“Thus does man act by his fellow, knowing him to be innocent, in blind obedience to the commands of another man.
“O God! Thou alone knowest how my heart, void as it was of guilt, beat at this moment. There I sat, destitute, alone, in thick darkness, upon the bare earth, with a weight of fetters insupportable to nature, thanking Thee that these cruel men had not discovered my knife by which my miseries might yet find an end. Death is a last certain refuge that can indeed bid defiance to the rage of tyranny. What shall I say. How shall I make the reader feel as I then felt? How describe my despondency, and yet account for that latent impulse that withheld my hand on this fatal, this miserable night?
“The misery I foresaw was not of short duration. I had heard of the wars that were lately broken out between Austria and Prussia. To patiently wait their termination amid sufferings and wretchedness such as mine, appeared impossible, and freedom even then was doubtful. Sad experience had I had of Vienna, and well I knew that those who had despoiled me of my property would most anxiously endeavour to prevent my return. Such were my meditations, such my night thoughts. Day at length returned, but where was its splendour? I beheld it not, yet its glimmering obscurity was sufficient to show me my dungeon.
“In breadth, the cell was about eight feet; in length, ten. Near me stood a table; in a corner was a seat four bricks broad, on which I might sit and recline against the wall opposite to the ring to which I was fastened; the light was admitted through a semicircular aperture one foot high, and two in diameter. This aperture ascended to the centre of the wall, which was six feet thick, and at this central part was a close iron grating from which outward the aperture descended, having its two extremities again closely secured by strong iron bars. My dungeon was built in the ditch of the fortification, and the aperture by which the light entered was so covered by the wall of the rampart, that instead of finding immediate passage, the light only gained admission by reflection. This, considering the smallness of the aperture and the impediments of grating and iron bars, made the obscurity very great, yet my eyes in time became so accustomed to this gloom, that I could see a mouse run. In winter, however, when the sun did not shine into the ditch, it was dense night with me. Between the bars and the grating was a glass window, most curiously formed, with a small central casement, which might be opened to admit the air. The name of Trenck was built in the wall in red brick, and under my feet was a tombstone with the name of Trenck also cut on it, and carved with a death’s head. The doors to my dungeon were double, of oak, two inches thick; without, there was an open space in front of the cell, in which was a window. And this space was likewise shut in by double doors. The ditch in which this dreadful den was built was inclosed on both sides by palisadoes twelve feet high, the key of the gate of which was intrusted to the officer of the guard, it being the king’s intention to prevent all possibility of speech or communication with the sentinel. The only motion I had the power to make was that of jumping upward, or swinging my arms to procure myself warmth. When more accustomed to the fetters, I became capable of moving from side to side about four feet, but this pained my shin-bones.
“The cell had been finished with lime and plaster but eleven days, and everybody supposed it impossible I should exist above a fortnight after breathing the damp air. I remained six months, continually drenched with very cold water, that trickled upon me from the thick arches above; and I can safely affirm that for the first three months I was never dry, yet I continued in health. I was visited daily at noon, after the relieving of guard, and the doors were then obliged to be left open for some minutes, otherwise the dampness of the air put out my gaolers’ candles.
“This was my situation. And here I sat, destitute of friends, helplessly wretched, preyed on by all the tortures of an imagination that continually suggested the most gloomy, the most horrid, the most dreadful of images. My heart was not yet wholly turned to stone; my fortitude was reduced to despondency; my dungeon was the very cave of despair; yet was my arm restrained, and this excess of misery endured.
“How, then, may hope be wholly eradicated from the heart of man? My fortitude, after some time, began to revive. I glowed with the desire of convincing the world I was capable of suffering what man had never suffered before, perhaps of, at last, emerging from beneath this load of wretchedness triumphant over my enemies. So long and ardently did my fancy dwell on this picture that my mind at length acquired a heroism which Socrates himself certainly never possessed. Age had benumbed his sense of pleasure, and he drank the poisonous draught with cool indifference; but I was young, inured to high hopes, yet now beholding deliverance impossible, or at an immense, a dreadful distance. Such, too, were my other sufferings of soul and body that I could not hope and live.
“About noon my door was opened. Sorrow and compassion were painted on the countenances of my keepers; no one spoke, no one bade me ‘Good morrow!’ Dreadful, indeed, was the sound of their arrival; for the monstrous bolts and bars moved with difficulty, and the noise of their removal would be resounding for a good half hour through the vaults of the prison.
“But at length a camp bed, mattress, and blankets were brought me, and beside it an ammunition loaf of six pounds’ weight. ‘That you may no more complain of hunger,’ said the town major, when the loaf was laid before me, ‘you shall have as much bread as you can eat.’ The door was shut, and I again left to my thoughts.”
For eleven months Trenck had been dying of hunger, and he devoured the bread so greedily that repletion nearly finished what starvation had begun, and he became seriously ill. When he had somewhat recovered he began anew to meditate a scheme of escape.