The Mysterious Sketch Part 2

"I am the king of these mountains!"

When he saw me, he shouted:

"Yo, comrade! I'll keep a place for you at my right hand."

The two policemen and the Owl G.o.d exchanged smiles with one another while I could feel goose b.u.mps up and down my spine.

III

Schlussel shepherded me into a very dark, high-ceilinged courtroom, furnished with benches in a semi-circle. The appearance of this deserted courtroom, its two high windows protected by grilles, its crucifix of old oakwood stained brown on which the arms of Christ lay stretched out with the head sorrowfully resting on a shoulder, awoke in me I know not what religious fear in keeping with my present situation and my lips moved as they framed a prayer.

I had not prayed for a long time, but misfortune always takes us back to thoughts of submissiveness... Man is such a small thing!

Facing me, on a raised dais, two people were sitting with their backs to the light, which kept their faces shaded from me. I could see it was Van Spreckdal, however, by his aquiline nose picked out by a slanting reflection of the pane. The man with him was fat - he had plump, full cheeks and wore a judge's robe, as did Van Spreckdal.

Sitting below them was the clerk of the court, Conrad. He was sitting at a low table, tickling the lobe of his ear with the feather of his quill pen. He stopped when I arrived to look at me with curiosity.

I was made to sit down and Van Spreckdal, raising his voice, spoke to me:

"Christian Venius, where did you get this drawing from?"

He showed me the nocturnal sketch then still in his possession. It was pa.s.sed to me... After I had examined it, I answered:

"I drew it myself."

This utterance on my part was followed by a fairly long silence; the clerk of the court, Conrad, was writing down my answer. I heard his pen hurrying over the paper and thought: "What does the question I have just been asked mean? It has no connection with the kick that I aimed at Rap's back."

"You drew it yourself," Van Spreckdal resumed. "What is the subject of it?"

"It's a subject out of my own head."

"You didn't copy these details from somewhere?"

"No, sir. I imagined all of them."

"The accused would do well to reflect on the truth of what he is saying," said the judge severely. "Do not lie to the court."

I went red in the face and cried out exaltedly:

"I have told it the truth."

"Write that down, clerk of the court," Van Spreckdal ordered.

The quill pen raced afresh.

"And this woman," the judge went on, "this woman being murdered on the edge of a well... Did you imagine her as well?"

"I must have done."

"You've never seen her before?"

"Never."

Van Spreckdal got to his feet as if indignant, then, sitting down again, appeared to consult in a low voice with his fellow judge.

Those two dark profiles, silhouetted against the light-filled backdrop of the window, the three men standing behind me...the silence in the amphitheatre...all these things made me shudder.

"What have they got against me? What have I done?" I muttered to myself.

Suddenly Van Spreckdal said to my guards:

"Take the prisoner back to the carriage. We're leaving for the Metzgerstra.s.se."

Then he addressed me directly:

"Christian Venius," he cried, "the situation that you find yourself in is most regrettable...Pull yourself together and consider that if human justice is unbending...you can still seek the pardon of a merciful G.o.d...You can even merit it by confessing your crime!"

These words stunned me like a blow from a hammer...I recoiled from them with arms outstretched crying:

"My G.o.d! What a nightmare!"

And I fainted.

When I came round the carriage was rolling slowly through the street and another carriage was in front of us. The two policemen were still there. One of them, while we were still moving, offered a pinch of snuff to his colleague. I too automatically stretched out my fingers to the snuffbox, but he pulled it away from me sharply.

I felt my face go red with shame and I turned my head to one side in order to hide my emotion.

"If you look outside," said the owner of the snuffbox, "we'll have to put handcuffs on you."

"I hope the devil strangles you, you scurvy knave!" I thought to myself inwardly. And as the carriage had just stopped, one of them got down while the other held me back by the neck. Then, seeing his comrade ready to catch me, he pushed me out roughly.

These infinite precautions to ensure I did not run away augured nothing good, but I still had not the foggiest idea of just how serious the accusation was that was hanging over me when a frightful incident finally opened my eyes to it and plunged me into despair.

I had just been pushed into a low alleyway with broken and uneven flagstones. All along the wall there ran a yellowish ooze exhaling a fetid stench. I walked among shadows with the two men behind me.

Further on the chiaroscuro of an internal courtyard began to become visible.

As I approached it, I was possessed by an ever-increasing sense of terror. There was nothing natural about it, just a harrowing feeling of impending doom, nightmarish, unnatural. I instinctively drew back from it with each forward step that I took.

"Get along with you!" one of the policemen shouted, putting his hand on my shoulder. "Walk, d.a.m.n you!"

Imagine my sense of dread when, at the end of this pa.s.sage, I saw the courtyard I had drawn the night before with its walls furnished with hooks, its heaps of sc.r.a.p metal, its hencoop and its rabbit hutch....

Not one skylight big or small, high or low, not one cracked pane of gla.s.s, not a single detail in my drawing had been left out!

I was transfixed by this bizarre turn of events.

Near the well were the two judges, Van Spreckdal and Richter. At their feet lay the old woman, supine...her long grey hair dishevelled...

her face blue...her eyes open inordinately wide...and her tongue caught in her teeth.

It was horrendous!