crowd in the broad square in front of the law courts that the electric cars are forced to stop. Six or eight of them are standing in a row, and the police cannot break through the crowd. Every one is making for the law courts; some hurry forward excitedly, others push their way through quietly, and fresh streams of people from the side streets are continually joining the rest. The public prosecutor is expected every moment to appear on the balcony and announce the verdict to the public.
Every one was indulging in remarks about the prisoner who had wished to do so terrible a deed.
"He is condemned, sure enough!" shouted one man. "The like of him gets to Heaven with a hempen cord!"
"Don't be silly," said another, with lofty superiority. "In half an hour at most he'll pass the gate a free man. Juries don't condemn the like of him."
Many agreed with the first speaker, but more with the last.
"Whoever believes that he'll be let off is a fool!" shouted some one. "Just consider what he did, what he wished to do!"
"He wanted to do a splendid thing!"
Passionate discussion and wagering began. It would have struck a keen observer that good broadcloth expected condemnation, while fustian and rags eagerly desired acquittal. A big man of imposing presence asked in a loud tone, over the heads of the people, if anyone would bet him ten ducats that the wretch would hang.
A starved-looking little fellow declared himself willing to take up the bet. The handsome man turned his head in its silk hat, and when he saw the starved, undersized creature, murmured sleepily, "He! he'll bet ten ducats with me! My dear sir, you'd better go home to your mother and ask her to give you a couple of pennies."
Laughter followed; but it was interrupted. The crowd swayed suddenly, as when a gust of wind passes over the surface of water. A man appeared on the balcony of the law courts. He had a short, dark beard; his head with its high forehead was uncovered. He stepped forward ceremoniously to the railing, and raised his hand to enforce silence. And when the murmur of the crowd died away, he exclaimed in a thin voice, but pronouncing every syllable clearly, "The prisoner, Konrad Ferleitner, is found guilty by a majority of two-thirds of the jury, and in the name of his Majesty the King is condemned to die by hanging."
He stood for a moment after making the announcement, and then went back into the house. A few isolated exclamations came from the crowd.
"To make a martyr of him! Enthusiasm is infectious!"
"An enthusiast! If he's an enthusiast, I'm a rascal!"
"Why not?" replied a shock-headed man with a laugh.
"Move on!" ordered the police, who were now reinforced by the military. The crowd yielded on all sides, and the tram rails were once more free.
A few minutes later a closed carriage was driven along the same road. The glint of a bayonet could be seen through the window. The crowd flocked after the carriage, but it went so swiftly over the paved road that the dust flew up under the horses' hoofs, and at length it vanished in the poplar avenue that led to the prison. Some of the people stopped, panting, and asked each other why they had run so fast. "It won't take place to-day. We shall see in the papers when it's to come off."
"Do you think so? I tell you it's only for specially invited and honoured guests! The times when executions were conducted in public are gone, my dear fellow. The people are kept out of the way."
"Patience, my wise compeer! It'll be a people's holiday when the hangman is hung."
The crowd melted into the ordinary traffic of the street.
A slender, stooping man sat handcuffed between two policemen in the carriage that rolled along the avenue. He breathed so heavily that his shoulders heaved up and down. He wore his black coat today, and white linen appeared at neck and sleeves. His hair was reddish brown, he had brushed it carefully, and cheeks and chin were shaved smoothly. He had felt sure that the day would restore him to liberty, or promise it him at no very distant date. His pale face and sunken cheeks proclaimed him about forty, but he might have been younger. His blue eyes had a far-away, dreamy expression, but they were now full of terror. His face would have been handsome had not the look of terror spoiled it. His fettered hands lay on his knees, which were closely pressed together, his fingers were intertwined, his head sunken so that his chin was driven into his chest: he looked an utterly broken man. He drew in his legs so that the policemen might be more comfortable. One of them glanced at him sideways, and wondered how this gentle creature could have committed such a crime.
They drove alongside the wall of the large building, the gate of which was now opened. In the courtyard the poor sinner was taken out of the carriage and led through a second gate into an inner courtyard where his handcuffs were removed. He was led through vaulted corridors in which here and there small doors with barred windows might be seen. The dark passage had many windings, and was lighted by an occasional lamp. The air was cold and damp. The openings high up in the wall, through which glimmered a pale daylight, became rarer, until at length it was as dark as the tomb. The new arrival was received by the gaoler, a man with bristly grey hair, a prominent forehead, and pronounced features which incessant ill-humour had twisted into a lasting grimace. Who would not be ill-humoured indeed, were he forced to spend a blameless life in a dungeon among thieves and murderers and even—worst of all—among those who had been foolishly led astray? Directly he saw the tottering, shadowy figure of the prisoner come round the pillar, he knew the blow had fallen. Midnight had struck for the poor fellow. Annoyed that such people should let themselves be so stupidly taken by surprise, he had continually snubbed him harshly. To-day he accompanied him to his cell in silence, and when opening it avoided rattling the keys. But he could not help looking through the spy-hole to see what the poor fellow would do. What he saw was the condemned man falling on to the brick floor and lying there motionless. The gaoler was alarmed, and opened the door again. So the man was clever enough to die quickly? That would be a miscarriage! But the culprit moved slightly, and begged to be left alone.
