Hammer and Anvil: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

CHAPTER III.

For a fortnight I had been doing the very hardest work which at the time was to be had in the establishment, which combined in itself the features of a work-house, jail, and penitentiary. I was not compelled to do this either by the letter of the law which prescribed that prisoners should be employed in accordance with their capabilities, nor by order of the superintendent, who on the contrary had allowed me to choose whatever work I preferred. Indeed he proposed to me to draw up certain lists, and make out certain accounts which happened to be needed in the office, and for which the materials should be sent to my cell. For exercise I might find pleasant and healthful work in the large garden, which was about to be extended.

I replied--and in this I spoke the exact truth--that I was but a poor hand at accounts, and that I understood nothing of gardening. I should prefer, if I were allowed any choice in the matter, the very hardest work that could be found. The Herr Superintendent had himself remarked that work of this sort was the most suitable to a man of my constitution. I had at first denied this; but had more maturely considered the matter and found that the superintendent was right. Indeed I must confess that I felt an irresistible desire to split wood, to break stone, or to handle great weights.

In this, too, I spoke but the truth. My powerful frame was really suffering from the compulsory inactivity. But there were other reasons besides this which really prompted my request. Though I scarcely knew it myself, most of my decisive steps were taken with reference to my father. It was in a spirit of defiance to him that I had left his house; it was in defiance to him that I had given myself up to justice; and it was in defiance that I rejected his provision for my support and demanded the hardest work. He should not have it in his power to say that I ever, even in prison, was a burden to him; he should know that his son was treated no better than a common criminal, which indeed he was in his eyes.

And as little should the soft-speaking superintendent be able to say that he had dealt out to the young man who came of such respectable parents, mercy instead of justice.

And finally, heavy work which would have to be done in the open air must offer better chances for the execution of the plan over which I was brooding day and night, the plan either by cunning or force, or both combined, to obtain my liberty.

Now it is true that the work in the garden which was proposed to me perhaps offered still greater facilities for my purpose. The watch that would be kept there would hardly be very strict, especially for me, whom for some reason or other the superintendent seemed so particularly disposed to favor; but here a feeling arose within me which would probably appear singular to most men in my position, and yet of which I have no cause to feel ashamed.

I was not willing to abuse any confidence that might be placed in me. I had never done this in my life before; and I would not learn it now, not even though a prisoner, not even to win the liberty for which I so wildly longed. If they set me to work with the common criminals condemned to hard labor, they would probably treat me and watch me as one of them; and if they neglected this, so much the worse for them who made the distinction at their own risk, and so much the better for me who did not ask to be spared, and consequently was under no obligations to spare any one.

These thoughts passed through my mind as I appeared before the superintendent on the following day--this time in his office--and presented my request to him.

He looked searchingly at me with his large gentle eyes, and answered:

"Whoever enters this place as a prisoner, is an unhappy man, who as such alone is entitled to my compassion. If your fate touches me more nearly than the rest, the reason is so clear as to need no explanation. You have rejected the sympathy which I proffered you, but have not offended me. From what I know of you, from your attitude during your trial, this was what I had to expect. Whether you do well to reject the provision which your father is willing to make for you, I greatly doubt, as by so doing you but widen the breach between you; and in any circumstances one owes a father so much, that one can, without shame, accept even a humiliation at his hands. But this matter I must leave to your own feelings. If you wish to be treated as a common pauper criminal, who has to work for his maintenance, I had planned, as you know, work for you better suited to your capacities and your education. You say that what you desire is hard, laborious work. It may be so: you are a man of very unusual bodily strength, and the confined air of a prison is poison to both your mind and body. You have been deeply embittered by the long term of your preliminary detention, which appears to have been unprecedentedly rigorous. You will again, I am convinced, become the generous, good-natured, noble fellow which you are by nature, and which in my eyes you still are, when you have expanded this deep chest with pure fresh air, and your torpid circulation has been quickened by active work. You need, moreover, a strong counterpoise to the passions that are raging within you. So, all things considered, I am willing to grant your request. Süssmilch shall show you your duties. But I tell you beforehand, it is convicts' work, and you will find yourself in very bad company; so much the earlier will you remember the difference between you and them."

