CHAPTER II.
I was still standing on the same spot, endeavoring to collect my thoughts, when the door again opened, and the old turnkey who had first received me, entered with a lighted candle, which he placed upon the table. Then returning to the door, he took from some female whose form was barely perceptible, a waiter upon which was a collation, and even a bottle of wine. He laid a snow-white napkin over one corner of the great oak table, placed everything neatly and orderly, took a step back and cast a satisfied look at his work, then an angry one at me, and said with a voice which strikingly resembled the growl of a great mastiff: "There!"
"It seems this is for me," I remarked, indifferently.
"Don't see who else it could be for," growled the old man.
The roast meat on the dish had a very appetizing odor; for half a year I had not tasted a drop of wine; and what was more, I did not feel towards the surly turnkey the aversion that I felt towards the gently-speaking, courteous superintendent; but I was resolved to accept no favors from my jailor.
"I owe this to the kindness of the Herr Superintendent?" I asked, taking my seat at the table.
"This and more," said the old man.
"For instance?"
"For instance, that one has our best cell, with a look-out into the garden, and not one looking into the prison-yard, where neither sunlight nor moonlight ever comes."
"Thanks," said I, "anything else?"
"That one can wear his handsome town-clothes, instead of unbleached drilling; which is not such a bad rig, though, after all."
"Thanks," said I; "anything else?"
"And that one has Sergeant Süssmilch for warden."
"With whom I have the honor?"
"With whom one has the honor."
"Much obliged."
"Well you may be."
I looked up to get a better view of the man whose relation to me was so fraught with honor and advantage. He appeared to be above fifty years of age, of short, compact build, who seemed to stand remarkably firmly for his age upon his short bowed legs. From his broad shoulders hung a pair of quite disproportionately long arms, with great brown hairy hands, which evidently had not lost their strength of grasp. From his furrowed and wrinkled face, which might once have been good-looking, twinkled under gray bushy eyebrows a pair of clear, good-humored eyes, which in vain tried to look fierce and cruel. His smooth, close-cropped gray hair lay thick above his bronzed forehead; and beneath his great hooked nose, like an eagle's beak, a heavy moustache drooped on either side far below his firm chin. Sergeant Süssmilch was, in later years, long my true friend; in hours of trial he rendered me priceless services; he taught my eldest boys to ride; and when, five years ago, we carried him to his last resting-place, we all heartily sorrowed over him; but at this moment I was considering what amount of resistance he would be likely to offer in a contingency which I deemed very probable, and thought that I should be sorry to have to take the life of the old fellow who was so delightfully surly.
"If one has looked at Sergeant Süssmilch long enough, one will do well to fall to the supper, which is getting no better by standing," he said.
"It may stand there for me," I answered. "I have no appetite for the Herr Superintendent's roast meat and wine."
"Might as well have said so at once," growled Herr Süssmilch, commencing to replace the things on the waiter.
"Who the deuce was to know what your custom here is," I said in a sulky tone.
"The custom here is that one has to work when he wants to eat."
"That is not true," I said. "I am not condemned to labor: I was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, and should by rights have been sent to the fortress, where decent people go."
"Meaning one's self?" asked Herr Süssmilch.
"Meaning one's self."
"One is altogether mistaken," he replied, having by this time cleared away the things. "In the prison one is compelled to work, unless one has a father or some one who will pay for his keep. In this case one has a father, and gets from him ten silbergroschen daily."
"Herr Süssmilch," I cried, stepping up to the old man, "I take for granted that you are telling me the truth; and now I give you my word that I will rather starve in the dungeon like a rat, than take a penny from my father."
"One will be of another way of thinking to-morrow."
"Never."
"Then one will have to work."
"We shall see about that."
"Yes, we shall see."
Süssmilch went, but stopped at the door, and remarked over his shoulder:
"One wants, then, the ordinary diet, such as every one receives when he comes here?"
"One wants nothing at all," I said, turning my back upon him.
"No light, then, for that is extra too."
I made him no answer. I heard the old man go to the table, take the light, place it on the waiter, and move to the door. There he paused, apparently to see if I would change my mind. I did not move. He coughed; I took no notice. The next moment I was alone in the dark.
"To the devil all of you, with your smooth ways and your rough ways!" I muttered to myself "I want the one as little as the other, and I will be under obligations to no one--no one!"
I laughed aloud, seized the grating of the window and shook it, and then ran up and down the dark room like some wild animal. At last I threw myself in my clothes upon the bed, and lay there in gloomy desperation brooding over my fate, which had never before seemed to me so intolerable. I wrought myself up to a pitch of wild hatred against all who had had any share in my ruin, against my judge, my counsel, my father, the whole world; strengthening myself in my resolution not to abate my obduracy, not to ask the slightest thing of any one, not to be grateful to any one, and above all to win my liberty, cost what it might.
Thus I lay for long hours. At last I slept and dreamed of a flowery meadow over which were fluttering gay butterflies which I tried to catch but could not, for whenever I touched them they turned to red roses. And the red roses, when I attempted to pluck them, began to flash with light and ring with music, and flashing and ringing they floated up to heaven, whence they looked smiling down upon me as the faces of blooming maidens. It was all so strange and sweet and fair, that I lay upon the grass, laughing with bliss. But when I awaked I did not laugh. When I awaked Süssmilch stood at my bed-side and said: "Now one will have to work."