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  The appearance of the rich amateur, Van Spreckdal, judge of the criminal court, in my poor lodging, greatly disturbed me. I could not help throwing a stealthy glance at my old worm-eaten furniture, my damp hangings and my dusty floor. I felt humiliated by such dilapidation; but Van Spreckdal did not seem to take any account of these details; and sitting down at my little table:

  "Mister Vénius," he resumed, "I come——" But at this instant his glance fell upon the unfinished sketch—he did not finish his phrase.

  I was sitting on the edge of my little bed; and the sudden attention that this personage bestowed upon one of my productions made my heart beat with an indefinable apprehension.

  At the end of a minute, Van Spreckdal lifted his head:

  "Are you the author of that sketch?" he asked me with an intent look.

  "Yes, sir."

  "What is the price of it?"

  "I never sell my sketches. It is the plan for a picture."

  "Ah!" said he, picking up the paper with the tips of his long yellow fingers.

  He took a lens from his waistcoat pocket and began to study the design in silence.

  The sun was now shining obliquely into the garret. Van Spreckdal never said a word; the hook of his immense nose increased, his heavy eyebrows contracted, and his long pointed chin took a turn upward, making a thousand little wrinkles in his long, thin cheeks. The silence was so profound that I could distinctly hear the plaintive buzzing of a fly that had been caught in a spider's web.

  "And the dimensions of this picture, Mister Vénius?" he said without looking at me.

  "Three feet by four."

  "The price?"

  "Fifty ducats."

  Van Spreckdal laid the sketch on the table, and drew from his pocket a large purse of green silk shaped like a pear; he drew the rings of it——

  "Fifty ducats," said he, "here they are."

  I was simply dazzled.

  The Baron rose and bowed to me, and I heard his big ivory-headed cane resounding on each step until he reached the bottom of the stairs. Then recovering from my stupour, I suddenly remembered that I had not thanked him, and I flew down the five flights like lightning; but when I reached the bottom, I looked to the right and left; the street was deserted.

  "Well," I said, "this is strange."

  And I went upstairs again all out of breath.

  II

  Table of Contents

  The surprising way in which Van Spreckdal had appeared to me threw me into deep wonderment. "Yesterday," I said to myself, as I contemplated the pile of ducats glittering in the sun, "yesterday I formed the wicked intention of cutting my throat, all for the want of a few miserable florins, and now today Fortune has showered them from the clouds. Indeed it was fortunate that I did not open my razor; and, if the same temptation ever comes to me again, I will take care to wait until the morrow."

  After making these judicious reflections, I sat down to finish the sketch; four strokes of the pencil and it would be finished. But here an incomprehensible difficulty awaited me. It was impossible for me to take those four sweeps of the pencil; I had lost the thread of my inspiration, and the mysterious personage no longer stood out in my brain. I tried in vain to evoke him, to sketch him, and to recover him; he no more accorded with the surroundings than with a figure by Raphael in a Teniers inn-kitchen. I broke out into a profuse perspiration.

  At this moment, Rap opened the door without knocking, according to his praiseworthy custom. His eyes fell upon my pile of ducats and in a shrill voice he cried:

  "Eh! eh! so I catch you. Will you still persist in telling me, Mr. Painter, that you have no money?"

  And his hooked fingers advanced with that nervous trembling that the sight of gold always produces in a miser.

  For a few seconds I was stupefied.

  The memory of all the indignities that this individual had inflicted upon me, his covetous look, and his impudent smile exasperated me. With a single bound, I caught hold of him, and pushed him out of the room, slamming the door in his face.

  This was done with the crack and rapidity of a spring snuff-box.

  But from outside the old usurer screamed like an eagle:

  "My money, you thief, my money!"

  The lodgers came out of their rooms, asking:

  "What is the matter? What has happened?"

  I opened the door suddenly and quickly gave Mister Rap a kick in the spine that sent him rolling down more than twenty steps.

  "That's what's the matter!" I cried, quite beside myself. Then I shut the door and bolted it, while bursts of laughter from the neighbours greeted Mister Rap in the passage.

