Frederick Schiller - The Short Stories

As he did not obtain from the prison's Commandant the permission to visit the prisoner; hence, he took upon himself to go to the capital to plead his enterprise immediately with the Prince; he did bow before the same Prince, and poured his compassion for the unfortunate prisoner who, without the good deeds of a Christian, from whom the most terrible crimes could also be expected, will be left helpless and who, maybe, is already close to despair. With all the boldness and dignity which only the conscience of fulfilled duty can confer, he demanded a free access to the prisoner whom as a child, he used to have in confession, and for whose soul he felt responsible before heaven. The good cause for which he spoke, made him eloquent, but the Prince's first unwillingness was already broken by time, anyway. He granted his request, and the preacher could now indulge the prisoner with a spiritual visit.

The first human face which the unfortunate G. saw after a period of sixteen months, was the face of this helper. He owed to his misery the first visit of the unique person who lived in the world and cared for him; his good fortune has not acquired him any real friend. The preacher's visit was for him like the apparition of an angel. I will not describe here his sentiments. However, from this day on, his tears flew more softly, because he saw himself wept by a human creature.

The preacher was seized with horror, as he was lifted down the deadly hole.

His eyes sought a human being, and only a grey man inspiring terror crept from an angle to meet him, a hole which resembled more the den of a wild animal than the living place of a human creature.

The prisoner was just a bleak, dead like skeleton, all the colours of life have disappeared from his face in which sorrow and doubt have imprinted deep wrinkles, his beard and nails have grown through such a long neglect into abomination, his clothing was half torn from a very long use and from total lack of cleaning; the air around him was pestilential; hence he found him, this favourite of luck, and even more surprising to the preacher, he found that the prisoner's iron health has resisted all this ordeal! Still outraged by this sight, the preacher rushed to the commandant's office, to obtain yet a second good deed for the poor, unfortunate person, without which the first one would be accounted for none.

As this one, however, excused himself invoking the express orders he received, he resolved himself generously to a second trip to the capital, to make pretence once again to the Prince's grace. He declared that he could never more, without offending the dignity of the sacrament, undertake any sacred action with his prisoner, if his prisoner would not be given previously the semblance of a human being. This last favour will also be granted, and only from this day on, could the prisoner live again.

G. spent still many years in this fortification; however, in a widely more acceptable condition, as the short summer of the new favourite, Martinengo, has bloomed and faded, and as other favourites who were more human, or simply did not have any revenge to fulfil against him, have replaced Martinengo in his post. Finally, after a ten year imprisonment, the day of liberation came, however without any tribunal proceedings, or formal acquittance. He received his freedom as a gift from the hands of grace; at the same time, it was ordered to him to move outside the country forever. At this point, sufficient information is lacking to me to continue my story as I gathered it completely from oral account; and I see myself forced to skip a period of twenty years in my own account.

G. started anew his career during the same period at the service of a foreign army, which led him, finally, onto the same glowing summit from which he has fallen down so terribly in his fatherland. Time, the friend of the unfortunate man, which exercises a slow, but irrevocable justice, finally took care of the legal matter preventing him for returning to his homeland.

The Prince was over with his years of passion, and humanity started progressively to have a value for him, as his hair became white. As he was closer to death, a nostalgia for the favourite of his youth resurfaced in him. To spare the grey man, wherever possible, of all the vexations which he himself has accumulated upon him, he invited the expelled former favourite friendly back in his country where G.’s heart, already for long, has craved to return.

G.'s homecoming was moving, the Prince's welcoming warm and yet deceiving, they looked as if they have just separated the day before. The Prince looked thoughtfully at the face which was so well known to him and yet, again, so foreign; he noticed the wrinkles which he himself has chiselled onto his former favourite's face. He sought inquisitively in the grey man's face, again, the beloved traits of the young favourite, but what he was looking for, he did not find any more.

They coerced themselves to observe a frosty relatedness to each other. Shame and fear have separated for always and eternally their two hearts. A sight which recalled to the Prince his former, consequential haste into his soul, could not possibly do him well! G. could not any more show love to the author of his misfortune. Yet, he now saw the past with comfort and calm, the same way people rejoice awakening after a nightmare.

Not long after, G. saw himself again in the full possession of all his previous dignities, and the Prince, overcoming his inner antipathy, gave him a glowing compensation for his past ordeal. But by doing so, he could still not give back to G. the heart which he prevented for always to enjoy life fully! Could he give him back the years of hope, or could he make the greying old man think again about a happiness which only by far could compensate him for the rob which the Prince has done to the younger man?

G. enjoyed still this ardent evening of his life for nineteen years. Neither the destinies he received, nor the long years of ban have dampened in him the fire of passion, or could totally darken the joviality of his spirit. In his seventies, he would still try to run after the shadow of a good which he has possessed really in his twenties.

He died, finally, as commander of the fortress of *** where state prisoners would be kept. People would expect that he would show to these prisoners a humanity which value he must have learned to appreciate; but he acted brutally and arbitrarily with them, and an outburst of rage against one of them hit him to the coffin in his eightieth year.

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