"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!"