  I was satisfied with myself; I rubbed my hands together. This adventure had put new life into me; I resumed my work, and was about to finish the sketch when I heard an unusual noise.

  Butts of muskets were grounded on the pavement. I looked out of my window and saw three soldiers in full uniform with grounded arms in front of my door.

  I said to myself in my terror: "Can it be that that scoundrel of a Rap has had any bones broken?"

  And here is the strange peculiarity of the human mind: I, who the night before had wanted to cut my own throat, shook from head to foot, thinking that I might well be hanged if Rap were dead.

  The stairway was filled with confused noises. It was an ascending flood of heavy footsteps, clanking arms, and short syllables.

  Suddenly somebody tried to open my door. It was shut.

  Then there was a general clamour.

  "In the name of the law—open!"

  I arose, trembling and weak in the knees.

  "Open!" the same voice repeated.

  I thought to escape over the roofs; but I had hardly put my head out of the little snuff-box window, when I drew back, seized with vertigo. I saw in a flash all the windows below with their shining panes, their flower-pots, their bird-cages, and their gratings. Lower, the balcony; still lower, the street-lamp; still lower again, the sign of the "Red Cask" framed in iron-work; and, finally, three glittering bayonets, only awaiting my fall to run me through the body from the sole of my foot to the crown of my head. On the roof of the opposite house a tortoise-shell cat was crouching behind a chimney, watching a band of sparrows fighting and scolding in the gutter.

  One cannot imagine to what clearness, intensity, and rapidity the human eye acquires when stimulated by fear.

  At the third summons I heard:

  "Open, or we shall force it!"

  Seeing that flight was impossible, I staggered to the door and drew the bolt.

  Two hands immediately fell upon my collar. A dumpy, little man, smelling of wine, said:

  "I arrest you!"

  He wore a bottle-green redingote, buttoned to the chin, and a stovepipe hat. He had large brown whiskers, rings on every finger, and was named Passauf.

  He was the chief of police.

  Five bull-dogs with flat caps, noses like pistols, and lower jaws turning upward, observed me from outside.

  "What do you want?" I asked Passauf.

  "Come downstairs," he cried roughly, as he gave a sign to one of his men to seize me.

  This man took hold of me, more dead than alive, while several other men turned my room upside down.

  I went downstairs supported by the arms like a person in the last stages of consumption—with hair dishevelled and stumbling at every step.

  They thrust me into a cab between two strong fellows, who charitably let me see the ends of their clubs, held to their wrists by a leather string—and then the carriage started off.

  I heard behind us the feet of all the urchins of the town.

  "What have I done?" I asked one of my keepers.

  He looked at the other with a strange smile and said:

  "Hans—he asks what he has done!"

  That smile froze my blood.

  Soon a deep shadow enveloped the carriage; the horses' hoofs resounded under an archway. We were entering the Raspelhaus. Of this place one might say:

/>   "Dans cet antre,

  Je vois fort bien comme l'on entre,

  Et ne vois point comme on en sort."

  All is not rose-coloured in this world; from the claws of Rap I fell into a dungeon, from which very few poor devils have a chance to escape.

  Large dark courtyards and rows of windows like a hospital, and furnished with gratings; not a sprig of verdure, not a festoon of ivy, not even a weathercock in perspective—such was my new lodging. It was enough to make one tear his hair out by the roots.

  The police officers, accompanied by the jailer, took me temporarily to a lock-up.

  The jailer, if I remember rightly, was named Kasper Schlüssel; with his grey woollen cap, his pipe between his teeth, and his bunch of keys at his belt, he reminded me of the Owl-God of the Caribs. He had the same golden yellow eyes, that see in the dark, a nose like a comma, and a neck that was sunk between the shoulders.

  Schlüssel shut me up as calmly as one locks up his socks in a cupboard, while thinking of something else. As for me, I stood for more than ten minutes with my hands behind my back and my head bowed. At the end of that time I made the following reflection: "When falling, Rap cried out, 'I am assassinated,' but he did not say by whom. I will say it was my neighbour, the old merchant with the spectacles: he will be hanged in my place."

