by Erckmann-Chatrian [Émile Erckmann & Alexandre Chatrian].
Originally published in Strange Stories (Contes Fantastiques). (D. Appleton & Co.; 1880).
I.
Opposite Saint Sebalt Chapel, in Nuremberg, at the corner of Trabaus Street, there is a little tavern; it is narrow and high, the windows—if now as then—are covered with a heavy coat of dust, and the sharp gable-end is surmounted by the Virgin in plaster. It was there that I passed the most joyless days of my life.
I had gone to Nuremberg to study the German masters; but, being poorly supplied with money, I was compelled to paint portraits—and what portraits! Fat old women with their cats on their laps, big-wigged aldermen, portly burgomasters in their three-cornered hats, the whole illuminated with ochre and vermilion by the handful.
From portraits I descended to sketches, and from sketches to silhouettes.
Nothing makes life a greater burden than to have your landlord, with his weazen face, his shrill voice, and impudent air, come to you every day and assail your sensibilities with, "Well, sir, well! Am I ever to see the color of your money again? Do you know how much your little bill amounts to now? No idea, probably—don't want to have! My fine gentleman eats, drinks, and sleeps calmly as if all the world were his own. Your bill amounts to two hundred florins, sir. A mere bagatelle, I know, sir; but I could make good use of it just now, if I had it."
He who has not been forced to listen to the chanting of a gamut of this construction can have no idea of its effect on the human mind. Love of art, imagination, enthusiasm for the beautiful, everything poetic and ennobling in the realms of thought, is scattered to the winds by a harangue of the sort. You become awkward, timid, limp; you lose all your feeling of personal dignity, and seek to escape the gaze of your fellows.
One night, being, as was often the case, without a kreutzer and menaced with imprisonment by the worthy Rap, I resolved to bankrupt him by cutting my throat. While I sat opposite the window occupied with this agreeable thought, my mind wandered off into innumerable philosophic reflections, more or less edifying.
"What is man?" I asked myself. "An omnivorous animal; his jaws, provided with canines, incisors, and molars, sufficiently prove it. The canines are made to tear, the incisors to cut, and the molars to crush such animal and vegetable substances as constitute his food. But when he has nothing to masticate, the creature man is a veritable superplenitude in nature, a fifth wheel to the coach."
Such were my reflections. I did not dare to touch my razor for fear that the force of my logic would inspire me with the courage to make an end of it. After having argued for some time in this manner, I blew out my candle and postponed the continuation till the next day.
This abominable Rap had completely brutalized me. In my art nothing but silhouettes; and yet my uppermost desire was to have the money necessary to rid myself of his odious importunities. But that night a singular change came over my mental condition. I awoke about one o'clock, lighted my lamp, and, enveloping myself in my well-worn dressing-gown, I rapidly threw upon paper a sketch à la flamande—something strange and weird, that was totally unlike my ordinary conceptions.
Imagine a somber court-yard, inclosed by high, dilapidated walls, which are provided with hooks seven or eight feet from the ground. One readily sees that it represents a butcher's yard.
At the left there is a sort of lattice partition, through which you see the carcass of an ox suspended by pulleys on a heavy framework. Sluggish streams of blood flow over the flagstones toward a gutter already well filled with all sorts of débris.
At the farther side of the inclosure there is a shed; under the shed a pile of wood; on the wood a ladder, a few bundles of straw, some coils of rope, a chicken-coop, and an old, unused rabbit-cage.
How came these details to present themselves to my imagination? I know not. I had no analogous reminiscence, and nevertheless every stroke of the pencil had the appearance of contributing its share toward the representing of a reality. Nothing was wanting to give the sketch the semblance of truth.
But at the right there was a corner that remained unfilled. I was at a loss to know what to put there. At that point it seemed to me that something moved. All at once I saw a foot, or rather the sole of a foot. Despite this improbable position, I followed the inspiration without pausing to consider. This foot was attached to a leg, and on the leg, the muscles of which seemed to be vigorously contracted, there soon floated the tattered skirt of a dress. In short, an old woman, wan and disheveled, appeared, stretched out beside an old well, struggling to free herself from the grasp of a hand that held fast to her throat.
