Amusement! It was a cruel joke. Konrad gave a shrill laugh. It was the laugh of a despairing man who cannot shut out the vision of his last journey, which became more hideous every moment. What did the Father send? Simple prayer-books and religious manuals. Book-markers were placed to show the passages that applied especially to the penitent and the dying man, and also prayers for poor souls in purgatory. The soul physician, all unacquainted with souls, sent the inconsolable man new anguish of death instead of life. Konrad searched for the bread he needed, turned over the leaves of the books, began to read here and there, but always put them down sadly. The more eagerly did he exercise his memory in order to recall the pictures of his childhood. His mother, who had been dead many years, stood before him in order to help her unhappy child. Her figure, her words, her songs, her sacred stories from the Saviour's life on earth—brought peace to his soul. It suddenly came upon him; "God has not forgotten me." Just as before he had raged in despair, so now beautiful shadows out of the past appeared before him, and tears of redemption flowed from his eyes.
He did not have an hour's sleep the night of his condemnation. He prayed, he dreamed, and then the horrid terror, which made him shiver in all his limbs, came again. He kept looking towards the window to see if daylight was beginning. Early in the morning, just at the first dawn—so he had often heard—the warders come. The window showed only darkness. But look, in the little three-cornered bit of sky, there is a star. He had not seen it on other nights. It sailed up to the crack in the roof and shone down through the window in kindly fashion. His eye was riveted on the spark of light until it vanished behind the walls. When at length day dawned, and the key rattled in the door, Konrad's hands and feet began to tremble. It was the gaoler, who brought him a bundle of coarse cotton clothing.
When Konrad asked in a dull voice if it was his gallows dress, the old man answered roughly: "What are you chattering about? Put on your house clothes."
The convict went up to the gaoler, clasped his hands, and said: "Only one thing, if I knew—when, when? This suspense is unbearable!"
"Eh! how impatient we are!" mocked the old man. "My dear fellow, we don't do things so quickly. The decision was only made yesterday. Why, they haven't yet settled about the banquet."
"The banquet!"
"The bill of fare—don't you understand? No orders have come yet. You're safe for twenty-four hours. But if there's anything you'd like to eat—I'll make an exception for once. And now, get on with your toilet! You can will away your own things as you please," he pointed to his clothes. "Have you anyone? No? Well, I know some poor people. But get on, get on. The hot season is coming on, and cotton isn't bad wear then."
The rough gaoler's good-humoured chatter was particularly distasteful to the poor man. To be snubbed and railed at would have pointed to a long life to come, one not to be measured by hours. Did he know? And was he silent out of pity? or was it malice? Before, the old man had been easily moved to anger, and when heated would swing his arms up and down and plainly threaten to have the obstinate convict sent off. Now there was no more grim humour nor raging round. He looked at the poor sinner, sunk in deep gloom, with a sad calmness. "Poor devil!" Suddenly it was too much for him, and he broke out violently: "But come now! You must have known it. Be sensible; I can't stand this misery. Dying is not easy, of course; you should be glad that there's someone by to help. And then—who knows whether you won't live after all. Do be sensible!"
When at last deep silence again gathered round him, the prisoner tried his books afresh. The Father had provided for a varied taste. The "Devotion to the Holy Rosary," the "Prayers to the Virgin's Heart," "Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell," the "Life of St. Theresa," "The Seven Bolts of Heaven," and "Prayers of Intercession for Souls in Distress." What a wealth of edification! The joiner's apprentice had always loved books. He had once reckoned out as a joke that three asses could not carry the books which he had read since his childhood. They had afforded him a glimpse of all times and places, and of all provinces of human life. Now he asked himself what it had all brought him. Confusion, perplexity, nothing besides. He had thought about everything, but he could not be clear about anything. That was not generally possible, he had read in one of the books, and the statement pacified him. He had read all kinds of theological books, had easily and trustfully given himself up to the echo of words heard in childhood, but it had not gone deeper. Now that they ought to prove their worth, they left him in the lurch. He turned over the pages, he read and prayed and sought, and found nothing to relieve his need. Discouraged, he pushed the books away from him, and some of them fell over the edge of the table on to the brick floor.
In the night that followed Konrad had a dream, vivid and clear as never dream had been. It was a dark country, and he had lost his way. He wandered about amid cold, damp rocks, and could not find a path. Then his fingers felt a thread; he seized it, and it guided him through the darkness. The land grew brighter and brighter; the thread brought him into his sunny native valley, to the place with the old gabled houses, to his father's house which stood amidst the fruit-trees, and the thread to which his fingers still clung involuntarily led him into the room where it had been spun from his mother's distaff. And there she sat and span the thread, with her pale face and soft wrinkles and kind eyes, and directly the boy stood near her she told him tales of the Saviour. He listened to her and was a happy child. That was his dream. And when he awoke in the prison cell, his mother's gentle voice still sounded in his ears: "My child, you must cling to Jesus."
Konrad was taken every day for half an hour into the dirty and sunless courtyard. But he dreaded that half-hour. It stirred a vain longing for light. And the rough and insolent fellow-prisoners with whom he was brought in contact! He preferred to be alone in his quiet cell.
During his imprisonment he had often asked for work, but was always informed that nothing of the sort had been provided for by the authorities. Besides—work was an honourable thing, and it must first be proved that he was worthy of it. But now it was not a time for work, rather a time for preparation. What could he do in order to get through these days? Or what could he do in order to keep the days from flying so quickly? Look how a flash of lightning seems sometimes to pass over the floor. Then it is gone again. High up in the opposite wall, on which the sun sometimes shone, was a casement window, and its glass doors, swayed by the breeze, were reflected in the prison. Konrad was terrified by these sparks from heaven; he would grope on the ground as if for a gold piece that had rolled away.
Then came visitors, unexpected, alarming visitors! The judge's stiff figure and serious face appeared in company with the gaoler.
Konrad felt stunned, and could only think: "The hour has come!" The man had pronounced his sentence as coldly and unfeelingly as if he had been a machine which, when its keys are pressed, gives forth sounds like words. The judge ordered the gaoler to withdraw. The old man hesitated—what could that mean? The judge had to repeat his order before the old man would go. When the judge was alone with the prisoner, he bent down and felt with his hands, for he was not yet accustomed to the darkness. Then he said kindly: "Konrad Ferleitner, I have come to ask you if there's anything you wish for?"
The prisoner wrung his hands convulsively; wild pulsations, that beat in strong double strokes at irregular intervals, coursed through his body. So violent was his agitation that the poor wretch stuttered forth words that the judge could not understand.
"Compose yourself!"
When he caught the words "Father-confessor!" amid the sounds uttered by the prisoner, it occurred to the judge that the poor fellow imagined that the hour of execution had arrived. "Ferleitner," he said, "come and sit by me on the bench. You think it's the end—no, it hasn't come so far yet, and perhaps it won't come so far at all. I may tell you that a petition for mercy has been sent to His Majesty."
Konrad looked up as if in a dream, and the dim light showed how terribly pale and sunken his cheeks were. "Mercy!" he muttered in suppressed tones. "Mercy for me? Then—why did you condemn me?"
The question appeared to puzzle the judge. The delinquent seemed in all seriousness to think himself innocent. "You were there yourself, Ferleitner,