  This idea comforted my heart, and I drew a long breath. Then I looked about my prison. It seemed to have been newly whitewashed, and the walls were bare of designs, except in one corner, where a gallows had been crudely sketched by my predecessor. The light was admitted through a bull's-eye about nine or ten feet from the floor; the furniture consisted of a bundle of straw and a tub.

  I sat down upon the straw with my hands around my knees in deep despondency. It was with great difficulty that I could think clearly; but suddenly imagining that Rap, before dying, had denounced me, my legs began to tingle, and I jumped up coughing, as if the hempen cord were already tightening around my neck.

  At the same moment, I heard Schlüssel walking down the corridor; he opened the lock-up, and told me to follow him. He was still accompanied by the two officers, so I fell into step resolutely.

  We walked down long galleries, lighted at intervals by small windows from within. Behind a grating I saw the famous Jic-Jack, who was going to be executed on the morrow. He had on a strait-jacket and sang out in a raucous voice:

  "Je suis le roi de ces montagnes."

  Seeing me, he called out:

  "Eh! comrade! I'll keep a place for you at my right."

  The two police officers and the Owl-God looked at each other and smiled, while I felt the goose-flesh creep down the whole length of my back.

  III

  Table of Contents

  Schlüssel shoved me into a large and very dreary hall, with benches arranged in a semicircle. The appearance of this deserted hall, with its two high grated windows, and its Christ carved in old brown oak with His arms extended and His head sorrowfully inclined upon His shoulder, inspired me with I do not know what kind of religious fear that accorded with my actual situation.

  All my ideas of false accusation disappeared, and my lips tremblingly murmured a prayer.

  I had not prayed for a long time; but misfortune always brings us to thoughts of submission. Man is so little in himself!

  Opposite me, on an elevated seat, two men were sitting with their backs to the light, and consequently their faces were in shadow. However, I recognized Van Spreckdal by his aquiline profile, illuminated by an oblique reflection from the window. The other person was fat, he had round, chubby cheeks and short hands, and he wore a robe, like Van Spreckdal.

  Below was the clerk of the court, Conrad; he was writing at a low table and was tickling the tip of his ear with the feather-end of his pen. When I entered, he stopped to look at me curiously.

  They made me sit down, and Van Spreckdal, raising his voice, said to me:

  "Christian Vénius, where did you get this sketch?"

  He showed me the nocturnal sketch which was then in his possession. It was handed to me. After having examined it, I replied:

  "I am the author of it."

  A long silence followed; the clerk of the court, Conrad, wrote down my reply. I heard his pen scratch over the paper, and I thought: "Why did they ask me that question? That has nothing to do with the kick I gave Rap in the back."

  "You are the author of it?" asked Van Spreckdal. "What is the subject?"

  "It is a subject of pure fancy."

  "You have not copied the details from some spot?"

  "No, sir; I imagined it all."

  "Accused Christian," said the judge in a severe tone, "I ask you to reflect. Do not lie."

  "I have spoken the truth."

  "Write that down, clerk," said Van Spreckdal.

  The pen scratched again.

  "And this woman," continued the judge—"this woman who is being murdered at the side of the well—did you imagine her also?"

  "Certainly."

  "You have never seen her?"

  "Never."

  Van Spreckdal rose indignantly; then, sitting down again, he seemed to consult his companion in a low voice.

  These two dark profiles silhouetted against the brightness of the window, and the three men standing behind me, the silence in the hall—everything made me shiver.

  "What do you want with me? What have I done?" I murmured.

  Suddenly Van Spreckdal said to my guardians:

  "You can take the prisoner back to the carriage; we will go to Metzerstrasse."

  Then, addressing me:

  "Christian Vénius," he cried, "you are in a deplorable situation. Collect your thoughts and remember that if the law of man is inflexible, there still remains for you the mercy of God. This you can merit by confessing your crime."

