Tales of the German Imagination from the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann (Penguin Classics)

by Unknown

  The traveller turned an ear towards the officer, and with his hands in his jacket pocket, watched the work of the machine. The condemned man watched it too, but without grasping its purpose. He leant forward a little and followed the motion of the oscillating needles, when, at a signal from the officer, the soldier, knife in hand, sliced through his shirt and trousers from the rear so that they fell from the condemned man’s body; he wanted to grab after the falling stuff to cover his nakedness, but the soldier lifted him in the air and shook off the remaining rags. The officer set the machine, and in the ensuing silence the condemned man was laid under the harrow. The chains unshackled, he was bound with straps instead; for the condemned man it almost seemed at first like a relief. And then the harrow sank a little lower, for he was a slender man. When the points made contact, a shudder spread across his skin; while the soldier was busy with his right hand, he stretched out his left without knowing whereto; it happened to be where the traveller stood. The officer kept a constant eye on the traveller, as if eager to read from his face the impression the execution, which he had at least explained in a summary fashion, made on him.

  The strap intended to immobilize the condemned man’s hands tore open; the soldier had probably fastened it too tightly. The soldier indicated the torn strap to the officer, hoping for his help. The officer did indeed step towards him, with his face turned to the traveller: ‘The apparatus is quite complicated, something is bound to tear or break here and there; but don’t be fooled by such minor flaws. The leather strap can, by the way, immediately be replaced; I’ll just use a chain; which will, however, diminish the gentleness of the swing for the right arm.’ And while attaching the chain, he added: ‘The means made available for the upkeep of the device are now exceedingly limited. Under the former commandant I had free access to funds expressly committed for this purpose. There was a storehouse here in the colony where you could find every imaginable replacement part. I confess that I was almost extravagant in my upkeep, before I mean, not now, as the new commandant maintains, for whom every critique is just an excuse to do away with old-established customs. He now oversees the machine’s budget himself, and if I order a new strap he demands to see the old torn one as proof, and the new one takes ten days to arrive, is of a poor quality and doesn’t hold up for long. But nobody gives a damn how, in the meantime, I am supposed to keep the apparatus running without straps.’

  The traveller thought to himself: it is always a ticklish matter to intercede decisively in a foreign context. He was neither a resident of the penal colony nor of the country to which it belonged. If he wished to judge or even thwart this execution, the locals could well reply: you’re a stranger, be still. To which he would have been able to make no ready reply, but merely have added that, in this instance, he did not rightly understand himself, for his only purpose in travelling was to witness, and by no means to alter, the conduct of foreign judicial systems. But things were indeed quite different here, practically begging to be put right. There was no doubt as to the injustice of the legal proceedings and of the inhumanity of the mode of execution. No one could possibly presume any selfish purpose on the part of the traveller, since the condemned man was a perfect stranger, no countryman of his, and definitely not someone who elicited his pity. The traveller himself had come on the recommendation of high officials, been most courteously received here, and the fact that he had been invited to attend this execution appeared, moreover, to indicate that his judgement was sought concerning the conduct of these proceedings. This was all the more likely since the commandant, as he had just been told in no uncertain terms, was no proponent of the procedure and had an almost hostile rapport with the officer.

  Then the traveller heard the officer cry out in anger. He had just managed, not without difficulty, to shove the felt wad into the condemned man’s mouth, when the latter shut his eyes and, giving way to an overpowering urge to regurgitate, proceeded to retch. The officer rushed to tear his head loose and turn it downwards to the pit; but it was too late, the vomit had already spilt all over the machine. ‘It’s all the commandant’s fault!’ the officer screamed and rattled the brass bars in a mindless rage. ‘My machine will now be soiled like a pigsty.’ With trembling hands he pointed it out to the traveller. ‘Did I not spend hours trying to make the commandant comprehend that no more food was to be given a day before the execution! But the new relaxed regulations are of a different mind. The commandant’s ladies stuff the man’s throat with sweet things before he is led off. His whole life he’s been fed with stinking fish and now he has to eat sweets! But all right, so be it, I would not have objected, but why in heaven’s name can’t they fetch me the new felt wad I’ve been begging for these last three months? How can anyone take this filthy thing into the mouth without gagging, a wad on which more than a hundred men sucked and gnawed while dying?’