And he was alone, once again in this damp room with the wooden bench, the straw mattress, the water-jug on a table—things which during the long period of probation he had gazed at a hundred times, thinking of nothing but "They must acquit me." Out of the planks that propped up the straw mattress he had put together a kind of table, a work of which the gaoler disapproved, but he had not destroyed it. High up in the wall was a small barred window, through which mercifully came the reflection from an outer opposite wall, now lighted by the sun. The edge of a steep gabled roof and a chimney could be just seen through the window, and in between peeped a three-cornered piece of blue sky. That was the joy of the cell. Konrad did not know that he owed this room to special kindness. The scanty light from above had been a comfort, almost a promise, all the weary weeks: "They will send you a free man out into the sunshine!" By slow degrees that hope was extinguished in his lonely soul. And to-day? The little bit of reflection was a mockery to him. He wanted no more twilight. Daylight was gone for ever—he longed for darkness. Night! night! Night would be so heavy and dark that he would not behold his misery, even inwardly. He could not think; he felt stifled, giddy, as if someone had struck him on the head with a club.
When the gaoler on his rounds peeped through the spy-hole again and saw the man still lying on the floor, he grew angry. He noisily opened the little door. "By Jove, are you still there? Number 19! Do you hear? Is anything the matter?" The last words were spoken almost gently; a stupid fellow might imagine that he was pitied. But that was not the case. As a man sows, he reaps.
The prisoner stood up quickly and looked distractedly about him. When he recognised the gaoler he felt for his hand. He grasped it firmly, and said hoarsely: "I want to ask something. Send me a priest."
"Oh, at last!" grumbled the old man. "These atheists! In the end they crawl to the Cross."
"I'm not an atheist," calmly replied the prisoner.
"No? Well, it's all the same. You shall have a father-confessor."
Konrad had not meant a confessor. To set himself right with God? That might come with time. But what he now most desired was a human being. No one else would come. No one will have anything to do with a ruined man. Each man thanks God that he is not such a one. But the priest must come.
In about half an hour the condemned man started, every sound at the door alarmed him—some one came. A monk quietly entered the cell. He slipped along in sandals. The dull light from the window showed an old man with a long, grey beard and cheerful-looking eyes. His gown of rough cloth was tied round the waist with a white cord, from which a rosary hung. He greeted the prisoner, reaching for his hand: "May I say good evening? I should like to, if I may."
"I sent for you, Father. I don't know if you are aware how things are with me," said Konrad.
"Yes, I know, I know. But the Lord is nearer to you to-day than He was yesterday," replied the monk.
"I have many things to say," said Konrad, hesitatingly. "But I don't want to confess. I want a man to talk to."
"You want to ease your heart, my poor friend," said the monk.
"You come to me because it's your duty," returned Konrad. "It's not pleasant. You have to comfort us, and don't know how to do it. There's nothing left for me."
"Don't speak like that," said the Father. "If I understand rightly, you have not summoned me as a confessor. Only as a man, isn't that it? And I come willingly as such. I can't convert you. You must convert yourself. Imagine me to be a brother whom you haven't seen for a long time. And now he comes and finds you here, and wellnigh weeping asks you how such a thing could have happened."
The prisoner sat down on the bench, folded his hands, and bent his head and murmured; "I had a brother. If he had lived I should not be here. He was older than I."
"Have you no other relatives?" asked the monk.
"My parents died before I was twelve years old. Quickly, one after the other. My father could not survive my mother. My mother—a poor, good woman; always cheerful, pious. In the village just outside. No one could have had a happier childhood. Ah! forgive me——" His words seemed to stick in his throat.
"Compose yourself!" counselled the priest. "Keep your childhood in your memory! It is a light in such days."
"It is over," said Konrad, controlling his sobs. "Father, that memory does not comfort me; it accuses me more heavily. How can such misfortune come from such blessing? If only I dared kneel now before my God—and thank Him that she did not live to see this day."
"Well, well!" said the Father. "Other mothers had different experiences with other sons."