It was a murder scene that I was sketching! Horror-stricken, I let the pencil fall from my hand.
The woman, in this perilous situation, her features distorted with terror, her hands grasping the arm of the murderer, made me tremble with fear. I could not look at her. But the man—he to whom the arm belonged—I could not see him. It was impossible for me to finish the sketch.
"I am tired," said I to myself, my forehead dripping with perspiration; "I have only this figure to finish—I will do it to-morrow. Then it will be easy enough."
With this I returned to bed. In a little while I was sound asleep.
The next morning I arose at an unusually early hour. I had barely got ready to resume work on my nocturnal sketch when there came a gentle rap at my door.
"Come in."
The door opened. An elderly man, tall and lean, and neatly dressed in black, appeared on my threshold. His mien, with his small, deep-set eyes, and his big, hooked nose, surmounted by a high, bony forehead, was dignified and stern. He saluted me with ceremonious gravity.
"M. Christian Venius, the painter?" said he.
"At your service, sir."
He bowed again, saying:
"The Baron Frederick von Spreckdal."
The appearance of the rich dilettante Von Spreckdal, judge of the criminal court, in my garret, very nearly robbed me of my sell-possession. I involuntarily cast a furtive glance at my old worm-eaten furniture, my torn wall-paper, and soiled floor. I felt humiliated by the dilapidated condition of the surroundings in which my distinguished visitor found me; but the Baron seemed to take no notice of these details. He seated himself before my table, and resumed.
"Master Venius," said he, "I come—"
But at this moment his eyes fell upon the unfinished sketch; he stopped in the middle of the sentence. I was seated on the side of my bed. The sudden attention this august personage gave to one of my productions made my heart beat with an indefinable apprehension.
He looked at it intently for a minute or two; then turning toward me, he asked, in a very earnest tone:
"Are you the author of this sketch, sir?"
"I am."
"The price of it?"
"I never sell my sketches. It is the first step toward a painting."
"Ah!" said he, as he picked up the paper with the ends of his long yellow fingers.
He took a lens out of his waistcoat pocket, and set to studying the sketch in detail.
The sun at this hour shone obliquely into my garret. Von Spreckdal was silent. The aquilinity of his big, thin nose seemed to me to have suddenly, increased; his heavy brows contracted, and his long, pointed chin had taken a turn upward, making a thousand little wrinkles in his thin, colorless cheeks. The silence was so profound that I could distinctly hear the buzzing of an unfortunate fly that struggled to escape from the toils of a spider's web.
"The dimensions of the picture you propose to paint, Master Venius?" said he, without looking up.
"Three feet by four."
"The price?"
"Fifty ducats."
The Baron von Spreckdal laid the sketch down on the table, and drew from his pocket a long green-silk purse.
"Fifty ducats," said he, slipping the rings of his purse—"fifty ducats! There they are."
I could hardly believe my eyes.
The Baron rose, bade me good morning, and descended the stairs, making his heavy ivory-headed cane heard on each step as he went down. Then, recovering from my stupor, it occurred to me that I had not thanked him, whereupon I plunged down my five flights almost as fast as gravitation would take me; but, arrived at the lower door, I looked for my generous patron in vain. He was nowhere to be seen.
"Humph!" said I to myself; "this is very strange!" And I hastened back to my garret.
II.
The unexpected visit from the munificent Von Spreckdal quite bewildered me—I was ecstatic. "Yesterday," said I to myself, as I contemplated the pile of ducats shining in the sun—" Yesterday I sinfully considered the advisability of cutting my throat, and all for the want of a few miserable florins. How fortunate that I did not open my razor I If ever I am again tempted to end this existence, I will profit by experience and put it off till the morrow."
After making these wholesome reflections, I sat down to finish my sketch. A few strokes of the pencil was all it required. But these few strokes I found it impossible to make: I had lost the thread of my inspiration. Cudgel my brain as I would, I could get nothing from it that harmonized any better with the rest of the sketch than a figure of Raphael would with the frequenters of one of Teniers's pot-houses.
While I was thus absorbed, I was suddenly interrupted by Rap, who, as he was in the habit of doing, entered my room without rapping. As his astonished eyes fell upon my pile of ducats, he cried out in a tone that enraged me beyond all control:
"So, so, Mr. Painter, I catch you, do I? Perhaps you'll tell me now you have no money!"
