"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 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 rôle 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 about
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.
Finally, it was broad daylight and the vast murmur of the increasing
crowd, housekeepers who assembled with baskets on their arms, coming
and going, discussing and marketing, told me that it was eight
o'clock.
With the light, my heart gained a little courage. Some of my black
thoughts disappeared. I desired to see what was going on outside.
Other prisoners before me had managed to climb up to the bull's-eye;
they had dug some holes in the wall to mount more easily. I climbed
in my turn, and, when seated in the oval edge of the window, with my
legs bent and my head bowed, I could see the crowd, and all the life
and movement. Tears ran freely down my cheeks. I thought no longer
of suicide--I experienced a need to live and breathe, which was
really extraordinary.
"Ah!" I said, "to live what happiness! Let them harness me to a
wheelbarrow--let them put a ball and chain around my leg--nothing
matters if I may only live!"
The old market, with its roof shaped like an extinguisher, supported
on heavy pillars, made a superb picture: old women seated before
their panniers of vegetables, their cages of poultry and their
baskets of eggs; behind them the Jews, dealers in old clothes, their
faces the color of old boxwood; butchers with bare arms, cutting up
meat on their stalls; countrymen, with large hats on the backs of
their heads, calm and grave with their hands behind their backs and
resting on their sticks of hollywood, and tranquilly smoking their
pipes. Then the tumult and noise of the crowd--those screaming,
shrill, grave, high, and short words--those expressive
gestures--those sudden attitudes that show from a distance the
progress of a discussion and depict so well the character of the
individual--in short, all this captivated my mind, and
notwithstanding my sad condition, I felt happy to be still of the
world.
Now, while I looked about in this manner, a man--a butcher--passed,
inclining forward and carrying an enormous quarter of beef on his
shoulders; his arms were bare, his elbows were raised upward and his
head was bent under them. His long hair, like that of Salvator's
Sicambrian, hid his face from me; and yet, at the first glance, I
trembled.
"It is he!" I said.
All the blood in my body rushed to my heart. I got down from the
window trembling to the ends of my fingers, feeling my cheeks quiver,
and the pallor spread over my face, stammering in a choked voice:
"It is he! he is there--there--and I, I have to die to expiate his
crime. Oh, God! what shall I do? What shall I do?"
A sudden idea, an inspiration from Heaven, flashed across my mind. I
put my hand in the pocket of my coat--my box of crayons was there!
Then rushing to the wall, I began to trace the scene of the murder
with superhuman energy. No uncertainty, no hesitation! I knew the
man! I had seen him! He was there before me!
At ten o'clock the jailer came to my cell. His owl-like
impassibility gave place to admiration.
"Is it possible?" he cried, standing at the threshold.
"Go, bring me my judges," I said to him, pursuing my work with an
increasing exultation.
Schlüssel answered:
"They are waiting for you in the trial-room."
"I wish to make a revelation," I cried, as I put the finishing
touches to the mysterious personage.
He lived; he was frightful to see. His full-faced figure,
foreshortened upon the wall, stood out from the white background with
an astonishing vitality.
The jailer went away.
A few minutes afterward the two judges appeared. They were
stupefied. I, trembling, with extended hand, said to them:
"There is the murderer!"
After a few moments of silence, Van Spreckdal asked me:
"What is his name?"
"I don't know; but he is at this moment 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?" said he, leaning toward his colleague.
"Send for the man," he replied in a grave tone.
Several officers retained in the corridor obeyed this order. The
judges stood, examining the sketch. As for me, I had dropped on my
bed of straw, my head between my knees, perfectly exhausted.
Soon steps were heard echoing under the archway. Those who have
never awaited the hour of deliverance and counted the minutes, which
seem like centuries--those who have never experienced the sharp
emotions of outrage, terror, hope, and doubt--can have no conception
of the inward chills that I experienced at that moment. I should
have distinguished the step of the murderer, walking between the
guards, among a thousand others. They approached. The judges
themselves seemed moved. I raised up my head, my heart feeling as if
an iron hand had clutched it, and I fixed my eyes upon the closed
door. It opened. The man entered. His cheeks were red and swollen,
the muscles in his large contracted jaws twitched as far as his ears,
and his little restless eyes, yellow like a wolf's, gleamed beneath
his heavy yellowish red eyebrows.
Van Spreckdal showed him the sketch in silence.
Then that murderous man, with the large shoulders, having looked,
grew pale--then, giving a roar which thrilled us all with terror, he
waved his enormous arms, and jumped backward to overthrow the guards.
There was a terrible struggle in the corridor; you could hear nothing
but the panting breathing of the butcher, his muttered imprecations,
and the short words and the shuffling feet of the guard, upon the
flagstones.
This lasted only about a minute.
Finally the assassin reentered, with his head hanging down, his eyes
bloodshot, and his hands fastened behind his back. He looked again
at the picture of the murder; he seemed to reflect, and then, in a
low voice, as if talking to himself:
"Who could have seen me," he said, "at midnight?"