He gave me a friendly look and wave of the hand, and dismissed me. A feeling which I could not explain brought tears to my eyes as I turned from him to the door, but I forced them back and said to myself: That is all very fine; but I do not wish to be good, I wish to be free.

At the extreme corner of the prison wall, upon a slight elevation, there was a new infirmary to be built. Design, plans, specifications, had all been prepared by the superintendent himself, who was an excellent architect, and the work was to be done by the convicts. They were now digging the foundations. It was a heavy piece of work. An old tower, forming part of the city wall, had once stood upon the spot the ruins of which in the lapse of centuries had first crumbled to rubbish, and then become consolidated into a compact mass which had to be broken up with the pick until the old foundation-wall was reached, which was to serve in part for the new building.

About twenty men were employed on this work. Sergeant Süssmilch had the general supervision of it, and indeed, I being the only prisoner under his immediate charge, had nothing else to do, the convicts from the penitentiary being under the charge of two overseers. The most of these convicts, of whom the majority were young men, and all strong and well fitted for such work, looked as any men would look dressed in coarse drilling, working under the eyes of a pair of stalwart overseers, and forbidden to smoke, to whistle, to sing, or to speak in a low tone. This latter prohibition first struck me upon hearing Süssmilch give to one who had attempted to open a private conversation with his neighbor, in a very emphatic tone the warning: "One has no secrets here; one can talk loud or hold his tongue."

This warning was most frequently given to one particular convict, with the additional remark that he had every reason to be careful.

This was a fellow of Herculean frame, the only one that had what might be called a thorough gallows-face, and who owed his precious life only to the circumstance that a murder of which he was most vehemently suspected, could not quite be brought home to him in the eyes of the judges. He was named Kaspar, and his fellow-convicts called him Cat-Kaspar, because he was believed to possess the mysterious faculty of seeing in the dark as well as in broad daylight, and, notwithstanding the gigantic breadth of his shoulders, of creeping through holes only large enough to allow the passage of a cat.

From the very first day I had made a conquest of this richly-gifted man. While the others watched me with suspicious side-glances, never spoke a word to me, and visibly avoided me, Cat-Kaspar sought every opportunity to be near me; made furtive signals with his eyes, first looking at me and then at the overseers, and gave me in every way to understand that he wished to enter into more intimate relations, and especially that he wished to speak with me.

I confess that I felt the strongest abhorrence for the man, whose nature was plainly enough indicated by a low forehead almost covered by his hair, a pair of evil, poisonous eyes, and a great brutal mouth; and any one would have felt the impulse to shun him even without the knowledge that his hands were stained with blood. But I mastered this instinctive aversion, for I said to myself that this man would have decision enough for any venture, and dexterity and strength enough to carry out any plan. So I also sought an opportunity to get near him, but did not succeed until we had been working together for a fortnight. I had hardly effected this, when I made the discovery that Cat-Kaspar, in addition to the accomplishments of which I had heard, possessed another, which I afterwards found out to be easily acquired. This art consisted in a most perfect imitation of a yawn, and while holding the hand to the open mouth, forming by means of the tongue and teeth certain sounds which, when closely listened to, could be detected to be words. Thus for the first time I heard, to my no small astonishment, from the midst of the most natural yawn in the world, the words: "The great stone--help me."

What he meant I learned a few minutes later.

They had recently been hauling stone for the foundations, and a particularly large one, through the clumsiness of the wagoners, had rolled into the foundation at a place where it was not needed. It seemed a matter of impossibility to get it out again without erecting apparatus for the purpose. Sergeant Süssmilch swore at their cursed stupidity, which would now cause an hour or more of unnecessary work. Cat-Kaspar, after he had given me the mysterious hint, suddenly raised his voice and said:

"What is the great difficulty, Herr Süssmilch? I will undertake it, single-handed."

"Yes, if a big mouth could do it," growled Herr Süssmilch.

