Hammer and Anvil Part 49

"Do not laugh at me," she said, "but for several days I have felt as if some misfortune were about to happen."

"We have all felt so, dear Paula. It is merely a bit of egotism to fancy that a thunder-storm which is now hanging over thousands and thousands is to smite precisely us."

I meant to say this very courageously; but my voice quivered, and at the last words I was forced to turn away my eyes.

"I will go to your father, Paula," I said.

"Here he comes now," said Paula.

The superintendent stepped out of his room. Before he had gently closed the door, I caught a glimpse of a white figure which he seemed by gentle words and gestures to be urging to remain in the room. It was Frau von Zehren. Had she also the feeling that some calamity was impending? Perhaps even more strongly than we. Who among us who see, hears the faint spirit-voices that whisper and murmur through the night of the blind?

A deep melancholy lay upon his features; but it instantly gave place to a surprised smile as he saw us both standing there. It was as when one walks through a dark rocky ravine whose sombre shadows spread a gloom over his face, and suddenly, at a sharp turn of the dusky path, he sees the open valley at his feet, and a wide flood of golden sunlight streams all about him.

"See there, both my dears ones!" he said.

He extended both hands to us.

"Both my dear ones," he repeated.

Did he really see us? Did he, out of the rocky gorge, catch a gleam of sunny vales in the future? I have often asked this question of myself, when thinking of the happy spirit-like look with which at this moment the father saw his beloved daughter at the side of the man who was dear to him as a son.

But this was but for a moment, and the present then resumed its rights.

"You will go with me, George," he said; "I must go through the prison.

It cannot be but that the excitement which has been growing on us all lately has also seized the poor prisoners. And with them excitement means howls, and shrieks, and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth. Do you remember that September night, eight years ago, Paula? It was not so terrible as this, and the men were like maniacs."

Paula nodded a.s.sent. "I remember it well, father," she said. "How could I help it? You suffered so much from the consequences afterwards. Here comes Doris with the lantern," she hastily added, while a flush of shame suffused her cheeks at having for a moment attempted to dissuade her father from his duty.

She took the great lantern with its two lighted candles from the hands of the frightened girl, and gave it to me. The superintendent gave her a kind look from his large grave eyes, b.u.t.toned up his coat, fixed his hat firmly on his head, and turning to me said: "Come, George."

We stepped out into the raging, thundering night. In my left hand I carried the lantern; my right arm I gave the superintendent. I had thought that I should have to carry or almost to carry him, as he had been completely prostrated by the heat of the last few weeks; and indeed his first steps were heavy and tottering as those of a man who has for the first time risen from his bed after a long illness. All at once he let go my arm and stood firm and erect:

"Do you hear, George? I said so!"

We were just pa.s.sing under the windows of one of the great dormitories, in which fully a hundred prisoners were shut up at this hour. The light-colored wall was faintly defined against the darkness; from the windows came a feeble light; the storm raged against the wall and whistled shrilly through the gratings; but louder than the howling and whistling of the storm were the horrible noises that came from the interior of the building. Such sounds might come from lost souls in the night of Tartarus.

"Light! light!" was the cry. "We want light!"

"Quick, George!" said the superintendent, hastening on before me with such rapid strides that I had difficulty in keeping up with him. We pa.s.sed through the open door into the wide hall, where we found the sergeant in lively dispute with the inspector and half-a-dozen overseers.

"He will tell you that I am right," I heard the brave old man cry. "One must be a bear with seven senses; not able to tell a tooth-pick from a barn-door! In the name of three million devils, light all the lanterns!"

"Yes; light all the lanterns," said the superintendent, coming up.

The men stepped respectfully back, only the Inspector said sullenly: "There is no reason for breaking the regular rule of the house, Herr Superintendent; and the men know that there is no reason; but they take advantage of the chance--that is all."

"Perhaps not quite all, Herr Muller," said the superintendent. "We two, you and I, have not been sitting with a hundred others in a locked room in the dark--or as good as in the dark--and in a night like this when it is as if the end of the world had come. Fear, like courage, is contagious. Follow me, you and Sussmilch, and two others to light the lanterns."

He did not name me: he may have thought it a matter of course that I would follow him. We turned into the corridor and reached the door which led to the great ward, the windows of which we had pa.s.sed.

"Light! light!" they were still shrieking inside, and heavy blows fell upon the oaken door, which cracked at intervals as if they were trying to burst it open.

"Open!" said the superintendent to the turnkey.

The man cast a stealthy look at the inspector, who looked sullenly at the ground.