As he spoke he came forward with his fingers crooked, as though about to seize something, and with a certain nervous agitation that the sight of gold so often produces in the avaricious.
For a moment I was stupefied; but the recollection of the indignities I had been compelled to submit to from the fellow, his greedy look, and his insulting smile were more than sufficient to arouse me. I sprang toward him, seized him by the shoulders, and, quick as thought, put him out of the room, slamming the door in his vulgar face.
But no sooner was he outside the room than the old curmudgeon began to cry out, at the top of his voice:
"My money! pay me my money, you thief! Give me my money!"
My neighbors came out of their rooms, and added to the confusion by shouting out: "What's the matter? Who's a thief? What's all this?"
Before the worthy Rap could satisfy any of these inquiries, I flung my door open, and by a well-directed kick sent him heels over head down the first flight of stairs.
"That's what's the matter!" I cried, and returned to my den, bolting the door securely, while my neighbors made the house resound with loud peals of laughter.
I was well satisfied with myself; I felt truly triumphant. The episode had put new life into me. I returned to my sketch, and had just finished it quite to my satisfaction, when my attention was arrested by an unusual noise. It reminded me of the striking of the butts of muskets on the pavement. I looked out of the window, and saw three gendarmes in full uniform, leaning on their carbines and standing directly before the street-door.
"The devil!" said I to myself, not a little terrified; "have I, perhaps, broken some of the fellow's bones?"
And now see the inconsistency of the human mind: I, who yesterday cared not a button—as I thought—whether I lived or not, to-day trembled in every nerve at the thought that I had, perchance, killed my landlord, and should be hanged for it.
The stairway became the scene of confused and ominous sounds—the steps of feet incased in heavy boots, the clanking of arms, and tones of voices which at that moment struck me as being of bass the basest.
Suddenly some one tried my door. It was fastened, which seemed to give rise to a general clamor. But soon a voice was heard above the others; it cried out:
"Open, in the name of the law!"
I arose, to find that my knees had suddenly become very weak.
"Open the door!" the voice repeated.
It occurred to me that I might escape over the roof; but I had hardly thrust my head out of the window when I was seized with a sort of vertigo, and quickly withdrew it. I had taken in at a glance the windows below me, with their shining panes, their flower-pots, their bird-cages, and their gratings; and, still lower, the balcony; lower still, the street-lamp;, then the sign of the "Red Cask"; and, finally, the three shining bayonets that only awaited my fall to spit me as they would a piece of cheese on a toasting-fork. On the roof of the house across the street there was a big cat hiding behind a chimney, and watching a little band of sparrows that were engaged in settling their differences in the gutter.
One can not imagine with what clearness and rapidity the human eye takes in a situation with all its minutest details when the visual powers are stimulated by fear.
At the third summons, "Open the door, or we shall force it!" seeing that escape was impossible, I slipped back the bolt.
In an instant a stalwart fellow seized me by the collar, and a little, pompous official, whose breath was offensively odorous of alcohol, announced:
"Sir, you are my prisoner!"
He wore a bottle-green, single-breasted coat, buttoned to the chin, and a high hat patterned after a stove-pipe. He had heavy side-whiskers, rings on all his fingers, and was called Passauf.[1]
He was the chief of police.
Five more bullet-headed minions of the law waited for me on the stairs.
"What do you want of me?" I asked Passauf.
"Down stairs!" he cried, as he made a sign to his underlings who had me by the collar to drag me in that direction.
While his order was being obeyed, he, with the assistance of the others, hastily searched my room, turning everything topsy-turvy and inside out.
I descended the stairs supported on each side like one in the last stage of consumption.
They thrust me into a cab between two brawny fellows, armed with heavy clubs secured to their wrists with leather straps.
I was glad they drove away without delay, as in a very few minutes we should have had all the idlers in the neighborhood about us.
As soon as I had sufficient control over my organs of speech, I turned to one of my guardians—the one whose mien seemed to me the least forbidding—and asked what I had done.
"Hans, he asks what he has done—ha, ha, ha!" say he to his comrade.
Their laughter fairly chilled my blood.
It was not long before a shadow enveloped us, and the sound of the horses' feet echoed under an archway. We were at the entrance of the Raspelhaus. It is there that one may say:
"Dans cet antre,
Je vois fort bien comme l'on entre,
Et ne vois point comme on en sort."[2]
All is not rose-colored in this world. From the persecutions of Rap I fell into a dungeon, from which it is only the minority who have the good fortune to escape.
Dark, spacious courts; windows in long lines like a hospital, and furnished with grating; not the smallest clump of verdure, not even the leaf of a bush or a spear of grass—such was my new lodging-place. It was enough to make one pull out his hair by the handfuls.
The police officers and the jailer put me provisionally into a sort of anteroom.
The jailer, as well as I remember, was called Kasper Schluessel. With his gray woolen cap, his pipe in his mouth, and his bunch of keys at his waist, he reminded me of the god Hibou of the Caribs. He had the same large eyes, with a yellow circle, that see in the night, a nose like a comma, while his neck disappeared between his shoulders.
Schluessel locked me in as mechanically as one locks his bureau drawer, his thoughts the while seeming to be far away. As for me, I stood fully ten minutes with my hands behind my back, looking down at the floor.
"Rap," said I to myself, after taking a complete survey of the situation—" Rap cried out as he fell, 'I am killed! I am killed!' but he did not say by whom. I will swear it was my neighbor, the old merchant with the green spectacles, and he will be hanged in my place."
This idea I found very consoling, and I consequently breathed more freely. I now proceeded to examine my prison, or rather my cell. It had been newly whitewashed, and there were no sketches on its walls except in one corner, where a gallows had been crudely outlined by my predecessor. Light was admitted by a bull's-eye some nine or ten feet from the floor. As for the furniture, it was limited to a bunch of straw and a bench.
I sat down on the straw and clasped my hands around my knees in the most unenviable frame of mind imaginable. I had not been long seated when it occurred to me that Rap, before breathing his last, may have denounced me. The thought brought me quickly to my feet; I coughed involuntarily, and imagined I felt a choking sensation, as though the hempen cord were already round my neck.
Just at this moment my hallucinations were interrupted by footsteps in the passageway. Schluessel opened my door and bade me follow him. He was still assisted by the two officers who had had the honor of lodging me in prison. They received me with a triumphant smile as I issued forth, as though they were proud of their achievement. I seemed to take no notice of them, but, summoning all my fortitude, I followed with a tolerably firm step.
We passed through long galleries, lighted from distance to distance by small grated windows. On the way I saw, behind massive bars, the famous Jic-Jack, who was to pay the penalty of his crimes the next day on the gallows. He was in a strait-jacket, and was gayly singing:
"Je suis le roi de ces montagnes!"
When he saw me, he cried out:
"Ho, comrade! I'll keep a place for you at my right."
The two policemen and the god Hibou looked at one another and smiled, while I felt the goose-flesh creep down ray back and shoulders to my waist.
III.
Schluessel led the way to a large room furnished with rows of benches arranged in a semi-circle. The aspect of this spacious hall, deserted as it was, with its two high, grated windows, its image of the Saviour in old browned oak with his arms extended and his head inclined toward one shoulder, inspired me with a sort of religious fear that harmonized with my situation.
All my ideas of false accusation disappeared, and my lips involuntarily murmured a prayer.
I had not prayed for a long time. Misfortune always brings a submissive frame of mind.
Before me, on an elevated seat, sat two men with their backs toward the windows, which put their faces in the shade. I nevertheless recognized Von Spreckdal by his aquiline profile. The other was a stout, round-faced man, with short, pudgy hands. They were both in judicial robes.
Below them sat the clerk of the court, Conrad. He was writing at a small table and stroking his cheek with the feather-end of his pen. When I arrived, he leaned back in his chair, and seemed to study my face with deep interest.
I was shown to a seat, when Von Spreckdal asked me, in a loud, distinct tone:
"Christian Venius, where did you get this sketch?"
He held up my nocturnal sketch, then in his possession. It was passed to me. After looking at it moment, I replied:
"I made it."
There was a prolonged silence. The clerk wrote down my answer. As I listened to his pen going over the paper, I thought: "What is the meaning of the question they have just asked me? What relation has my sketch to the kick I gave Rap?"