"I would sacrifice everything too for the sake of our dear Lady," muttered Konrad.
"That's right," returned the Father. "Now tell me more. Quite young, then, you lived among strangers, eh?"
He uttered confusedly: "After the deaths of my father and mother I was apprenticed. To a joiner. That was a splendid time. Only I read a great deal too much to please the master—all sorts of things, and dreamed about them. And I didn't wish to do anything wrong, at least so I imagined. The master called me a stupid visionary, and gave me the sack. Then came a period of wandering—Munich, Cologne, Hamburg. I was two years with a master at Cologne. If only I had stayed with him! He didn't want to let me go—and there was a daughter. Then to Hamburg. That was bad luck. I was introduced into a Society for the protection of the people against traitors. To be a saviour, to risk one's life! It came to me very slowly, quite gradually, what was the misery of living under such tyranny. When a boy I once killed a dog that bit some poor people's children in the street. A dog belonging to gentlefolk! I was whipped, but it scarcely hurt—there was always in my mind; 'You freed them from the beast!' And I felt just the same about the Society. I can't tell you what went on in me. I'm all bewildered. Everything was laid bare at the trial, the whole horrible story. Only I said yes with hundreds of others, I said it and thought: it won't come to me. And it did come to me, as if our Lord had not wished it otherwise. To me, the lot fell to me, when we drew."
"I know the story, my poor fellow," said the monk.
"I don't," retorted Konrad. "From the moment they took the revolver out of my hand everything has been dark. I have known nothing. I only heard to-day that he lives. And they told me——"
"What did they tell you?"
"That I must die." Then violently addressing the priest: "It was a misfortune. Is it really so great a crime? Tell me."
"I don't think I need tell you that."
"Very well, then. So it serves me right. I desired to do the deed, and they say that's the same as the accomplishment of it. Quite correct. Isn't it 'A life for a life'? It is written so in the Bible. Just that, no more. They must take mine. But—they must do it unexpectedly, suddenly. Just as I meant to do to him. Otherwise it won't be fair. Tell me, holy Father, is it cowardly to be so terrified? I am so terrified—of what is before me. There's nothing about this terror of death in the Scriptures. Those who settled my fate to-day looked like men. Then they ought to know that they are executing me a thousand times, not once. Why do I still live, I who was slain three hours ago! Quick! From behind! If only they were so merciful! One of them said to-day it was my duty to die. My God! I think I have the right to die, and they're the criminals! They haven't secured me my rights at once! It would have been over by now. O God, my God, if only it were over!"
So he raged on, wringing his hands, groaning under the torture. Suddenly his face became deathly white and his features stiffened as if his heart had ceased beating.
"Poor fellow," said the priest, putting his arm round his neck and drawing his head down on his breast. "You mustn't talk like that. Think, if we've been sinners all our lives, oughtn't we to spend a few days in repenting? Tell me, brother, don't you desire the consolations of religion?"
"Indeed I do," stammered the poor sinner. "And so I asked——"
"You see, I am ready."
"And I also want the Gospels, if I may be allowed the book."
The monk looked at him, then demanded quietly:
"You want the New Testament?"
"I should like to read in it. My mother had one and used to read it aloud and explain it. It would give me a home-like feeling if I could read in it now."
The Father replied: "I'll tell you something, my dear friend. The Gospel is a very good book, not in vain is it called the glad tidings."
"My God! yes; what do I need more sorely now than glad tidings?" agreed Konrad.
"Of course. But the book's not an easy one. Out of ten readers there's hardly one who understands it. And even he doesn't really understand it. It's too profound, I might say, too divine a book; as they say, seven times sealed. Therefore it must be explained by experts. I will willingly go through certain parts of it with you occasionally, but I shall give you something else for your edification, from which you will derive comfort and peace."
Konrad covered his face with his hands, and said, almost inaudibly: "The Gospel is what I should have liked best."
And then the monk said gravely: "My friend, you are the sick man and I am the physician. And the physician knows best what will do the sick man good. You should also prepare yourself for taking the Sacrament."
As the poor sinner said no more, the priest spoke a few kind words and left him. An hour later the gaoler brought him a parcel of books. "The holy brother sends them so that you can amuse yourself a little."
Amusement! It was a cruel joke. Konrad gave a shrill laugh. It was the laugh of a despairing man who cannot shut out the vision of his last journey, which became more hideous every moment. What did the Father send? Simple prayer-books and religious manuals. Book-markers were placed to show the passages that applied especially to the penitent and the dying man, and also prayers for poor souls in purgatory. The soul physician, all unacquainted with souls, sent the inconsolable man new anguish of death instead of life. Konrad searched for the bread he needed, turned over the leaves of the books, began to read here and there, but always put them down sadly. The more eagerly did he exercise his memory in order to recall the pictures of his childhood. His mother, who had been dead many years, stood before him in order to help her unhappy child. Her figure, her words, her songs, her sacred stories from the Saviour's life on earth—brought peace to his soul. It suddenly came upon him; "God has not forgotten me." Just as before he had raged in despair, so now beautiful shadows out of the past appeared before him, and tears of redemption flowed from his eyes.
He did not have an hour's sleep the night of his condemnation. He prayed, he dreamed, and then the horrid terror, which made him shiver in all his limbs, came again. He kept looking towards the window to see if daylight was beginning. Early in the morning, just at the first dawn—so he had often heard—the warders come. The window showed only darkness. But look, in the little three-cornered bit of sky, there is a star. He had not seen it on other nights. It sailed up to the crack in the roof and shone down through the window in kindly fashion. His eye was riveted on the spark of light until it vanished behind the walls. When at length day dawned, and the key rattled in the door, Konrad's hands and feet began to tremble. It was the gaoler, who brought him a bundle of coarse cotton clothing.
When Konrad asked in a dull voice if it was his gallows dress, the old man answered roughly: "What are you chattering about? Put on your house clothes."
The convict went up to the gaoler, clasped his hands, and said: "Only one thing, if I knew—when, when? This suspense is unbearable!"
"Eh! how impatient we are!" mocked the old man. "My dear fellow, we don't do things so quickly. The decision was only made yesterday. Why, they haven't yet settled about the banquet."
"The banquet!"
"The bill of fare—don't you understand? No orders have come yet. You're safe for twenty-four hours. But if there's anything you'd like to eat—I'll make an exception for once. And now, get on with your toilet! You can will away your own things as you please," he pointed to his clothes. "Have you anyone? No? Well, I know some poor people. But get on, get on. The hot season is coming on, and cotton isn't bad wear then."
The rough gaoler's good-humoured chatter was particularly distasteful to the poor man. To be snubbed and railed at would have pointed to a long life to come, one not to be measured by hours. Did he know? And was he silent out of pity? or was it malice? Before, the old man had been easily moved to anger, and when heated would swing his arms up and down and plainly threaten to have the obstinate convict sent off. Now there was no more grim humour nor raging round. He looked at the poor sinner, sunk in deep gloom, with a sad calmness. "Poor devil!" Suddenly it was too much for him, and he broke out violently: "But come now! You must have known it. Be sensible; I can't stand this misery. Dying is not easy, of course; you should be glad that there's someone by to help. And then—who knows whether you won't live after all. Do be sensible!"
When at last deep silence again gathered round him, the prisoner tried his books afresh. The Father had provided for a varied taste. The "Devotion to the Holy Rosary," the "Prayers to the Virgin's Heart," "Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell," the "Life of St. Theresa," "The Seven Bolts of Heaven," and "Prayers of Intercession for Souls in Distress." What a wealth of edification! The joiner's apprentice had always loved books. He had once reckoned out as a joke that three asses could not carry the books which he had read since his childhood. They had afforded him a glimpse of all times and places, and of all provinces of human life. Now he asked himself what it had all brought him. Confusion, perplexity, nothing besides. He had thought about everything, but he could not be clear about anything. That was not generally possible, he had read in one of the books, and the statement pacified him. He had read all kinds of theological books, had easily and trustfully given himself up to the echo of words heard in childhood, but it had not gone deeper. Now that they ought to prove their worth, they left him in the lurch. He turned over the pages, he read and prayed and sought, and found nothing to relieve his need. Discouraged, he pushed the books away from him, and some of them fell over the edge of the table on to the brick floor.
In the night that followed Konrad had a dream, vivid and clear as never dream had been. It was a dark country, and he had lost his way. He wandered about amid cold, damp rocks, and could not find a path. Then his fingers felt a thread; he seized it, and it guided him through the darkness. The land grew brighter and brighter; the thread brought him into his sunny native valley, to the place with the old gabled houses, to his father's house which stood amidst the fruit-trees, and the thread to which his fingers still clung involuntarily led him into the room where it had been spun from his mother's distaff. And there she sat and span the thread, with her pale face and soft wrinkles and kind eyes, and directly the boy stood near her she told him tales of the Saviour. He listened to her and was a happy child. That was his dream. And when he awoke in the prison cell, his mother's gentle voice still sounded in his ears: "My child, you must cling to Jesus."
