member of society will not be saved from the whole gangrene.
Would the criminal from whom I will speak about now, still have a right to call for this spirit of tolerance? Was he really lost without any possibility of rescue for the State? Alas, I will not focus the reader's attention on that concern any more. Our gentleness is not of any use to him any more, for he has died by the hand of the executioner; however, the autopsy of his misdeeds may still teach something to Humanity, and yes, it is possible, to Justice.
Christian Wolf was the son of a landlord in a small town (which name must be kept secret on grounds which later on, will be evident), and when his father died, he helped his mother to care for the family affairs until he reached his twentieth year. The family trade was not going very well, and Wolf had quite some idle time for himself. Already in school, he was known for being a dispersed young man.
The young ladies often complained about his brazenness while the young men of his small town, paid homage to his inventiveness. Nature has neglected his body. A small, inconspicuous face with curly hair of an unpleasant blackness, a flat nose and a swollen upper lip which was caused by a horse kick, gave to his appearance a disturbance which repulsed all the women from him, and offered many causes for raillery to his comrades.
He would aim at things that were refused to him; because he looked unpleasant, he wanted to please people. He was sensible and would usually confess what he loved. The young lady whom he chose as his sweetheart, mistreated him; he had cause to fear his rivals who had more fortune, even if the young lady of his choice was poor. He thought that a heart which remained insensitive to all his promises, maybe, would be more sensitive to his gifts; but neediness pressed upon him; and the vain research to make his outside appearance more affable, disposed of the little earnings which he acquired by doing dubious trades.
Too uninterested and too ignorant to help out his ruined household through speculation, too proud, also too weak to transform the lord whom he once was into a farmer, and to separate himself from his revered freedom; he saw only a way out, a way which has given thousands before and after him a better luck: to steal honestly.
His hometown bordered a large forest, so he decided he would become a robber, and the product of his robbery would go, faithfully, into the hands of his beloved sweetheart.
Among Anna's lovers was Robert, a fellow hunter of the foresters. Early on, Robert has noticed the advantage which the generosity of his rival has achieved over him, and he searched cunningly for the source of this change in munificence. He appeared diligently at the “Sun” – this was the name of Wolf's trading place – and his scrutinizing eye, sharpened by jealousy and envy, discovered very soon, from where the money was coming.
Not long before, a strict edict against the protection of wilderness had been renewed; this would condemn any trespasser to a jail term. Robert was undeterred in outsmarting the secret maneuvers of his enemy; finally, he succeeded to catch the imprudent in the act. Wolf had been trapped, and only at the cost of his whole small savings would he painstakingly succeed to avert the endorsed punishment into a fine.
Robert triumphed. His rival was evicted from the competition, and Anna’s favour for the delinquent was lost. Wolf knew his enemy, and this enemy was now the fortunate possessor of his Anna. The pressing feeling of need culminated into an offended pride; necessity and jealousy stormed into unison in his sentiments; hunger propelled him outside into the wider world; anger and passion kept him determined. He will, for the second time, become a robber; however, Robert’s increased vigilance outwitted him for the second time. Now, he is experiencing the whole severity of law, as he had no more money to give; hence, a few weeks later, he would be given a residence in jail.
The one-year jail term was over, his passion grew with distance, and his defiance grew even more under the weight of misfortune. As soon as he has recovered his freedom, he rushed to his place of birth to appear before his Anna. As he appeared in the small town, people would flee before him. In the meantime, the pressing necessity has finally bent his arrogance and overcome his weakness: he would settle to work for the town rich people and will earn a daily wage.
However, a farmer would only shake his shoulder in indifference towards the weak soul's request for work; the coarser stature of his solid competitors would cut him out from a work with another insensitive employer. Despite all this, he dared still a last attempt. A position was still vacant, the ultimate, remaining position for an honest man: he would apply to become the shepherd of his little town; alas, not a single farmer would even entrust his pigs to a good-for-nothing. Deceived in all his endeavours, turned down from all places, he will, for the third time, turn himself into a robber, and for the third time, he would encounter the misfortune of falling into the hands of his watchful enemy.
The double relapse has worsened the accusation against him. The judge looked into the appropriate legal code; however, not any one disposition fit the state of mind of the accused. As the directive against robbery needed a solemn and exemplary condemnation, Wolf was condemned to work three years in the fortress and the pending sentence on the gallows was forfeited.
Here begins a new era in his life; people even heard him as he made confessions afterwards before the tribunal and for his spiritual defence, avowing the following: “I went into incarceration” said he, “as an offender and left it as a villain.
Before my imprisonment, I still had something in the world that was dear to me, and my pride still bent under the burden of shame. When I was brought into prison, people locked me up with twenty one other prisoners, among whom two murderers and the others were all notorious thieves and vagabonds.
People mocked me when I spoke of God, and pressed me to say shameful calumnies against the Saviour.
People sang before me dirty songs which I, a boy of good judgement, heard not without disgust and shock; however, what I saw being practised regularly in this fortress, did not outrage my decency any more.
Not a day passed without the recurrence of some shameful act, the perpetration of some serious aggression. In the beginning, I fled these people and kept myself away from their company, as much as it was possible; however, I needed human presence, for the barbarism of my guards had also refused me the company of my dog.
The work was hard and afflicting, my body was ever aching; I needed assistance, and if I can express it correctly, I needed to repent, and this repentance, I must redeem by giving up whatever I had left as conscience. Hence, I was used, finally, to the most horrible things, and during the last trimester of my imprisonment, I have surpassed my masters in the knowledge and practice of such horrible things.
From then on, I longed for the day of my freedom, as I longed for revenge. Every human being has offended me; for everyone was better and more fortunate than me.
I considered myself the martyr of natural rule and a victim of laws. I used to scrape fiercely my chains when the sun came up from behind the fortress: a sunrise is a vision of double hell for a prisoner.
The free wind which whistled through the apertures of my tower, and the swallow which settled on the metal bar of my lattice, seemed to defy me with their freedom and made me feel even more atrociously my state of imprisonment. In these days, I avowed an irreconcilable, glowing hatred for anything that resembles the human being, and what I avowed, I have kept uprightly.
My first thoughts, as soon as I was freed, were about returning to my hometown.
Very little was to be hoped there for my future livelihood; yet, so much was promised there for my desire for revenge. My heart bat even faster as the church tower appeared to me from afar in the woods. It did not feel any more the sincere contentment which I have felt in my first hometown pilgrimage.
The memory of all