"Open!" repeated the superintendent.

With hesitation the man placed the key in the lock, and drew the heavy iron bar from the staples. With hesitation he threw back the first and then the second bolt. As he laid his hand upon the third, he gave a furtive glance at the superintendent, upon whose lips played a smile.

"Why, your heart is usually in the right place, Martin," he said.

In an instant Martin had thrown back the bolt; the doors were opened.

The frightful spectacle that was then presented to my eyes I shall never forget, though I should attain the age of the most patriarchal raven.

Three or four feet behind the door was another, a grating of iron, reaching as high as the ceiling; and behind this grating was a frightful entanglement of men piled upon one another, conglomerated together--here a pair of arms thrust out, there a pair of legs, as out of a heap of corpses, flung together into a promiscuous grave upon a field of battle; with the difference that this ma.s.s moved, writhed internally, and out of it, here and there and everywhere, glared living eyes, terrible, fierce, desperate, maniac eyes.

"Men!" cried the superintendent, and his usually soft voice rose with a power that overbore the tumult, "are you not ashamed of yourselves?

Would you rush upon destruction to avoid a danger which nowhere exists but in your own heads, and in the darkness around you?"

Was it the courageous voice? Was it the look of the man? Was it the effect of the strong light which was thrown upon the ma.s.s from the lanterns of the turnkeys? the coil disentangled itself, arms found their way to bodies, legs stood again upon their feet, even the eyes lost their frenzied glare, and here and there a man, either dazzled or ashamed, cast them down.

"Make room for the door to be opened, men!" said the superintendent.

They fell back: the grating was opened; the superintendent entered, and we followed.

"Now see, children, how foolish you are," he continued, in a friendly tone. "There you stand in you s.h.i.+rts, freezing, s.h.i.+vering--you really ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Get to bed again, or else dress yourselves and sit up; I will have your lanterns lighted, so that each one of you can see what a chicken-heart his neighbor is, and what a bold fellow he is himself."

The men looked at one another, and over more than one face that had been distorted with terror there came a smile. In the rear two laughed out loud.

"That is right," said the superintendent, "laugh away; no devil can hold his own against an honest laugh. And now good-night, children, I must look after the others."

By this time the overseers had let down and lighted the four great lanterns that were drawn up to the ceiling. A cheerful brightness filled the large room. Outside, the storm was raging and howling as before; but a kindly word falling into these dark spirits had appeased the storm within.

"Let us see after the others," said the superintendent.

And we traversed the echoing corridors, in which this night the noise from without overpowered the sound of our steps. Wherever we came we found the prisoners in a state of the most fearful excitement--excitement beyond all proportion to the causes which produced it; everywhere the same; sometimes vented in wild curses, and sometimes in the most piteous supplications; but everywhere the cry of the poor wretches for light, only more light in the fearful night. But everywhere the superintendent succeeded in quieting the wild creatures with his calm words, except the occupants of one ward, who either would not or could not be quieted. This ward lay in a wing of the building which was more exposed to the violence of the blast than any other, and here, in consequence, the storm burst with all its fury. The terrific detonations, like peals of thunder, with which the tempest burst against the ancient walls, the furious howling with which it whirled around the angles, after striving frantically for minutes together to sweep the obstruction out of its path; the wailing, lamenting, gasping, sobbing tones that came, no one knew how or whence--all was frightful enough to fill the soul of even a free man with secret horror. And even while the superintendent was speaking to them, a chimney on one of the higher buildings adjacent was blown down, and in falling broke through the roof of this wing, sending clattering down hundreds of tiles, increasing the uproar, if not the danger. The men demanded to be let out; they _would_ come out at every cost; they were resolved not to be buried alive.

"But, children," said the superintendent, "you are safer here than anywhere else; there is not another part of the building so strong as this."

"Very well for him," muttered a square-built, curly-headed fellow; "he can go home and sleep in his soft bed."

"Give me your mattress, friend," said the superintendent.

The fellow looked at him in amazement.

"Your mattress, friend," he repeated. "Lend it to me for to-night: I will see if it is so hard, and if it is such dreadful sleeping here."

A deep silence suddenly succeeded the wild tumult. The men looked at each other in confusion; they did not know whether this was jest or earnest. But the superintendent did not move from the place. He stood there silent, thoughtful, with head depressed; no one, not even I, ventured to speak to him. All eyes were turned to the audacious fellow, who looked as if he had been condemned to death, and was about to be led to execution. His mutinous spirit was broken; silently he went and took up his mattress and brought it to the superintendent.