Konrad was taken every day for half an hour into the dirty and sunless courtyard. But he dreaded that half-hour. It stirred a vain longing for light. And the rough and insolent fellow-prisoners with whom he was brought in contact! He preferred to be alone in his quiet cell.
During his imprisonment he had often asked for work, but was always informed that nothing of the sort had been provided for by the authorities. Besides—work was an honourable thing, and it must first be proved that he was worthy of it. But now it was not a time for work, rather a time for preparation. What could he do in order to get through these days? Or what could he do in order to keep the days from flying so quickly? Look how a flash of lightning seems sometimes to pass over the floor. Then it is gone again. High up in the opposite wall, on which the sun sometimes shone, was a casement window, and its glass doors, swayed by the breeze, were reflected in the prison. Konrad was terrified by these sparks from heaven; he would grope on the ground as if for a gold piece that had rolled away.
Then came visitors, unexpected, alarming visitors! The judge's stiff figure and serious face appeared in company with the gaoler.
Konrad felt stunned, and could only think: "The hour has come!" The man had pronounced his sentence as coldly and unfeelingly as if he had been a machine which, when its keys are pressed, gives forth sounds like words. The judge ordered the gaoler to withdraw. The old man hesitated—what could that mean? The judge had to repeat his order before the old man would go. When the judge was alone with the prisoner, he bent down and felt with his hands, for he was not yet accustomed to the darkness. Then he said kindly: "Konrad Ferleitner, I have come to ask you if there's anything you wish for?"
The prisoner wrung his hands convulsively; wild pulsations, that beat in strong double strokes at irregular intervals, coursed through his body. So violent was his agitation that the poor wretch stuttered forth words that the judge could not understand.
"Compose yourself!"
When he caught the words "Father-confessor!" amid the sounds uttered by the prisoner, it occurred to the judge that the poor fellow imagined that the hour of execution had arrived. "Ferleitner," he said, "come and sit by me on the bench. You think it's the end—no, it hasn't come so far yet, and perhaps it won't come so far at all. I may tell you that a petition for mercy has been sent to His Majesty."
Konrad looked up as if in a dream, and the dim light showed how terribly pale and sunken his cheeks were. "Mercy!" he muttered in suppressed tones. "Mercy for me? Then—why did you condemn me?"
The question appeared to puzzle the judge. The delinquent seemed in all seriousness to think himself innocent. "You were there yourself, Ferleitner, and heard how the jury decided after listening to the witnesses. After that the judge must condemn; he has no choice."
"For mercy? The king?" asked Konrad, who, more bewildered than consoled, had sat down on the bench, for his legs would scarcely support him.
"The advocate ventured it," replied the judge. "Your whole bearing proves that you were inveigled into the business. We want nothing further. You see, Ferleitner, that evil cannot be eradicated from the world with evil. To fight evil with evil only increases its power. But a large heart can pardon such a deed or purpose. Let us hope meanwhile that our king possesses one. The Chancellor is getting better. Here, just look—sign the paper." He pulled out a folded sheet, then an inkpot and a pen. Konrad bent over the table and groaned while signing his name.
"Ah," he said, "if only I could be free again! I should never think of such things again. The world could go on as it pleased. I should do my work, and not trouble about anything else. Only," and he said it softly, uncertainly, "only I shall not forget God again."
"There is naturally only a moderate chance," said the judge. "In some cases, where it is concerned with the whole——"
"It is very uncertain, then?" asked Konrad. "But, my God! how is it to be borne? If this time is lengthened, how is it to be borne? This terrible suspense!"
"It can be a time of hope," said the judge.
"But how long will it last?" asked Konrad.
The judge shrugged his shoulders. "It may last three weeks, but it might last double that time."
Konrad asked confidingly: "Do you think, sir, that a man can hold out?—with the terror of death lasting for weeks?"
"Haven't you just a little confidence?" asked the judge. "Haven't we all to endure uncertainty?—the judge as well as the condemned man?"
"But what am I to do?" demanded Konrad. "How am I to employ myself all the dreadful time? It's being buried alive."
"Unhappily it's not in my power to give you a better room, though you haven't the worst cell in the building. But perhaps you have some other desire that can be granted. Speak out frankly, Ferleitner," said the judge.
Therewith he folded the paper, and put the writing materials into his coat pocket. Konrad followed his proceedings with his eyes. He could not comprehend how this dread personage came to speak to him in so kindly a fashion. "As to the room," he said, "it's all I need—when you've nothing to do, and are not likely to have anything to do, what can a man want? If a man isn't free, nothing else matters. But one thing—I have one request, sir."
