Another case brings me to Leipzig, where I, as I have reported on page 119 [a], have been apprehended forty-five years ago by unlawful means. This was such a long time ago that the court records about this have long since been destroyed, because humaneness demands that such traces shall only last for a very specific time, and this time is up. Who has now considered the possibility that the police of Leipzig might also have made notes about this, which might still be in existence? Mr. Lebius has recently published them! How does a man like he now also get hold of the police records of Leipzig? The law permits it!
[a] Fifth chapter, second half of the 13th paragraph.
Likewise, has published the records of my divorce. These are most certainly of a nature which requires discretion and are none of his business at all. But the law permits him to do so!
He is informed about everything relating to my lawsuits. Who gives him that permission, and who makes it possible for him? The law and the Münchmeyers' lawyer, who is his lawyer as well. Both are working hand in hand. At one time, Lebius even persuaded my ex-wife in Berlin to sign a blank power of attorney, but sent this to Dresden to the Münchmeyers' lawyer, who then filled in the blanks as he saw fit for his particular purposes. These are only a few examples from my rich, personal experience with the fact that the law does not just permit, but even encourages, things which it ought to prohibit most strictly. Even the most judicious and humane judge is powerless against this, and this was what I was thinking of when I said before that I had finally, finally realised what my task was. About forty to fifty years ago, I have involuntarily descended to that place where the despised people dwell, for whom regaining the respect, which had been robbed from them, is made so very difficult. I have come to know them, and I know that they are worth no less than all those who only never fell because they either had never been on a high level or did not possess the necessary inner freedom to be able to fall. I want to descent back down to them, now being almost seventy years old, not being forced, but voluntarily, as my own decision. I want to tell them what nobody dared to tell them before, this is that nobody can help them, if they do not know how to help themselves; that they are doomed, unless they save themselves using their own power; by sticking most closely together among themselves. I want to present them with my example, my life and my efforts. I want to show them what will become of all of their good intentions and all of their hard efforts, if others lack these good intentions. I want to show them that a single unfair lawyer or that single article 193 are enough to destroy even the most beautiful and best achievements of their strength of mind, of Christian love, and of humaneness in one blow. I want to tell them that it is a sin of mankind to conceal their share in the guilt of the guilty ones; but that it is also a mistake for the latter ones to keep their past guilt a secret. Our lives, my life, their lives shall be spread out openly before the eyes of God, but in particular also openly before our own eyes. Then, we will not bear a grudge, and then, we will not be resentful. Because then, we will realise why it was possible for us to fall: We made ourselves fall. And once we realise this, we are able to forgive ourselves; and he who may forgive himself, will be forgiven. So, do away with the inappropriate feeling of being ashamed, and bring out openness! Only the secret we veil ourselves in gives that article and every unscrupulous person the power to think himself higher and better than us and still to be our -- -- -- executioner!
I am only giving you an outline here. Like everything up to this point, this can also be nothing but a sketch for now. But I am feeling the need to transform the evil things which others have done to me into something good for my fellow human beings. I will enable those who had the same fate as I to draw those conclusions from my inhumane persecution which are beneficial to them. What good is all so-called "justice", all so-called "clemency of the court", all so-called "humane punishment", all so-called "care for released prisoners", if all it takes is one cunning lawyer or one questionable article to destroy all the good things which had come out of these efforts in a single moment? How can anybody expect a fallen man to get up again and to be a better person, as long as they fail to create better conditions as well in the surroundings he is put back into? Does it encourage him to know that, in spite of all efforts to become a better person, he must still continue to be, as long as he shall live, the ostracised one, the suppressed one, the one without rights, and will continue to be like this, because he is forced to remain silent, no matter what is happening to him, and to let them do everything to him? Because if he does not do this, he is doomed. If he should go ahead and seek his rightful justice against those who insult, rob, and cheat him, his old files are dragged forward, and he is pilloried. Let me just remind you that a public prosecutor form Dresden, even just for purely "scientific" reasons, had nailed me to the pillory, while I am still alive! He could not even wait for my death and maintained that an article of the law gave him the right to conduct this vivisection. In such a situation one cannot help but look into the faces of those who talk about humaneness, to see whether there might be a sardonic smile coming through, revealing how things really are. And one feels, together with the hundreds of thousands who are suffering from this, the burning urge to take all of these articles, because of which mankind's good intentions fail, drag them to the light of day, and put them there where they must be, in order to be seen as what they really are, -- -- -- into the public, before parliament!
Here lies the point where my task has to begin. There have already been several who have written down their experiences as "released prisoners"; but what could be gathered from these reports was so insignificant that it could not be of any benefit for the general public. Here, it is not enough to show the small lot of some people, but rather heavy, weighty fates of people, which are also real fates in the classical sense. And my fate is like this. I feel obliged, and it is my task, to put it into the service of humaneness. What I mean by this will, so I hope, be be evident from my second volume.
It was a part of this task of mine, that the public did not only take an interest in Karl May the novelist, but also in the person May, and that everything which could be held against the latter had to be scooped up, down to the last drop. One thing was justified criticism; the other was the work of executioners, flayers, and knackers, I had to put up with without freeing myself from this agony and torture by paying the money they demanded from me. This was the spirits' furnace of my fable, where they were bashing away at me, so that the sparks were spewing through every newspaper. They even still spew today. But soon, this will quiet down. The time of the hammer is over; only the file is still to come, and then, it will be done. It goes entirely without saying that all that pain, which came upon me, also had to influence my other task, my task as a novelist. There also was dross, and even more than enough. It also had to be removed. Thus flew the soot, the filth, the dust, the hammer's blows. All of this is still lying all around me, but now, it will be cleared away, so that the clean, noble work shall begin.
It was quite generally a large, a hard, and a most painful process of clearing up and out; not just inside of me, but also externally, in my work, my profession, my house, my marriage. Everything which had driven me to the furnace and the pain had to go. It was replaced with what was clean and honest and what was striving upwards with me, from Ardistan to Jinnistan, the land of the nobly spirited people. This resulted in a separation of good from evil, which could only be brought about by means of struggles and sacrifices. Now it has been completed. The storms have passed. Though there a still a few murky waters, murmuring here and there, some lawsuit for gross insult, a complaint with the public prosecutor's office, but this will also pass quickly, and then, there will be calm and peace around me, so that I will finally, finally obtain the time and space and state of mind, to approach my real, my only and last "work".