"You drew this sketch, you say?" said Von Spreckdal. "Very well. Where is the scene?"
"Nowhere in reality, but only in my imagination."
"Do you mean to tell us that you imagined all these details—that you did not copy them somewhere?"
"That is just what I want to say. This is purely a fancy sketch. I may have seen somewhere at some time a court-yard similar to the one represented here; but the details are all imaginary."
"Christian Venius," said the judge, in solemn tone, "I counsel you to reflect and to tell the truth; believe me, it will be better for you in the end."
Indignant at having my veracity called in question, I replied, with some spirit: "I have said, sir, that this is entirely a work of the imagination—of my imagination—and I repeat it."
"Write down his answer," said Von Spreekdal to the clerk.
Again that ominous pen went scratching over the paper.
"And this woman," continued the judge—"this woman who is being killed at the mouth of this well—did you imagine this detail with the rest?"
"Certainly."
"You have never witnessed such a scene?"
"Never!"
Von Spreckdal rose as though he was exasperated; then, resuming his seat, he seemed to consult with his colleague.
The mysterious whispering in front of me, the three men standing behind me, the silence that reigned in the hall—everything combined to make me shudder.
"What does all this mean? What am I accused of?" I asked myself.
Suddenly Von Spreckdal said to my guardians:
"Reconduct your prisoner to the vehicle in which you brought him here. We will all go to Metzer Street." Then turning to me, he added: "Christian Venius, you are in a perilous situation. You should remember that, if the law is inflexible, there still remains to you the mercy of Heaven, which you may merit by confessing your crime."
These words stunned me like a blow with a hammer. I threw up my arms and fell back, crying out:
"Ah! what a frightful dream!"
The next moment I was unconscious, having swooned.
When I regained my senses, I was being driven slowly through one of the principal streets; another vehicle preceded us. The two servants of the law were still watching over me. One of them, on the way, offered a pinch of snuff to his confrère. I mechanically reached out my fingers toward the box; but he drew it away, as though he feared there was contamination in my touch.
My cheeks reddened from shame and indignation, and I turned away to conceal my emotion.
"If you don't look out," said the man with the snuff-box, "we'll have to put a pair of bracelets on you; do you hear?"
The wretch! I could have strangled him. Under the circumstances, however, I deemed it wiser to remain silent than to make the attempt.
In a few minutes the two carriages came to a stop. One of my guardians got out, while the other held me by the collar till his comrade was ready to receive me, when he pushed me rudely toward him.
These precautions to retain possession of my person augured nothing good; still I was far from imagining the exceeding gravity of the accusation that hung over me, when an alarming circumstance opened my eyes and threw me into despair.
They had led me, or rather pushed me, into a low, narrow passageway, with an irregular, broken pavement. Along the side of the wall there was a pool of yellowish water that exhaled a most disagreeable odor. The passage was quite dark. Beyond, it was evident there was a court-yard.
As I advanced I felt myself more and more possessed with an indescribable terror. It was a feeling such as I had never experienced before; there was something supernatural about it; it seemed to me a sort of nightmare. I hesitated at every step.
"Go on! go on!" cried one of the ruffians behind me, at the same time pushing me rudely forward.
But what was my amazement when I saw at the end of the passage the court I had sketched the preceding night, with its walls furnished with hooks, its piles of old rubbish, its chicken-coop, and its rabbit-cage! Not a window, large or small, high or low, not a broken pane, in short, not a single detail, had been omitted.
I was overwhelmed by this strange revelation.
Near the well stood the two judges, Von Spreckdal and Richter. At their feet the old woman lay stretched out on her back. Her long, white hair was spread out over the pavement, her face was deep purple, her eyes were half open, and her tongue half protruded from her mouth. The spectacle she presented was indescribably horrible.
"Well," said Von Spreckdal, in a tone of the utmost gravity, "what have you to say, sir?"
I made no response.
"Do you confess to having thrown this woman, Theresa Becker, into this well, after having strangled her in order to rob her of her money?"
"I strangle this woman? I rob her of her money? Never! I never knew her, never saw her till now I Never, as Heaven is my judge!"
"That is sufficient," said he; and, without adding a word, he left the yard with his confrère.
My guardians now seemed to think they were justified in putting handcuffs on me. They took me back to the Raspelhaus. I was completely crushed; what to think, I knew not; even my conscience troubled me. I almost thought that I had murdered the old woman, but how, when? My brain was confused; everything seemed to dance before my eyes!
It was evident that the two policemen already saw me on the road to the gallows.
I will not attempt to describe the agony of mind I suffered that night as I sat on my bunch of straw, the bull's-eye window before and above me and the gallows in perspective, and heard, from hour to hour, the watchman cry out: "One o'clock, and all is well! two o'clock, and all is well I" and so on the night through.
Every one will be able to form some idea of such a night. It is not true that it is better to suffer innocently than being guilty. For the soul, yes; but for the body, there is no difference. On the contrary, it curses its lot, struggles and tries to escape, knowing that its role ends with the cord. Add to all this its regrets at not having sufficiently enjoyed life, and at having listened to the soul when it preached abstinence.
"Ah! if I had only known," it cried, "you would not have led me about by the nose with your big words and fine phrases! You would not have allured me with your seductive promises. I would have had many a happy hour, lost to me now for ever. Be temperate, govern your passions, said you. I was temperate, I did govern my passions. What have I gained by it? They are going to hang me and you; afterward, you will be apostrophized as the sublime and stoical soul that fell a martyr to the errors of the law and its ministers. Of me, not a word will be said."
Such were the reflections of my poor body in my extremity.
The day finally began to appear. At first, pale and undecided, it shed a vague glimmer on my bull's-eye window; then, little by little, the sun neared the horizon. Without, everything began to be astir; it chanced to be market-day, Friday. I could hear the carts pass, loaded with vegetables, and sometimes catch a few words of the rustics who were driving them. I could hear them opening the market opposite; then came the arranging of the benches.
Finally, it was broad day, and going and coming and murmur of voices told me that the crowd without must be quite large.
With the light, my courage in some measure returned. Some of my gloomy forebodings disappeared, and something akin to hope usurped their place. I felt a desire to look out.
Other prisoners before me had managed to get up to the bull's-eye; they had dug holes in the wall in order to accomplish the task more easily, or, rather, to make it possible. I climbed up in my turn, and, when I was seated most uncomfortably on the edge of the oval around the window and could look out at the crowd, the life, the movement, abundant tears ran down my cheeks. I thought no longer of putting an end to my earthly existence; I felt a desire to live and to get back into the busy world again.
"Ah!" said I to myself, "to live is to be happy! Let them harness me to a wheelbarrow, or attach a ball and chain to my leg—let them do no matter what to me, so that they only let me live!"
The old market, with its pointed roof supported by heavy pillars, offered a most interesting spectacle. Old women seated beside their piles of vegetables, their coops of poultry, and their baskets of eggs; behind them were ranged the dealers in old clothes, Jews with complexions resembling the color of old boxwood; then there were the butchers, with their bare arms, cutting and sawing their meats; countrymen, with their broad-brimmed felt hats pushed back on their heads, calm and grave, their hands, behind their backs, resting on their evergreen sticks, and tranquilly smoking their pipes. Add to all this the noise and turmoil of the crowd, the various tones of the voices, and the expressive gestures, which convey to the distant observer the nature of the discussion, and so perfectly reflect the character of the speaker. In short, the scene fascinated me, and, despite my unenviable position, I felt happy in the thought that I still lived.
While I was thus occupied looking out of my window, a man, a butcher, passed. He was bent forward, and carried a large quarter of beef on his shoulders; his arms were bare, and extended above his head. His hair was long, like that of the Sicambrian of Salvator, and so fell about his face that I could not distinguish his features; and yet, at the first glance, I involuntarily shuddered.
"It is he!" I exclaimed aloud.
All the blood in my body seemed suddenly to have taken leave of me; there was apparently none in my face or extremities. I hastened down from the window with all possible expedition, feeling chilled to the very ends of my fingers.
"It is he! he is there!" I stammered; "and I, I am here to expiate his crime. Great Heaven! what shall I do? what shall I do?"