"Then speak it," said the judge, and holding Konrad's hand firmly in his, broke out with: "Don't you see, it's cruel to think, to believe, that we must be the personal enemies of all whom we're obliged to condemn. You think the proceedings in court were so callous, you've no idea how we actually feel about the business. It is not only the accused who passes sleepless nights—the judge, too, knows them. We lawyers—outside our profession—have founded an association to support and encourage those we are obliged to pronounce guilty, that they may not sink down uncomforted. So, my dear Ferleitner, you may trust me that, as far as I can, I will alleviate your position."
Then Konrad, looking down on the floor, said: "I should like to have writing materials."
"You want to write?" asked the Judge.
"If I might ask for paper, pens, and ink," returned Konrad. "In former years I used to like writing down my thoughts—just as they came, I had little education."
"You wish to write to your friends?" inquired the judge.
"Oh no! If I had any, they'd be glad not to hear from me," said Konrad.
"Or to draw up a plea of justification?"
"No."
"Or an account of your life?"
"No, not that either. My life has not been good enough. Misfortune should be forgotten rather than recorded. No, I think I can write something else," stated Konrad.
"You shall have writing materials," said the judge. "And is there anything else? A more comfortable bed?"
"No, thank you. It's right enough as it is. If a hard bed was the only thing——"
"And is everything kept properly neat and clean?" interrupted the judge.
"If you're always waiting and thinking, 'Now, now, they're coming!' I tell you, sir, you don't sleep well," replied Konrad.
"Don't keep worrying yourself with ideas, Ferleitner," said the judge warningly to the man, who had again worked himself up into a state of excitement. "Not one of us knows what the next hour may bring, and yet we live on calmly. Use the time," he continued playfully, "in avenging your condemnation by some great literary work. In olden times great minds often did it."
"I can't write a great work," answered Konrad. "And I've nothing to avenge. I deserve death. But it's this waiting for it. The torments of hell cannot be worse."
"We've nothing to do with hell. We've merely to think of the purgatory in which we are placed. Let heaven, as they say, follow. Haven't you any business to arrange? Nothing to settle for anyone?" asked the judge.
"No one, no one!" Konrad assured him.
"That's a piece of luck that many of your comrades in misfortune would envy you. A man can settle things easily for himself alone. If it's any consolation, Ferleitner, I may tell you that we don't regard you as a scoundrel, only as a poor creature who has been led astray. Now that's enough for the present. Your modest request shall be granted at once."
After this remarkable conversation with the poor sinner, the judge left the cell. He was not satisfied. Had he not listened enough, or had he spoken too much? How could so childlike a creature take an oath to commit murder? In the corridor he spoke seriously to the gaoler.
"I must point out to you that the man is very ill. Don't treat him harshly."
The old man was annoyed.
"I beg your pardon, sir! To treat a poor devil like that harshly! If you pity him, why were you so rough with him?" He rubbed a lamp-glass with a coarse rag in order to get the black off. "'To die by hanging.' Even said as gently as that, it hurts more than when we roundly abuse the people, and yet that's at once taken amiss. Only to prove it. Ill! Of course he's ill, poor devil. I am only surprised the doctors haven't been to cure him. I suppose he's well enough to be hanged?"
"That will do, Trapser."
The gaoler put down his work, stood up straight in military fashion, and said: "Sir, I beg to resign my post."
"What!" exclaimed the judge, "you wish to go?"
"I respectfully hand in my resignation." He stood up straight as a dart. "Do you know, I've got accustomed to most things here in six-and-twenty years, I've seen seventeen hanged—just seventeen, sir. There ought to have been twenty-four, but seven were granted imprisonment for life. They're still undergoing that mercy. Do you know, sir, it's a miserable calling! But as to that Ferleitner, I never afore saw anything like him. What has he done, I ask you? He's done nothing. You see we've had quite different gallows-birds here. A speculator who had ruined six families and driven the seventh to suicide—eight months. A student with two duel murders on his conscience—six months. But he is there now—because he's done nothing, it seems to me. Well, the long and the short of it is, it horrifies me."
"Always the same in temper and disposition, you old bear! God keep you!" And then a kindly tap on the shoulder. The attempt at resignation was again met with a refusal. The judge formally put it aside. But the old man growled on for a long time. "Old bear! old bear! That's his whole stock of wit every time, I'll show him the old bear. Good God! that's how things are with us!" He whistled and made a harsh noise with his bunch of keys so that the prisoners could make their preparations before he performed his duty of looking through the spyhole to see how his charges were spending their time. Then he went and procured a big bottle of ink and a packet of foolscap paper for Number 19.
"Is that enough?" he asked.