  The condemned man lowered his head and looked peaceful, the soldier was busy wiping the machine off with the man’s cast-off shirt. The officer walked over to the traveller, who, sensing something, stepped back, but the officer grasped him by the hand and pulled him to his side. ‘I would like to have a few words with you in confidence,’ he said, ‘if it’s all right with you.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the traveller and listened with his eyes turned to the ground.

  ‘This procedure and this execution, which you now have occasion to witness, is presently no longer favoured by any persons in this colony. I am its sole proponent and the last living representative of all that the former commandant left us. I can no longer conceive of any further development of this procedure, all my efforts are devoted to preserving what’s left. In the old commandant’s lifetime the colony was entirely staffed by his followers; I am endowed in part with the commandant’s power of persuasion but am altogether lacking in his authority; consequently these followers have taken a low profile, many are still around but none of them will admit it. If nowadays on an execution day you ventured into a café and listened around, you might perhaps hear nothing but equivocal remarks. They’re all old followers, but given the newfangled notions of the current commandant, these men are of little use to me. And so I ask you, sir: should such a life’s work’ – he pointed to the machine – ‘be brought to rack and ruin all on account of this commandant and the ladies that lead him around by the nose? Can one permit such a thing? Even if, as a stranger, one spends only a few days on our island? But there’s no time to be lost, preparations are in motion to undermine my juridical authority; deliberations are already under way in the commandant’s headquarters in which I am not included; even your visit today seems to me to be characteristic of the entire situation; cowards, they send a lone stranger to bear witness. What were executions like in the old days! I’ll tell you. The day before the execution the entire valley was already teeming with people; everyone came to have a look; in the early morning the commandant appeared with his womenfolk; bugles resounded, awakening one and all; I made the announcement that everything was ready; the entire community – not a single official was absent – gathered in rows around the machine; this heap of cane chairs is a miserable leftover of those days. The machine glistened, freshly polished, for almost every execution I replaced faulty components with brand-new spare parts. Before hundreds of admiring eyes – every spectator stood on tiptoe all the way back to yonder cliffs – the condemned man was placed by the commandant himself under the harrow. Back then it was my solemn duty and my distinct honour, as presiding officer of these juridical proceedings, to carry out the preparatory tasks an ordinary enlisted man does without thinking today. And then began the execution itself! Not a discordant note disturbed the smooth functioning of the machine. Some of the spectators stopped watching but just lay there with their eyes shut in the sand; everyone knew: justice is now being carried out. In the silence the only sound you could hear was the moaning of the condemned man muffled by the wad in his mouth. Today the device is no longer able to press a deeper moan from the condemned than the wad can
stifle; but back then a caustic fluid dripped from the inscribing needles, a fluid no longer available. Yes, and then came the sixth hour! It was impossible to grant everyone’s request to look on from up close. The commandant, in his wisdom, ordered that special consideration should be taken for the children; I, of course, in my official capacity, always stood by; oftentimes I would be crouching there with two little ones in my right arm and two in my left. Oh how we took in every look of transfiguration from that martyred face, oh how we kept our eyes peeled in anticipation of the appearance of that finally achieved and already fleeting state of justice! Oh what times they were, old chum!’ The officer had clearly forgotten who was standing there before him; he embraced the traveller and laid his head on his shoulder. Exceedingly ill at ease, the traveller peered past the officer. The soldier had finished cleaning the apparatus and now poured some more rice pap from a tin into the porringer. No sooner did the condemned man, who appeared to have completely recuperated, notice this, than he began lapping at the pap with his tongue. The soldier shoved him away again, since the pap was intended for a later time, but it was in any case an unseemly sight to see the soldier dig in with his filthy fingers and filch food out from under the condemned man’s ravenous tongue.

  The officer quickly got a grip on himself. ‘I did not mean to actually reach out to you,’ he said, ‘I know, it’s impossible today to make you fathom what those times were like. In any case, the machine still works. It keeps on performing its function even if there’s no one left to appreciate it here in this godforsaken valley. And once it’s done, the corpse still drops in an inconceivably smooth slide down into the ditch, even if, unlike in the past, hundreds are no longer gathered around like flies to watch. Back then we had to install a stout railing around the ditch, but it has long since been torn down.’

  The traveller wanted to turn his face away from the officer and peered into the void. The officer thought he was taking in the desolation of the valley; so he grabbed hold of the traveller’s hands, turned himself around to fathom the meaning of his looks, and asked: ‘Do you grasp the scandal of it all?’

  But the traveller remained silent. The officer let him be a little while; with legs spread wide apart, and hands on his hips, he stood still and stared at the ground. Then he smiled at the traveller with a hint of encouragement and said: ‘I happened to be standing near you yesterday when the commandant extended an invitation. I heard the invitation. I know the commandant. I immediately understood his motive. Even though his authority is surely great enough for him to proceed against me, he does not yet dare do so, but he would rather subject me to the judgment of a distinguished stranger, namely yours. His calculation is precisely reasoned; you’ve only been on the island for two days; you did not know the old commandant and his way of thinking; you are enmeshed in European attitudes; perhaps you are a convinced opponent of the death penalty, in general, and of such a mechanized method of execution, in particular; you see, furthermore, how the execution is conducted sadly, without any public participation, and with an already somewhat damaged device. Given all of the above, would it not then be likely to conclude (in the commandant’s view) that you do not approve of these proceedings? And if indeed you do not approve (I’m still presenting the commandant’s supposition) you would certainly not keep this opinion to yourself, since you surely trust your time-tested convictions. You have indeed had occasion to see first-hand and so come to respect many of the peculiarities of many peoples, and you will, therefore, probably not speak quite as vehemently against these proceedings as you might in your native land. But the commandant does not require your absolute condemnation. A fleeting, careless remark will suffice. It does not even need to be what you really think, just as long as it appears to concur with his position. He will slyly sound you out, of that I am quite certain. And his womenfolk will sit around pricking up their ears; you will say something like: “Trials are run differently in my country”, or “In my country, the accused is cross-examined before the verdict”, or “In my country, the condemned man is informed of the verdict”, or “In my country, there are other punishments than the death penalty”, or “In my country torture ended with the Middle Ages.” All these are observations that are perfectly valid in so far as they appear to you to be self-evident, harmless observations that have no bearing on my business. But how will the commandant interpret them? I can already see him, the good commandant, immediately shoving his chair aside and hastening out onto the balcony; I can see his womenfolk rushing after him; I can hear his voice – the ladies call it his thunder voice – so, and he says: “A great investigator of the Western World assigned to appraise the legal proceedings in all lands has just declared that our proceedings are outmoded and inhumane. In light of this judgment by such a distinguished person, it is no longer possible for me to tolerate such actions. As of today, I hereby ordain, etc.” You wish to intercede, the way he put it is not what you said, you did not call my method inhumane; quite the contrary, in your considered opinion you hold it to be the most humane method worthy of a human subject, you also admire the machinery – but it’s too late; you can’t even make it to the balcony, which is already full of womenfolk; you want to call attention to yourself; you want to scream; but a female hand covers your mouth – and the work of the former commandant and me is lost.’

  The traveller had to suppress a smile; the task he’d thought to be so difficult had turned out to be so simple. He replied evasively: ‘You overestimate my influence; the commandant read my letter of introduction, he knows that I’m no expert in juridical procedures. Were I to express an opinion it would be that of a private citizen, which would carry no more weight than the views of countless others, and would, in any case, be far more insignificant than the position of the commandant himself, who, so it seems, has very extensive powers in this prison colony. If his view of this procedure is indeed as firmly established as you believe, then, I fear, the end of this procedure is near at hand, without any need of my modest mediation.’

  Did the officer already fathom the way things stood? No, he did not. He emphatically shook his head, cast a quick look back at the condemned man and the soldier, who flinched and stopped eating, whereupon the officer stepped up close to the traveller, looked at him, not in the face, but somewhere on the surface of his coat, and whispered more quietly than before: ‘You do not know the commandant; you stand before him and before us all – forgive the expression – as a harmless spectator; but your influence, believe me, carries immeasurable weight. I was indeed delighted when I heard that you would attend the execution by yourself. This order by the commandant was supposed to put me in my place, but I prefer to turn it to my advantage. Undistracted by insidious suggestions and disdainful looks – which you would not have been able to avoid had there been more people on hand to witness the execution – you listened to my explanations, saw the machine and are now in the process of observing the execution. You have undoubtedly already made your assessment; should you still harbour any slight uncertainties, the sight of the execution will clear them. And now I ask you: please help me bolster my position with the commandant!’

  The traveller interrupted. ‘How in heaven’s name could I do that,’ he cried out, ‘that’s completely impossible. I can no less help you than hamper your cause.’