Hammer and Anvil: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

I was the only one who could have done it. I remembered well the expressions which Herr von Zehren had always used in speaking of his brother; I knew that this last expedition had been made chiefly on that brother's account. I had held in my hands the proof of his guilt, and--destroyed it.

It seemed as if something of the sort was suspected. Suddenly the name of the steuerrath made its appearance in the examinations to which I was subjected, and I was closely questioned as to what I knew of the relations between Herr von Zehren and his brother. I firmly denied all knowledge of anything of the kind.

"My dear sir," said Assessor Perleberg, "why do you wish to screen the man? In the first place, he does not deserve to be spared, for he is a bad subject, take him as you will; and in the second place, you thus do yourself irreparable injury. I will tell you beforehand, you will not get off with less than five years, for in the first place----"

"For God's sake let me alone!" I said.

"You grow less reasonable every day," said Assessor Perleberg.

And he was quite right; but it would have been a marvel had it been otherwise.

I had been confined now for nearly half a year in a cell but half lighted by a small grated window, and which I could traverse with four steps lengthways and with three across. This was a hard trial for a young man like me, but harder, much harder, were the mental sufferings that I endured. The confidence in humankind which had hitherto filled my heart, was all now gone. That no one visited me in my prison, I could lay to the account of Justizrath Heckepfennig, who felt it to be his duty to see that so dangerous a man held no communication with the outer world; but that men to whom I had done nothing, or at the worst had perhaps at some time or other, in my clumsy way, ruffled their pride a little, should set their hearts upon trampling a fallen man still deeper into the dust--this I could not forgive; this it was that filled my soul with bitterness unspeakable. Ten witnesses were called to prove my previous good character; and of these ten there was but one, and that one the man whom of all others I had most deeply wounded--Professor Lederer--who ventured to say some words in my behalf, and to put up a timid plea for lenity. All the rest--old friends of my father, neighbors, fathers whose sons had been my friends and companions--all could hardly find words to express what a miscreant I had been all my life long. And good heaven! what had I done to them? Perhaps I had filled the pipe of one with saw-dust; I had caught a pair of pigeons that belonged to another; the son of a third I had sent home with a bloody nose--and this was all.

I could not comprehend it, but so much of it as I did understand, filled me with inexpressible bitterness, which once even broke out into indignant tears when I learned through my counsel that Arthur--the Arthur whom I had so dearly loved--when interrogated as to his association with me, declared that for years I had talked to him about turning smuggler, and had even attempted to persuade him to join me; that I had always been on the most intimate terms with Smith Pinnow, and that if he were asked if he believed me capable of the crime laid to my charge, he must answer unequivocally Yes.

"That ruins you," said Assessor Perleberg. "You will not get off under seven years; for in the first place----"

I brushed away the tears that were streaming down my cheeks, burst into a wild laugh, and then fell into a paroxysm of frantic rage, which finally gave place to a stony apathy. I still felt a kind of interest in the sparrows that I had taught to come every morning and share my ration of bread; but all other things were indifferent to me. I learned, without feeling any special interest in the news, that Constance was already deserted by her princely lover, who had yielded to the entreaties and threats of his father; that Hans von Trantow had disappeared and no one knew what had become of him, but the general opinion was that he had met with some accident in the forest or on the moor; that old Christian had never recovered from the effects of his young mistress's flight, his master's death, and the burning of the castle, and had been found one morning lying dead among the ruins which he could never be prevailed on to leave; and that old Pahlen had escaped from the jail at B. in which she had been confined. I heard all this with indifference, and with similar apathy I received my sentence.