"Thank you, thank you!" said Ferleitner; "only now I want a pen."
"Oh no, my dear sir, no. We know that sort of thing. Since the notary in Number 43 stabbed himself with a steel pen five years ago, I don't give any more," said the gaoler.
"But I can't write without a pen," returned Konrad.
"That's not my business; I can't let you have a pen," the old man assured him.
"The judge gave me permission to have one," Konrad remonstrated modestly.
Then the old man exclaimed afresh: "Do you know this judge, he just comes up as far as this," and he placed his hand on a level with his chin. "He crumbles everything up and then we're to spoon it out." Then he muttered indistinctly in his beard; "I say just this, if they let a man hang for a week before they hang him, it's a—a—good God! I can't properly—I can't find any more fine words! If a man puts a knife into himself, no wonder!"
"I shan't kill myself," said Konrad quietly. "They say I may put my hopes in the king."
"And you want to write to him? That won't help much, but you can do it if you like; there's time. For once it's a good thing that our officials are so slow. If it's any comfort to you, you may know that they wrong me, too. They won't accept my resignation. Yes, that's how it is with us," concluded the old man.
Then he went and brought a pot with rusty steel pens. "But don't you spoil them!" For they were the very pens with which death-warrants had been signed—the old man had a collection of such things and hoped to sell it to a rich Englishman. "Does your honour require anything else?" With those mocking words he left the cell and raged and cursed all along the corridor. The prisoners thought he was cursing them.
The judge, his hands behind his back, walked up and down his large study. What a cursed critical case! If the Chancellor had not been given up by the doctors on the day of the trial, the sentence would have been different. The petition for mercy! Would it have any result except that of prolonging the poor man's torture? Whether in the end it would not have been better——? Everything would have been over then. An old official came out of the adjoining room and laid a bundle of papers on the table.
"One moment. Has the petition for mercy been sent to His Majesty?"
"It has, sir."
"What's your opinion?" asked the judge.
The counsellor raised his shoulders and let them fall again.
Konrad cowered down and stared at the table.
On it lay everything—paper, ink, pens. What should he write? He might describe his sadness, but how did a man begin to do that? He lifted up his face as if searching for something. His glance fell through the window on to the wall, the upper part of which was lighted by the evening sun. The mountain tops glowed like that. Ah, world, beautiful world! Still three weeks. Or double that time. Then—the very beating of his heart hurt him; his temple throbbed as though struck by a hammer. For he always thought of the one thing—and it suddenly flashed into his mind—there were other executioners! His supper was there—a tin can with rice soup and a piece of bread. He swallowed it mechanically to the last crumb. Then came night, and the star was again visible in the scrap of sky between the roof and the chimney. Konrad gazed at it reverently for the few minutes until it vanished. Then the long, dark, miserable night. And this was called living! And it was for such life that you petitioned the king. But if a king grants mercy, then the sun shines. The kindness shown him by the judge had strengthened him a little, but the last of his surging thoughts was always, "Hopeless!"
The next night Konrad had another visitor—his mother, in her Sunday gown, just as she used to go to communion. And there was some one with her. She went up to her son's bed, and said: "Konrad, I bring you a kind friend."
When he felt for her hand, she was no longer there, but in the middle of the dim cell stood the Lord Jesus. His white garment hung down to the ground, His long hair lay over His shoulders. His shining face was turned towards Konrad.
When the poor sinner woke in the morning his heart was full of wonder. The night had brought healing. He jumped blithely out of bed. "My Saviour, I will never more leave you."
Something of which he had hardly been conscious suddenly became clear to him. He would take refuge in the Saviour. He would sink himself in Jesus, in whom everything was united that had formed and must form his happiness—his mother, his innocent childhood, his joy in God, his repose and hope, his immortal life. Now he knew, he would rely on his Saviour. He would write a book about Jesus. Not a proper literary work; he could not do that, he had no talent for it. But he would represent the Lord as He lived, he would inweave his whole soul with the being of his Saviour so that he might have a friend in the cell. Then perhaps his terrors would vanish. In former days it had pleased him, so to speak, to write away an anxiety from his heart, not in letters to others, but only for himself. Many things which were not clear to him, which he found incomprehensible—with pen in hand he succeeded in making clearer to his inward eye, so that vague pictures almost assumed corporeal shape. He had in that fashion created many comrades and many companions during his wanderings in strange lands when he was afraid. So now in his forlorn and deserted condition he would try to invite the Saviour into the poor sinner's cell. No outward help was to be hoped, he must evoke it all out of himself. He would venture to implore the Lord Jesus until He came, using his childish memories, the remains of his school learning, the fragments of his reading, and, above all, his mother's Bible stories.
And now the condemned man began to write a book in so far as it was possible to him. At first his dreams and thoughts and figures were disconnected through timidity, and the painful excitement which often made his pulses gallop and his heart stop beating. Then he cowered in the corner, and wept and groaned and struggled in vain with the desire for mortal life. When he succeeded in collecting his thoughts again, and he took up his pen afresh, he gradually regained calm, and each time it lasted longer. And it happened that he often wrote for hours at a stretch, that his cheeks began to glow and his eyes to shine—for he wandered with Jesus in Galilee. Suddenly he would awake from his visions and find himself in his prison cell, and sadness overcame him, but it was no longer a falling into the pit of hell; he was strong enough to save himself on his island of the blessed. And so he wrote and wrote. He did not ask if it was the Saviour of the books. It was his Saviour as he lived in him, the only Saviour who could redeem him. And so there was accomplished in this poor sinner on a small scale what was accomplished among the nations on a large scale; if it was not always the historical Jesus as Saviour, it was the Saviour in whom men believed become historical, since he affected the world's history through the hearts of men. He whom the books present may not be for all men; He who lives in men's hearts is for all. That is the secret of the Saviour's undying power: He is for each man just what that man needs. We read in the Gospels that Jesus appeared at different times and to different men in different forms. That should be a warning to us to let every man have his own Jesus. As long as it is the Jesus of love and trust, it is the right Jesus.
It often happened that during the prisoner's composition and writing, a wider, softer light from the window spread through the cell, flickered over the wall, the floor, the table, and then rested for a space on the white paper. And so light even entered the lonely room, but unspeakably more light entered the writer's heart.
The gaoler saw little of the writing. Directly he rattled his keys, it was hidden under the sheet—just as children hide their treasures from intrusive eyes. When five or six weeks had gone by, hundreds of written sheets lay there.
Konrad placed them in a cover and wrote on it
I.N.R.I.
When darkness covers the world men look gladly towards the east. There light dawns. All lights come from out of the east. And the races of men are said to have come hither from that quarter. There is an ancient book, in which is written the beginning of things and of men. The book came from the nation of the Jews, and the old Jews were called the people of God, for they recognised only one eternal God. And great men and holy prophets arose in that nation. The greatest of them was named Moses, and it is written that he it was who brought down to men the Ten Commandments. But the Jews fell on evil times, they sank lower and lower and were heavily oppressed by stronger nations. Like us, they suffered poverty and curses and despair, and this lasted for a thousand years and more. Prophets appeared from time to time, and with words of mercy announced that a Saviour would come to lead the Jews into the kingdom of glory. For that Saviour they waited many hundreds of years. Oftentimes one would appear whom they took for Him, but they were deceived. And when at last the real Saviour, the real, mighty Saviour appeared, they did not recognise Him. For He was different from what they had imagined.
Shall I try to tell how it happened, just as my mother used to tell me, her little boy, the story on winter evenings? Shall I recite it to myself like one who desires to wake himself at midnight before the Lord comes? Shall I, who am without learning, search in my poor confused head for the fragments that have remained in it? So much has been lost in the wear and tear of the world, and yet since it has grown so dark with me something flashes out, and shines forth on high, like some starry crown in the night! Shall I invoke the holy figures that they may stand by me through the anguish of my last days, that they may surround me with their glad eternal light, and let no spirit of despair come near me?—The path between the walls of this cruel fortress is narrow, and through it only a feeble light penetrates to me.
As God wills. I am grateful for and content with the pale reflection of the sky that comes to me from the holy east through the cracks in the wall. Oh, God, my Father, let glad tidings come to me from distant lands and far-off times, so that my simple heart can hold and understand them. I am thirsty for God's truth, and whatever shall strengthen, comfort, and save me, will be for me God's truth. Oh, thou pale light! Art thou my mother's heritage and blessing? Oh, my mother! From out the eternal dwelling speak to thy unhappy son—oh, speak!
Did I not always see you in the woman who, during the cold winter season, was compelled to go across the mountains far from home? And so I will begin.
At that time the land of the Jews was under the dominion of the Romans. The Roman Emperor wished to know how many Jews there were, and commanded that an enrolment of the people should be made in Judaea. All the Jews were to go to the place of their birth, and there report themselves to the Imperial officer. In the little town of Nazareth, in Galilee—a mountainous district of Judaea—there lived a carpenter. He was an elderly man, and had married a young wife of whom a folk-song still sings—
"As beautifully white as milk,
As marvellously soft as silk;
A woman very fair to see,
Yet full of deep humility."