An idea, an inspiration from Heaven, flashed upon my mind. I reached for my crayon, which I providentially chanced to have in my coat-pocket. Then I mounted to my seat again, and set to work to sketch the scene of the murder, with a nerve that seemed to me truly superhuman. There was no more uncertainty; every stroke of the pencil told. I had my man; I saw him; he was there before me.
At ten o'clock the jailer entered my cell. His owl-like impassibility gave way to an exhibition of something akin to admiration.
"Is it possible?" said he. "Up, and in such good spirits!"
"Go, bring me my judges," said I, in a triumphant tone, as I gave the last touches to my sketch; "I wish to see them here."
"They are waiting for you," said Schluessel.
"Waiting for me! Let them come here; I must see them here!" I cried, as I gave the last strokes to the mysterious personage. He lived. His figure, foreshortened on the wall, stood out on the white background with a life-like vigor that was startling.
The jailer, without waiting to remonstrate or to make any observations, disappeared.
In a few minutes he returned, accompanied by the two judges. They seemed speechless with amazement.
But I, pointing to my sketch on the wall and trembling in every limb, cried out:
"There is your assassin!"
Von Spreckdal after a moment's silence asked:
"His name?"
"I have no idea, but he, at this moment, is in the market; he is cutting up meat in the third stall to the left as you enter from Trabaus Street."
"What do you think?" he asked his colleague.
"Let the man be sent for," said Richter, gravely.
The order was obeyed by some officers, who had remained without the cell. The judges remained standing, to examine the sketch more minutely. Von Spreckdal, especially, seemed to take the deepest interest in it. I dropped down on my pile of straw, and rested my head on my knees, quite exhausted.
It was not long before we heard approaching steps in the archway. Those who have never awaited the hour of deliverance and counted the minutes, which then seem of interminable length; those who have never experienced the harrowing emotions of doubt, hope, terror, and despair—such as they can have no conception of my feelings at this moment. I should have distinguished the step of the murderer, though surrounded by a thousand others. They approached. The judges themselves could not conceal a certain nervous agitation. I looked up, and fixed my eyes upon the door. It opened, and the man entered. His face was flushed, and his jaws were convulsively pressed together, while his little, gray, restless eyes looked wildly about from under his heavy, reddish brows.
Von Spreckdal silently pointed to the sketch.
This brawny man had looked at it but for a moment, when the color left his cheeks, and, uttering a cry that sent a thrill of horror through us all, he extended his strong arms, as though he would sweep aside every obstacle that hindered his escape, and sprang toward the door. A terrible struggle in the corridor ensued; you could hear nothing but the heavy breathing of the butcher, his muttered imprecations, an occasional cry of the guards, and the shuffling of their feet on the flagstones.
It was brief, however; for scarcely more than a minute had elapsed when the assassin reentered, his chin on his chest, his eyes bloodshot, and his hands secured behind his back. He looked up again at the sketch, seemed to reflect for a moment, and then, like one thinking aloud, he muttered:
"Who could have seen me?—at midnight!"
I was saved.
* * * * *
Many years have passed since this terrible adventure. Thank Heaven! I make no more silhouettes, nor do I paint the portraits of burgomasters. By hard work and perseverance I have conquered a place, and I earn my living honorably by producing works of art—the only object, in my opinion, a veritable artist should ever have in view. But every circumstance connected with the nocturnal sketch has always remained fresh in my memory. Sometimes, in the midst of my work, my thoughts wander back to the days I spent in Rap's garret—to the deprivations and humiliations I experienced, there. Then I lay down my palette and dream—dream often for hours.
But how a crime, committed by a man I had never known, at a place I had never seen, could be pictured by my pencil even to the most unimportant details, is something I have never been able to comprehend.
Was it accident? No! And, then, what is accident? Is it anything else than an effect produced by a cause of which we are ignorant?
May not Schiller be right when he says: "The soul is not affected by the decay of matter: when the body sleeps, it spreads its radiant wings and goes Heaven knows where. What it then does, no one can know; but inspiration sometimes betrays the secret of its nocturnal wanderings."
Who knows? Nature is more audacious in her realities than man's imagination in its loftiest flights!
1. Anglicized: Mind your eye.
2. I see very well how one gets into this den (or cave), but I do not see how one gets out.