The rest laughed. Cat-Kaspar called them a pack of toadies, and said that it was an easy thing to crack jokes and laugh at an honest fellow who was not allowed to show what he could do.

Cat-Kaspar knew his man. The honest sergeant turned red in the face; he pulled his long moustache, and said:

"In the first place, no arguments; in the second place, one may show now what he can do."

In an instant Cat-Kaspar had seized an immense crowbar and sprung into the foundation.

The stone lay upon the incline covered with planks by which the rubbish and earth were hauled away, and a giant, by means of a lever, might perhaps have rolled it up. Cat-Kaspar certainly exhibited very surprising strength. Thrusting his bar under the stone, he raised it so far that it required but little more to turn it over. The exertion of strength was really so astonishing, that the men hurrahed, and the attention of even Sergeant Süssmilch and the two overseers was riveted on the performance. Suddenly Cat-Kaspar's strength seemed to fail him; he looked as if in peril every instant to be crushed between the stone and the bank of earth.

"Help me, some one!" he cried.

I did not imagine that all this was a mere stratagem of the cunning rascal. Snatching a second crowbar, and without waiting for the sergeant's permission, I leapt down, thrust the bar under the stone, clapped my shoulder to it and heaved with all my strength, and the stone rolled over.

"Hurrah!" shouted the men.

"Slowly, comrade," said Cat-Kaspar, as I was exerting myself further to help him with the stone, "slowly, or we will get up too soon."

He had no need to yawn now; the excitement of both convicts and overseers was such that the regulations were for the time forgotten; and then we were at least fifteen feet below them, and only our backs were visible. Cat-Kaspar took advantage of his opportunity. While we were heaving at the stone, shoulder to shoulder, he kept bandying coarse jokes with those above, and in the intervals addressed me in rapid, broken sentences.

"Will you join us.--never have such another chance--two fellows at least, such as you and I, must take it in hand--there are ten more of them--but two must begin--no one has the courage but myself--and you too, I hope--to-morrow is the last day--through the gate across the bridge over the rampart to the outer harbor at the strand--only follow me--I'll bring you through--if any one offers to stop us, kill him--the scoundrel Süssmilch first of all. If you betray us----"

"Work, and stop gabbling!" called out the sergeant.

"I can do no more!" said Cat-Kaspar, throwing down his crowbar.

He had gained his object, and had no desire to expend his strength further, at no advantage to himself.

"Come out!" ordered the sergeant, well pleased to have been right, and indeed doubly right, since the two strongest men of the gang had not been able to accomplish what Cat-Kaspar had undertaken to do single-handed.

Order was restored, and the work proceeded as usual. I did the work of two, to conceal the excitement into which the assassin's words had thrown me. His plan at once seemed tolerably plain, and I comprehended it thoroughly when I found an opportunity to take a look around from the highest point of the site from which one could see over the wall. Immediately adjoining the place where we were working was a gate in the wall, which during the progress of the work was frequently used, and the key to which the sergeant carried in his pocket. A short bridge, which had in the centre a gateway defended by chevaux-de-frise, led from the gate over a wide moat which in former times had been the town-fosse, as our prison-wall had once been part of the town-wall. Beyond the moat was a high bastion, with a walk shaded with walnut-trees at its foot, and on it stood two cannon, but I had never observed any sentry near them. To the right of the bastion was a much lower rampart, over which from my position it was easy to see; and beyond this I caught sight of the pennons of ships, which must be in the outer harbor of which Cat-Kaspar had spoken. Between the pennons glittered a bit of blue sea; indeed I could catch a glance of the island beyond, whose low chalk-cliffs shone bright in the sunset.

I had seen enough, and hastened to descend in order to awake no suspicion. The evening-bell rang, our work was over for the day; with the sergeant at my side I retraced the now familiar way by the garden, past the house to my cell.

This night no sleep visited my eyes. All night long I revolved in my mind the possibilities of flight. That Cat-Kaspar's plan was feasible, I was now convinced; and equally so that this cunning, bold fellow was the very man to carry it out. The place could not have been better chosen; a high bastion, an outer harbor with ships and boats, a deserted strand beyond, and over there the island, which I could reach in any event by swimming. Once there, I knew now how to get away, and how easily it could be done. My clothes were still in the old woman's keeping, and there also were my gun and my game-bag. Then farewell preliminary detention and imprisonment; farewell judges and counsel, superintendents and turnkeys! I should be a free man and could mock you all--and you too, worthy citizens of my native town, who had dealt so generously with me, and my father--well, my father might look to it how he reconciled to his conscience his treatment of a son whom his severity had driven from his house, whom he and he alone had made a criminal.

I had not been a criminal yet, but I knew that I should soon be one; indeed I felt myself one already. I even now felt the taint of my associations with Cat-Kaspar. It was plain enough that without real and deep crime--without murder--our plan could not be executed. The sergeant kept the keys of the gates in his pocket, and he was not a man to yield, especially in such a case. Then the other two overseers were there, who were clearly no chicken-hearts. The three would resist as long as life was in their bodies. They must be despatched at the very first attack, in order that terror should be added to confusion, if our flight was to succeed.

I sprang up from my bed with a wildly-beating heart. Cat-Kaspar counted on my assistance first of all, and he was right; unless we two began the attack simultaneously, there was no chance of success; one man alone would have none to second him; so one of the guards, probably the sergeant, must fall by my hand.

By my hand--how easy it was to think and to say this; but would not my courage fail me at the moment? True, I had fired at the officer in the moor, but then not only my own liberty, but that of my protector, benefactor, and friend was at stake, and thankful had I been that my bullet went astray. Now my associate was not the man I so loved and admired, but Cat-Kaspar; the thing to be done now was not to fire a pistol at a dark figure that suddenly springs up threatening in the way, but to perpetrate a deliberate murder; it was to kill a comparatively unarmed man with a spade, a pick, or a crowbar, or the first tool that came to the murderer's hand. And I had done everything in my power to hate the man, and could not do it. Through all his roughness there shone so much genuine kindness, that it often seemed to me that he had put on this prickly garb because he knew how soft he was by nature. If my relations to him were none of the best, whose fault was it but mine who had so rudely repulsed all his advances? He had not retaliated; he had never wavered in his rough but sincere good-will; if I overlooked his surly fashion of speech, he had treated me, not as a keeper his prisoner, but as an old faithful servant, who can take many liberties, might treat a young master who has behaved badly, and who has been entrusted to him to bring back to reason. Often during the work I found his clear blue eyes looking at me with a strange expression as if he were saying constantly to himself: "Poor youth! poor youth!" and as if he would like to throw down his measuring-rod, seize my pick, and do the work in my place. Once or twice he had said, as we were returning from work, "Well, hasn't one had enough of it yet?" and again, "One shouldn't be too obstinate and grieve the captain so." (The sergeant never called his former officer the "superintendent," except where it was absolutely necessary.) "How grieve the captain?" I asked. "One will not understand it," the old man replied, and looked quite sad and dejected.

I would not understand it--he was right in that.

But does any one understand less because he pretends unconsciousness? Whatever the reason might be that drew the superintendent's sympathy to me and my fate, I could not close my eyes to the fact that this sympathy existed, and that it was expressed in the sincerest, in the most winning manner, I still heard his words and the tone in which they were spoken, a tone which so vividly brought back to my memory the voice of the man who had been and still was my hero. The oftener I saw the superintendent--and I saw him nearly every day--the more I was struck by his resemblance to his unfortunate brother. It was the same tall form, but toil and sickness, and probably grief and care, had broken down the proud strength; it was the same noble face, but nobler and gentler; the same great dark eyes, but their looks were more earnest and sad. Even when his lips were silent, these eyes greeted me with kindness; and in this frightful night, while I was struggling with the tempter, I saw them still, and their soft sad looks seemed to ask: "Have you a heart to plan such a deed?--a hand to execute it?"