  These words stunned me like a blow from a hammer. I fell back with extended arms, crying:

  "Ah! what a terrible dream!"

  And I fainted.

  When I regained consciousness, the carriage was rolling slowly down the street; another one preceded us. The two officers were always with me. One of them on the way offered a pinch of snuff to his companion; mechanically I reached out my hand toward the snuff-box, but he withdrew it quickly.

  My cheeks reddened with shame, and I turned away my head to conceal my emotion.

  "If you look outside," said the man with the snuff-box, "we shall be obliged to put handcuffs on you."

  "May the devil strangle you, you infernal scoundrel!" I said to myself. And as the carriage now stopped, one of them got out, while the other held me by the collar; then, seeing that his comrade was ready to receive me, he pushed me rudely to him.

  These infinite precautions to hold possession of my person boded no good; but I was far from predicting the seriousness of the accusation that hung over my head until an alarming circumstance opened my eyes and threw me into despair.

  They pushed me along a low alley, the pavement of which was unequal and broken; along the wall there ran a yellowish ooze, exhaling a fetid odour. I walked down this dark place with the two men behind me. A little further there appeared the chiaroscuro of an interior courtyard.

  I grew more and more terror-sticken as I advanced. It was no natural feeling: it was a poignant anxiety, outside of nature—like a nightmare. I recoiled instinctively at each step.

  "Go on!" cried one of the policemen, laying his hand on my shoulder; "go on!"

  But what was my astonishment when, at the end of the passage, I saw the courtyard that I had drawn the night before, with its walls furnished with hooks, its rubbish-heap of old iron, its chicken-coops, and its rabbit-hutch. Not a dormer window, high or low, not a broken pane, not the slightest detail had been omitted.

  I was thunderstruck by this strange revelation.

  Near the well were the two judges, Van Spreckdal and Richter. At their feet lay the old woman extended on her back, her long, thin, grey hair, her blue face, her eyes wide open, and her tongue between her te
eth.

  It was a horrible spectacle!

  "Well," said Van Spreckdal, with solemn accents, "what have you to say?"

  I did not reply.

  "Do you remember having thrown this woman, Theresa Becker, into this well, after having strangled her to rob her of her money?"

  "No," I cried, "no! I do not know this woman; I never saw her before. May God help me!"

  "That will do," he replied in a dry voice. And without saying another word he went out with his companion.

  The officers now believed that they had best put handcuffs on me. They took me back to the Raspelhaus, in a state of profound stupidity. I did not know what to think; my conscience itself troubled me; I even asked myself if I really had murdered the old woman!

  In the eyes of the officers I was condemned.

  I will not tell you of my emotions that night in the Raspelhaus, when, seated on my straw bed with the window opposite me and the gallows in perspective, I heard the watchmen cry in the silence of the night: "Sleep, people of Nuremberg; the Lord watches over you. One o'clock! Two o'clock! Three o'clock!"

  Every one may form his own idea of such a night. There is a fine saying that it is better to be hanged innocent than guilty. For the soul, yes; but for the body, it makes no difference; on the contrary, it kicks, it curses its lot, it tries to escape, knowing well enough that its role ends with the rope. Add to this, that it repents 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 around by a string with your big words, your beautiful phrases, and your magnificent sentences! You would not have allured me with your fine promises. I should have had many happy moments that are now lost forever. Everything is over! You said to me: 'Control your passions.' Very well! I did control them. Here I am now. They are going to hang me, and you—later they will speak of you as a sublime soul, a stoical soul, a martyr to the errors of Justice. They will never think about me!"

  Such were the sad reflections of my poor body.

  Day broke; at first, dull and undecided, it threw an uncertain light on my bull's-eye window with its cross-bars; then it blazed against the wall at the back. Outside the street became lively. This was a market-day; it was Friday. I heard the vegetable wagons pass and also the country people with their baskets. Some chickens cackled in their coops in passing and some butter sellers chattered together. The market opposite opened, and they began to arrange the stalls.