The humour of Germany

by Unknown

Public opinion in those days generally inclined to the assumption that where the case was doubtful it was better to hang three innocent men than let one guilty one get away. And, moreover, Jörg Muckenhuber was guilty any way you might look at it. For if he had committed the murder in question then he deserved the gallows, and if he had not committed it, then he deserved the gallows more than ever, because by reason of his iniquity the senate of the town had made a confounded fool of itself. But as there was no unanimity in court in which of these two ways he had deserved the gallows, he was left for the present quietly in the dungeon.

It was not exactly attractive there. The cell was half above ground and half below, in a small tower, which upon three sides faced a swampy bog; there was no surplus of light, but a narrow little window let in a bit of chiaroscuro, which would have enabled one to distinguish a chair from a table on a sunny noon-day—that is, if there had been any such objects of luxury at hand. There was more pleasure to be derived from outside. Under the window the frogs sang in a varied and full chorus. At one side there was another dungeon, occupied by an old hag, who obstinately refused to confess to being a witch. Her so-called window also faced the bog, and when the two neighbours looked out of the window they could converse with facility, although it was without seeing each other, and no one excepting the frogs overheard their conferences.

Jörg had received the first intimation of his neighbour’s presence by hearing her pray aloud one day. It was no soft, humble prayer; it was passionate, almost as if the old woman were storming the Almighty with commands rather than petitions. Jörg had never learned to pray, and at first the devotions of the old woman struck him as very odd; gradually it came to look very grand to him that an old hag should venture to address herself to God with such vehemence, and he came to the conclusion she must be a giant in strength and able to hold her own against ten men.

He did not open the conversation, but waited until his neighbour should discover his proximity and address him. Even heroic women like to talk. Soon an intimacy sprang up between these two comrades in distress who had never seen each other. At first Jörg often interrupted his neighbour’s kind words with many a scornful and dogged remark, but she always answered him so mildly, and at the same time with so much quiet superiority, that Jörg’s insolence was soon tamed.

In the course of a few days Jörg knew the history of his neighbour by heart, but he obstinately kept silence about his own.

The old woman was the well-to-do, childless widow of an innkeeper. In her sixtieth year she had the misfortune to be accused of witchcraft. A wealthy witch is a rarity. But it so happened that during the last five years all ugly poor women had been burned up in Nördlingen, and as every witch was called upon to name accomplices, and as the zeal of the judges increased with each execution, at last it came to be the turn of young, handsome, and rich women as well. There were enough of these unfortunate women, but none was so unfortunate, and at the same time so heroic, as Maria Hollin. She had been in the rack fifty-eight times, and had confessed nothing. She was indeed, as Jörg had rightly judged from her prayer, able to hold her own against ten men. The judges were in despair; it was out of the question to acquit a person who had been tortured fifty-eight times, and it was equally so to condemn her without a confession.

Moreover, the rumour of her firmness had gone among the populace, and there was much sympathy with her, and a threatening murmur of displeasure against the much-feared judges. Up to now everything had gone smoothly and comfortably. Thirty-two women had been accused, put on the rack, convicted, and burned; not one of them had made any trouble. At the worst, the one or the other had to be left hanging with weights on her feet until the judges had had some refreshments. But when they came back from lunch the fullest confession had always rewarded them. And now, through the obstinacy of this woman, the smooth course of events had been most aggravatingly interrupted.

And then, too, there was that provoking affair with Muckenhuber.

The one would not confess her guilt, while they were hankering to condemn her; the other they would have been only too happy to let go, but even the rack was powerless to extract the confession of his innocence. The town-scribent thought if Jörg Muckenhuber were only a woman, then by a bold strategy he might be burned, as it were by mistake, instead of Maria Hollin, and she might be dismissed in his stead, so that each should have his heart’s desire, and the court should preserve its authority.

But the worst of all for the senate was the prospect of a diplomatic storm that was brewing at the horizon in the direction of Regensburg. Maria Hollin had well-to-do relatives at Ulm, and the magistrate of that town, convinced of her innocence, had applied for her release. But that did her little good. The town-scribent thought it would endanger the reputation of a court to put a person on the rack for fifty-eight times and then not even to have the satisfaction of singeing her a little, not to speak of burning. But the burghers of Ulm would not be silenced. At Regensburg there was an important Reichstag that year, and the Emperor, Rudolph II., was present in person. The ambassador from Ulm received orders from his town to intercede for the accused, and as he was not given a hearing he threatened to set the Emperor and the Reich against the law-court of Nördlingen.