But I will, I must be free! my spirit cried out. What care I for your laws? If you have brought me to despair, you can only expect from me the actions of a desperate man. From my school here--from one prison to another! I shook off one tyranny because I found it intolerable; should I patiently bear this which oppresses me so much more heavily? Shall I not meet force with force? What would the Wild Zehren do were he alive and knew that his dearest friend was here in a dungeon? He would strive to set me free, though he had to burn down the prison or even the town, as those faithful fellows did, who delivered his ancestor! What he would do and dare, that would I. At the worst it could but cost my life; and that life should be thrown away when it was no longer worth having--the Wild Zehren had taught me that.

Thoughts like these agitated me as if a hell had been let loose in my breast. Even now, after so many years, now when with a joyous and innocent heart I feel grateful for every sun that rises bringing me another day of earnest work and calm happiness--even now my heart palpitates and my hand trembles as I write these lines, which bring so vividly before me the terrors of that night, and of the time when I sought for any means of escape from the labyrinth in which I wandered in despair.

Let no one cast a stone at me that I strayed so far from the right path. Well for thee, be thou who thou mayst, whose brow falls into severe judicial folds upon reading this--well for thee if the happy temper of thy blood has preserved thee from the blind fury of raging passions, if a judicious education has early given thee a clear view of life, and kindly smoothed thy path before thee. Then thank thy beneficent stars that have granted thee all this, and perhaps kept thee from going widely astray. For when is this not possible? It is a peril to which all are exposed. Then devoutly pray that thou mayst not be led into temptation, that no such night may come to thee as that through which I suffered; a night in which it is not only dark without, but within; a night which, when thirty years have passed, you will still shudder to think of.

When the dawning light entered my cell, it found me with burning temples, and shivering with chill. I probably looked pale and haggard, for the sergeant's first word when he saw me was, "Sick: no work to-day."

I was sick; I felt it but too plainly. I had never felt thus in my life before. Was this the hand of fate, I thought, which forbade our designs? If I did not go to work to day, the attempt would not be made. Cat-Kaspar reckoned on my strength, courage, and decision. My example--the example of one who was to a certain extent a volunteer, and whom they all felt to be their superior--must exert an irresistible influence upon them. Cat-Kaspar fully calculated upon this, and he neither could nor would venture without me.

"No work to-day," said the sergeant. "Look as miserable as a cat. Overdid it yesterday. Not got seven senses like a bear."

This last mysterious phrase--a favorite one with the sergeant--was beyond my comprehension; but its meaning could only be a friendly one, for his blue eyes rested upon me as he spoke with an expression of sincere solicitude.

"Not at all," I said. "I think I shall feel better out of doors: the prison air does not suit me."

"Doesn't suit anybody that I know of," growled the sergeant.

"And me first of all," I said; "so badly that I have a strong inclination to go away pretty soon."

I looked the old man fixedly in the eye. I wanted him to read my intention in my looks. But he only smiled and replied:

"Not many would stay if all went that wanted to--Would go away myself."

"Why do you not?"

"Been with the captain now five-and-twenty years. Stay with him till I die."

"That may happen any day."

Again I looked at him steadily in the face. This time the expression of my look struck him.

"Look like a bear with seven senses. Got a robber-murderous-gallows look,"[^[5]] said he.

"What I am not, I may be yet," I said; "what if I were to throttle you this moment? I am thrice as strong as you."

"No stupid jokes," said the sergeant. "Not a bear; and an old soldier is no toothpick."

In this way the worthy Herr Süssmilch disposed of the matter. As I would neither remain in my cell nor see the prison-doctor, we started for the work-place.

On the way I had to stop more than once, for everything grew dark before my eyes, and I thought that I was about to die. The same sensations returned several times during the day, which was unusually hot. A fierce fever was raging in my veins, a terrible malady was swiftly coming on me, or indeed had already come.

Dr. Snellius said to me afterwards, and indeed repeated the remark to me but a few days ago, over our wine at table, that he cannot to this day understand how a man in the condition in which I must have been, could not only remain upon his feet all day long, but do hard work. He said it was the strongest proof he had ever met, of how far an intense will could prevail contra naturam, against the course of nature. "To be sure," he added, clapping me on the shoulder, "only blacksmiths can do it; tailors die in the attempt."

How dreadfully I suffered! When the dream-god has a mind to play me a malicious trick, he places me in a deep excavation into which pour the rays of a pitiless sun; he claps a pick into my hand, with which I smite furious blows upon a soil hard as rock, but the soil is my own head, and every blow pierces to my brain; and then he fills the excavation with fiends in the shape of men, who are all working like myself with picks or with spades, shovels and barrows, and these fiends have all flat, brutal faces and evil eyes that they keep fixed upon me, giving me signs of intelligence and readiness for the devilish work I am to do. And among them rises from time to time a head that has eyes more evil than all the rest, and the head opens its horrible mouth to yawn, and from the distended jaws come the words: "Sunset soon--ready, comrade--I take Rollmann, you sergeant--smash skulls!"

But the most dreadful part is to come.

It is half an hour before sunset. In half an hour the bell will ring to stop work. This is the last day; the excavation is done and the foundation-stones are brought. Tomorrow regular masons will take the work in hand. Some of the convicts will help them, but others will be employed elsewhere; it is the last evening on which the eleven of whom I am to be the twelfth will be together. Now or never is to be the time, and the signal has been already given.

Cat-Kaspar commences a dispute with his neighbor, in which the others join, one by one. The quarrel gets hot; the men appear to grow furious; while the overseers, with the sergeant at their head, endeavor to separate them, and threaten them with solitary confinement on bread and water for such unheard-of insubordination. The rioters pay no attention; from words they come to blows, and pushing and striking, they get into a confused mêlée, into which they endeavor to involve the overseers.

This prelude has lasted but a few moments, and it can be continued no longer, lest the unusual noise should bring other officers upon the spot, and so the whole plan be defeated.

Whether I was drawn into the mêlée, or whether I sprang into it voluntarily, I cannot say--I find myself in the midst. I do not know if I am helping the overseers to drag the men apart, or if I am trying to increase the confusion; but I shout, I rave, I seize two by their necks and hurl them to the ground as if they were puppets; I behave like a madman--I am really mad, though neither I nor the rest know it; even Cat-Kaspar does not perceive it, but rushes up to my side and shouts: "Now, comrade!"

At this instant I see a man of tall stature emerge from the garden-gate and hasten towards us. It is the superintendent. A maiden of about fifteen, of whose slender figure I have more than once caught a glimpse through the garden-gate, holds him by the hand, and seems to endeavor to detain him, or else to share the danger. Two boys appear at the gate, and hurrah loudly; they have no idea of the terrible seriousness of the affair.

The tall superintendent confronts us. He draws his left hand gently from the hand of the maiden and presses it upon his weak chest, which is laboring with the exertion of his rapid walk. The other hand he has raised to command silence, as he is not yet able to speak. His usually pale cheeks are suffused with a feverish glow; his large eyes flash, as if they must speak, since his lips cannot.

And the raging, furious crew understand their language. They have all learned to look up in reverence to the pale man who is always grave and always kind, even when he must punish, and whom no one has yet known to punish unjustly. They are prepared for everything except this, that at the last moment this man should confront them. They feel that their plan has failed: indeed they abandon it.

One does not. One is resolved to win the game or lose all. In truth, is not the chance now better than ever? Let yonder man once lie prostrate, who or what could restrain him and the rest?

Giving a yell more horrible than ever issued from the throat of the fiercest beast of prey, he swings high his pick and rushes upon the superintendent. The maiden throws herself before her father. But a better defender is still swifter than she. With one bound he springs between them and seizes the miscreant's arm. The pick, in descending, grazes his head, but what is that to the torments that have been raging in it for hours?

"Cursed hound!" roars Cat-Kaspar, "have you betrayed us?" and swings his pick again, but has hardly raised it when he is lying upon the ground, and on his breast is kneeling one to whom the delirium of fever has now given the strength of a giant, and whom in this moment no living man could resist.

In a moment it is all over. For an instant he sees the horribly distorted face of Cat-Kaspar--he feels hands striving to wrench his hands from the man's throat, and then a black night swallows up all.