"I am an old man, sir, my hoary hair speaks the truth. I have gone through a great deal. My father also was an executioner, and my grandfather before him. I inherited 'the business' so to speak. In my younger years I was wild and frivolous. I loved racket, wine, and boisterous mirth. A sort of heavy indescribable load oppressed my heart continually, a sort of blinding darkness enveloped me which I would gladly have chased away had I only known how. This heavy mental oppression, this black weariness tortured me more and more, according as my sad reminiscences multiplied with my advancing years, and I drank more and more wine, and plunged all the more recklessly into vile debauchery in order that I might not hear all round me those faint sighs and moans which troubled and terrified me most when there was not a sound in my room, and I was all alone. My acquaintances used to laugh at me because I sat all alone drinking silently till far into the night, just as they used to laugh at me afterwards for sitting by myself and singing hymns."
The fellow sighed deeply and was silent for a time, as if he were trying to gather up again the threads of his scattering thoughts.
"You may perhaps have noticed a woman outside there. That is my wife. I married because I fancied that I should thereby find rest for my soul. I imagined how happy I should be if I were to have a child. I should then have something to knit me to life, to the world again. No, I said to myself, he shall not inherit the curse of my abhorred existence. I will choose for him a career in which he will be happy, honoured, and respected. I will provide him with a comfortable maintenance and have him educated far from me and my house. I will make a worthy, honest, sensible man of him. For two years I comforted myself with such visions and was happy. My mind shook off its horrors and became bright and cheerful. And then—then I began drinking heavily again. Evil memories commenced assailing me worse than ever, and my fair hopes abandoned me—for life and death, sir, are both lodged in a woman's heart, and some find the one and some the other. Once more I was visited by that midnight sighing, by that speechless moaning, by those voices that terrified my solitude and pursued me sleeping and waking, and I began to drink and run riot again once more."
The man hid his drooping head in his hands. Even now those dreadful memories weighed him down when he thought upon them.
"Suddenly I began to be deaf. A continuous humming sounded in my ears which kept me in a perpetual whirl. I did not understand a single word unless I looked at the lips of the speaker. I never noticed anyone coming into my room until I suddenly caught sight of him. Oh! deafness is indeed a horrible torture. The deaf man is far more completely shut off from the world than the blind. At first I hid my wretchedness lest they should make sport of me. Nobody is merciful to the deaf. Whenever two people talked to each other in my presence I fancied they were plotting against me. I feared to go to sleep lest I should be murdered without hearing my door burst open. And then, too, in the night, in the darkness, in my lonely deafness, I had an ear all the keener for those sighs and moans which nobody could hear but myself. And in vain I drank, in vain I sang riotously. After every bumper of wine it seemed to me as if I was plunged more and more deeply into a roaring bottomless sea, and at last I could not even hear my own howling. Then my soul died away within me, I cast myself despairingly on my bed, and then for the first time in my life it occurred to me to pray. The only thing I could think of to say was: 'My God! my God!' as I wrung my hands, and the tears ran down my cheeks."
And at these words tears stood once more in the headsman's eyes.
"That night I slept quietly, nothing disturbed me. Thus I slumbered for many hours like one dead, and was only awakened at last by a feeling of moisture all over my face. I had been lying face downwards, and a rush of blood had come through my nose and mouth and wetted my couch. I arose, douched my face in a large tub of water, and felt that my head was very much relieved. I no longer heard that roaring sound as of a deep sea rolling over me; there was no more whispering and moaning around me; but, instead of that, I heard through the deep stillness of the night the crying of a child. The crying of a child in my own house! I fancied it was but a dream-voice—for was I not deaf?—and that instead of a pursuing, the voice of an enticing spectre was now sounding in my ear. But again the crying of a child penetrated to me from the room where my wife usually slept. What could it be? I walked thither, and lo! I could hear the soft pattering of my own footsteps. I must walk more softly, thought I. And I did walk more softly, and then I also heard distinctly the light cracking of the boards beneath my feet. And through it all the weeping of that child sounded continuously. The door was only closed by a bolt. I slipped it softly aside so that not a sound should be heard. Softly I opened the door. And behold! on the table in the middle of the room was a tiny babe. The night-lamp flung a flickering flame across its face, it could not have been more than a couple of months old. It was wrapped up in fine swaddling clothes, a tiny embroidered chemise covered its little body, and its wee round head was covered by a deep cap trimmed with pearls, from underneath which welled forth tiny little ringlets like fine gold thread. Just like those little painted angels of whom you only see the heads peeping out of the sky."
The unknown smiled so sympathetically at the childish simile of the old headsman.
Then Peter Zudár's face again grew clouded, he drew his chair closer to his guest's and thus continued:
"My wife was not in the room. Her bed was empty and I could see through the door, which she had left open behind her, that a large fire was flickering in the kitchen. My wife was busy with something at the hearth and with her was her mother, a sly, wicked old woman, whom all the people hereabouts look upon as a witch. What were they doing there so late at night I asked myself? The younger woman was holding a pan over the fire and the elder was casting into it all sorts of herbs. There was nothing to be afraid of, and yet they were speaking to each other in whispers and peering timorously around. I know not how the thought occurred to me, but I suddenly thrust into my bosom the little suckling lying on the table and carried it off into my own room. There I laid it down upon my bed and put into its hands again its plaything of little bells which it had dropped, whereupon it ceased to cry. Then I returned to watch and see what the two women would do next. The contents of the pan were already frizzling. Now and then it boiled over into the fire and the flames shot up all round it. Then the old woman would skim it carefully with a spoon. And all the time they were muttering together: