🌌 Le vagabond des étoiles ✨ par Jack London | Livre Audio Complet en Français

🌟 Découvrez *Le vagabond des étoiles* de Jack London, une œuvre puissante qui nous entraîne dans un voyage entre les limites du corps et l’infini de l’esprit. Publié en 1915, ce roman mêle réflexion philosophique, critique sociale et souffle d’aventure, offrant au lecteur une expérience unique et intemporelle. 📖

Dans cette histoire fascinante, nous suivons Darrell Standing, un prisonnier condamné, qui, grâce à la force de son esprit, parvient à échapper aux tortures et à sa cellule pour voyager à travers le temps et l’espace. 🚪⏳ Ses visions traversent les siècles, les civilisations et les vies passées, révélant la puissance de l’imagination et la résilience de l’âme humaine. 🌍✨

🎧 Pourquoi écouter cette œuvre ?
– Un récit mêlant aventure, philosophie et introspection.
– Une critique profonde du système carcéral et de la condition humaine.
– Une écriture vibrante, pleine de force et de poésie.

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Let’s dive together into the fascinating world of Jack London with The Star Wanderer. This unique novel transports us to the heart of the human mind, where thought becomes a refuge and a tool for freedom from the shackles of the body. Through the story of Darrell Standing, condemned to isolation and suffering, London explores the power of imagination and man’s ability to transcend pain through inner journeying. Prepare to discover a work that is at once philosophical, dramatic, and profoundly human, where the line between dream and reality gradually fades. Chapter 1. Darrell Standing Introduces Himself. Very often in my life, I have experienced the strange awareness that my being was splitting in two, that other beings lived or had lived within it, in other times or other places. Do not protest, oh you, my future reader. But examine your own conscience. Go back in time, to the time when your physical and moral person was not yet crystallized, when, plastic matter, soul in flux like the rising sea, you barely felt, in the tumultuous bubbling of your being, your identity forming. Then you will perhaps remember, while reading these lines, things forgotten because much forgetting has come to you since, visions indecisive and misty, which passed before your child’s eyes and which, today, appear to you only as unreal dreams, made of pure fantasy and which lend themselves to laughter. Not everything, however, in these distant visions of your being, was a dream. When, as a child, a very small child, it seemed to you, during your sleep, that you were falling into the void, from an infinite height; when you thought you were flying in the air like the birds of the sky, or when you watched with horror, around your feet stuck in the mud, crawling a thousand disgusting spiders, a thousand filthy creatures, running on their innumerable legs or dragging themselves on their bellies; when nightmarish, unknown forms danced before your closed eyes, and you saw strange suns rising or setting that are not of this world; all this, perhaps, was not a vain dream of your heated and feverish imagination. Do you know where these disconcerting visions came from and if they did not have their origin in other previous lives, lived by you in other worlds that you had known? Perhaps, when you have read me, you will have formed a more precise opinion on all these troubling questions, which no doubt left you perplexed until then. Truly, I tell you, the shadows of our new prison envelop us from the moment we are born, and we forget the past all too soon. And when it sometimes comes up before us, while we are still in our mother’s arms or running on all fours on the floor, it produces in us only fear and terror. For these two feelings, born of a previous experience, of which we have retained a confused memory, are innate in the child. As for me, I remember very well that in the distant time when I was only a stammering toddler, a small tender being, emitting vague wails, to express his hunger or his need for sleep, I remember, yes, that I had the very clear notion of previous existences. I, whose lips had never uttered the word King, I whose ear had never heard it pronounced, I remembered having once been the son of a King. And also to have been a slave and the son of a slave, and to have worn an iron collar around my neck. When I was four or five years old and, without yet being myself, I began to feel my personality forming, it seemed to me that thousands of beings were struggling within me, that all these pre-existing lives were trying to incorporate themselves into my present existence, whose mold they were pulling in as many different directions. And an indefinable dismay resulted from this, in my young soul. I see you, reader, shrugging your shoulders and treating my words as absurd . Do not forget, however, you whom I will try to make walk in my wake, through time and space, do not forget, I implore you, that I have reflected at length on these things, that, for years, through many nights full of anguish and sweat of blood, I have meditated in the darkness, face to face with these numerous selves who tormented me . I have recrossed the hells of all my existences and I bring you here the story, which you will read to distract yourself for an hour, this book in hand, in your comfortable home. But, let us return to what I was saying. At four or five years old, I felt this indestructible and powerful past working on my whole being, in order to give it the unknown form that this eternal becoming would take. It was this past that created my childish anger, my affections and my joys, it that made me laugh or cry. I was of a hot-headed and nervous nature , and in my voice cried a thousand vanished heredities, which were now only shadows. In my childish rages rumbled a thousand ancestral voices, contemporary with Eve and Adam, a thousand wild grunts of prehistoric beasts, even older. And, when I already saw red, it was blood rising in me, from way down there. There is the great secret discovered. Red anger! It is this that has lost me, in this current life of mine. Because of it, in a few short weeks, I will be taken from the cell where I write, to be led to an unstable, slightly raised floor, below a ceiling adorned with a solid rope. There they will hang me by the neck, until death ensues. Red anger! It has been my unhappiness in all my lives. It is my catastrophic heritage, which dates from the time when vague viscous forms preceded the origin of the world. It is time, reader, that I teach you who I am. No, no, I’m not crazy. You need to be convinced of that before you can believe what I’m going to tell you. I’m Darrell Standing. By that name, the few of you who know me will easily recognize me. To the others, who are the majority, allow me to introduce myself. Eight years ago, I was teaching agronomy at the College of Agriculture at the University of California, Berkeley. Then the sleepiness of that peaceful little town was shaken by an unexpected event, the assassination of Professor Haskell, in one of the laboratories of one of the departments of the said College. Darrell Standing was the assassin. I am Darrell Standing. I was arrested, my hands still stained with blood. I will not argue over the question of whether Professor Haskell or I was right or wrong in our quarrel. That’s no one’s business. The brutal fact is that, in a wave of anger, of that red-hot anger that has been my bane through the ages, I killed my colleague. The court rolls testify that I performed this action. For once, I agree with them. It is not for this murder, however, that I am to be hanged. No. As punishment, I was sentenced to life imprisonment. I was thirty-six years old at the time. I am forty-four now. The eight intervening years I lived in the California State Prison, San Quentin. Five of those years I spent in the darkness of a dungeon. This is what, in the language of the laws, is called solitary confinement. Men who endure it call it living death. During these five years, however, I managed to escape from my tomb, to escape from it, sequestered as I was, in an incredible flight that very few free men have known. Yes, I laugh at those who thought they had walled me up in this dungeon and who before me opened the centuries. I have, without their knowledge, wandered, these five years, through all my past existences. Soon I will tell you all about it. I have so many things to tell you that I don’t really know where to begin. The best thing is to start from the beginning, because you don’t know enough about who I am. I was born in one of the sectors of Minnesota. My mother was the daughter of a Swedish immigrant; her name was Hilda Tonesson. My father, Chauncey Standing, was of old American stock. His ancestor was Alfred Standing, a servant bound by indenture, a slave, if you prefer, who had been transported from England to Virginia, to work on the plantations, in the distant past when Washington, still a youth, practiced the profession of surveyor and was busy measuring the solitudes of Pennsylvania. Minnesota is one of the states of North America, rich in grain, which occupies the northwest shore of Lake Superior and borders the Canadian province of Ontario. A son of Alfred Standing fought in the War of Independence; one of his grandsons took part in that of 1812. Not a war has been fought since, without the Standings being represented. I, the last of the race, who am going to die without leaving offspring, fought in the Philippines, in the recent Spanish War, and, to do this, I resigned, a mature man in the middle of his career, from my position as professor at the University of Nebraska. Mordieu! When I resigned, I was the first to become Dean of the College of Agriculture of this University, I, the wandering soul, the adventurer marked by the sign of crime, the vagabond Cain of the centuries, the witness of the most remote times, the poet dreaming of the old moons of forgotten ages. Nebraska is another State of North America. And I am here, in this cell, my hands stained with blood, in the Assassins’ Quarters of Folsom Prison! And I await the day decreed by the mechanism of justice, the day when its servants will make me take a leap into the night, into this night of which they are so afraid, and which haunts them with superstitious and terrible imaginations ; this night which drives them, rambling and trembling, to the altars of their gods with human faces, created from scratch by their cowardice and their fear! No. I will never be Dean of any College of Agriculture. And yet, I knew my trade admirably. I had received the necessary education to practice it well. Agriculture was my forte. I can, at a glance, identify in a herd the cow that will give the most milk and the best butter. I am not afraid that the subsequent verification by a licensed inspector will contradict my prediction. From the mere appearance of a piece of land, without needing to analyze it chemically, I can say what its virtues and shortcomings are from a cultural point of view . I would pronounce, at first glance, without the reaction of the test tube, whether it is alkaline or acid. I am without rival, I repeat, in everything that concerns rural economy. The State, which is made up of all my fellow citizens, and its justice system, imagine that by sending me dancing at the end of a rope, above a floor that will tilt beneath my feet, they will engulf in eternal darkness and destroy this science that was in me, this incomparable science where countless atavisms were found, the most recent of which dates back to the time when nomadic shepherds grazed their flocks on the plain of Troy. This pretension makes me laugh. No doubt you think that in boasting thus of my knowledge as an agronomist I am exaggerating . The facts are there, however. At Wistar, I proved and demonstrated that by following my system, wheat cultivation could increase its yield, in each county, by half a million dollars. My precepts were, in many places, put into practice and the predicted increase took place. That is history. Many a farmer, who today speeds along the roads in his fast car, is not unaware of the exceptional profits that this car was purchased for. Many a sweet-hearted young girl and many a bold boy, now bent over their textbooks, have doubtless already forgotten that it was as a result of my Wistar demonstrations that their fathers made their fortunes and found the money that paid for this higher education. And the management of a farm! I did not need to go to the cinema to learn how one must avoid, on one’s farm, the waste of superfluous movements, how the work of the workers, whether agricultural workers or masons constructing a new building. On this subject, which has always been close to my heart, I have compiled my notes in a notebook, with comparative tables. One hundred thousand farmers have pored over these pages attentively in the evening before they struck out their last pipe and went to bed. They did it and felt good about it. For waste of labor is what must above all be avoided! I must close this first chapter of my story here. It is nine o’clock , and in the Assassins’ Quarter, nine o’clock means lights out . At this very moment, I hear the silent, rubber-shod footsteps of my watchman approaching, coming to reprimand me because my oil lamp is still burning. As if, I ask you, mere living beings had the right and the power to reprimand those on the threshold of death!
Chapter 2. A Dynamite Story. I am Darrell Standing. They’re going to take me away from here to hang me soon. In the meantime, I’ll say what’s on my mind and write these pages as my will. After my conviction, I came to spend the rest of my natural life in San Quentin prison. There I became what is called an incorrigible. An incorrigible is, in prison vocabulary, a human being most fearsome. Why I was classified in this category is what I’m going to explain to you. I abhor, as I told you earlier, the waste of movement, the vain loss of work. The prison where I am, like all prisons, is a real scandal in this respect. I had been put in the jute weaving workshop. The waste of movement was terribly rampant there. This crime against well-ordered work exasperated me. It was only natural. Noticing it and fighting it were part of my specialty. Before the invention of steam and the looms it powered, three thousand years ago, I had already rotted in a dungeon in ancient Babylon. And I am not lying to you, believe me, when I tell you that in those distant days we prisoners obtained, with our hand looms, a higher output than that provided by the steam looms installed in San Quentin prison. Furious at witnessing this waste of labor, I rebelled. I tried to explain to the guards about twenty or more methods that would ensure a better output. I was reported as a bad head to the governor of the prison. They put me in the dungeon. I had to suffer there from the lack of food and light. Back in the workshop, I tried, in good faith, to get back to work in this chaos of helplessness and inertia. Impossible. I rebelled again . I was sent back to the dungeon and, this time, I was also put in a straitjacket. I was alternately stretched out on the ground, arms outstretched, and hung by my thumbs on the tips of my toes. Then , too, secretly beaten by my guards. Stupid brutes, who possessed just enough intelligence to understand my moral superiority and the contempt I had for them. For two years, I suffered this torture. Everyone knows that nothing is so terrible for a man as to be eaten alive by rats. Well! My brute guards were real rats to me, gnawing away bit by bit at my thinking being, tearing to pieces all the living intelligence in my brain! And I, who had once, as a soldier, fought valiantly, had now lost, in this hell, all courage for the fight. Fighting as a soldier… I had done it, yes, in the Philippines, because it was in the tradition of the Standing to fight. But without conviction. I found it really too ridiculous to apply myself to introducing, by means of a rifle, small explosive substances into the bodies of other men. Ridiculous and odious too, was it to see science prostitute its power and its genius to a work of this ilk. I was naturally a good farmer and agriculturist, a man applied, bent over his desk, a slave to his laboratory studies, and who had no other interest than to discover the means of improving the soil and making it produce more. It was therefore, as I have just said, solely to respect the tradition of the Standings that I had left for the war. I soon discovered that I had no aptitude for this profession. My officers realized this as well as I did. They transformed me into a secretary of staff, and it was as a scribe, sitting at a table, that I fought the Spanish-American War. Also, it was not because I had a combative character, but, quite the contrary, because I was a thinker, that I stood up against the poor performance of the prison weaving workshop. This is why the guards took a dislike to me, why, my brain continuing to boil, I was declared incorrigible and why, finally, Governor Atherton, despairing of me, had me brought one day to his private office. To the questions he asked me, to the arguments he developed to demonstrate that I was in the wrong, I answered something like this: “How can you suppose, my dear governor, that your guards and your jailers, those strangling rats, will succeed, by their abuse, in forcing out of my brain the clear and limpid things that are anchored there? It is the whole organization of this prison that is inept. You are, I have no doubt, a shrewd politician. You know, I imagine, perfectly well how elections are wrought in the bars of San Francisco. And your expertise in this matter has earned you as a reward the fat sinecure you occupy here. But you do not know a single word of jute weaving. Your workshops are half a century behind. I will spare you the remainder of my speech, for it was a very proper one. ” In short, I peremptorily demonstrated to the governor, by a plus b, that he was a complete imbecile. The result of my eloquence was that he decided that I was an incorrigible without hope. When you want to kill your dog… You know the proverb. Very well. Governor Atherton pronounced the final verdict: I was enraged. In doing so, he had an easy game. Many a fault committed by other convicts was imputed to me by the guards, and it was to pay in place of the guilty that I returned to the dungeon, on bread and water, suspended by my thumbs on the tips of my toes. This torture, the most dreadful of all, lasted for long hours, and each of these hours seemed to me longer than any of the lives I have lived. The most intelligent men are often cruel. Idiots are monstrously so. Now, the jailers and the men who held me in their power, from the governor to the last of them, were phenomena of idiocy. Listen to me and you will know what they did to me. There was, in the prison, a convict who was a former poet. He was a degenerate, with a receding chin and an overly broad forehead. He had forged counterfeit money, which had earned him incarceration. It was impossible to find a more mendacious and cowardly man. He played, in the prison, the role of informer, of sheep. This is a kind of people that a former professor of agriculture has hardly had the leisure to know until then. His pen hesitates to transcribe these qualifications. But, when one writes in a jail, from which one will only leave to die, one must disregard these modesty. This poet-forger was called Cecil Winwood. He was a repeat offender, and yet, because he was a bootlicker, a whining hypocrite, and a yellow dog, his last sentence had been only seven years’ imprisonment. By good behavior, he could hope that this time would be reduced further. I was sentenced to life imprisonment. In order to bring forward his release, this scoundrel nevertheless managed to aggravate my case. This is how things happened. It was only later that I realized it. Cecil Winwood, in order to curry favor with the captain of the district and, above him, that of the governor of the prison, that of the Commission of Pardons and that of the governor of California, deciding in the last resort, invented from scratch an escape plot. Please note that: firstly, Cecil Winwood was so despised by his fellow prisoners that not one of them would have agreed to bet with him an ounce of Bull Durham on a bug race – bug racing, I tell you in passing, is a kind of sport that is the passion of convicts; secondly, I was considered in the prison as a real mad dog; thirdly, Cecil Winwood needed, for his diabolical machination, mad dogs, that is to say me and a few other lifers, just as incorrigible and lost in despair as I myself was. Bull Durham is an American brand of tobacco, which is sold in small packets. These rabid dogs cordially hated Cecil Winwood, distrusted him even more, and when he began to tempt them with his plan of a mass revolt and escape, they mocked him and turned their backs on him, hurling insults at him and calling him an agent provocateur. He returned to the charge and did so well that in the end he gathered around him about forty of the most resourceful. And, as he assured them of the facilities he enjoyed in the prison, in his capacity as the governor’s trusted man and manager of the Dispensary, Long Bill Hodge retorted: In the language of the Prisons these men are called provosts, and they serve as auxiliaries to the guards. Their good conduct has earned them this favor. They are, for the most part, long-term convicts. –Prove it! Long Bill Hodge was a mountaineer serving a life sentence for derailing and robbing a train, and whose whole being, for years, had been straining to escape, in order to return and kill the accomplice who had testified against him. Cecil Winwood accepted the test. He assured him that he could put the guards to sleep during the night of the escape. “Easy talk!” said Long Bill Hodge. “What we need are facts. Chloroform, this very night, one of our jailers. Barnum, for example! He’s a scoundrel not worth the rope to hang him. Yesterday, in the Insane Ward, he beat up that poor lunatic Crack. And, to make matters worse, he wasn’t on duty! He’s on guard tonight. Put him to sleep and make him lose his job. When you ‘ve succeeded, we’ll talk business.” Long Bill told me all this later, when we were given our company buckles. For I had refused to take part in the plot.
Cecil Winwood hesitated before the imminence of the proof demanded of him . He needed, he assured me, the time necessary to be able, without anyone noticing, to steal the drugs from the Dispensary. He was given a week and, eight days later, he announced that he was ready. He did as he had been told. Jailer Barnum fell asleep during his vigil. A patrol found him snoring loudly. He was broken into and dismissed. This success finally convinced the conspirators. At the same time, Cecil Winwood took it upon himself to persuade the captain of the district. Every day, he reported to him on the progress and the progress of the plot, of which he himself was the inventor. The captain, too, demanded proof . He provided them, and the details he gave, details of which I knew nothing at the time, so well was the secret kept, left nothing to be desired. Thus it was that Winwood announced, one fine morning, to the captain, that the forty conspirators, who confided everything to him, had already arranged for themselves such connections in the prison that they would immediately provide themselves, through the intermediary of a guard, their accomplice, with automatic revolvers. “Prove it!” the captain had doubtless asked. And the forger poet had proved it. They worked regularly, every night, in the prison bakery . One of the convicts, who was part of the bakers’ team, was an informer in the captain’s pay. Winwood was well aware of this. “This evening,” he said to the captain, “the jailer we call Summer Face will bring into the prison a first batch of a dozen of these revolvers. The others, and the ammunition, will arrive later, by the same means. He is to give me the wrapped package in the bakery. You have a good informer there. Let him know. He will see and report to you tomorrow morning. ” Summer Face was a former farmer, solid and well-built, with a large, beaming face, a native of Humboldt County. He was a simple-minded, clumsy, good fellow, who had no qualms about earning an honest dollar by passing contraband tobacco to the convicts. Returning that night from San Francisco, where he had gone, he had brought back a fifteen-pound package of tobacco, for superfine cigarettes. It was not the first time he had carried out such a commission, and he had always, without incident, passed the goods, in the bakery, to Cecil Winwood. This time, alerted, the snitching baker saw him hand Winwood the innocent package, which was bulky and wrapped in wrapping paper. A report was made, at dawn, to the captain. The overactive imagination of the forger poet would soon, however, play a nasty trick on him and, by ricochet, earn me five more years in the dungeon, and finally bring me to this cell, where I am writing at this moment. I continued, it goes without saying, to know nothing of this obscure plot to which, I repeat, I remained totally foreign, and the forty conspirators knew little more than I did. The captain was duped and Summer Face was, without question, the most innocent of all. He had only sinned against his conscience by bringing in the prohibited tobacco. Cecil Winwood was in charge. The next day, when the latter met with the captain, he had a triumphant air. “Well! Did your spy see?” he asked. “The package,” replied the captain, “came in just as you told me .” “I believe you! And what it contains is enough to blow up half the prison to the sky! ” The captain gave a start. “What does it contain, and what do you mean? ” “I opened the said package after receiving it, and… ” The idiot here got carried away and, to further enhance his merits, continued: “And I found there, not, as I expected, a dozen revolvers, but dynamite. There are thirty-five pounds of it! The detonators are included.” At that precise moment, the captain of the Quarter almost fainted. The poor dear man, how I understand him! Thirty-five pounds of dynamite loose in the prison! I have been assured that Captain Jamie—that was his name—fell into a chair and held his head in his hands for a long time. “Where is it now?” he finally cried. “I want it! Take me at once to where it is!” At this request, which was an order, Cecil Winwood suddenly understood the enormity of his blunder. “I buried it in the ground…” replied that outrageous liar, who was very embarrassed to lead his interlocutor to the phantom bale, all the little packets of which had long since been distributed among the convicts by customary means. “Perfect!” continued the captain, who was regaining his composure. “Take me immediately to that spot! Forward, march!” The fact, in itself, was not at all improbable. In a vast prison like San Quentin, there are always hiding places. But this one existed only in the overactive imagination of Cecil Winwood , and the wretch, as he walked beside Captain Jamie, must have indulged in bitter reflections. When the matter later came to trial before the Board of Governors, it was revealed—Jamie and Winwood testified to it in turn—that the forger poet had told the captain that he and I had both buried the explosive powder together. So that I, who had only just been released from a punishment of five days in solitary confinement and eighty hours in a straitjacket; me, whose state of weakness the guards, stupid as they were, had noted , such that they themselves had declared me incapable of returning to work in the weaving workshop; me, who had just received twenty-four hours of rest so that I could recover from a punishment that was too terrible—I immediately found myself, without any explanation and without even knowing it, subject to an accusation of such gravity! Winwood led the captain to the supposed hiding place. And, of course, there was no dynamite. “Good God!” exclaimed the impostor. “Standing has tricked me! He took the package away to hide it elsewhere. Thus the scoundrel, in order to extricate himself from the bad situation he had gotten himself into, took me as a scapegoat. Captain Jamie spouted many more curses, more frenzied than Good Lord! In his disappointment, and judging that he had been played, he brought Winwood back to his office, locked the door and fell upon him with all his might. This detail, like the others, became known when, to clear up the whole affair, the Board of Directors was held afterwards. While receiving the blows that rained down on him, thick as hail, Winwood continued to protest tooth and nail that he had told the truth. So much so that Captain Jamie became convinced and believed that there were indeed thirty-five pounds of dynamite wandering around freely somewhere in the prison, and that forty incorrigibles, determined to do anything, were about to blow up the galley. Summerface, it goes without saying, was put on the spot. The poor devil swore by God that the famous bale contained nothing but tobacco. Winwood swore for his part that the tobacco was dynamite, and it was he who was believed. And, since the seller from whom Summer Face claimed to have smuggled the tobacco could not be found, all doubts fell away and Summer Face was definitively charged with complicity. With that, I entered the adventure. Or, more precisely, I disappeared from the light of day again. I was, in fact, without fanfare, taken back to the Dungeon Quarter, from which I was never to leave again. I was astounded. I had just been taken from the same quarter, I was flattened on the floor of my cell, all dislocated by pain. And here we go again! “Now,” Winwood said to Captain Jamie, “the dynamite, although we do n’t know where it is, is in a safe place. Standing is the only one who knows the new hiding place and, from where he is, he can do nothing. ” As for the forty men I told you about, they are about to carry out their escape plan. Nothing is easier than to catch them in the act. I am the one who must set the time to act. I will tell them that it is for the following night, at two o’clock, and that I will open their cells myself and distribute revolvers to them. If, at two o’clock in the night, you do not collect my forty men, whom I will call successively by name, dressed and wide awake, in the prison corridor, then, Captain, I consent to end my days, enclosed forever in a solitary cell… We will have plenty of time, when the forty are in the dungeon, to look for the dynamite. “And I will find it!” declared the Captain. ” Even if I had to demolish the whole prison, stone by stone! The Captain, nor anyone else, has naturally, for six years, discovered an ounce of explosive, although the prison has been turned upside down a hundred times.” Governor Atherton, until the last day of his term, will nonetheless believe, hard as a rock, in the existence of this famous dynamite. Captain Jamie, who is still captain of the district, does not despair of getting his hands on it one morning. Just recently , he traveled from San Quentin to Folsom to come and question me about it in my cell. All these idiots will breathe a little easier, I have no doubt, than the day I was swung in the air at the end of a rope. Chapter 3. The Interrogation. I resume the thread of events. All day I remained in my dungeon, racking my brains to discover the reason for this new and inexplicable punishment. The only conclusion I came to was that some informer, in order to curry favor with a warder, had denounced me for an imaginary offense against the regulations. Meanwhile, Captain Jamie was racking his brains, preparing, for the following night, the measures intended to suppress the revolt for which Winwood was to give the signal. Not a warder went to bed or slept that night. The day shifts were up, as were the night shifts, and, when two o’clock approached, all lay in ambush, ready to pounce, near the cells occupied by the forty conspirators. Things happened in the order planned. At the appointed hour, Winwood, equipped with a master key, opened the cells, called their guests one after the other, and they crawled out. They gathered at a given point in the corridor, and the guards, on the lookout, quickly got their hands on them. The scaffolding of perfidies and lies concocted by Winwood thus had its complete culmination. In vain did the forty incorrigibles protest that the forger poet had concocted and directed everything. The Board of Governors of the prison had no doubt that they were lying to excuse themselves. It was the same with the Board of Pardons, and before three months were up, that scoundrel Cecil Winwood was pardoned and set free. State prisons are a harsh school for training in philosophy. Anyone who has spent even a little time there cannot help but see their most generous illusions fly away, their most beautiful moral chimeras dissipate into smoke . The truth, we are taught in schools, always ends up triumphing, the crime by being exposed. The proof to the contrary is here: the captain of the district, Governor Atherton, the Board of Governors of the prison, at this very moment as I write, continue to fall for the trap set for them by a deceiver, a degenerate, who then went away, free as a bird, while his forty victims, and myself, the most innocent of all, paid for him! It is revolting. I said that I was the first to be put back in the dungeon. It was pitch black, and I was asleep, when I heard the outer door of the corridor creak on its hinges. I woke up. “Some poor devil,” I thought at first, “being brought in…” And immediately afterward, I heard a great uproar of stamping, resounding blows, cries of pain, vile oaths, and the dull thud of bodies being dragged along the ground. For no operation was carried out in the prison without blows and ill-treatment. One after the other, the doors that lined the corridor slammed open, and into the dungeons the bodies were thrown or dragged. Constantly new squads of guards arrived, with more men, whom they continued to beat, and other doors opened before the bloody forms that were being pushed inside. The more I recall these facts, the more I believe that a human being must be endowed with unparalleled strength of soul, with an unfailing philosophy , to survive, without going mad, the brutality of such spectacles, which constantly surround you, the iniquity of such procedures, of which you yourself are the victim without respite. I am this human being. I survived without flinching and that is why, unable to get rid of me in any other way, my executioners decided to bring into play the great official mechanism, the rope placed around my neck and which, by the weight of my own body, will cut off my breath and my life. Oh! I know the experts’ theories on legal hanging like the back of my hand . By the automatic effect of the body falling into the trapdoor which opens beneath him, the patient’s neck is instantly broken. and without suffering. But, as Shakespeare says of travelers in the afterlife, the tortured never return to this earth to recount their impressions and testify to the contrary. Those who, like me, have lived in prisons, on the other hand, know many cases where the necks of the hanged are not broken, where their cries of agony are stifled in this dark hole where the trapdoor swings down. It’s very curious, you know, a hanging! I have never, to tell the truth, witnessed one. But eyewitnesses, who have seen a good dozen, have documented exactly what will happen to me.
We are standing on the floor, legs and arms bound, the neck in the noose , a black veil over the face. At the given signal, the floor gives way, the body descends and the rope, whose length has been carefully adjusted, tightens. This done, the doctors present will come around me. They will take turns on a stool that will raise them to my height, and, their arms around my body to prevent it from swinging like a pendulum, their ears pressed to my chest, they will count the increasingly weak beats of my heart. Twenty minutes sometimes pass, after the floor has fallen, before the heart stops beating. They scientifically ensure, have no doubt , that the man whose neck has been tied with hemp is indeed dead. Here, I allow myself to open a new parenthesis and ask my fellow citizens, on the subject of the rites of hanging, a double question. It is my right, I imagine, since I am going to be hanged. If the cleverly combined operation of the loop and the trapdoor is so perfect, and the result so inevitable, can someone explain to me why, for this pleasant operation, the patient’s arms are tied? Not one in ten of you, you bunch of idiots, is capable of saying it! Well ! I’ll tell you. Perhaps you have already had the distraction of seeing someone lynched. You have then noticed that the one to whom this misfortune befalls has only one idea: to raise his arms in the air to loosen the noose with which his neck has been adorned. It would be the same, have no doubt, for the hanged man in his prison. Do you understand now? Why, secondly, do they wrap the head and face of the candidate for hanging in a black veil? Answer me, if you can, you codger , raised in cotton wool and whose soul has never strayed to the red Hells? This black veil, think about it, they’ll be putting it on my head soon, and on this point too, I have the right to demand an answer. Think carefully, my dear fellow citizen, you, all puffed up with pride at not being in my situation, that I’m not asking you this question a thousand years before the coming of Christ, nor a thousand years after him, in the darkness of the Middle Ages, but in 1913, where we are. You are, I have no doubt, a good Christian, and yet your hanging dogs of executioners are going to wrap my head and face in the fatal fabric… Why? Yes, why? –Because we must spare the sensitivity of these dogs. Because they must not see, in operating at your command, my face contort into a horrible grimace. For then, another time, perhaps they would no longer dare. There! I return to what happened in the dungeons, when the forty alleged conspirators came to join me there and the outer door of the corridor slammed shut. The forty beaten men, very disappointed by their failed escape, rushed to the gates and, from one dungeon to another, began to talk to each other and ask each other lots of questions. It was, in the sonority of the corridor, an indescribable hubbub. But soon a bull’s roar rang out. Overcoming the tumult was the voice of the former sailor, Skysail Jack, a kind of giant. He commanded silence, while he went to call the roll of all the men present. And, one after the other, the forty shouted their names. Then we knew who we were, that is to say, reliable men, not one of whom was capable of selling himself out, to snitch. I was the only one over whom any suspicion hovered. I was subjected to a thorough interrogation. I explained that, that very morning, I had left my dungeon and that, without apparent cause, I had been brought back there, a short time before them. I knew nothing else. My reputation as incorrigible in the first place spoke in my favor, and they trusted me. So they deliberated. I listened, behind my wicket, and, for the first time, I learned of the famous conspiracy. Who had spilled the beans? No one knew yet. All night, they discussed this point. Cecil Winwood, whom they called in vain, was not on the tour, and all suspicions finally fell on him. “In all this,” yelled Skysail Jack, “only one thing is important. Morning is not far off. They’re going to get us out of here and make us have a bad time.” We were caught in the act, fully clothed, at two in the morning. There’s no denying it. When we are questioned, the best thing to do is to tell the truth, the whole truth. We will explain that Cecil Winwood had plotted the whole thing and then sold us out. The rest, by the grace of God! Understood? And, from cell to cell, in that hideous den, their mouths pressed against the bars, the forty convicts solemnly swore to tell the truth. They were well on their way! At the stroke of nine o’clock, the jailers burst into the dungeons and pounced on us. Not only had we received no food since the day before, but we hadn’t even drunk a drop of water. And, beaten as we had been, we were physically destroyed by fever. Do you realize, reader? Can you even begin to imagine the pitiful state we were in? Beaten, feverish, fasting, and dying of thirst! At nine o’clock, the guards arrived. There weren’t many of them. What was the point? We couldn’t offer any serious resistance. They only opened the dungeons one after the other. They were armed with pickaxe handles instead of sticks. This is an excellent tool for bringing a defenseless man to his senses. In each dungeon they opened, they began by beating him. Each convict got his share. It was equally well served, without any possible jealousy for anyone. And I got my share like the others. It was only a beginning, a well-considered preparation for the interrogation that each man would have to undergo at the hands of high-ranking officials, fattened by the State. It lasted several days, and the infernal horror of those days surpassed anything I had yet experienced in prison. Long Bill Hodge, the rough and incoercible mountaineer, was the first to be interrogated. He was held for two hours, at the end of which he was led back, or rather thrown back onto the flagstones of his cell. A considerable time passed before Long Bill Hodge was able to regain control and come to. When he had recovered his thoughts, he shouted from his wicket: “What is this dynamite business? Who knows anything about it? No one, of course, knew anything.” Next came Luigi Polazzo, a down-and-out from San Francisco, born to Italian immigrants. He sneered at his interrogators, mocked them, and challenged them to worsen their violence toward him. Luigi Polazzo reappeared a little less than two hours after his departure. He was nothing more than a rag, stammering in delirium. All day long he was unable to answer the questions that the men shouted to him from their cells, eager to know, before going there in turn, what treatment he had undergone, what questions had been asked of him. Twice in the next forty-eight hours, Luigi was taken out and interrogated. After which, his reason completely broken, he was sent to the Insane Ward. His complexion is solid; he has broad shoulders, wide nostrils, a massive chest, and ardent blood. Long after I have swung myself into the void and Having escaped from the Californian penal colony, he would continue to palaver among the madmen. Each of the forty was thus, successively, taken for interrogation and reduced to a state of human wreckage, rambling and screaming in the darkness. And I, lying on the ground, heard these complaints, these grunts, these idle chatters of brains emptied by suffering. And it seemed to me that, somewhere in the nebulous past, I heard the chorus of these same clamors rising up to me, who was not then among the patients, but the proud and insensitive master. Later, I identified, as you will see, this remembrance with the time when, captain on a galley of ancient Rome, I sailed, sitting near the rudder, on the raised stern, towards Alexandria and Jerusalem. The chorus was that of the galley slaves who rowed and moaned below me, in the sides of the galley. Later, I will tell you all about it, in full. For the moment… Chapter 4. Sit down, Standing! For the moment, the howls were not ceasing in the dungeons and, during these hours of waiting, which seemed eternal to me, my mind was fixed solely on this thought, that my turn was coming, that I too would be dragged out, that I would undergo all the tortures of their Inquisition, and that I would then be thrown back, like the others, onto the flagstones of my cell, this cell with the iron door and the stone walls. My turn did indeed arrive. I was brutally dragged out, with a great deal of blows and oaths, and I found myself, I don’t know how , facing Captain Jamie and Governor Atherton, themselves surrounded by half a dozen brutes , paid by the taxpayers, who were waiting for the slightest sign to attack me. Their help was superfluous. “Sit down!” Governor Atherton said to me, showing me an enormous armchair. There I was, standing there, beaten and crushed, aching in every limb, dying of hunger and thirst, already exhausted by my five previous days in the dungeon and my eighty hours in a straitjacket. I trembled and my teeth chattered, at the mere apprehension of what was going to happen to me, a poor wreck of a man, a former professor of agronomy in a quiet little university town. I hesitated to sit down. The governor was, in size and strength, a real colossus. Seeing that I was slow to obey, he rushed towards me and seized me under the shoulders. Then, as if I had been a mere straw, he lifted me from the ground and, letting me fall abruptly, crushed me into the chair. “Now,” he continued, “while I was convulsively gasping for breath and trying to devour my suffering, tell me everything, Standing! Yes, spit it out! It’s the best way, take my word for it, to improve your case. ” “I…
I don’t know anything about what happened…” I began. I had said no more, when Governor Atherton, with a hoarse cry, sprang upon me again, lifted me up in the air again, and crushed me into the chair. “No charade, Standing!” he continued. “It’s useless! Empty your heart! Where’s the dynamite?” I protested that I knew nothing about dynamite. A third time, I was lifted up and fell back into a mess. This kind of torture was unprecedented for me. Compared to the others I had endured, you could say that he was holding the rope. The heavy, massive chair soon disintegrated under the repeated jolts of my body. Another was brought in, and that one too was soon demolished. Then a third. And always the fateful question about the dynamite began again. When Governor Atherton was tired, Captain Jamie relieved him. And when Captain Jamie, after having done the same thing, was equally exhausted, Warden Monohan took over the exercise.–Where’s the dynamite?–Wham! in the air, then in the chair!–Tell me where the dynamite is… Dynamite… Dynamite… Dynamite… Dynamite… In all conscience, I would, in the long run, have gladly sold a good part of my immortal soul for a few pounds of this explosive, which I could have delivered as fodder to my torturers. How many armchairs were broken? I don’t know. A moment came when it seemed to me that I was in the middle of a nightmare. Asleep or awake? I would have been unable to say. I fainted from weakness, several times. And, to finish, I was thrown back into my dark dungeon. When I came to, I had a sheep beside me. He was a time-convict, a small man with a pale face, an ether addict, and who was ready to do anything to get his drug. As soon as I recognized him, I dragged myself to the gate of my ticket office and shouted into the corridor, where my voice grew longer: “Watch yourselves! Comrades. There is an informer among us! It is Ignatius Irvine. Watch your words!” The barrage of insults that rose, the hurricane of oaths that erupted, would have made the soul of a braver man than this Ignatius Irvine tremble. He was pitiful in his terror, while the forty convicts roared all along the dark corridor, as if in a menagerie of wild beasts, promising him a thousand dreadful things for the future, a thousand terrible punishments. Had there been a hidden secret, the presence of an informer in the Dungeon Quarter would have been enough to shut everyone’s mouth. But there was no secret, and everyone had sworn to tell the truth, the truth alone. The conversations began again, from gate to gate. What intrigued the forty most was the dynamite, which, for them as for me, was a myth. They addressed me and begged me, if I knew anything about this, to confess it, in order to spare them a repeat of torture. But I could only repeat the same truth: I knew nothing. Before being relieved by a round of guards, my sheep had revealed to me that, since our incarceration, not a single trade had been carried out in the prison, not one of its numerous workshops had been opened. The thousands of convicts held in the prison had remained locked in their cells, and it had been decided, still in relation to the famous dynamite, that not one would be sent back to their usual work until it was discovered. The matter was certainly serious, and I passed the news from counter to counter. The next day and the following days, the interrogations began again, always according to the same rhythm. When the men could no longer walk, they were carried. The rumor spread that Governor Atherton and Captain Jamie, themselves exhausted and at the end of their strength, had to take turns every two hours. They were so frantic that the interrogations, which had extended to all the convicts in the prison, continued even at night. They did not undress and slept fully clothed, taking turns, in the same room where they tirelessly hammered the patients. In our ward, from day to day and from hour to hour, madness grew among us. Hanging is a pleasure, believe me, compared to this endless torture which destroys a human being, while letting him live. I, who had already suffered more than they, I who was more hardened to pain, had come to increase my own torment by theirs. I suffered both for myself and for those forty men, whose incessant clamor vainly demanded a drop of water, whose cries, sobs, and delirious babblings turned our hut into a madhouse. Do you understand what was happening? Yes, do you? This truth, which we all spoke, was our condemnation. Before those forty incorrigibles, repeating with such perfect unity the same affirmations, Governor Atherton and Captain Jamie concluded, without flinching, that we were all lying in unison, like a parrot eternally repeating, without making a mistake, a lesson learned. The situation of the authorities was as desperate as ours. As I learned later, the Board of Governors of the prison had been called by telegraph, along with two companies of the State militia, to deal with any eventuality. It was then winter and, despite the temperate climate enjoyed in California, the cold at this time of year is sometimes quite severe. Now, in our dungeons we had neither mattress nor blanket, and it is painful, you should know, to stretch out one’s bruised flesh on icy slabs . That is not all. As we continually asked for a little water, the guards, to mock us, amused themselves, with much jeering, by playing the fire hoses. Through the gates of the wickets, the ferocious jets fell upon us, dungeon after dungeon, violently whipping our aching bodies and making us jump between our four walls, like beaten eggs. This water, which we had clamored for, soon rose up to our knees, and no matter how much we begged, it still flowed and gushed. Of the forty men who underwent these ordeals, not one emerged unscathed. Luigi Polazzo, as I have said, was the first to fall into insanity and never recovered his sanity. Long Bill Hodge slowly lost it and finally joined Luigi in the Insane Ward. Still others followed them. Others, whose physical health had been profoundly shaken, fell victims to prison tuberculosis. A good quarter of the forty, in all, lost their lives there. As for me, I was brought twice before the Grand Council of Directors. I was, by turns, threatened and cajoled. I was given a choice between two alternatives. Either I would deliver the dynamite, and in that case I would be given a nominal sentence of thirty days in solitary confinement, which I would not serve, and at the end of which I would be appointed Library Overseer. Or I would persist in my stubbornness in not handing over the dynamite. In that case, it would be Solitary Cell for me until the end of my sentence. That is to say, in aeternum, since I was a lifer. No, no! No code has ever been able to promulgate such a law! California is a civilized country, or at least one that boasts of it. Eternal Solitary Cell is a monstrous punishment, for which no state, it seems, has ever dared to take responsibility! And yet I am the third man in California who has heard this sentence pronounced against him. The other two are Jake Oppenheimer and Ed. Morrell. Soon you will meet them with me, for it was in their company that I spent five years in my silent cell… The Grand Council therefore gave me a choice: a pleasant and trustworthy job in the house, and my total release from the weaving workshop, if I returned a dynamite that did not exist; solitary confinement until my death, if I refused. I was given twenty-four hours in a straitjacket, so that I could reflect on it. Then I was brought back before these gentlemen. What could I do? I reiterated, for the hundredth time, that I was powerless to lead them before a non-existent object. They retorted that I was a liar. They told me that I was a bad head, a living scourge, a vicious degenerate and the greatest criminal of the century. And I don’t know what else. As a conclusion, I was taken back, this time, no longer to the ordinary dungeons, but to the Solitary Cells Ward. I was locked in cell number 1. Number 5 was occupied by Ed. Morrell. Number 12 by Jake Oppenheimer. He had been there for ten years; Ed. Morrell for only one year. He was serving a fifty-year sentence. Jake Oppenheimer was a lifer, as was I. So, at first glance, it seemed that we would be in this house for a long time. However, only six years have passed and neither of us is here anymore. Jake Oppenheimer was hanged; Ed. Morrell found his way to Damascus. He made a good name for himself and became a trusted man at San Quentin Prison. He was recently pardoned . I am here at Folsom, waiting for the day set by Judge Morgan to be my last day. When, after six years in solitary confinement, I was taken from San Quentin Prison San Quentin, in order to be transferred here, to Folsom, to be judged as I am about to tell you, I saw Skysail Jack again. I saw him again… It’s a figure of speech. For, after six years of darkness, I was blinking in the sun, like a bat. As I was leaving, I passed him in the prison yard, and recognized him all the same , in a fog. What I saw was enough to break my heart. His hair had turned white and he had aged prematurely. His chest had sunk, his cheeks had sunk, and paralysis made his hand tremble. He staggered as he walked. He recognized me, too, and his eyes, at the sight of me, became clouded with tears. I was no less a sad wreck than the man he had known. My weight had dropped to 87 pounds. My hair, streaked with gray, had grown, like my mustache and beard, without ever being trimmed, and was completely unkempt. I staggered like him, to the point that, to get me across this narrow, blindingly sunlit courtyard , the guards had to support me under the arms. My eyes and Skysail Jack’s met in our mutual shipwreck. He knew that by speaking to me he was breaking the rules. But his indomitable soul didn’t care. “My compliments…” Standing, he chuckled, his voice broken and quavering. “You’re a man up to the task… You didn’t say anything about the dynamite…” With what was left of my voice in my throat, I murmured: “I knew nothing, Jack, about the dynamite… And I don’t think there ever was any… ” “Well, well…” he said, shaking his head like a child. You don’t want to talk, that’s understood… They’ll never know anything… You’re a man up to it, Standing, and I tip my hat to you… The guards dragged me away, and I left it there with Skysail Jack. It was clear that he, too, had come to believe in this fabulous dynamite. Why, now, am I here, no longer at San Quentin but at Folsom, and why, in a short time, am I going to be hanged? I’ll tell you. It wasn’t for that old story about Professor Haskell, my colleague, whom I killed. It was because I was convicted of assaulting one of my guards. My case is bad, beyond any doubt. It is contrary to prison discipline, and clearly written in the Code. Look at my bad luck. At the time I killed Professor Haskell, this law didn’t exist. It wasn’t passed until after my first conviction. I therefore claim that, as far as I am concerned, the application of this law, which it was impossible for me to foresee, is unconstitutional. And any sensible man will agree with me. But what effect can this argument have on the minds of so-called legal experts, who, in reality, claim to be rid of the honorable and well-known professor of agriculture, Darrell Standing, at any cost? Honestly, I also acknowledge that there was a precedent for my execution. A year ago, as anyone who reads the newspapers knows, Jake Oppenheimer was hanged in this very same Folsom prison for an exactly similar offense. The only difference between his case and mine is that he had not made a guard’s nose bleed with his fist. No. But with his bread knife, and without meaning to, he had cut a little of another guard’s skin. Our existence here below, the way men interact with each other, the inextricable thicket of laws… my God! How strange it all is! I am writing these lines in the same cell occupied at Folsom, in the Assassins’ Quarters, by Jake Oppenheimer. He was taken out to be hanged, as they are going to do to me. As if you, you bunch of idiots, you bunch of bandits, could strangle my immortal soul with your rope and your gallows! In spite of you, I will tread, again and again, this beautiful earth. And I will walk there, in the flesh, by turns, as in the past, prince or peasant, learned man or stupid brute, sometimes sitting at the top of the ladder social, and sometimes creaking under the wheel of fate. Chapter 5. Tapping in the Night. What I write is necessarily a little disjointed… Let us return to San Quentin and to solitary cell No. 1, where I had just been locked up. At first, I found myself desperately alone and the first hours passed very slowly, the first days seemed endless. The passage of time was marked for me only by the regular changing of the guards, and by the alternation of day and night. Day was not day, but a weak and confused light, which was nevertheless better than the complete darkness of night. This light only filtered through the thin slit of a basement window, and very little remained in it of the brilliant clarity of the outside world. The glow was never sufficient to make it possible to read in its beam. I had, moreover, nothing to read. I could only lie down and think. To this regime I was condemned for life. It seemed, at first glance, obvious that unless I created thirty-five pounds of dynamite out of nothing, the rest of my life would pass in this black silence. My bed consisted only of a thin, rotten straw mattress, spread out on the floor of my cell, and a blanket, even thinner and disgustingly filthy. No chair. No table. Nothing but the straw mattress and the small blanket. I have always been, in my life, what is called a light sleeper, and my brain is constantly working. In a cell, one quickly becomes disgusted with thinking, and the only way to escape one’s thoughts is to sleep. Normally, I slept only an average of five hours a night. So I undertook to cultivate sleep. I made a science of it . I managed to sleep ten hours out of twenty-four, then twelve hours, and up to fourteen or fifteen hours. This was the last limit I could reach. Beyond that, I was forced to stay awake and, naturally, to think. At this rate, an active brain soon breaks down. I looked for all sorts of stratagems that would allow me, by some mechanical means, to endure my waking hours. I imagined solving in my head the square roots and cube roots of a long series of given numbers, and, by a tenacious concentration of my will, I successfully completed the most complicated geometric problems. I even occupied myself, after so many other things, with finding the quadrature of the circle. I struggled with this task until the problem also appeared insoluble to me. I understood that by persisting any longer in this vain pursuit, I would find the path to madness. So I gave up on any interest in this mysterious squaring. This was a huge sacrifice for me, because the mental effort involved in this search was an admirable time-killer. I resorted to other exercises. Thus, I created, under my eyelids, the artificial vision of a checkerboard, on which I undertook, playing doubles, endless games of chess. But once I had become adept at this fictitious training of my eyes, the game seemed insipid to me. There could be no real conflict in the games, since it was, in fact, the same partner playing on both sides. I tried in vain to split my personality into two halves, which would oppose each other. But I could not succeed. It was always the same man who played, and no trick or strategy could usefully work against him. Eternal time, however, weighed on me more and more. So I started playing with the flies. These flies were like all the others. They filtered into the cell with the narrow ray of light, in its gray and confused glow. I learned that flies had a taste for play. Lying on the floor, I would trace with my finger, for example, on the wall in front of me, an imaginary line, about three feet from the floor. When the flies came, flying, to rest on the wall above of this line, I left them in peace. If, on the contrary, they went below it, I pretended to want to catch them. I was careful, however, not to harm them and, with time, they knew as well as I did where the imaginary line was placed. And here is the most surprising thing. When they wanted to play, they came, on purpose, to place themselves below this line. I chased them away, and they came back again. It often happened that a fly repeated the same game for an hour. When it had had enough of this sport, it would go and rest in neutral territory, above the demarcation line. Twelve to fifteen flies lived in my company like this. Only one of them was not interested in the game. It stubbornly refused . From the day it understood the penalty incurred when it went below the line, it had carefully avoided coming to walk in the forbidden zone. This fly was visibly a morose being, a sad character. She had, like the human inhabitants of the prison, a grudge against this world. Nor did she play with her companions. And yet she was vigorous and in excellent health. I studied her carefully, and at length, and I can assure you that her opposition to all amusement was a question of moral temperament and not of physical nature. I knew all my flies, I assure you, like the back of my hand. I was astounded to discern the multitude of differences that existed among them. Yes, each of them had its own distinct personality . They were distinguished from one another by their size, their difference in strength, the varying speed of their flight, their talent for eluding my pursuit, for diving straight as a dart toward a given goal, or for flying in a circle before reaching it, when they fled my hand which chased them from the famous zone. More subtle peculiarities, betraying dissimilar characters , similarly existed among them. There was one, particularly big and nasty, that sometimes started to spin around like a real fury. Sometimes it attacked me, and sometimes its companions. Another… You have seen, in a meadow, a foal or a calf suddenly raise its rear, in an unexpected kick, and set off at a triple gallop, straight ahead. A matter of giving an outlet to its overflowing vitality and its humor. Well, there was a fly that was, by the way, the best player of all that had no other pleasure than to come and land quickly, three or four times in a row, on my tobacco. And when she had succeeded in eluding the attentive and velvety blow of my hand, she entered into such animation, such joy, that she would leap into the air at full speed, and begin, turning and whirling, flying from right to left, to celebrate, triumphant, around my head, the victory she had won over me. I have made many other observations on my flies, on their manner of being, on their mode of play, which I do not wish to bother you with any longer. But, of all the facts that I was given to observe and which really, during this first period of solitary cell, often relaxed my mind, which made the hours seem a little less long, there is one which has always remained present in my memory. The morose fly, which never played, came, in a moment of forgetfulness, to land once on the taboo spot and was immediately captured by my hand. When I had released her, believe it or not, she sulked at me for an hour! Thus dragged on interminably long time. I still could not sleep and, however intelligent they were, I still could not play with my flies. For flies, in the end, are only flies, and I was a man, with a man’s brain. And this brain, active, trained to think, crammed with intellectual culture and science, constantly raised to high tension, bubbled without respite. It wanted action and I was condemned to total passivity. Before my imprisonment, I had engaged, during my vacations, in interesting chemical research on the quantity of pentose and methylene pentose contained in the grapes of the Asti vineyards. Everything was finished, except for a few last experiments. Had anyone taken them up again and had they been crowned with success? I was constantly wondering. The universe was dead to me. No important news filtered down to my cell. Science, outside, was making great strides, and I was interested in thousands of things. Such was the theory of the hydrolysis of casein, treated with trypsin, which I had first put forward, and which Professor Walters had verified in his laboratory. Professor Schleimer had also collaborated with me in the search for phystosterol in mixtures of animal and vegetable fats. The work begun was certainly to be continued. With what results? The thought of all this activity in which I could no longer take part, and which continued beyond the walls of my cell, the very walls that separated me from it, was frightening. During this time, flattened on the ground, I played with the flies! However, not everything in my dark sepulchre was silent. From the beginning of my detention, I had heard, on several occasions and at regular intervals, the sound of small, muffled knocks. Coming from further away, I had heard others, muffled and even weaker. They were continually interrupted by the grunts of the jailer on duty. Sometimes, when the knocks persisted for too long, other guards were called, and from the more violent noises that followed, I knew that men were being put in straitjackets . The matter was easily explained. I knew, like all the inmates at San Quentin, that the two men in solitary confinement were Ed. Morrell and Jake Oppenheimer. These were the same men who conversed together, tapping their fingers against the wall, and for that, they were punished. Their alphabetic code must have been very simple, there was no doubt about it. And yet it had no meaning for me. I spent many hours and how many vain efforts to decipher it. When I had found the key, it seemed childish to me, and even simpler was the trick they used, the knocking, which had at first completely disconcerted me. At each conversation, they changed the beginning letter of their alphabet, which modified it. Often, in the middle of a conversation, they made this change. Thus, one day, I grasped their alphabet, with the exact initial, and I listened to and understood two very clear sentences. The next time, I couldn’t make out a single word. Oh, that first time! “Say, Ed… what would you give now for brown paper and a Bull Durham packet?” asked the one giving the furthest knocks. I almost shouted aloud my joy. I had society around me! And there was a way to communicate with it! Eagerly, my ear pricked up, and the other, closer knocks, which I guessed came from Ed. Morrell, answered: “I would gladly do twenty hours straight in the straitjacket for a very small packet. ” Then came the grunt of the guard, who interrupted him with these words: “Enough! Morrell! The uninitiated might perhaps be tempted to believe that a lifer has suffered the worst and that, consequently, a simple guard has no quality or power to compel him to obey, when he forbids him to speak. Well, no! There remains the straitjacket. There remains hunger. There remains thirst. There are still the blows. And completely powerless to fight back is the man locked in a cell. The tapping stopped. Then, when it started again, during the following night, I found myself completely disconcerted. My fellow prisoners had changed the initial letter of their alphabet. But I had grasped the basics and, after a few days, the same signs used the first time Having renewed themselves, I understood again. I wasted no time in politeness. “Hello!” I knocked. “Hello! Stranger…” replied Morrell, knocking in turn. And, from Oppenheimer: “Welcome to our city.” They were curious to know who I was, how long I had been in the cell, and why. But I evaded all these questions, to ask them to teach me first the key that allowed them to modify their alphabetic code at will. When I had understood, we began to talk. It was a great day in our mutual existence. The two condemned men were now three. As they told me later, they only confided in me after a certain time, during which I was put to the test. They feared that I was a sheep, placed there to skillfully draw information from their noses. They had already done this to Oppenheimer, and he had paid dearly for the trust he had placed in Governor Atherton’s emissary. I was very surprised—and agreeably flattered—to learn that my two companions in misery were not ignorant of my name, and that my reputation as an incorrigible hardened man had reached them. Even into this living tomb, which Oppenheimer had occupied for ten years, my glory—my modest renown, if you prefer—had penetrated! I had much to tell them, and the various facts of the prison, and the escape plot of the forty lifers, and the search for dynamite, and the wicked machinations of Cecil Winwood. All this was unprecedented for them. The news, they told me, sometimes filtered, drop by drop, into their cell, through the guards . But, for two months, they had known nothing. The current staff on duty was particularly nasty and surly. Several times that day we picked up the conversation with our fingers, not without incurring many curses and threats from the guards making their rounds. But it was beyond us; we could not keep quiet. The three buried alive had so much to say to each other, and so exasperatingly slow was our way of conversing! “Shut up for now,” Morrell informed me. “Wait until Pie-Head takes over tonight. He sleeps almost constantly, and then we can talk to our hearts content. Pie-Head was a nasty man, very nasty, despite all his fat. But this fat was blessed by us, for it weighed him down to the point that he constantly felt the need to doze. Nevertheless, our incessant tapping disturbed his sleep and irritated him, and he never stopped grumbling at us. When a patrol passed, its alert grunts raised their pitch and we were, all in chorus, showered with insults. Oh! how much we talked that night! How far sleep was from our eyes! When day came, we were denounced for the noise we had not ceased to make and we had to pay the price of our little party. Captain Jamie, in fact, appeared at the stroke of nine o’clock, with a good escort, and we were bound in the straitjacket. Twenty-four hours without respite, until the next morning at nine o’clock, we suffered the torture, tied up and helpless, on the ground, without food or drink. This was the price of our blissful night. Our guards, oh, yes! were brutes. And, faced with their brutality, we ourselves had to transform ourselves into brutes in order to live. Just as hard work makes hands calloused, so bad jailers make bad prisoners. So , despite the straitjacket we had to wear as punishment , we continued to converse, mainly at night, when the guard was sometimes relaxed. And what did night and day matter to us, since the two were so alike? Thus we told each other much of our life stories. For long hours, Morrell and I, lying on our straw mattress, listened to Oppenheimer spelling for us, distant and barely perceptible taps of his fingers, his entire existence. From the time of his youth, when he had lived in a San Francisco dive; from his years of apprenticeship to vice, among the gangs of bad boys, when, as a fourteen-year-old boy, he was a night errand boy and roamed the city by the light of the little red lights; until his first infraction of the laws, which was discovered, then, right after, his thefts and robberies, the betrayal of an accomplice, which had him incarcerated, and his red murders, within the very walls of the prison. Jake Oppenheimer had been called the Human Tiger. A nickname that some dirty reporter had coined, and which would survive the death of the one who was given it. As for me, I found in Jake Oppenheimer all the traits of a beautiful and true humanity. He was faithful to his friends and loyal. He had suffered harsh punishments rather than testify against a comrade. He was brave and knew how to suffer. He was capable of sacrifice—I could give you undeniable proof of this , but it is a story that would take us too far afield. The love of justice was in him a frenzy. The murders he had committed in the prison were due entirely to this extreme sentiment of justice. He was a magnificent mind, which a whole life spent behind bars and ten years in a cell had not obscured. Morrell, no less a good comrade, was also a splendid mind. On the threshold of the grave, I do not fear to proclaim it loudly, without being accused of presumption, the three noblest minds contained in San Quentin prison, from Governor Atherton to the last servant, were the three men who rotted together in these three dungeons. At the supreme hour when, looking back, I review all that I have seen, all that I have known in my life, the truth compels me to declare that the most strongly tempered minds are also the most unruly. The stupid, the cowardly, all those who do not have an inflexibly upright soul and a just conscience of their worth, these make model prisoners. Jake Oppenheimer, Ed. Morrell, nor I, are not among them, and I thank the gods for it! Chapter 6. Samaria!. The child, whose mind has not yet been tormented by life, possesses, to its highest degree, the faculty of forgetting. In man, being able to forget is the mark of a healthy and self-controlled mind, while the obsession with this or that is the sign of an unbalanced brain. That is why, in my cell, I strove, above all, to cancel out my suffering and my resentments. To do this, I played with flies or played chess with myself, or conversed with my fingers. But I only partly forgot. Other, more distant memories, as I have said, constantly resurfaced in me. They were those of other times and other places, the memory of which my childhood had preserved. Do these unconscious memories of a being who has just been born deserve to be dismissed with disdain, as having no meaning? Or are they not a precious residue, walled up in the lobes of the brain, like the condemned man in his cell? We have seen these condemned men, pardoned, rise to life and raise their gaze once more towards the sun. So why couldn’t these childhood memories also awaken, and these other lives, once lived, be resurrected before our eyes? What can we do for this? By our will alone, or with the help of hypnotism, split our conscious being, completely exteriorize ourselves from our present life? Then the tightly closed doors of our brain would open wide, and the past would suddenly resurface in the sunlight. Such are the thoughts that haunted me without respite, in my cell. But first let me tell you a strange and authentic adventure. It was way back there, in Minnesota, on the old farm where I was born. I was then about six years old. One day, a missionary came to China, who had recently returned to the United States and whom the Governing Board of Missions was sending to the farmers to collect money. He was offered hospitality for the night. After dinner, as we were all gathered in the kitchen, and while my mother was preparing to undress me for bed, the missionary took out of his pocket some photographs of the Holy Land and showed them to us. Suddenly—I would have forgotten it long ago, if I had not heard my father relate the incident a thousand times afterward to the astonished listeners—suddenly, at the sight of one of these photographs, I gave a cry. Afterwards, I looked at it with ardor at first, then with an air of disappointment. At first impression—this is what I answered when questioned—it had seemed quite familiar to me. As familiar as if my father’s farm had been depicted on it. Then it had seemed completely foreign to me. However, as I began to look at it again, the first impression, of a place well known to me, returned to me, and took over my child’s brain. “The Tower of David…” said the missionary to my mother. “No!” I cried confidently. “You claim that’s not its name?” asked the missionary. I nodded affirmatively. “Then, my little one, what is its name? ” “Its name…” I began. But I could not continue and, stammering, I finished: “I forgot…” I was silent for a moment, took the photograph back in my hands and declared: “This tower is no longer the same as it once was. It has been greatly altered. ” At that moment, the missionary handed my mother another photograph. “That,” he said, “is where I was six months ago.” And, pointing with his finger, “This is the Jaffa Gate. I passed under it, to go straight up from there to the Tower of David.” The competent authorities agree on this identification. El Kul’ah, they called it…” Here, I interrupted again and, pointing to the left of the photograph at some ruined piles of masonry, “No, that was the gate you’re talking about. The name you just mentioned is the one the Jews gave it. In my time, they called it something else. They called it… I’ve forgotten that name again…” “Listen to the kid!” my father exclaimed, laughing. “Wouldn’t you think, listening to him, that he really went there?” I nodded without answering, for I knew well, although everything seemed different from what I had seen, that I had indeed been there. My father was still laughing heartily. As for the missionary, he thought I was trying to make fun of him. He handed me a third photograph. It showed a harsh, barren landscape, with almost no trees or vegetation, a rocky ravine, where a few miserable flat-stone hovels with terraced roofs were grouped. “Now, little one,” the missionary said to me mockingly, “what is this?” Instantly, I replied: “Samaria!” My father clapped his hands with glee, my mother seemed quite astonished at the strange things that were happening, and the missionary, more and more convinced that he was being made fun of, did not hide his irritation. “The child is right,” he said. “It is indeed Samaria, in the Holy Land. I myself passed through that village, and it was as a souvenir that I bought this photograph. The child will have seen other copies. That is all that proves.” My father and mother affirmed the contrary. I spoke. –Here again, the image is different from what I knew… I tried within myself to reconstruct, both from the photograph and from my memory, the landscape as I remembered it. Its general appearance, nor the horizon line of the hills, had changed. I pointed to what had changed. The houses, I said, were not in the same place, but here, more or less. The trees were more numerous. There was a whole wood of them and, here and there, tufts of grass, with many goats. It seems to me that I can still see them, and two young shepherds who were leading them. I see… I also see, in this place, a pile of vagabonds. They are dressed in nothing but rags. They are all sick. Their faces, their hands, their legs are so many sores… The missionary smiled, less angry, and declared: –The child, at the church or elsewhere, heard about the miracle of the healing of the lepers… How many of these sick vagabonds were there?
From the age of five, I had been able to count to a hundred. I fixed my thoughts on the group I was talking about and I replied: –There are ten of them. They are struggling, waving their arms, and shouting, and yelling at other men who are watching them and surrounding them. “And don’t they approach these men?” I shook my head. “No, they keep their distance, as if something unpleasant within them forbade them. ” “Go on, go on, little one…” the missionary continued. “Is that all? And the one in front of them, what is he doing? ” “He stopped in front of them. And everyone, like him, stopped. The young goatherds approached to see. Everyone is looking. ” “And what else? ” “That’s all. The sick are returning home. They no longer gesticulate, they no longer scream. They no longer appear sick. I stand up straight on my horse and watch like the others.” My three listeners suddenly burst out laughing. Then I became angry and cried out energetically: “Yes, I am on my horse, I am a man, and I have a big sword at my side.” “These are obviously the ten lepers that Christ met on the road to Jerusalem, and whom he healed. The child will have seen this famous scene reproduced on the screen of some magic lantern. Remember… But neither my father nor my mother had any recollection of me ever having seen a magic lantern. ” “Put it to the test a fourth time,” my father suggested. The missionary passed me a fourth photograph, which I examined carefully . I declared: “This landscape is quite different from the previous one… A hill is in the center of this photograph; There are others, in the distance… To the right, a rustic road, gardens, trees, houses sheltered behind large stone walls… To the left, holes in the rocks, where the dead were probably buried… Here, a place where they threw stones at people until they were killed… I’ve never seen it done… I’ve only been told about it. “But this central hill…” the missionary asked, showing me the one for which the photograph seemed to have been taken. “Can you, little one, tell us its name?” I hesitated and nodded. “I forgot. But I remember that the condemned were executed there. ” “Perfect! Very good!” the missionary approved. All the learned authorities, the most competent archaeologists agree with him. The hill is Golgotha ​​and its summit the Square of Skulls, either because of the skulls of the condemned who were abandoned there, or because he himself is bald and bare like a skull. The resemblance is striking, please note. It was there that they crucified… He turned directly to me and, straight away, asked: “Will you tell us, young scholar, who was crucified in this place? Do you see him too, that one? I saw him, oh, yes! My father, when he later told this story, said that my eyes dilated strangely. Yet I did not answer the question put to me. I contented myself with shaking my head, obstinately, and I said only: “That name, I will not pronounce it, because you would laugh at me.” Yes, I see the one you want to talk about… I see him, and lots of men around him, and two other condemned men, to his right and to his left… They were nailed to three crosses, and that took a long time. I saw… But I won’t say his name… You would tell me that I’m lying. However, I never lie. Ask Dad and Mom. If I lied, they would whip my lies out of me with good spankings. From that moment on, the missionary could not get a single word out of me. In vain he tried to seduce me, parading before me a whole set of photographs, in the presence of which swirled in my eyes and in my memory a rush of recovered images. Sentences, which I held back with a grumpy air, made my tongue itch. But I held on.
I kissed my father and mother goodnight. And, as I left the room to go to sleep, the missionary concluded: –He will surely be made a first-rate scholar on biblical questions. Unless, with the magnificent imagination he is so precociously gifted with, he becomes a great novelist… This missionary was stupid and his prophecies are idiotic. The proof is that I am here, in Folsom, in the Assassin’s Quarters, writing these lines and waiting for them to take Darrell Standing out of his cell, then try to send him into the darkness, at the end of a rope. A pretension that makes me shrug my shoulders! No, I was not to become either a theologian or a novelist. In fact, I was quite the opposite: an agricultural expert, an agricultural professor, a specialist in the science of eliminating unnecessary movement, a scholar in the art of managing a farm and getting maximum yield from it, a laboratory worker, bent over the microscope and the study of the infinitely small. But not a theologian and a novelist for a cent. The missionary had put his finger in his eye. And I sit in this cell at Folsom Prison, where I pause for a moment from writing these Memoirs, to listen, in the heaviness of a hot afternoon, to the calm and soothing buzzing of flies in the drowsy air. They are not my flies from San Quentin and they do not know me. And I no longer have as companions, on Death Row, where I am incarcerated, Jake Oppenheimer, and Ed. Morrell; but to my right, Joseph Jackson, the murderous Negro, and to my left Bambeccio, the murderous Italian. At this very moment, passing and repassing, in front of the gate of my ticket office, are the snatches of sentences that they send to each other in low voices, from one gate to the other, and which relate to the antiseptic virtues of chewing tobacco, in its application to wounds, which it heals. In my raised hand, I hold my fountain pen suspended, and I think that in the course of my previous lives, other hands of myself have, in past centuries, held and directed ink brushes, carved bird feathers, and all the ingenious instruments with which man has, since the most remote antiquity, used to write. And I still find time to lose in curiously wondering if this missionary never had, like me, in his early childhood, the notion of vanished existences. Let us now return to San Quentin. After I had learned the secret code of conversation with my two fellow prisoners and had distracted myself from it for a while, I began to suffer again from my solitude and from the contemplation of myself. I then attempted, in order to escape from the present, by splitting my thought and my being, self-hypnotism. I achieved only partial success. My subconscious, regaining its freedom, immediately began to derail, without order or cohesion, into a thousand disordered fantasies, worthy at most of a vulgar nightmare. I could not manage to classify these undisciplined evocations, to put order into the facts and the characters. My method of self-hypnosis was simplicity itself. Sitting, legs crossed, on my straw mattress, I began to look at a straw, which I had applied to the wall of my cell, at the place where the light was the brightest. I stared for a long time at this brilliant point, of which I insensibly brought my eyes closer until my pupils blurred. At the same time, I relaxed all other will and abandoned myself to a sort of vertigo, which did not fail to seize me. A moment came when I felt myself falter. Then I closed my eyes and, tipping backward, I let myself fall, unconsciously, onto my back, on my straw mattress. From that moment, for a variable time, which went from ten minutes to half an hour, and up to an hour, I wandered and wandered through all the accumulated memories of my vital reappearances on this earth. But, as I have said, times and places succeeded one another too quickly, and too confusedly, in my brain. All I knew, when I came to, was that Darrell Standing was the link which connected together all these bizarre, dancing and staggering visions. And that was all. I was unable to fully relive, in time and space, any of my dreams, if I may call these evocations that. Thus, for example, after a quarter of an hour of my hypnosis, I had the impression, almost simultaneously, of crawling and roaring in the primitive slime, and of flying through the air, in the middle of the twentieth century, on my friend Haas’s monoplane. Awakened, I remembered very well that during the year preceding my incarceration at San Quentin, I had, in fact, flown with Haas over the Pacific, to Sainte Monique. On the other hand, I had no memory of having crawled and roared in the prehistoric slime. Yet, by reasoning, I persuaded myself that both actions must be equally real, since both had offered themselves to my memory at the same time. Only one was more distant than the other, and that is why its memory had been obliterated. Ah! what a kaleidoscope of vivid and mysterious images followed one another in my brain, in those hours of self-hypnosis, in my cell! I sat in the palace of the great of the earth, as jester, scribe , and man-at-arms, and King myself, crowned on my brow, in the place of honor at the table. I united, behind the thick walls of my palace, temporal power, symbolized by the sword I held in my hand and by the innumerable soldiers I had under my command, and spiritual power, as evidenced by the hooded monks and fat abbots who sat at the table below me, gulped down my wine and gorged themselves on my meats. Sometimes, in a solemn voice, I judged, grave as death. I condemned, according to the gravity of the offense or crime, and I imposed legal death on men who, like Darrell Standing in his prison at Folsom, had outraged the law. I saw myself, alternately, wearing around my neck the iron collar of slaves, in cold desolate regions, or, under tropical and perfumed nights, loved by beautiful princesses of royal blood, while around us black slaves agitated the sleepy atmosphere, with the help of large fans of peacock feathers. Among the gurgling of the fountains and under the calm branches of the palm trees, one could hear, in the distance, floating in the air the cry of jackals and the roar of lions. Sometimes, lost in the frozen steppes of Asia, I warmed my hands before large fires, made of dried camel excrement. And, almost immediately, I found myself in the torrid African desert, lying in the meager shade of sun-dappled sage bushes near dried-up wells . I gasped, my tongue dry, for a drop of water, while around me lined up, sorted or labeled in jars of alkali, the multitude of bones of men and beasts who had perished as I was about to do, from heat and thirst. I was a sea rover, a bribed assassin and pirate, or a learned and learned monk, hunched over, in the peaceful quiet of his cell, the handwritten pages of parchment, enormous volumes, ancient and moldering. The monastery where I was secluded was perched on the peak and in the crevices of high, dizzying cliffs, and, at dusk , I saw below me, on the lower slopes of the mountain, the peasants still toiling among the vines and olive trees, or bringing back from the pastures the bleating goats and the mooing cows. Then, suddenly, a barbarian chief, leading howling hordes in my wake, I led innumerable files of wagons, along rutted roads, and I trampled the rock of ancient forgotten cities. I fought furiously, on these battlefields of yesteryear. Not even when the sun had run its course did the red carnage cease. It continued during the hours of night, under the stars that shone in the sky. And the freshness of the night wind, chilled by the distant snowy peaks over which it had passed, could not dry the sweat of the battle. A bold sailor, climbing to the top of the masts that sway on the decks of ships, I enjoyed contemplating below me the water of the sea, transparent under the sun, where scarlet forests of coral shimmered at the bottom of the abysses, the color of turquoise. Then, descending to the helm, I brought my boat, with a sure hand, into the peaceful shelter, sparkling like a mirror, of calm gulfs, at the entrance of which the tide eternally breaks, with a dull thud, on the reefs at the water’s edge of these same corals. Closer in its origin, was another reincarnation, which frequently took place in me. That of the days of my childhood. I became again the little Darrell Standing who, on the paternal farm, ran barefoot, in the grass damp with the spring dew. Or, as on cold winter mornings, I would go, with my hands covered with chilblains, to carry hay to the cattle in the warm stable, which their smoking breath filled. And it seemed to me that I was sitting again, on Sunday, before the preacher, listening, with a childish dread of the splendor and terror of God, to the extravagant speeches he delivered about the joys of the New Jerusalem and the horrible torments of Hellfire. Where did these visions come from, while in my cell I collapsed on my back, after having long stared at a straw, shining in a ray of sunlight? I, Darrell Standing, born and raised in a remote corner of the Minnesota countryside , once a professor of agriculture, then an incorrigible prisoner at San Quentin, and now condemned to death in Folsom Prison— I, Darrell Standing, who will soon die by the rope in California—have certainly never, in this present existence, loved any daughters of kings. I have never sat enthroned, sword in hand. I have never sailed the waves, nor mingled my voice with the sailors, getting drunk on strong liquors and joyfully singing their death song, while, in the storm, the ship leaps skyward or crashes into the depths, and everywhere, above, below, and around her, the water boils over the black-toothed reefs. How, then, could I have known all these things? They are beyond my experience in this life. And yet they spring from my brain, like the word Samaria! escaped from my childhood lips, in front of a photograph that was shown to me. One cannot create anything from nothing. No more than it was possible for me to pull from nothing the thirty-five pounds of dynamite that Captain Jamie and Governor Atherton demanded of me, I cannot have fabricated, from scratch, these visions. They were latent in my mind and I am only bringing them to light. Chapter 7. The Straightjacket. Title arbitrarily given to this novel by the English publishers, and under which it appears across the Channel. It was at the instant wish of Mrs. Jack London that the translators restored, for the French edition, the title of the American volume: The Wanderer of the Stars, which Jack London particularly liked. Such was my irritating situation, from which I could not escape. I knew that there existed within me a Golconda of latent memories other existences. But I was powerless to search and externalize these treasures. Despite all my efforts, I could only flit, haphazardly, among these memories. I compared my case with that of the pastor Stainton Moses, who claimed to have previously incarnated Saint Hippolytus, Plotinus, Athenodorus and, closer to us, Grocyn, who was a friend of Erasmus. And I had no doubt that Stainton Moses’ statements were true. He had really personified all these men, in the long chain of his incarnations. Saint Hippolytus, Greek bishop, martyred in 240. Plotinus, neo-Platonic philosopher, born in Egypt around 205, died in Campania in 270; he followed the Emperor Gordian to Persia and settled in Rome under the Emperor Philip. Athenodorus, Stoic philosopher, born in Tarsus, Asia Minor. Erasmus, famous scholar, philosopher and poet, Stoic philosopher, born in Rotterdam in 1467, died in Basel in 1536. The experiences of the Frenchman, Colonel de Rochas, confirmed me in these thoughts and attracted me more particularly. I had read his account, still very much a novice in these matters, during the few leisure hours left to me by my former occupations. He recounted that by employing suitable subjects, he had, during hypnotic sleep, penetrated their former personalities. Such had been the case of a woman named Josephine, who lived in Voiron, in the department of Isère. He had made her relive her life and her adolescent adventures, then her childhood, the time when she was still suckling her mother, and the very time when she was enclosed in the breast that had engendered her. Going back further, he had penetrated his previous incarnations, notably the one in which his being, mixing the sexes, had animated a cantankerous and coarse old man, a certain Jean Claude Bourdon, a long-time soldier in the 7th artillery regiment, in Besançon, where he had died at the age of seventy, paralyzed and bedridden for a long time already.–Yes, yes, perfectly… And Colonel de Rochas, questioning in his turn the hypnotized ghost of this Jean Claude Bourdon, had followed him, too, to the germ of his life, pulsing in the darkness of his maternal breast. So that he had subsequently found another old woman, named Philomène Carteron. ALBERT DE ROCHAS: Les Vies successives, pages 66 to 89. Chacornac, publisher. But, despite my piece of straw, shining in the beam of light on the wall of my cell, I could not achieve such precisions of my past personalities. Discouraged, I ended up persuading myself that death alone would bring a little light and coherence into the chaos in which I was struggling. Yet the flow of life did not cease to flow within me, with energy. Despite his abominable suffering, Darrell Standing refused to die again. He denied Governor Atherton and Captain Jamie the right to kill him. I have always loved life and the vital resistance within me alone had been able to give me the strength to continue existing. By it alone I was in this cell, eating and drinking anyway, thinking and dreaming, and writing these lines, waiting for the inevitable rope that would put an end to the current and ephemeral link of my existences. The time was not far off, however, when I would penetrate this mystery that tormented me, when I would know how I should act, to see and know. I will tell you about it later… Governor Atherton and Captain Jamie were the first cause, and here is how. No doubt they had experienced a resurgence of panic, at the thought of the dynamite that they still firmly believed to have been hidden. In short, I saw them reappear, one day, in my obscure cell, and they told me bluntly that I had to speak or that, if not, I would be put in a straitjacket until I died. They added that they acted in this way because it was their pleasure and that officially they would not run the slightest risk of the slightest blame. My death would be entered in the prison registers as due to natural causes, and their leaders would say: Amen. O you, my dear fellow citizens, who coddle yourselves in cotton, you must believe me, I pray you, when I tell you that men are being killed in prisons today as has always been done since prisons have existed! I was not ignorant of what the straitjacket was and all the terror, suffering and agony that this word contained. I had seen the most robust being brought down there, some of them being crippled for life , and even those whose physical sap had resisted, until then, the attacks of tuberculosis then waste away, and die in six months, from this same tuberculosis. I knew Wilson, said the Man with the Crooked Eyes, who was subject to weaknesses of heart and who, after only an hour, died in the straitjacket, while the stupid prison doctor watched him smiling. I knew another who, after half an hour, confessed everything they wanted him to say, the false as well as the true, which earned him esteem and confidence and, for years, all the favors that followed. Finally, I have my own experience. As I write these lines, nearly a thousand scars mark my body. They will follow me to the gallows. And if I were to live another hundred years, a hundred years I would keep them, without them fading. O my fellow citizens, O you who tolerate all these hangman dogs, you who pay them and allow them to string unfortunate people into straitjackets in your name , let me explain to you a little what this is about, for you probably do not know. Then you will understand how, through suffering, I escaped from this life alive and, having become master of space and time, I was able to fly beyond the walls of my hell, to the stars. You have already seen, I suppose, these tarpaulins made of coarse canvas or rubber, the edges of which are trimmed with solid copper eyelets? Imagine, with its eyelets, one of these canvases, about four and a half feet long. Its width does not entirely reach the complete circumference of a human body, the material of which roughly follows the design. Thus it is wider at the shoulders and pelvis, narrower at the waist and legs. This canvas is spread out on the ground. The man who is to be punished, or tortured to make him confess, is ordered to lie on it, face down. If he refuses, he is beaten. Then he complies. The man is then flat on his stomach on the ground. The edges of the straitjacket are brought towards each other, so as to meet along his spine. A rope, which acts like a boot lace, is then passed through the eyelets and, still according to the same principle, the man is laced into the canvas. Only he is laced more tightly than you, or anyone else, certainly does with your foot. This is what is called, in prison language , tying. Sometimes, if the jailers are naturally cruel and vindictive, or when the order comes from above, they ensure a tighter tying, by placing their foot on the man’s back and bracing themselves against it as they lace. If you have ever inadvertently tightened the lace of your shoe too tightly, you have not failed to soon experience a sharp pain in the instep of your foot, where the circulation of blood is stopped. If you persist, the pain quickly becomes unbearable, to the point that you absolutely must give the lace some slack and relax the pressure. Perfect. Now suppose, try to imagine that it is your entire body that is subjected to this pressure, your torso especially, where your heart, your lungs, all the vital organs are, squeezed so terribly that they seem to cease to function. I still remember the first time I underwent the torture of the straitjacket. It was at the beginning of my incorrigibility, shortly after my entry into prison, when, in all my vigor, I was weaving to the workshop my hundred yards of jute a day, and finished my work with an average of two hours ahead of the deadline. Yes, I made my jute bags in quantities far in excess of what was required of me. The pretext given, as the prison records attest, was that there were skips and broken pieces in the fabric, in a word , that my work was worthless. This was stupid, of course. The real reason which made me make this first acquaintance with the straitjacket was that, being a newcomer to the prison, I was indignant, expert as I was in the art of eliminating useless work, at the waste of time and effort which I witnessed. I made some remarks about it to the inept head weaver, who knew nothing of his trade. Furious, he had me called during Captain Jamie’s inspection tour and exhibited to him, as if it were my own work, pieces of vile cloth. Although I denied it, I was not believed. Three times, the same exhibition was repeated. The third call was to be punished according to the regulations. The punishment consisted of twenty-four hours in a straitjacket. I was taken down to the dungeons and ordered to lie down on the canvas, face down. I refused. Then, to make me give in, one of the jailers, named Morrisson, dug his thumbs into my throat. Another , named Mobins, a convict himself, but now a trusted man, struck me with his fists several times. Finally, I gave in and did as I was asked. My resistance had displeased my torturers and, for that, they tightened the noose a notch tighter. Then they rolled me onto my back, as if I were a log. The first impression did not seem very terrible to me. As they left, they closed the door of my dungeon, swung the levers of the bolts with a great crash and rattle, and left me in complete darkness . It was eleven o’clock in the morning. For a few minutes, I felt nothing but an uncomfortable constriction of my whole body, which seemed to me to be ought to calm down when I had become accustomed to it. But the opposite happened. My heart began to beat violently and it seemed to me that my lungs had suddenly become powerless to absorb a sufficient quantity of air to allow me to breathe. This sensation of suffocation that I experienced was terrifying. With each beat of my heart, it seemed to me that it was about to burst and, with each inhalation, that my lungs were about to rupture. After half an hour, I had not yet experienced the straitjacket, and this half hour was estimated by me at several hours. I began to scream, to utter howls of terror, to roar, in a veritable madness of the dying. From dull at first, the pain had passed into an acute state. I believed myself to be in the grip of artificial pleurisy, and I received a series of stab wounds in the heart. To die clearly is nothing. But this slow and refined death was frightening. Like a wild beast, caught in a trap, I experienced frenzies of terror and I burst out, after short respites of silence, into new howls and roars. Until I realized that these vocal exercises only aggravated the stab wounds in the heart and consumed even more of the rarefied air in my lungs. I fell silent and forced myself to remain calm from now on. I succeeded, by sheer willpower, for a time that seemed eternal and certainly did not exceed a quarter of an hour. Then I was seized by dizziness, my heart beat so hard that the canvas burst, and, half asphyxiated, I lost all control of myself. The screams and howls began again , and I called for help. In the midst of this crisis, I heard a voice coming from the neighboring dungeon. It filtered through the thickness of the walls and barely reached me . “Shut your mouth!” she said. “You’re bothering me, you know? ” “I’m dying…” I shouted. “It’s nothing… Don’t worry about it!” was the reply. “I’m dying…” I repeated. “So, what are you complaining about?” the voice retorted. “When you’re dead, you won’t suffer anymore… And then, croak if it amuses you, but not so loudly! All I ask is that you don’t disturb my beautiful sleep…” This dry indifference to my suffering irritated me and I regained control of myself. I only uttered muffled grunts. This new phase lasted an infinite time. Ten minutes perhaps. And my tortures took another form. They were now needles and pins that abounded throughout my entire being, and pierced it from one end to the other, with their innumerable and imperceptible pricks. I held firm and remained calm. Then the tingling stopped and gave way to a general numbness , which seemed a thousand times more frightening to me. I began to scream again. My neighbor began to complain again. “Impossible, good God! to close my eyes… Say, comrade, I ‘m no happier than you… My straitjacket is as tight as yours ! That’s why I want to sleep and forget… ” “How long have you been in it?” I asked. I believed, in my heart of hearts, and thinking of the centuries of suffering that seemed to have passed for me, that this calm man had been there for some five minutes. He answered: “Since the day before yesterday. ” “Since the day before yesterday in the straitjacket? ” “Perfectly, brother.” I exclaimed: “Oh! my God! ” “Why, yes, brother. For fifty hours without a break. And you don’t hear me squealing and howling. They’ve tied me up, their feet on my back. I’m swollen, you can believe me… You’re not the only one, you see, who isn’t at ease.” You complain, and it hasn’t been an hour since they put it on you… I protested: “You’re mistaken. It’s been hours and hours since they put it on me. ” “Brother, that’s just imagination. You honestly believe it, but it ‘s not true. I assure you, it wasn’t an hour ago. I heard them lacing you up. It seemed incredible to me. In less than an hour, I had already suffered a thousand deaths. And my neighbor, so self-possessed, whose voice was so balanced, his mind so calm that despite my initial bad impression I felt a kind of beneficial relief, had been in a straitjacket for fifty hours! I asked: “How much longer will they keep you here? ” “The Lord only knows. Captain Jamie has a grudge against me. He won’t release me until I’m about to faint . Now, brother, I’ll give you a good tip.” The best thing to do, as I was saying, is to close your eyes and forget. Shouting and screaming are no good. Try, for example, to remember successively all the women you’ve known. That will take a long time . You may feel your head spinning. Let it spin. It will be more time eaten up. And when you’ve finished thinking about your women, think about all the bastards who tried to steal them from you. Think about what you would have done to them if they had fallen into your hands, what you will do to them one day, if you ever find them again. The man who spoke to me like that was called Philadelphia Red. He was a repeat offender serving fifty years in prison for armed robbery in the middle of Alameda Street. He had already served twelve years. He was one of the forty conspirators sold by Cecil Winwood. His position, which had been improving, was suddenly lost again. He is a middle-aged man, and he is still in San Quentin. If he survives, he will be an old man when he is freed. I lived through my twenty-four hours in a straitjacket without dying. But I have never since found myself the same man. I am not talking so much about my physical condition. Although, the next morning, when they untied me, I was half paralyzed and in such a state of prostration that the guards had to kick me in the ribs to get me up and put me on all fours. It is morally and mentally that I was especially transformed. The brutal and odious treatment I had suffered humiliated and revolted me at the same time. I had lost my sense of justice. Such a way of acting does not soften a man. Bitterness and hatred had germinated in my heart, and they have, since then, constantly increased with the years. When I think, my God! of all that men have done to me! I was far from thinking, that morning, when I was kicked to my feet, that a time would come when twenty-four hours in a straitjacket would be nothing to me; that, once over, one hundred hours in that same straitjacket would find me smiling; that two hundred and fifty hours of the same torture would still bring the same smile to my lips! Yes, for two hundred and forty hours. Dear and comfortable fellow citizen, do you know that these two hundred and forty hours are equivalent to ten days and ten nights? You shrug your shoulders, declaring that nowhere in the civilized world, nineteen hundred years after the coming of Christ, do such horrors take place. I do not ask you to believe it. I do not believe it myself. I only know that I suffered them at San Quentin, and that I survived them, to mock my torturers and force them to get rid of me, with the aid of a rope and a gallows, on the pretext that I had, with a blow of my fist, made one of their noses bleed. I write these lines in the year of our Lord 1913, and, in this same year of our Lord 1913, there are, in the dungeons of San Quentin, other men, lying and tied, as I was, in straitjackets . I will never forget, neither in this life nor in those that will follow, Philadelphia Red’s farewell, when he was released that morning, at the same time as me, after seventy-four hours in a straitjacket. As I was being pushed, all tottering, into the corridors, he threw at me: “Well, brother, you see, you’re not dead and you’re still moving. ” “You, Red, shut up!” growled the sergeant. “Forget this bad quarter of an hour!” continued Red. The sergeant became angry. He threatened: “Red! I’ll get the better of you!” “Do you think so?” retorted Philadelphia Red, gently. Then his voice suddenly became hoarse and wild: “You’re nothing but a good-for-nothing, you idiot! Left to your own devices, you would have been incapable, in life, of ever earning yourself a lunch, much less obtaining the position you occupy here.” It was your father who pushed you. And we know by what filthy methods your father himself created his situation! The scene was grandiose. The tortured man rising above his torturer and braving the blows to which he exposed himself. Then, turning to me: “Goodbye, brother!” said Philadelphia Red. “Goodbye and behave yourself from now on. Love our governor. If you have the opportunity to meet him, do not fail to tell him that you saw me and that, in the straitjacket, I did not flinch… ” The sergeant was purple with rage and it was I who paid, with several blows and kicks, for Philadelphia Red’s jeers. Chapter 8. Dynamite or Death. So here I am, in my cell number 1, facing a resurgence of threats from Governor Atherton and Captain Jamie. “Come now, Standing,” the governor declared to me, “we must put an end to this dynamite once and for all, or I will have you killed in your straitjacket! Others, more intelligent than you, have confessed to me what was demanded of them, before it was too late for them. It is a choice to be made. Dynamite or take the plunge!” “Then,” I replied, “I will take the plunge, since I know nothing about dynamite.” The governor immediately carried out his threats. The canvas was spread on the ground. “Lie down, Standing!” he ordered. I obeyed, for I had learned that it was madness to resist three or four colossi together. I was tightly laced and given one hundred hours to do so. Every twenty-four hours, I was allowed to drink a glass of water. As for food, I felt no desire for it, and in fact, none was offered to me. Towards the end of the hundredth hour, the prison doctor, Dr. Jackson, examined my physical condition several times. But I had already become too accustomed to the straitjacket for a simple session, even one lasting a hundred hours, to seriously attack my constitution. Not to mention the muscular subterfuges I had discovered, which allowed me to carve out a little space while I was being laced up. I got up, weakened. No doubt a little more life was taken from me. But I emerged from this ordeal exhausted and broken, nothing more. After a day and a night that were granted to me to recover my strength, I was given a second session, this one lasting a hundred and fifty hours. The result was a general physical numbness for me, and an unconscious stupefaction for my brain. I thus managed to steal time from long hours of sleep. Then Governor Atherton tried various variations. I was given, at irregular intervals, a straitjacket and strength recovery. I never knew when I should or should not enter the straitjacket. Sometimes I had ten hours of rest and I did twenty in my canvas; sometimes I was given only four hours to breathe. In the middle of the night, when I least expected it, my door would burst open and the relief team would lace me up. Or again, for three consecutive days and three nights, eight hours in the straitjacket would regularly alternate with eight hours of recovery. And, just when I was beginning to get used to this rhythm of my torture, it would suddenly be changed and I would be inflicted, all at once, with two days and two nights in the straitjacket. Always, during this time, the eternal leitmotif would return: “Where’s the dynamite?” And still, not knowing which way to turn, Governor Atherton went from the excess of his anger to almost supplications. He always dangled a thousand advantages before my eyes if I decided to speak. Doctor Jackson, thin and dry as a stick, and who had only a slight tincture of medicine, was skeptical about the results of the treatment he had tried on me. He persisted in asserting that the straitjacket, however often it was used, would not succeed in killing me. The more he affirmed this opinion, the more Governor Atherton got interested in the game and continued. “Guys of that caliber,” he declared, “are tough guys, that’s understood. But I will be even more tenacious. You understand me, Standing, what you have endured so far is child’s play compared to what awaits you! You would do better to spare yourself what is hanging over you. You know that I am a man of my word.” I’ve already told you: Dynamite or death! Nothing has changed. Make your choice. While Pie Face, his foot against my back, squeezed hard and, for my part, I flexed my muscles to cheat on the breathable space, I tried to stammer: “I repeat, it is not for my pleasure that I persist in remaining silent. There is nothing to confess. I would cut off my own right hand right now , to have the satisfaction of leading you to any dynamite. ” Atherton sneered: “All right, all right… I’ve already seen people like you, who have crampons in their heads, to cling to their hobby against all odds. You’re like stubborn horses. The more you hit them, the more they rebel. Come on, Jones, squeeze a little more, I beg you!” One more notch!… Standing, if you don’t confess, you’ll lose your skin. That’s my last word. On this regime, I knew that its very rigor had its compensation. The weaker a man becomes, the less likely he is to feel suffering. Pain dulls in a weak body. The strongest men are also those on whom illnesses are the most violent, we know that. And, as the vital energy is consumed, the reactions are less acute. This is what happened in me. I became, little by little, a a sort of filamentary and inert rag, which insisted on living. Morrell and Oppenheimer, who knew what treatment I was undergoing, were sorry for me. They sent me, by incessant patting, their advice and their marks of sympathy. Oppenheimer told me that he had known even worse, and yet he had not died from it. “Don’t allow them to dominate you, Standing!” he spelled with his fingers. ” Hold their head and don’t let yourself die. They would be only too delighted. And above all, don’t give the game away! Less than ever! ” Lying on my back, in my straitjacket, I could only answer with my foot. With the edge of my sole, I tapped in response: “There is no game to sell, I have already told you. I know nothing, nothing, nothing. ” “Heard and understood!” Oppenheimer approved. And he continued, addressing Ed. Morrell: –Standing is amazing! How could I possibly convince Governor Atherton, since Oppenheimer himself could only admire my strength of mind in keeping my secret? When I slept, I immediately began to dream. These dreams had a remarkable cohesion between them. Constructed on a real basis, they always related to my former profession as an agronomist. Often, it seemed to me that I was speaking before a meeting of scientists, assembled to listen to me. I read to them the documents I had put in order and which related either to my own research or to that of other colleagues. And, when I woke up, my dream had been so precise that it seemed to me that my voice was still ringing in my ears. I seemed to see before my eyes the typists typing, on white paper, sentences and paragraphs of their report. More often, I saw stretching before my eyes, for hundreds of miles to the north and south, immense arable lands, under a temperate climate, quite similar to that of California. The flora and fauna were also those of this country. And, in all my dreams, note well, it was always this same scenery in the midst of which I found myself. Usually, I traveled for long hours, in a carriage drawn by mountain horses, among meadows of esparto grass, where Jersey cows grazed. I arrived thus at some village, lost near a dried-up torrent, and there I left my carriage to take a small narrow-gauge railway, with the help of which I continued my walk. And, each time I fell asleep , the same carriage, the same small railway, the same landscape, the same trees, the same mountains, the same village, the same fords and the same bridges returned in my dreams. In this region of rational cultivation, I was setting up a model farm, where I installed a colony of Angora goats. Then, with each new dream, I followed the progress of my exploitation, according to the time elapsed and the season. Oh! these mountain slopes, covered with brush! How they were transformed little by little! As my goats grazed the thick thickets, the ground began to clear and paths to be traced. Only the bushes remained that were too high, where my goats, standing on their hind legs, could not reach. Then, one day, men arrived to continue the clearing. They cut down the large coppices with axes, and the goats continued their work further. When winter came, all these dry people, all these emaciated skeletons of the old vegetation were piled up and burned. And in the spring, when thick, green grass had grown on the renewed soil, I would arrive with my herds of cattle. After their passage, the land was plowed, to produce, the following year, rich harvests. From hill to hill, from slope to slope, from slope to slope, the work of colonization continued, ever further. Oh! those dreams of the straitjacket, where I constantly found my beautiful alternating harvests, of wheat, barley or clover, ripe for the harvest, while my goats still went, grazing, towards the horizon! When I was not asleep, I tried, as Philadelphia Red had once advised me, to attach my idea to a man and a thought. It was inevitably towards Cecil Winwood that my ideas converged. Towards the forger poet who, with a light heart, had brought down all this calamity on me and who, while I was dying there, walked freely in the sun. And my brain, from then on, never let him go. I cannot say that I hated him. No. The word would be too weak. There is no expression in the English language capable of expressing what I felt for him. What I can only say is that a mad desire for revenge haunted me without respite, and gnawed at my heart with extraordinary suffering. For hours, I devised plans and new varieties of torture for him. The one that pleased me most was that old farce which consists of tying to a man’s body, firmly pressed against him, an iron bowl in which a rat has been previously placed. The rat has no other recourse than to slowly bore its way out through the man’s body. Good heavens! How I delighted in this thought! I had become incredibly enamored with it. Until the day I reflected that this torture was too pleasant and too rapid. After much reflection, I judged it preferable to practice on Cecil Winwood another good farce, far superior, and which the Moors have, it seems, invented… But enough of this chapter, and I promised myself not to say more about the revenge I was plotting against the scoundrel, in the panic of my suffering. Chapter 9. Wanting to Die. It is not easy to master bodily pain by the power of the mind alone, to keep the brain so serene that it completely forgets the atrocious moan and sob of tortured nerves. I learned to suffer passively, as doubtless do all those who have passed through the graduated stages of the straitjacket. One night, when I had just been relieved of a hundred hours in a straitjacket, I heard tapping. It was Morrell speaking to me. “Where are you?” he asked. “Are you still holding on?” I was weaker than ever, and although my entire body was nothing but a miserable, bruised mass, I hardly realized that I had a body. I tapped in reply: “It seems to me that I am finished. They will have my skin if they continue like this. ” “Don’t give them that pleasure!” replied Morrell. There is a way for you to escape them. I experienced it myself, during a period in the dungeon where I had Massie for a neighbor. He and I were drunk on straitjackets. I held on, while Massie croaked at the top of his lungs. If I hadn’t known the right trick, I would have done as he did. This is what it is. Listen to me. You have to be sufficiently weak to try it. If you try it, being still a little strong, you fail and then you don’t want to hear about it again. That was the case with Jake. He was doing too well. Naturally, he failed. Later, when my system would really have been useful to him, it was just rehashed. Impossible to get anything out of it. So now he denies it and claims I’m telling him jokes. Right, Jake? From cell 13, Jake Oppenheimer tapped: “Don’t swallow that, Darrell!” It’s a snake, and a big one at that… “Go ahead, Morrell!” I spelled with my fingers. “Tell your story anyway . ” “What I said was to explain why I didn’t tell you anything sooner. You were insufficiently weak. Now you seem ready to me, and the system will serve you well. When you know the secret, it will be up to you to sort it out. It’s a question of willpower. If you have it, you will succeed. Three times I have put the trick into practice, and I speak from experience.” My fingers danced ardently on the partition and I declared: –Explain! Explain yourself! –So this is what it’s all about. You have to die artificially, yes, want to die. Don’t you understand? Obviously. Patience! You know how, when you’re in the straitjacket, your arm, your legs, or some other part of your body go numb. They go numb of their own accord, and you’re not to blame. But take this example as a basis and improve on it. Proceed like this: make yourself comfortable on your back, as best you can, and immediately, even before your arms or legs go numb, you begin to make your will work. But, above all, you must have faith. Otherwise, there’s nothing to hope for. And what you need to believe is that your body is one thing and your mind is another. Your mind is everything. Your body, on the contrary, doesn’t count. It’s not even worth a rabbit fart. It only serves to encumber you. Your mind commands it to die. You begin the operation with the two toes. You make them die, one after the other, then, after them, all your toes. You want them to die. And, if you have the faith and the will, they will die. The beginning is the most difficult. When the first toe is dead, the rest is but a trifle. For then you no longer have to rack your brains to believe. Your will operates without difficulty for the rest of the body. I’ve done it three times, I repeat. I know, Darrell. The most curious thing is that while your body is dying, your mind remains lucid. Your personality remains. After your feet, your legs are dead. Then the knees. Then the thighs. And, as death rises, you are always the same. Only your body gives up, piece by piece. I asked, “And what happens next?” “When your whole body is dead, truly dead, and your spirit feels intact, all you have to do is emerge from your skin and leave your remains behind. Now, leaving these remains is also leaving your cell. Stone walls and iron gates are made to keep bodies in. They cannot enclose spirits. Three times I did it, and three times I saw that my self was outside, its material form lying on the floor of my dungeon. ” From thirteen cells away, Jake Oppenheimer roared with laughter. “Ha! ha! ha! ” Ed Morrell continued, “that’s the trouble with Jake. He doesn’t believe it . The time he tried, he wasn’t physically weak enough. He failed. So he claims I’m brainwashing him. ” “When you’re dead, you’re dead!” Oppenheimer retorted. The dead don’t come back to life. “Dead, I’ve been three times. ” “And you’re still here, joker, to tell us about it! ” Ed. Morrell didn’t insist and started talking to me again. “Don’t forget, Darrell, that the undertaking is treacherous. There are risks. For example, I’ve always had this strange feeling that if someone came to remove my body from my cell while I was out of it , I wouldn’t have been able to reenter it. That is to say, my carcass would then be dead for good. And that ‘s a satisfaction I don’t want to give to Captain Jamie and the others. But let’s get back to our business. Once you’ve managed to abandon your material remains, it doesn’t matter whether they leave you in the straitjacket for one or several months. You no longer suffer.” There are people, you know as well as I do, who have been plunged into lethargy for a whole year. So it will be with your body. It alone remains on the ground, swollen and tied up in canvas, awaiting your return. That is the line to follow. Try it. “And if he doesn’t return to his body?” asked Oppenheimer. “Then it is obvious that he will not have the laughers on his side. Nor me either. ” Here the conversation ended. Face de Pie, who was sleeping with one ear to one, awoke with a rueful expression. He threatened Morrell and Oppenheimer with mentioning them in his report the next morning; which, for them, would result in a session in a straitjacket. As for me, he thought it useless to say nothing, knowing full well that, one way or another, the straitjacket awaited me. For a long time I lay on my back, in the silence and the night, forgetting my suffering while I reflected on Ed. Morrell’s words. What I had attempted by means of autosuggestion, and which had given me only imperfect results, would Ed. Morrell’s very different, even contrary, method allow me to achieve? Thanks to it, would I be able to penetrate further, and more precisely, into my previous selves? I concluded that the experiment was at least worth trying. The man of science in me remained skeptical. But I had the will to believe. I believed. What Morrell claimed to have succeeded in, three times, I would succeed in my turn. Perhaps this faith, which so easily took possession of my brain, was the first result of that physical weakness that Morrell had declared necessary? I no longer had enough strength left to be skeptical and to deny. What was to follow proved that he had not been mistaken. Chapter 10. A Smile Anyway. The next morning, and this was what finally made up my mind, Governor Atherton entered my dungeon with evil intentions, well and truly decided. He was flanked by Captain Jamie, Doctor Jackson, Pie Face, and a man named Al. Hutchins. Hutchins was serving a forty-year sentence and was doing everything he could to be pardoned. Of all his peers, who had become trusted men , he was the best in court. He was the leader of the others. And you will realize that this is not a contemptible situation, when you know that in this line of work he made three thousand dollars a year from his tricks with the baton. With a man like him, possessing a nest egg of ten to twelve thousand dollars and a promise of clemency in his pocket, Governor Atherton knew, whatever his orders, he could count on being blindly obeyed. The governor, as I have said, entered my cell with murderous designs. They showed on his face. His actions proved it. “Examine him,” he ordered Doctor Jackson. I had to undress, and this miserable abortion himself tore off the shirt, encrusted with filth, which I had worn since my arrival in my solitary confinement cell. He exposed my poor, devastated body, whose skin was wrinkled like old parchment. Everywhere it was ravaged with sores and bruises, the result of my many sessions in the straitjacket. The examination was done for form’s sake, with impudent hypocrisy. “Will he hold?” asked Governor Atherton. “Yes,” replied Jackson. “How’s the heart?” “Magnificent! ” “Do you think, doctor, that it can endure ten consecutive days in a straitjacket with impunity? ” “Certainly. ” Governor Atherton sneered. “Well, I don’t think so,” he said. “But that won’t stop us from trying the experiment. Down with me, Standing!” I obeyed, as always, lying down face down on the spread canvas. The governor seemed to brood for a moment. “Roll yourself up in it!” he finally ordered. I tried to obey. But such was my weakness that I could only wriggle in vain and remained flattened. “We must help him,” commented Doctor Jackson. Atherton shrugged his shoulders. “Help,” he said, “he won’t need it anymore when I’ve finished with him. All right! Lend him a hand.” I have better things to do than waste my time here. So I was laced up, then rolled onto my back. In this position, I stared at Governor Atherton, who was opposite me. “Standing,” he said slowly, “I have exhausted all the good practices with you. That’s enough! I am tired, disgusted with your stubbornness. My patience is at an end. Doctor Jackson, here present, affirms that you are fit to endure ten days in a straitjacket. Weigh carefully what you risk.” One last time, I’ll offer you a chance. Tell me where the dynamite is. The very moment it’s in my hands, I’ll order you removed from this cell. You’ll be free to bathe, shave, and be given clean clothes. You’ll have six months to twiddle your thumbs, on a diet of excellent food in the Infirmary. After that, you’ll be made a trusted man and attached to the Library. You really can’t ask me to be nicer than I am. By talking, you’re not selling anyone out. You’re the only one in San Quentin who knows where the dynamite is. Not one of your comrades will be compromised by it. The most ticklish conscience can’t be offended if you give in. So there are only advantages to your talking. Otherwise… There was a silence, and the Governor made a significant gesture. “If not… Well!” You will begin the ten days in a straitjacket immediately. This prospect was enough to frighten me. I was so weak that I was convinced, no less than Governor Atherton, that these ten days were equivalent to a death sentence. In that terrible moment, I remembered very aptly the Morrell system. The moment, or never, had come to put it into practice and to have faith in it. I did not lower my eyes and smiled at Governor Atherton. This smile was that of a believer, and of a believer was the calm proposal that I formulated to him: “Governor! Look at my smile. If, in ten days, when I am unlaced, you still find it on my lips, will you agree to give me a packet of Durham, and two others to Morrell and Oppenheimer? ” “There they are, these intellectuals!” growled Captain Jamie in a low voice. “They think themselves superior to other men and defy them, in their pride.” Governor Atherton, who was naturally quick-tempered, burst out. He took my suggestion for bravado and shouted: “What you just said, Darrell, will get you squeezed a notch tighter ! ” “I spoke seriously and honestly, Governor Atherton…” I replied, still calm. “You may order me to be squeezed as tightly as you please. If, in ten days, I still have that same smile… will you consent to give the three of us, me, Morrell, and Oppenheimer, the three brown paper packages?” He retorted: “You seem quite sure of yourself! ” “The most complete faith has entered my heart. ” “You have been converted, then?” he sneered. “Naturally… I simply claim that there is more life in me than you believe and that, of this life, you cannot find the end. Give me, at your pleasure, a hundred days in a straitjacket.” After a hundred days, looking at you, I’ll still be smiling. “A hundred days… What’s the point? After ten, you’ll have resigned from existence, and generously! ” “If that’s what you’re thinking, promise me the three packets of tobacco. What do you risk? ” “Would you rather, and immediately, have my fist in the face? ” “If that’s what you’re looking for, don’t hold back,” I replied, still suave and convinced. “And hit hard! Even in marmalade, my face will smile at you. Come on! Don’t hesitate… Accept the bet instead. A man must be singularly base and desperate to dare to laugh, as I did, in such circumstances, under the governor’s nose. Or rather, he must have a very sincere faith in the reality of his offer. ” Captain Jamie seemed to sense this faith that lifted me up completely. “I remember,” he said, “a former prisoner who made similar remarks. He was a Swede.” Twenty years ago, and you weren’t here yet, Governor. This man had killed another man for twenty-five cents. For this he was sentenced to death. He was a cook by trade. He too had faith. He said that a golden chariot was coming to take him from earth to heaven. And one fine day, he sat on the prison stove, which was red-hot, singing hymns and hosannas! by grilling. They pulled him out when they found him there. Two days later, he died in the infirmary. His flesh had been burned to the bone. But, until his last breath, he claimed not to have felt the heat. Currency worth one hundredth of the American dollar. “And I tell you,” Atherton fulminated, “that we will force Standing to back down!” I repeated my challenge: “Then promise the tobacco!” The governor was so angry that he would have made me laugh, if my situation had not been so tragic. His face was convulsed, he clenched his fists, and I saw the moment when he was going to fall on me, arms outstretched. He made an effort to control himself and regained control of himself. “That’s enough, Standing! You will be subdued.” And, in the absence of tobacco, I’ll bet my life that despite the solidity of your chest, you wo n’t be smiling in ten days… Come on, my little ones, roll him up, and tighten, until you hear his ribs crack! Show him, Hutchins, how you operate. I was indeed rolled up and laced as I had never been before . The chief confidant proved his skill to me, beyond all argument. I tried to carve out as much space as possible. But I had, for so long, stripped myself of almost all my flesh, my muscles were reduced to such amorphous fibers, that I was incapable of stealing much. The little I spared myself, I obtained by a sort of swelling of the joints, at all the articulations of the bones of my frame. Even then, I was subtly frustrated by Hutchins, who had, through his own experience, learned all the tricks of the straitjacket. This wretch had once been a man, however. But he had been broken on the wheel, and all his spirit had been extinguished within him. His ten to twelve thousand dollars and his prospect of freedom had made him the governor’s slave. I learned later that there was also a woman, who had remained faithful, and who was waiting for him. The feminine factor explains many of the man’s actions , and the most vile. It was, in reality, a real murder, committed deliberately, of which Hutchins was guilty, that morning, towards me. With his foot on my back, he pulled the lace, always a little more, stopped, then pulled again. It seemed to me that my frame would give way under this unusual compression, that all my vital organs would be destroyed. I knew that I would not die, yes, I knew it, and yet it seemed to me that death was upon me. My head was spinning, my blood was pounding until my veins and arteries burst, from my toenails to my hairline. “It’s tight enough,” Captain Jamie intervened, very reluctantly. “I agree,” declared Doctor Jackson. “You could hold it until tomorrow and the result on him would be the same. Either he’s taboo, or he should have been dead long ago. ” Governor Atherton leaned toward me. After much effort, he managed to insert his index finger between the canvas and my back. He frowned, put his foot on my body, and pulled with all his might on the lace. But he couldn’t gain anything more. “Hutchins,” he said, “I take my hat off to you! You know a thing or two. Now turn it over so we can see his face.” I was rolled onto my back. I stared at the circle of my torturers. What I do know is that if I had been laced up like I was, the first time I was put in a straitjacket, I would have died in ten minutes. But I was trained. I had thousands of hours of this torture behind me. And I had faith in the Morrell system. Governor Atherton mockingly jeered: “Now laugh, you damned fool! Come on, laugh a little! And start by smiling, if you can…” My crushed lungs gasped for air. My heart threatened to burst. My brain reeled. And yet a smile for Governor Atherton played on my lips. Chapter 11. Across the Stars. The door slammed, leaving me alone, on my back, in the semi-darkness of my cell. Thanks to the many tricks I had learned during my straitjacket sessions, I managed, by twisting on the spot, to advance, inch by inch, until the edge of the sole of my right shoe touched one of the cell walls. I felt an indescribable joy. I was no longer completely alone. I could talk with Morrell and Oppenheimer. But the governor had undoubtedly given the guards strict orders . For, although I called Morrell with the intention of telling him that I was going to try the famous experiment, I received no response from him. He was prevented from speaking to me. As for me, I received nothing but insults from the guards. I was in my straitjacket for ten days, beyond all threat and all punishment. The serenity of my mind, I remember, was complete at that hour. It hovered over the sufferings of my body, passively endured . And this serenity was not without an exaltation toward the dream, which was at its paroxysm. I felt in excellent shape to risk the great ordeal. I began to concentrate all my thoughts toward it. In spite of the tingling that, as a result of the normal cessation of circulation, I felt throughout my body, and the resulting numbness, I directed my will toward the toe of my right foot. I willed it to die, to die not of itself, but by the sole will of me that commanded it. Which was completely different. And it died. This point acquired, the rest, as Morrell had told me, was easy. The operation was slow, I admit. But, finger by finger, the ten toes of my two feet ceased to exist. Then, limb by limb, joint by joint, the progressive death continued. It rose first from the fingers to the instep, then to the legs and knees. Such was the fixity of my thought, and its perfect exaltation, that I did not even know the joy of my success. A single preoccupation held me. I ordered my body to die, and it obeyed. I devoted myself to my task with all the care a mason takes in stacking his bricks. And this task, which absorbed me entirely, seemed to me as natural as his might seem to the said mason. At the end of an hour, the ascending death had reached my hips, and I continued to will it to rise still higher. When it reached the level of my heart, my conscious being began to darken and I was seized with dizziness. Fearing that it might go completely astray, I turned my will toward my brain, which cleared up again. Then I began again to order my shoulders, my arms, my hands, and my fingers to die. This last stage was accomplished very quickly. There was then nothing left alive in my body except my head and a small part of my chest. The roar of my heart had died away, and the hammer blows it struck had ceased. It beat weakly but regularly. If I had, at such a moment, wished for any happiness, I would have discovered it in the cessation of my physical sensations. I found myself, morally, in a state rather similar to that which straddles the boundaries between wakefulness and sleep. It also seemed to me that my brain was expanding prodigiously in my cranium , which, itself, was not expanding. At times, I had flashes of clarity in my eyes, like lightning. This dilation of my brain made me very perplexed. Its periphery seemed not only to exceed the receptacle of my skull, but to continue to expand. Simultaneously, time and space were unfolding around me. My eyes were closed, and yet I was aware that the walls of my cell had receded, to the point that it now formed a vast room. I thought, for a second, that if the walls of the prison had done the same, they must extend well beyond San Quentin and extend, on one side, to the Pacific Ocean, on the other, to the Rocky Mountains. I also thought, and it amused me, that if matter could penetrate matter, the walls of the cell could just as easily penetrate those of the prison, pass right through them, and that I would thus automatically find myself at liberty. The extension of time was no less remarkable. My heart beat only at distant intervals. The fancy took me to count the seconds between each of its beats. I did it with certainty and precision at first, and noted, between each of them, up to a hundred seconds. Then it seemed to me that these intervals were lengthening immeasurably, so much so that I grew tired of this calculation. In this half-dream in which I was, an unforeseen problem suddenly arose before me. Morrell had indeed told me that he had gained the freedom of the spirit by killing his body. Now my body was almost entirely dead, and I was certain that a final concentration of my will on the still living parts would complete its death. But this was the problem that Ed. Morrell had not warned me about: after having finished with my torso, should I push the operation to my head? If so, would not the divorce be complete and inevitable forever, between Darrell Standing and his material remains? I began with the last portion of my chest and with the heart. The constraint of my will had its immediate reward. The heart stopped beating. Or at least I no longer felt it beat. I was nothing more than a pure spirit, a soul, a moral conscience. Call what you will this nameless thing, having its seat in a nebulous brain, which still occupied the center of my skull, but which continued to expand and extend beyond. It was then that a moment arrived when, with flashes of light in my eyes, I detached myself from the earth and left. In a single bound, I found myself having climbed the roof of the prison, the California sky, and I was among the stars. I mean, the stars. I was walking among them. I was a teenager, dressed in a thin dress, in fresh and delicate tones, which shone softly in the cold starlight. This dress was, at the same time, a reminiscence of those that in my childhood I had seen on circus riders, and of the concept that had been instilled in me of the costume of angels. Thus dressed, I trod interstellar space, electrified by the idea that I had set out on an immense adventure which, finally, would reveal to me all the aspects of the celestial Cosmos and clarify for me the supreme mystery of the universe. In my hand I held a long crystal wand, and I had the clear inner notion that I must touch every star with it as I passed in front of it. And no less clear was the certainty within me that, if I failed to touch a single one, I would be suddenly thrown into the unfathomable abyss of terrible punishments and eternal torments. For a long time, I walked thus among the stars. When I say a long time, you must not lose sight of the enormous extension that time underwent in my brain. It seemed to me that, for centuries, I wandered in space, my eye alert and my wand in hand, with which I struck, without missing a single one, all the stars that I encountered on my path. The celestial path became more and more resplendent. And ever more I saw the intoxicating goal of infinite knowledge approaching. My own personality had not been obliterated. I was not unaware that it was I, Darrell Standing, who was walking among the stars, a crystal wand in my hand. And I also realized that I was living in the unreal, that the dream in which I was walking was only a laughable orgy of my imagination, similar to the extravagances that certain drugs bring on those men who use them. Suddenly, while everything was going well and joyfully for me, the tip of my wand almost touched a star. I understood at once that a catastrophe was near. I heard a knock, imperious like that of the iron hoof of Destiny, and whose echo reverberated throughout the entire stellar universe. And it was me that this blow was aimed at. Then the entire astral system exploded and, tottering on its base, fell in flames. I felt an atrocious pain tearing me apart. The next moment, I was no more than Darrell Standing, the lifer , lying on the floor of his cell, in his straitjacket. A second blow, this one struck by Ed. Morrell, in cell No. 5, and which initiated some message from him for me, quickly gave me the explanation for this disaster. Later, I asked Morrell for some additional information. This is how I learned that he had, once , taking advantage of a moment when the guard was at the end of the corridor, quickly tapped these words: “Standing, are you there?” And now, attention, reader! At that moment, I was just setting out on my stellar excursion, dressed in my thin robe, and, wand in hand, I was running after the supreme mystery of Life. I did not reply. Morrell, a minute later, receiving no answer, repeated his question. There was the horrible recall to earth, the kick of Destiny, the atrocious and heart-rending torture, and the return to my cell, in San Quentin. A minute, no more, had passed between Ed. Morrell’s first question and the second. And I, I had the impression of wandering for centuries, among the stars! What I am telling you here, reader, must seem to you, I am certain, a singularly incoherent farrago, and I grant you that. And yet I said nothing that, for me, was not real, as real as the serpent that a man in the grip of delirium tremens sees hissing towards him. A farrago: a heap of different kinds of grains. Figuratively: a confused mixture of disparate things. Still, I had become incapable of resuming my course across the sky. The tapping of Ed. Morrell’s knuckles nailed me once again to the world of terror that I had fled. I tried to answer him, to ask him to stop. But I had eliminated myself to such an extent that my body no longer obeyed me. My body lay dead, on the flagstones of my cell, and I occupied only my skull. In vain I commanded my foot to strike my message. It refused. My reason told me that I had a foot. And yet, in fact, I no longer had a foot. When Morrell had finished spelling out his questions, seeing that I did not answer them, he gave up. And I left my prison again. Chapter 12. The Caravan Towards the West. The first sensation I experienced was that of a flood of dust. The dust filled my nostrils, acrid and dry. It covered my lips, my face and my hands, and I had the clearest impression of it on the tips of my fingers, from where I made it fall with the help of my thumb. I then became aware of an incessant movement taking place around me. Everything was swaying, in wide lurches. There were shocks and jolts and, without being surprised, I heard axles creaking , wheels groaning in the sand or rolling clattering over pebbles . At the same time, I heard the weary voices of men cursing and cursing exhausted animals, with slow, heavy steps. I opened my eyes, which I had closed to protect myself from the inflammation caused by the dust; but the irritation returned immediately. The coarse blankets on which I lay were covered with a thick layer of this dust. It filtered through the fabric and the holes in the canvas which formed a curved, mobile, and swaying roof above my head , and myriads of luminous atoms descended towards me, dancing, through the atmosphere, in the rays of the sun. I was a child, a boy of eight or nine years old, and I was harassed, like the woman with the dusty and livid face, sitting beside me, and who was comforting as best she could a crying baby, whom she held in her arms. arms. This woman was my mother. The man whose shoulders I could see, on the seat of the wagon he was driving, at the end of the long canvas tunnel, was my father. I began to crawl among the bales with which the wagon was loaded, and my mother said to me, in a doleful and weary voice: “Can’t you, Jesse, be quiet for a little while? Jesse was my name.” I heard my mother calling John my father. I didn’t know my last name, not having heard it. All I knew was that the other men in our emigrant caravan called my father captain. He was the leader and his orders were followed by all. While crawling, I reached the end of the tunnel and managed to sit on the seat next to my father. The air, impregnated with the dust raised by the wagons and the hooves of the animals that pulled them, was suffocating. It was like an opaque mist, a pale fog where the setting sun shone red, like a bloody ball. Everything was uniformly sinister: the red sun; the ambient light; my father’s contorted face; the desperate agitation of the baby in my mother’s arms, who could not calm him; the six horses, harnessed to the cart, which my father never stopped whipping and which, under the crust of dust that covered them, no longer had any color. Sinister was the landscape, whose infinite desolation was a pain to the eyes. To the right and to the left, low hills stretched. Here and there, on their slopes, only sparse tufts of brush grew, stunted and scorched by the sun. The entire surface of these hills was arid and desert-like and, like the path we followed at their base, made of sand and pebbles, and strewn with rocks. Everywhere there was no water, and no sign of it. Only a few ravines, whose rocks were more bare, spoke of the ancient torrential rains that had washed them clean. Ours was the only one drawn by horses. The others, which formed a long line, like a great serpent, and which I discovered in their entirety when the road described a curve, were pulled by oxen. It took three or four pairs of these animals to move each cart, with difficulty and slowly. I had counted, in a curve, the number of those that preceded or followed ours. There were forty in all, including ours. I began my count again, at each new curve, a child’s distraction to ward off boredom, and at the very moment we are here, I saw again the forty large canvas-covered vehicles, heavy and massive, crudely made, which pitched and rolled, creaking and jolting, on the sand and stones, among the sage bushes, the sparse and faded grass, and the rocks. To the right and left of the caravan, which they flanked, rode on horseback twelve to fifteen young men. Across their saddles were their long-barreled rifles. Each time one of them approached our wagon, I could distinctly see his drawn and worried features , like those of my father who, like them, had a long rifle within reach. These horsemen held a goad, which they used to prick the yoked oxen, which balked. Twenty or more of these skeletal, limping animals, their heads grazed by the yoke, had been untied. They stopped, from time to time, to mow some tuft of dry grass, and the riders also urged them on with their goads. Sometimes one of the oxen would stop to moo, and this mooing was no less sinister than the rest of the scenery. Far, very far behind me, I remembered having lived, as a little boy, in a more cheerful country, by a river, with banks planted with trees. And, as the wagon jolted along the endless, dusty road, as I rocked on the seat beside my father, my mind went back to that water delectable that flowed under the green trees. But all this was far, very far away, and it seemed that for a very long time already I had been living in the wagon.
Dominating all these impressions, weighed on me, as on all my companions, that of going adrift, blindly driven by Destiny. We all seemed to be following some funeral. Not a laugh rose. Not a joyful intonation struck my ear. Peace and tranquility of mind did not walk with us. All faces reflected sadness and despair. As we walked in the red sunset, in the dull dust, my childish eyes searched in vain those of my father, in order to discover there the slightest message of joy. His dusty features were gruff and sullen, and reflected only anxiety, an immense and unfathomable anxiety. A sudden shudder seemed to run the whole length of the caravan. My father raised his head. Me too. Our horses did the same, raising their weary, bent heads. They sniffed the air with their nostrils, in long sniffs, and began to pull ardently. The unyoked oxen, who had been dragging their legs, set off at a full gallop. The poor animals became almost laughable in their hasty clumsiness and weakness. They galloped as best they could, skeletons draped in mangy skin, and they did so well that they soon overtook the rest of the caravan. But this fit did not last long. They could not keep up their pace and began to pull again, very painfully, yet impatiently, without turning from their route towards the tufts of dry grass, nor stopping there.
“What’s going on?” my mother asked from inside the wagon. “The water is close,” my father replied. “We must arrive at Nephi.” –Praise God! Perhaps, there, they will sell us a little food. It was indeed Nephi. We made our entrance there in the same dust, red as blood, under the red sun, and in the creaking and screeching, in the bumping and jolting of our large wagons. A dozen dwellings, simple cabins scattered here and there, made up this locality. The landscape was similar to the one we had just crossed. No trees. Nothing but stunted shoots in a desert of sand and pebbles. But there were, in places, a few cultivated fields, partly enclosed by hedges. There was no water to be seen. Nothing flowed in the dry bed of the river. This bed, however, showed some traces of humidity. A little water filtered in here and there, through holes that had been dug, and where the unharnessed oxen and saddle horses stamped with delight, burying their noses and heads in them, up to their eyes. Small willows grew, scrawny, near these water holes. Anxiety had brought my mother from the bottom of the wagon to us. She looked over our shoulders. My father pointed to a large building near the river and said, “This must be Bill Black’s mill.” At that moment, one of our men, who had gone out to explore, came back to us on his horse. He was an old man with a buckskin shirt and long, braided hair, burnt by the sun. He spoke to my father, who gave the signal to halt, and the leading wagons began to fan out in a circle. The flat ground was suitable, and the forty wagons, which were accustomed to this maneuver, carried it out without the slightest hitch. When they stopped, they formed a complete circle. Then everything became, in appearance at least, confusion and tumult. From the wagons, a swarm of children rushed to the ground and, after them, emerged the women who, like my mother, all had dusty and weary faces . There must have been about fifty children, or more, the women about forty, and they immediately set about preparing supper. Some of the men were chopping brushwood with axes. sage that we children carried to the fires that were lit. Others took their yokes off the oxen, which immediately ran off to the watering holes. After this, all the men gathered together, divided into several groups, pushed the wagons so that they formed a perfect row. The front of all the vehicles was turned towards the inside of the circle, and each one was in solid and close contact with its neighbor on the right and left. The powerful brakes were firmly locked and, as an added precaution, all the wheels were connected together with chains. This routine was not new to us children. We knew that it was repeated every time we found ourselves in hostile country. A single wagon, left in its place, outside the circle, provided the corral with a door of entry and exit. In the evening, as we had often seen done, before the camp went to sleep, the animals were brought back inside the circle, and the wagon that served as a gate was put back in place, then chained to the others. While the camp was being set up, my father, accompanied by several other men, including the old man with the long braided hair, walked towards the mill. I remember that the whole caravan, those of the men who remained, the women and even the children, interrupted their activities to watch them leave. All felt that the mission with which these ambassadors were charged was serious. During their absence, strangers arrived, who were inhabitants of the desert of Nephi and who, having penetrated into the camp, began to walk around with a haughty air. These visitors were white people like us. But their austere faces were dark and hard, and they seemed irritated with us. Hostility hung in the air, and they spoke evil words , obviously calculated to irritate the anger of our young men and our men. But a warning to be careful came from the mouths of the women, and the order quickly passed that not a word was to be exchanged. One of the strangers advanced towards our fire, in front of which my mother was cooking. I had just arrived with an armful of sage. I remained motionless, listening to what was going to be said and staring fixedly at the intruder, whom I hated, because it was in the air to hate, because I knew that there was not one among us who did not hate these men with skin as white as ours, who were the reason why we had to set up camp in a circle. The stranger who came to our fire had blue eyes, a hard, cold blue, and piercing. His hair was the color of sand, his face shaved to the chin. Below the chin, covering the neck and rising like a necklace to the ears, was planted a thick fringe of beard, streaked with gray. My mother did not greet him. He did not greet her either. He simply stood there and stared at her. Then he cleared his throat and said, in a mocking voice: “At this moment, I swear, you would like to find yourselves back on the banks of the Missouri!” I saw my mother biting her lip to control herself. “We are,” she replied, “from Arkansas. The Missouri and the Arkansas are two tributaries of the Mississippi, one of the largest rivers in the United States, which, flowing from north to south, empties into the Gulf of Mexico. They each gave their name to two states, both separated by the Rocky Mountains from the state of Utah and the Salt Lake, where the main Mormon settlements meet . Beyond, towards the Pacific, lies California, the destination of the emigrants in question, as we shall see presently. He continued: “If you have repudiated the country where you were born, it is apparently because you had good reasons for doing so, you who drove the Lord’s chosen people from the banks of the Missouri?” My mother did not answer. After waiting a moment for her reply, he continued: “Good reasons, yes, certainly, since now you come to groan and begging for bread from those you have persecuted. As a child as I was, I already knew the anger, the atavistic and red wrath, always irresistible and indomitable, which I was incapable of containing. It was I who answered, shouting in a hissing voice: “You are lying! We are not from Missouri and we do not moan. No, we are not beggars! We have enough to pay. ” “Shut up, Jesse!” my mother intervened, quickly and very reluctantly placing her hand over my mouth. Then, turning to the stranger: “Go away,” she said, “and leave this child alone!” Too quickly this time for my mother to prevent me, having freed myself from her gagging hand, I moved away from her, capering around the fire, and I exclaimed, while sobbing: “I will send lead full into your body, with gunshots, damned Mormon! ” The stranger did not appear in the least discomfited by my anger and my cries. While I did not take my eyes off him, ready for a violent and terrible attack from him, he examined me, silent, with the deepest gravity. He finally decided to speak, in a solemn tone and shaking his head, like a judge in a tribunal: “Like fathers, like sons! The new generations are no better than the old. The whole race is degenerate and damned! There is no possible redemption for it, no sufficient expiation. The very blood of Christ would be powerless to wash away its iniquities.” As for me, I could only cry out through my sobs: “Damned Mormon! Damned Mormon! Damned Mormon! Damned Mormon!” And I continued to curse the intruder, jumping around the fire, before my mother’s threatening hand, until he had strode away. When my father returned with those who had accompanied him, the work of the camp had ended. Everyone crowded anxiously around him. He nodded his head, with an air that boded nothing good. “They won’t sell anything?” a woman asked. He shook his head again and did not answer. One of the men raised his voice. He was thirty years old. He was a giant, with blond whiskers and blue eyes, and he had forced his way through the crowd. “They claim,” he declared, “to have flour and provisions for three years. Until now they had always sold to emigrants.” And now they refuse. Not to us personally, but generally. They have, it seems, some quarrels with the government, and this is their way of expressing their discontent. We are paying the price. It is not fair, Captain! No, it is not fair, for we have wives and children to support. California is still far away! We will not be there for several months, for winter is approaching. And there is nothing but desert before us. How can we face it, if we have no provisions? He paused for a moment, then continued, addressing the crowd: “You do not know, I suppose, what the desert is? The country where we are is not the desert. I tell you, this is paradise, and all the best there is in pastures, honey, and milk, compared to what we have to face!” He turned to my father. “Captain, I repeat, we must get flour at all costs . If they won’t sell us any, then we can all get up and get it!” Many men and women shouted in agreement. My father stretched out his hand over them and silenced them. “I agree with you entirely, Hamilton,” he said. ” Except for one thing!” he continued . “One thing that matters… Brigham Young has declared martial law throughout the country. And Brigham Young has an army at his disposal. We can, indeed, wipe Nephi off the face of the earth in less time than it takes a lamb to stir. tail, and seize all the provisions we are able to carry! But we will not go far with our booty. Brigham’s Saints and their leader will fall upon us, and before the lamb has wagged its tail a second time, we, in turn, shall be annihilated. You know this, Hamilton, as well as I do. Everyone here knows it. Everyone, in fact, was of his opinion. He was not telling anyone anything. His companions, in the confusion of the present situation and in the despair of their distress, had only forgotten it. My father continued: “No one will fight more readily than I for what is wise and right. This is not the case at present. We cannot afford the luxury of a useless battle. We do not have a single chance for us. Our duty is to think, comrades, not to expose our wives and children to unnecessary peril.” We must remain calm at all costs and bear without saying anything all the villainy heaped against us. “But what will become of us, then, with the desert so close?” cried a woman who was breastfeeding a baby. “There are several other white settlements before the desert,” replied my father. “Fillmore is sixty miles to the south. Then comes Corn Cruk and again, forty miles beyond, Beaver. Then, finally, Parowan. Then only twenty miles will separate us from Cedar City. The further we get from the Salt Lake, the more likely we are to be sold food. ” The woman persisted. “And if they refuse everywhere! ” “Then we will be quits with the Mormons. Cedar City is their last settlement. We have only one thing to do, continue our journey and thank our lucky stars when we see them no more. Two days from here are good pastures and water. This region is called the Mountain Prairies.” This is territory that belongs to no one, where no one lives. This is where we must head first. There we will rest and feed our animals before attacking the desert. Perhaps we will find some game to shoot. At worst, we will then walk, as we have done until now, as long as we can. Then, if necessary, we will abandon our wagons and, after packing everything they contain on our animals, we will make the last stages on foot. We can, along the way, if necessary, eat our animals. It would be better to arrive in California without a rag on our backs than to leave our carcasses here. And this is the fate that awaits us if we unleash a quarrel. My father repeated, several times, his exhortations to avoid all violence in word and deed, and the impromptu meeting broke up. That night, I took longer than usual to fall asleep. My rage against the Mormon had so excited my brain that it was still tingling when, after a final round, my father crawled into the wagon. My parents thought I was asleep. I wasn’t, and I heard my mother asking my father if he thought the Mormons would allow us to leave their territory in peace. He replied, while pulling on his boots, that he had full confidence and that the Mormons would certainly let us pass in peace if no one in the caravan bothered them. He turned around, and by the light of a small tallow candle, I saw his face, whose expression belied his reassuring words. It was under this painful impression that I finally fell asleep, oppressed by the thought of the danger hanging over our heads, dreaming of Brigham Young who, in my childish imagination, took on colossal proportions and resembled a real Devil, frightful and wicked, with horns, a tail and so on. Chapter 13. The Great Betrayal of the Mormons. When I awoke, I was in my dungeon, prey to the customary torture of the straitjacket. Around me were the four usual characters: Governor Atherton, Captain Jamie, Doctor Jackson, and Hutchins. I grimaced my voluntary smile and fought with all my might not to lose control of myself, under the atrocious pain of the vital circulation being resumed. I drank the water they offered me, refused the bread they offered me, and did not answer the questions put to me. I had closed my eyes again and was trying to return to Nephi, to the circle of chained wagons. But, as long as my visitors were present , and as long as they spoke, I could not escape from my cell. In spite of myself, I caught some snatches of their conversation. “Absolutely the same as yesterday,” said Doctor Jackson. “Nothing has changed one way or another. ” “So he can continue to bear it?” asked Governor Atherton. “Without hesitation.” He will get through the next twenty-four hours as easily as the last. I tell you, his brain is burned, completely burned. If I didn’t know that it was impossible, I would say he had taken a narcotic. The governor retorted facetiously: “The drug he uses, I know it! It is his will alone. I would bet, if he had decreed to want it, that he would walk barefoot, on white-hot stones, like the Kanak priests do in the South Seas. ” “He is making fun of us,” declared Dr. Jackson, with a more sober judgment. “But he refuses all food!” protested Captain Jamie. Dr. Jackson shrugged his shoulders. “Bah! He could, if he pleased, fast for forty days, and that would not harm him at all. ” I agreed with Dr. Jackson: “Yes, for forty days and forty nights! Please, I pray you, tighten the straitjacket a little more, and then get out of here.” The chief confidant tried to poke his finger into the laces. “If you pulled it with a winch, you couldn’t,” he said, ” get a quarter of an inch more. ” “Have you, Standing, any complaint?” asked Governor Atherton. I replied, “Yes. ” “What? ” “First of all, I complain that the straitjacket is abominably loose. Hutchins is a real donkey. He could get a whole inch if he wanted. ” “What are you complaining about? ” “That you were all designed by the Devil! ” Captain Jamie and Doctor Jackson gave a sneer. Then Atherton led the way with a snort, and the quartet filed out. Left alone, I was eager to get back in the dark and start back for Nephi. I was furiously eager to know what outcome awaited the fatal drift of our forty wagons, across a hostile and desolate land. One more word before resuming my story. In all my travels through my previous lives, I have never been able to direct any of them towards a definite goal. These revivals have always occurred outside the precise influence of my will. About twenty times, I reincarnated little Jesse. It happened to me, afterward, to resume his existence, when he was a very young child in Arkansas. For greater clarity, in this case as in the others, I have gathered together all the phases of these successive resurrections from the past. Long before dawn, Nephi’s camp was in great turmoil. The cattle had been taken out of the enclosure, to be led to water and graze. The men unchained the wheels and pulled the wagons apart so that the draft oxen could then be conveniently harnessed to them. The women cooked forty lunches over forty fires. The children, in the cold of dawn, huddled around the flame, making room here and there for the men of the last shift of the night watch, who were waiting for coffee, their eyes heavy with sleep. The preparations for departure are long for such a large caravan. than ours was. So the sun had already been up for an hour, and its heat was beginning to become intense, when we rolled out of Nephi and continued our way through the sandy and stony Desert. Not one inhabitant of the place saw us leave. They all preferred to remain shut up in their homes. So that our departure seemed as sinister as our arrival had been, at the decline of the previous day. Again the interminable hours succeeded one another, under the blazing sun and the dust that bit our eyes, on this accursed land with its sparse sage brush. We did not encounter, all day long , any human habitation, no cattle, no trace of cultivation, no sign of life whatsoever. At nightfall, we halted as we had the day before and formed our circle of wagons near a dried-up stream, where we began to dig numerous holes in the sand, which slowly filled with the seeping water. Several times similar stages were repeated, followed by similar halts, where always the chained wagons formed the circle for the night. This journey seemed to my childish mind tedious beyond all possibility. And always continued and became more marked this same impression, that fate was driving us on, implacable and fateful, hanging its unknown perils over our heads. We covered an average of fifteen miles a day. I knew this because my father had said it was sixty miles to Fillmore, the next Mormon settlement. This translated into four days of travel. At Fillmore the inhabitants were hostile to us, as they had been everywhere since the Salt Lake. They mocked us as we tried to negotiate to buy food. They insulted us copiously, calling us Missourians. When we entered this locality, we noticed, tied up in front of the largest of the dozen houses that made up the colony, two saddle horses, all dusty and streaked with sweat, which looked exhausted. The old man with long, sun-baked hair and a buckskin shirt , who seemed to serve my father as lieutenant and factotum, and who, on his nag, was walking beside our wagon, pointed sharply at the two horses. “They don’t spare the horsemeat, Captain,” he murmured in a low voice. “For what purpose do they kill their animals like this? Yes, for what purpose, if not for our sake?” My father had already noticed the pitiful state of the two beasts, which had not escaped my childish eyes either. I saw a dark flash pass through my father’s eyes, his lips tighten, and his dusty face tighten its lines, for a moment. As two and two make four, I knew from then on that the two weary horses were, in our already distressing situation, a new sinister note. “I believe, indeed, Laban,” he simply said, “that they are watching us.” My father, accompanied by Laban and several other members of our caravan, then went to Fillmore’s Mill, in order to attempt, as at Nephi, to buy flour. Disobeying my mother and curious to observe our enemies closely, I followed them without being noticed. Four or five men stood in a group near the miller during the interview. One of these men, whom we were unfortunately to meet again later, was tall, broad-shouldered, and looked to be about sixty. He gave an impression of vigor, of physical and moral strength, which was uncommon. Unlike the people we were used to meeting in this region, his face was completely shaven. But he hadn’t shaved for several days and the hairs, which stood out thickly, were gray. His mouth was wide open and he pressed his lips together , like people who have lost their front teeth. He had a large nose, thick and massive. His whole face was broad and square, with very prominent cheekbones and jowls hanging heavily to the right and left of the mouth. Dominating the whole, the forehead was intelligent and broad, and the eyes, rather small, quite far apart, were the purest blue I had yet seen. The conversation was, once again, negative and we returned to camp empty-handed. On the way, Laban said to my father: “Have you seen this man with the clean-shaven face?” My father nodded. “Well,” Laban continued, “that’s Lee. I had already met him at Salt Lake. He’s a real scoundrel. He has nineteen wives and fifty children, they say everywhere. He’s a fanatic about his religion. Why is he following us like this, through this God-forsaken country?” Our eternal and fateful march resumed the next day. Wherever water and slightly more fertile soil permitted, small settlements were scattered, separated from each other by distances varying from twenty to fifty miles. Between them stretched the arid and dry Desert, of sand and pebbles. At each of these settlements, we peacefully demanded food. Regularly, they refused us, harshly asking us which of us had sold food to the chosen people of God, when they had been driven out of Missouri. It was completely useless for us to explain to them that we were from Arkansas and not Missouri. This was, however, the truth, but they persisted in pretending otherwise. At Beaver, five days’ journey south of Fillmore, we saw Lee again. And we found weary horses tied up in front of the houses. Beaver or Castor. Cedar City was our last stop in Mormon country. Laban, who had gone on his horse to explore, returned to report to my father. The news was disturbing. Cedar City. “I saw Lee running away at full speed,” he said, “when I appeared. Captain, there are more men and horses in Cedar City than there is room for them in the little town. We had little trouble, however. They refused to sell us any kind of merchandise. But we were left alone. The women and children remained in the houses, and if some of the men appeared near our camp, they did not enter it, as had happened elsewhere, to inveigh against us. It was in Cedar City that the Wainwrights’ baby died. Mrs. Wainwright, I remember, came to find Laban and, weeping, begged him to try to get her a little cow’s milk. “So,” she said, “the child may be saved. They have milk. I saw young cows with my own eyes. Go ahead, Laban, I beg you! There’s no harm in trying. At worst, they ‘ll refuse. But they certainly won’t dare. Tell them it’s for a baby, a weak, innocent baby. Mormon women have motherly hearts . They wouldn’t refuse a child a cup of milk.” Laban made the attempt. But, as he later told my father, he couldn’t reach the Mormon women. He saw only the men, who sent him packing. Cedar City was the Mormons’ first outpost. Beyond stretched the immense Desert and, beyond, the dream land, the happy, mythical land of California. Our wagons set out early the next morning, with me sitting next to my father in the driver’s seat. We had scarcely left Cedar City when I saw Laban, who was riding beside our wagon, stop his horse, make it perform several turns around itself and, rising in his stirrups, show my father, with an appropriate mimic, a small freshly covered grave. It was that of baby Wainwright, whom his parents had come, during the night, to bury there. And it was not the first one we had left in our path, since we had crossed the mountains. This Laban was a truly sinister man, with his thinness, his long, sunken profile, his braided, sun-scorched hair, which fell below his shoulders over his buckskin shirt . A mixture of hatred, rage, and despair twisted his face, while with one hand he clutched his long rifle and his horse’s bridle , and with the other he shook his fist toward Cedar City, which would soon disappear behind the little hill we were finishing climbing. With all his might, he cried: “Cursed! Be cursed of God, you, your children born, and those yet to be born! May drought destroy your crops! May you have nothing to eat but sand seasoned with rattlesnake venom ! May the fresh water of your springs turn into bitter and burning alkali! May…” I didn’t hear the rest. Laban’s words were drowned out by the noise of our wagons. But I saw him, his shoulders straight, still brandishing his fist, continuing to hurl his curse. The whole caravan thought like him, and he had interpreted the general sentiment. All the women, passing in front of the small grave, leaned out of the wagons, also brandishing their gaunt arms, shaking their bony, work-deformed fists, and spitting their hatred at the Mormons. A man who went on foot, and who had the duty of goading the oxen of the wagon that followed ours, shook his goad toward Cedar City, bursting into laughter. And this laughter was even more mournful than all the cries of hatred. While the caravan continued to roll, I stood for a long time looking back at Laban, still standing in his stirrups, before the baby’s grave. Sinister, yes sinister, was he with his long hair, his moccasins, and his frayed gaiters. His buckskin shirt was so old and so weather-beaten that it was fraying into ragged filaments, replacing the beautiful fringes with which it had once been adorned. Laban looked like a torn flag, its shreds fluttering. But what most attracted my childish attention was the filthy tufts of hair hanging from his belt. When it rained, they turned a shiny black. I knew they were Indian scalps, and the sight always made me shudder. “It does him good to vent his bile!” my father would soliloquize aloud . I had long expected to see it burst forth. I ventured: “I wish he would turn back and bring us a couple of scalps, taken from the wicked people we just left!” My father looked at me and, with a sardonic smile: “Hey, son, don’t you like the Mormons?” I shook my head vigorously and felt a furious hatred swell within me, which cut off my voice. I answered, after a moment: “Oh, father! When I grow up, I’ll go hunting them with a gun! ” From inside the carriage, my mother intervened. “You, Jesse,” she said, “will you be quiet! And right now!” And, addressing my father: “You should be ashamed to let the child talk like that!” Two days’ travel brought us to a region called the Mountain Prairies and there, for the first time since we crossed and left the Mormon country, we camped without forming the circle of our wagons so tightly. They were pushed around, as best we could, with many gaps and without the wheels being chained. We prepared to stay a week in this place. Our cattle needed a serious rest before making them face the real Desert, on the threshold of which we found ourselves. The same low hills of sand and pebbles surrounded us, but here they were more abundantly covered with the same brushwood. On the sand grew grass. About a hundred feet from the camp flowed a small spring, sufficient for the needs of the people. More Far away, in a lowland, other springs flowed from the hillsides, and it was from these that the cattle would drink. We had camped early in the day and, our stay being longer than usual, the women made a general inspection of the dirty linen, which they planned to start washing the next day. The men, for their part, did not remain inactive either. Some immediately undertook to mend the harnesses. Others, to repair the wagon frames and their iron frames. There was, until nightfall, much iron red-hot in the fire, much hammering , much tightening of nuts and bolts. Having gone to Laban, I found him sitting on the ground, legs crossed, in the shade of a wagon. He was busy sewing himself a pair of moccasins and pulling the needle, without rest. He was the only man in our caravan who wore buckskin moccasins, and as I recall my memories now, I have no impression that he was with us when we left Arkansas. Where he came from? I do not know. He had neither wife nor family, nor a wagon of his own. He possessed nothing but his horse and gun, the clothes he wore, and his two blankets in which he rolled himself up at night, and which were packed, by day, in one of the wagons that carried them. The next morning came the great disaster. After two days’ travel beyond the Mormons, believing that there were no Indians to be found, we had, as I have said, neglected to form a complete circle of our wagons, and had left the cattle to graze at large, with no one to guard them. My awakening was like an unforeseen nightmare. It was like a sudden blast of a trumpet, which made me jump and left me stupid for a few moments. I remained there, as if dazed, identifying, as I emerged from my torpor, the varied noises, which combined to form a frightful din: explosions, near and far, of the rifles; shouts and insults of the men; high-pitched cries of the women and the bawling of the children. Soon I distinguished the dull thud and the screech of the bullets, which struck the iron of the wheels and the body of the carts. I understood that those who were firing at us were aiming too low. I wanted to get up. But immediately my mother, who was dressing , forced me, under the pressure of her hand, to lie down again at full length. My father was already up and, having got out of the cart, was examining the situation. He suddenly burst in near us, shouting: “Outside, everyone, quickly! On the ground!” Without wasting any time, he grabbed me roughly with his hand, as with a harpoon, and threw me, rather than pushed me, toward the end of the wagon , from where I jumped to the ground. I was hardly there when my father, my mother, and the baby tumbled out, pell-mell, after me. “Dig, Jesse!” my father shouted to me. “Do as I do!” In imitation of him, I dug a hole in the sand behind the shelter of one of the wagon wheels. We scraped with our hands in wild haste, and my mother did the same. “Hurry up!” my father shouted to me. “Dig your hole, Jesse, as deep as you can!” Then he straightened up and walked away into the gray light of dawn, and I saw him running, shouting orders: “Lie down! Take shelter behind the wheels of your wagons!” Dig trenches in the sand! Let those with wives and children get them out of the cars! Cease fire! Have your rifles ready and prepare to withstand the assault, if it is given to us! The bachelors must join me and Laban! Don’t get up… Advance crawling ! But the assault did not come. For a quarter of an hour, the fire of our enemies continued, more or less regular or sustained. We suffered especially in the first moments of our surprise, when the bullets hit those of our men who, already up, were building and lighting the fires, the glow of which illuminated them. The Indians, for they were Indians, as Laban told us, had not dared to approach and it was at a good distance that they were lying on the ground firing at us. We were beginning to see them clearly in the growing dawn, and I saw that my father, who was standing some distance from the trench where my mother and I were lying, was preparing a counterattack. I heard him shouting: “Fire! All together!” To the right, to the left, to the center, a salvo of rifle shots burst out from our men. I raised my head slightly from the sand, and I could see that more than one Indian had been hit. The firing had immediately ceased and, in the dissipating smoke, I saw our enemies scampering away, dragging their dead and wounded after them. We took advantage of this respite to all set to work without delay. The wagons were pushed, tightened, and chained, the poles inside the circle. Even the women, young girls, and little boys lent their help and pushed with all their might on the spokes of the wheels. Afterwards, we counted our losses. Many babies and children were dead, and three were dying. Little Rish Hardacre had been struck in the arm by a bullet. He was not more than six years old, and I remember seeing him staring open-mouthed at his wound while his mother took him on her knees to bandage him. I saw his cheeks bathed with the tears he had shed. But now he was no longer crying and stared in astonishment at a fragment of broken bone protruding from his forearm. Grandmother White was found dead in the Foxwells’ wagon. She was a very old woman, impotent and obese, whose only occupation was to sit all day long, smoking her pipe. She was Abby Foxwell’s mother. Mrs. Grant had also been killed. Her husband was beside her body. Grant was very calm. Not a single tear wetted his eyelids. He simply sat beside his wife, his rifle lying across his knees, and was left alone to his grief. Under the direction of my father, whom I then heard called Captain Fancher, so I knew my family name, the whole caravan toiled with the zeal of a herd of beavers. In the center of the enclosure formed by the wagons, a vast trench was dug, and the sand that was taken from it was laid all around as embankment. Inside this sort of pit, the women dragged the bedding, food, and various necessities, which were taken from the wagons. The youngest children pitched in. There was no complaint or whining from any of them. They all knew, as I did, that they were born to work. The large pit was reserved for the women and children. Under the wagons of the enclosure, a shallower trench, also with an embankment, was dug for the use of the combatants. Laban, meanwhile, returned from a patrol he had made outside the camp. He announced that the Indians had moved about half a mile away and were talking among themselves. He had, moreover, counted six of their own, whom they had carried off from the battlefield and who appeared to be in agony. Chapter 14. The Torment of Thirst. Several times during the morning, we observed clouds of dust rising in the distance and betraying the presence of a considerable number of men on horseback. All of them were converging towards us and seemed to surround us on all sides. But we could not distinguish anyone. One of these clouds, after approaching closer than the others, then moved away and did not appear again. There was only one voice to affirm that this large cloud was our cattle, which were being taken away. Our forty wagons, which had crossed the Rocky Mountains and traversed half of the American continent, became powerless. The few animals that had remained, during the night, inside the camp, had fled during the shooting. And, even more than the deaths we had to mourn, it was an irreparable misfortune. Without draft animals, our wagons could go no further. At noon, Laban returned from a second patrol. He had seen a new troop of Indians, arriving from the south. They were trying to surround us. At that same moment, we discovered a dozen white men galloping on their horses, on the crest of a small hill not too far away, from where they dominated us and observed us. “The explanation, there it is!” Laban said in a low voice to my father, pointing to their group with his hand. “They are the ones who pushed the Indians against us.” During this conversation, I heard Abby Foxwell to my left, who was saying to my mother: “They are white people like us… Why don’t they come to our aid?” I straightened up and, braving the slap I knew my mother intended for me, I retorted: “They’re not white people! They’re Mormons!” The day passed without further incident. When night had completely fallen and it was pitch black, three of our young men left the camp. I saw them go. They were Will Aden, Abel Milliken, and Timothy Grant. “I sent them to Cedar City to ask for help,” my father said to my mother, quickly eating a few bites for his supper. My mother nodded. “There are no shortage of Mormons,” she said, “around the camp. They give us no help, nor show us any sign of friendship. The ones in Cedar City will do no more. ” My father observed: “There are good Mormons and bad Mormons…” “So far,” my mother interrupted, “we’ve never found any good ones!” I heard no more of our three messengers the next morning. But I soon learned what had happened. The whole camp was terrified. The three men had barely traveled a few miles when they were surrounded and challenged by the whites. Will Aden raised his voice and declared that they belonged to Fancher’s company, that they were going to Cedar City to ask for help. He was immediately shot dead . Milliken and Grant turned and galloped back to bring the news. It took all hope from our hearts. It was indeed the white men who had driven the Indians upon us. The worst of the perils, which we had dreaded for so long, was falling upon us. Meanwhile, some of us, having left the shelter of the wagons, went to the spring to look for water. The bullets crackled around them. The spring was not more than a hundred feet distant. But the path leading there was under fire from the Indians, who had dug in within range on either side of the ravine. They were not , fortunately, famous marksmen, and our men brought back the water without being hit. We were all installed in the pit and, accustomed as we were to the harshness of existence, we found ourselves quite comfortable there. It goes without saying that it was not cheerful for the families of those who had been killed or wounded, and they had to be cared for. Always driven by my insatiable curiosity, I surreptitiously moved away from my mother’s skirts and arranged not to miss anything of what was happening. Some men were busy, in one part of the large pit, digging a hole. Nine corpses, seven men and two women, were buried together. Only Mrs. Hastings, when the bodies were covered, loudly expressed her grief. She had lost her husband and her father. She wept and lamented, with loud cries. The other women were slow to calm her. Gathered to the east, on a low hill, where they were easily distinguished, the Indians continued to palaver and discuss, in a formidable hubbub. But, with the exception of a rifle shot which they fired at us from time to time, they did not attack. Laban was burning to know what was going on, he said, in the minds of these vicious beasts. “Can’t they,” he exclaimed, “decide what they must do and do it?” The heat was intense during the afternoon in our pit. The sun beat down on us in a cloudless sky, and not a breath of wind! The men, lying with their rifles in the trench dug under the wagons, were partly sheltered. But in the pit, where more than a hundred women and children were crammed, and which was exposed to full sun, the temperature was terrible. Canopies, made of blankets spread on stakes, had been erected over the wounded. We were swarming and suffocating, and I was constantly looking for some excuse to go and join the men under the wagons, to proudly carry some message to my father. We had undoubtedly committed a serious error when, in forming the circle of our wagons, we had not enclosed the spring. The cause lay in the panic which had followed the first attack of the Indians, in our ignorance whether it would not be immediately followed by a second. Now it was too late. Exposed as we were to the fire of the enemy, posted on his hill, we could not risk unchaining our wagons and pushing them further. My father ordered two men to search the ground, within our very enclosure, and to dig a well. Latrines were also installed there. Towards the end of the afternoon, we saw Lee again. He was on foot and crossing, diagonally, the prairie situated to the northwest of our camp. He was staying just out of range of a shot from our rifles. At the sight of him, my father took one of my mother’s sheets, tied it to two goads, tied together to make a stronger pole, and hoisted the whole thing in the air, as a white flag. But Lee took no notice and continued on his way. Laban wanted us to try to fire a long-range shot at him . My father opposed it. The white men, he said, have not yet decided our fate, and a shot at Lee could immediately tip the undecided scales to the wrong side. Then, addressing me, after tearing a strip from the sheet and tying it to a goad: “You will go to him, Jesse. Take this for your safeguard. Try to reach him and talk to him. Don’t reflect on what has happened. Only try to persuade him to come to us, to talk. ” My breast swelled with pride, at the thought of the mission entrusted to me. As I was preparing to obey without delay, Jed Durham shouted that he wanted to accompany me. He was about my age. “Durham,” my father asked the child’s father, “do you allow your son to follow Jesse? It would be better if there were two of them. They would keep each other from committing any imprudence.” Durham agreed, and so Jed and I, two nine- year-old boys, left the camp under the protection of the white flag, which we were waving. But Lee refused to speak. When he saw us coming running, he bolted at once. We couldn’t even get close enough for him to hear us. He disappeared suddenly, after having probably hidden behind some bushes. Our eyes searched for him in vain, although we knew very well that he could not have vanished. We persisted. We had not been told how long we were to be absent, and as the Indians were firing on us, Jed and I continued to advance. We dutifully fought through the bushes for a considerable distance, and did not return to camp for two hours. If one of us had been alone, we would have done it in four times less time. But mutual emulation excited our zeal and bravery. Our temerity, however, was not without profit. While marching with our white flag, we discovered that our camp was besieged on all sides. Half a mile to the south, we saw a large camp of Indians. We could see on a nearby prairie, the young men practicing running at full speed, mounted on their horses. The Indians who had attacked us were still camped on their low hill, on the eastern side. Bypassing their position, we managed to climb, unseen, another hill overlooking it. Jed and I spent half an hour trying to count them. We concluded, very roughly, that there must have been at least two hundred of them. We also noted that whites were among them and that the discussion was very animated. That was not all. To the northeast, at a short distance, was a white camp, hidden by a fold in the ground. Nearby, fifty to sixty saddle horses were mowing the grass. A little further to the north, a small cloud of horsemen was advancing, approaching very quickly and heading straight for the white camp. When we returned to camp, the first thing that happened to me was a slap, which my mother gave me, to punish me for having stayed away so long. But my father praised Jed and me highly when he heard our report. “We would do well, Captain,” Aaron Cochrane said to my father, “to prepare ourselves now for an attack.” The rider seen by the children was undoubtedly a messenger, bringing superior orders. It was while waiting for him that the whites and the Indians chattered without making any attempt. What is at least certain is that our enemies do not spare the meat of their mounts. At the end of half an hour, still nothing moving, Laban set out to explore, under the guard of the white flag which had already served Jed and me. But he had not gone twenty paces when the Indians opened fire on him and forced him to turn back. As the sun was about to sink below the horizon, I found myself in the large pit, watching the baby, while my mother spread blankets on the ground to prepare a bed. The entire caravan was literally piled high. So much so that not everyone, the night before, had found a place to lie down. Several women had had to sleep sitting up, their heads falling on their knees. Right next to me, shaking my arm or hitting me on the shoulder from time to time, Silas Dunlap was dying. He had been hit in the head in the first attack, and all day he had been delirious, rambling and singing. Over and over, until it gave my mother fits of hysterics, he hummed: The first little Devil said to the second little Devil: Give me some tobacco from your snuffbox! The second little Devil replied to the first little Devil: Save your pennies, my brother, And always have tobacco in your snuffbox! I was sitting near Silas Dunlap, holding the baby, when the attack began. The sun was setting, and with all my eyes I stared at Silas Dunlap, who was dying. His wife, Sarah, had her hand on his forehead. She and her aunt Martha wept silently. It was just then that the attack came. Hundreds of guns were popping and dropping their bullets. The enemy formed a semicircle, running from east to west, and riddled us with lead. Every one of us in the great pit flattened ourselves to the ground. The little children began to scream. Some of the women, at first, screamed too. The shots rained down on us without interruption. Great was my desire to crawl to the trench under the wagons, where our men were keeping up a steady fire. But, guessing my intentions, my mother immediately made me lie flat next to the baby. I watched, out of the corner of my eye, Silas Dunlap. He was still dying when the Castleton baby was killed. Little Dorothy Castleton, who was only ten years old, was holding the baby in her arms. She was not hurt. I heard that people were saying around her that the bullet must have bounced off the roof of one of the wagons and, falling from there into the great pit, to strike the child by ricochet. It was only a mere chance, and, except for accidents of this kind, it was said, we were safe. I looked back at Silas Dunlap. He was not moving. It was bad luck for me! I had never seen anyone at the precise moment of his death, and I would have been curious to see the spectacle. Little Dorothy Castleton had a nervous breakdown. She screamed and yelled with such persistence that she caused a similar crisis in Mrs. Hastings. Hearing this racket, my father sent Watt Cuming to us, who came crawling up and asked what was the matter, then went back. It was already dark when the assailant’s fire ceased, and there were, as on the day before, only a few isolated shots. Two of our men were wounded during this second attack, and they were brought back to the great pit. Bill Tyler was killed, and in the darkness, along with Silas Dunlap and the Castleton baby, he was buried alongside the other dead. Men took turns all night digging the well deeper. But all they found was wet sand. Other men ventured to fetch a few buckets of water from the spring. But they were fired upon and had to give up after Jeremiah Hopkins had his left hand severed at the wrist by a bullet. The next day was our third day under siege, and the heat and dryness were worse than ever. We awoke thirsty, and there was no cooking. Our mouths were so dry we could not have eaten. I tried to bite into a piece of bread my mother had given me, but I had to give it up. Salvos of gunfire were fired at us again, followed by long cheers, and then complete silence. My father kept warning his men not to waste ammunition, for we would soon run out. The shaft continued to be dug. It was so deep that the sand had to be hauled up with ropes and buckets. Those who received and emptied it were exposed to bullets, and one of them was hit in the shoulder. His name was Peter Bromley, and he drove the oxen for the Bloodgoods’ wagon. He was engaged to Anne Bloodgood. She leaped toward him, while the bullets flew and forced her back for cover. Toward midday, the shaft caved in, and it took a lot of work to pull the pair of workers buried in it out of the sand. It took an hour before Amos Wentworth was freed. After this, the well was shored up with planks taken from the wagons and poles. But, at a depth of twenty feet, nothing was found but damp sand. The water still did not filter through. Life, meanwhile, in the great pit, became more and more unbearable. The children cried for water, and the babies squealed and moaned incessantly. Robert Carr, another wounded man who was lying about ten feet from my mother and me, had lost his mind. He kept beating the air with his arms and crying out for water. Women also thronged the countryside, moaning against the Indians and the Mormons. There were others who prayed fervently, and the three older Demdike sisters sang psalms with their mother. Still others gathered wet sand, which had been brought up from the well, and piled it against the bodies of their babies, in an attempt to cool and calm them. Exasperated by so much suffering, the two Fairfax brothers, taking buckets, crawled under a wagon and ran, in one go, towards the spring. Gilles had not reached the halfway point when he fell. Roger, happier, was able to go and come back, relatively unharmed. The two buckets he brought back were only half full, for he had let some of them fall out while running. He crawled again under the wagons and went down into the big pit. His mouth was bleeding. Two half-full buckets could not go far for so many people. Only babies, very young children, and the wounded got their small share. I could not get a single drop. But my mother, dipping a cloth in the few spoonfuls given to her for the baby, moistened my mouth. I chewed the wet cloth, and she kept nothing for herself. Things got even worse during the afternoon. The relentless sun continued to shine in a cloudless, windless sky, transforming our sand hole into a furnace. The shots kept crackling around us, and the Indians kept uttering their piercing cries. Only from time to time did my father allow our men to fire a shot, and only the best shots, like Laban and Timothy Grant. Meanwhile, a continuous discharge of lead rained down on the camp. There were no ricochets too disastrous. Only four of our men were wounded in their trench, and only one seriously. During a lull in the shooting, my father went down into the large pit and, without saying a word, sat down near my mother and me. He listened, his face contorted, to all the lamentations, all the sobs of so many unfortunate beings who were crying out for water. Then he got up and went to inspect the well. He brought back only wet sand, from which he made a poultice that he applied to the chest and shoulders of one of the wounded, who was complaining more loudly than the others. After which, he went to Jed and his mother, and sent to fetch Jed’s father from the trench. We were so pressed against each other that it was impossible to move in the pit without the greatest precautions, so as not to trample the bodies of those who were lying there. “Jesse,” he said to me, “are you afraid of the Indians?” I shook my head vigorously, guessing that I was destined for another mission, no less glorious than the previous one. “Jesse,” he continued, “are you afraid of those damned Mormons?” Taking advantage of the opportunity offered to me to vent my bile, without fearing the vengeful backhand of my mother’s hand, I cried out with conviction: “No! I’m not afraid of those damned Mormons!” I saw, at my reply, a sad smile curl my father’s tightly closed lips . He continued: “In that case, Jesse, will you go to the spring with Jed to fetch some water?” I exulted. “We’ll dress you both as girls.” Perhaps, then, they will not shoot at you. I protested and insisted that I might very well go as I was, like a man, a real man, in trousers. But my father declared that, if I refused to obey, he would find another little boy to accompany Jed. So I yielded. A chest was taken from the Chattoxes’ wagon and brought in, containing the Sunday dresses of their two twin daughters, who were about the same size as Jed and me. Some women came to help us put them on. The dresses had not been taken out of the chest since we left Arkansas. In her anguish, my mother left her baby with Sarah Dunlap and came with us to the trench under the wagons. There, behind the little sand parapet, I received, and Jed with me, his last instructions. Then we crawled out and found ourselves in the open. We both wore exactly the same clothes: white stockings, white dresses, with a large blue sash, and white summer hats . Jed’s right hand and my left hand clasped each other tightly. In our two free hands, we each carried two small buckets. “Take your time!” my father called to us, as we began to advance. “Go slowly! Walk like girls.” Not a shot was fired. We reached the spring safely, filled our buckets, and before returning, we lay down flat on our stomachs to drink a long drink, straight from the spring. A full bucket in each hand, we retraced our steps. And still, not a shot! I don’t remember how many trips we made like this. Fifteen or twenty, at least. We walked slowly, holding hands on the way out. Then we came back with our four full buckets. This activity impaired us prodigiously. Several times, we lay down to drink at length from the spring. But all things must come to an end. It was obvious that if the Indians had momentarily ceased their fire, they had in so doing obeyed the orders of the whites who were with them. Had they believed that we were really girls? I don’t know. In any case, Jed and I were preparing to set off on a new journey, when a shot rang out, then a second. “Come back!” my mother shouted to me. I looked at Jed and he looked at me. Our thoughts met, as did our glances. I knew he was stubborn, he knew I was obstinate, and we were each determined to stay anyway, if one of us withdrew. So I started walking again and he did the same. “Here, Jesse!” my mother shouted again. And there was more than a slap in her words. Jed looked at me questioningly. I shook my head and declared: “Let’s go!” We scampered, as fast as we could, across the sand and it seemed to us that all the Indians’ guns were loose on us. I arrived at the spring first, so that Jed, who had followed close behind, had to wait to fill his buckets until I had filled mine. “My turn now!” he said. And he was so slow in his operation that he evidently had the idea of ​​letting me go alone, in order to have the glory of remaining last . I held on and pressed myself against the ground, waiting for him to finish. I watched the little clouds of dust that the bullets raised around us. Finally, we resumed our run side by side. “Not so fast!” I said to Jed. “You’ll spill half your water!” My remark had its effect, because he slowed down noticeably. Halfway there, I stumbled and fell flat on my face, head first . A bullet that had struck the ground, just in front of me, had splashed sand all over my eyes. At the time, I thought I’d been hit. Jed was standing next to me, waiting for me. “You did it on purpose!” he sneered, as I got back on my feet . I immediately caught his thought. He thought I’d deliberately let myself fall, in order to spill my water and have the glory of going back to get more. This rivalry of bravery was becoming a serious matter between us. So serious that I did not want to contradict him and I ran back to the spring. And Jed Durham, in defiance of the bullets that raised the dust around him, remained standing, exposed, straight in the same place, waiting for me. We returned, one near the other, to the carts, putting in our very audacity our point of honor as children. But, when we arrived at the goal, I alone had my two buckets full. A bullet had punctured, near its base, one of Jed’s buckets. My mother attacked me, with our shared bravado, and I received a well-aimed lecture. But I received no slap. She had certainly understood that my father, who, during this lecture, winked at me, behind her, would not tolerate her hitting me. It was the first time in my life that between my father and me a community of intimate feelings had been expressed in this way. When we went back into the great pit, Jed and I were consecrated heroes. The women, with tears in their eyes, overwhelmed us with blessings and threw themselves upon us, covering us with kisses. I, although feeling flattered in my pride, thought little of the exuberance of these demonstrations. But when Jeremiah Hopkins, who had his stump of an arm bandaged, declared that Jed and I were of the good stuff of which men are made, then my heart swelled. I was, for the rest of the day, quite bothered by the inflammation of my right eye, caused by the sand that the bullet had thrown up. My mother examined it and declared that it was all bloodshot. As for me, whether I kept it open or closed, I suffered the same. So that sometimes I opened it, and sometimes I closed it. The situation had relaxed a little in the large pit. Everyone had been able to drink. And, although the problem arose of knowing how we could start getting water again, there was hope again. The black spot was our ammunition. A check, made by my father in all the wagons, resulted in a total of five pounds of powder. There was hardly any more in the men’s powder flasks. Thinking that the enemy attack would resume, as it had the day before, with the setting sun, I slipped into the trench under the wagons, near Laban, whom I met there. I had at first hesitated to make myself visible to him, fearing that if he discovered me there, he would order me to retrace my steps. It didn’t happen . He continued to watch suspiciously between the wheels of the wagons, while chewing his tobacco. From time to time, he spat in the same place. This had ended up digging a small hole in the sand. I ventured to break the silence. “How,” I said, “are the pranks going today?” It was a way of mocking him, for he always addressed me with the same phrase. He didn’t flinch and replied: “Wonderful, young man! And I’m better than ever, now that I’ve been able to start chewing tobacco again.” Jesse, imagine, my mouth was so dry that since sunrise I had to put down my chew. Thanks to you, who brought us water… A man, at that moment, showed his head and shoulders, over the small hill to the northeast, which was occupied by the whites. Laban pointed his rifle at him and held it at gunpoint for a good minute. Then he dropped his weapon. “Four hundred yards!” he said. “It’s better not to risk it. I might hit him. But I might also miss. Your father, boy, sticks to powder. ” There was a silence. Then, with extraordinary aplomb, for, after my exploit, I felt I could speak like a man, I asked: “Do you think, Laban, that we have a chance of getting out of here?” Laban seemed to think deeply. “Jesse,” he said finally, “I must not hide from you that we are in a damned hole. But we will get out of it. ” Yes, we’ll get out of this, I tell you. You can bet your last dollar on that chance without fear. –There are some among us, at least, who will never get out. –And who are they? –Well! Bill Tyler, and Mrs. Grant, and Silas Dunlap, and all the others. –What do you want, Jesse? Let’s not talk about it anymore… Those are already underground. Don’t you know that every caravan must sow dead people along its route? It has been thus, I suppose, since the world began, and the world has not been depopulated. Birth and death, Jesse, you see, have always marched, here below, hand in hand. It has been thus for thousands of years. And birth has always prevailed over death. I suppose so, at least, since the earth has never emptied and, on the contrary, since time immemorial, men have grown and multiplied. So you, Jesse, could have been killed this afternoon, while going to get water. Well! No! You’re here, are n’t you, chatting with me, and there’s every chance that when you grow up you’ll become, in California, the father of a large family. This optimistic view of the situation, and Laban’s good nature towards me, encouraged me to formulate a wish that had long been simmering in my brain. “Say, Laban,” I suddenly cried, “suppose you were killed here… ” “Who? Me!” he exclaimed. “I only say, Suppose,” I explained. “That’s all right! Go on. Suppose I were killed…” “Would you leave me your scalps?” He grumbled to himself, then muttered, “What would you do with them? Your mother would slap you if she saw you wearing them. ” “Oh, I wouldn’t wear them in front of her! But come now, Laban, quite frankly, if you’re killed, someone has to inherit your scalps. Why not me? ” “Why not? Why not?… That’s quite right. I love you, Jesse, and I love your papa… Agreed! The very minute I die, the scalps will become your property. And the scalping knife too. Timothy Grant, here present, is a witness. Did you hear, Timothy? ” Timothy, lying in the trench, replied that he had indeed heard, and I remained completely stunned by the immensity of my good fortune, suffocated with happiness, and unable to find, for Laban, a single word of thanks. The customary attack occurred at sunset, and thousands of rifle shots were fired at the encampment. None of our men, well sheltered, were hit. For our part, we fired no more than thirty shots, and I saw Laban and Timothy Grant each hit an Indian. Meanwhile, Laban confided to me that, since the beginning of the siege, the Indians alone had been doing the firing. Not a single white man had fired. This was certain and very surprising. Why were they acting like this? They brought us no help, but they did not attack us either . And yet, constantly, they went to communicate with the Indians, who were attacking us. What was this disturbing mystery? On the morning of the fourth day, thirst began to torment us cruelly again. A heavy dew had fallen during the night. Men and women, to refresh themselves, licked it with their tongues from the shafts of the wagons, the brake shoes, and the wheel rims. The rumor circulated that Laban had returned from patrol before daybreak ; that he had crawled alone to the white camp; that they were already up and that he had seen them, by the light of their bivouac fires, praying in a circle. He had also been able to catch a few words of their prayers, which we were the object of, and in which they asked God to inspire them what they should do with us. I heard one of the Demdike sisters say to Abby Foxwell: “May God, in that case, suggest good thoughts to them! ” “And may He not delay too long!” replied Abby Foxwell. ” For, after another day without water, and our ammunition exhausted, what could become of us?” Nothing happened during the morning. Not a shot was fired. The sun blazed in the still air. Our thirst increased. Soon the thirsty babies began to cry, the children to complain and lament. At noon, Will Hamilton took two large buckets and prepared to leave for the spring. As he was preparing to crawl under one of the wagons, Anne Demdike ran to him, put her arms around him, and tried to hold him back. He spoke to her, kissed her, and set off. Not a shot was fired at him, either on the way there, or while he was filling his buckets, or on his way back. “Heaven be praised!” cried old Mrs. Demdike when he got home. “They let themselves be touched by the grace of the Lord.” And such was the opinion of many of the women. At two o’clock, after a frugal meal that had comforted us a little, a man appeared carrying a white flag. Will Hamilton went out to meet him. After a few minutes of conversation, he returned to speak to my father and the other men. A little behind the parliamentarian, we saw Lee standing and looking at us. An intense emotion seized the whole caravan. The women, considering their troubles over, wept and embraced one another. There were some, including old Mrs. Demdike, who sang Hallelujahs and blessed God. The proposal that had been made to us, and which our men had accepted, was that we set out again immediately, under the folds of the parliamentary flag, and that the whites would protect our exodus. I heard my father say to my mother: “We had only to accept. We had to…” He was sitting, dejected and with his shoulders slumped, on a wagon pole. “However,” my mother replied, “what would happen if they betrayed us?” My father made a vague gesture and replied: “Let’s take the chance that they don’t. Our ammunition is exhausted. ” Several of our men unchained our wagons and rolled them so as to make breaches in their circle. I watched carefully. Lee appeared, followed by two empty wagons, drawn by horses, which he brought, he said, for our benefit. Everyone gathered around him. He said that he had a lot of work to do with the Indians, to keep them at a distance, and that Major Higbee, with fifty men of the Mormon militia, was ready to take us under his protection. But where suspicion arose in my father and Laban, and in many of our men, was when Lee told us that we must part with our rifles and put them in one of the wagons. The pretext given was that we must not excite the animosity of the Indians. By doing so, we would appear to them to be prisoners of the Mormon militia, and they would let us go without complaint. My father seemed to stiffen at such a request and was preparing to refuse. He exchanged a look with Laban, who replied in a low voice: “They will be of no more use to us in our hands than in the wagons, since we have no more powder.” Two of our wounded, who could not walk, were put into one of the two wagons brought by Lee, each of which had a man to drive them. With them were placed the little children. Lee seemed to sort them into those above and below eight years old. Jed and I were nine years old and, what’s more, rather tall for our age. So Lee put us in the older group, telling us we were to go on foot with the women. When he took our baby from my mother’s arms and placed him in the wagon, she protested at first. Then I saw her biting her lip, and she let him. She was a middle-aged woman, with gray eyes and hard features, strong-boned, and who had once been somewhat stout. But the long journey and the hardships she had endured had left their mark on her. So her cheeks had sunken, she had grown thin, and, like all the other women in the caravan, her face had taken on a thoughtful and anxious expression. Lee then described what the order of march should be. He said that the women, and any children who would be traveling with them, would go first, in a file, behind the two wagons. Then the men would come, one by one. Hearing these words, Laban came to me, detached the famous scalps, which hung from his belt, and tied them around my waist. I protested: “But you are not yet killed, Laban! ” “I flatter myself!” he replied jokingly. “I have only just put myself right with God. Carrying scalps is a thoroughly pagan vanity. ” He remained near me for a moment longer, then abruptly turned on his heels to join the other men of the caravan. One last time, he turned his head away and called to me: “Well, goodbye, Jesse! Goodbye!” I was wondering why so much ceremony in these farewells, when a white man rode into our enclosure. He said that Major Higbee had sent him to us, to advise us to hurry, because the Indians could, at any second, recommence their attack. Our caravan set off, laden with all the packages it could carry. We left behind all our large wagons, to follow the two that had been brought by Lee. Women and children were close behind. When we were two hundred yards ahead, our men, in turn, started to march. On the right and left stood the Mormon militia. Leaning on their rifles, the soldiers stood in a long double line, about six feet apart from each other. As we all filed past them, I could not help noticing the somber gravity imprinted on their faces. They were as gloomy as undertakers . The women observed this too, and some of them began to weep. I walked behind my mother, who had pretended not to see my scalps. Behind me came the three Demdike sisters, two of them supporting their old mother. I heard Lee, in front of us, shouting incessantly to the two men who drove the two wagons, not to go so fast. Another man, whom one of the Demdike sisters claimed to be Major Higbee, was riding his horse behind the soldiers and watching us pass. Not an Indian was in sight. As I turned my head to see if I could see Jed Dunham, the event took place. I heard Major Higbee shout in a loud voice, “Do your duty!” It seemed to me that all the militia rifles went off at once . In a second, our men fell. Then, with another discharge, it was the women’s turn. The Demdike sisters and their mother all fell at once. I turned my head to look for my mother. She, too, was on the ground. From everywhere around us, hundreds of Indians appeared, firing at point-blank range. I saw the two Dunlap sisters running away into the sands, and I ran after them, for white men and Indians were killing us pell-mell. As I ran, I saw one of the wagon drivers shooting at two of our men, who were wounded and lying there. The horses of the other wagon, frightened by the shooting, kicked and reared, moved forward and backward, and their driver had great difficulty in keeping them steady. While the little boy that I was ran after the Dunlap sisters, everything around me went dark. My memories, at that precise point, stopped. Jesse Fancher ceased to exist and disappeared forever. The form that was Jesse Fancher, the body that was his, fleeting matter, passed like an apparition and was no more. But the imperishable spirit that animated him survived. And, in his next reincarnation, he animated the visible body which is in reality only a new apparition, known as Darrell Standing; which will shortly be taken from its cell, hanged and sent into nothingness, where all these apparitions are extinguished. There is here, in the prison of Folsom, a lifer, named Matthew Davies, who belongs to the generation of the oldest prisoners and who serves as an assistant at executions. This old man lived on the plains where young Jesse Fancher was killed. I was able to control, through him, the events which I have just recounted. In the time when he was a child, people often spoke in his family of the great massacre of the Mountain Prairies. Only the young children, they said, who were in the two wagons were spared. It was estimated that they were too young to remember and to be able to speak one day. I faithfully record this man’s statements and affirm that never before in my existence as Darrell Standing had I read a single line, heard a single word relating to Captain Fancher’s caravan, which perished at the Prairies of the Mountains. All these facts, however, in the straitjacket of San Quentin Prison, returned to my memory. It is evident that I could not have obtained them from nothing, any more than I could have created the dynamite that was demanded of me. If, therefore, I had knowledge of these events, the only plausible explanation is that they had subsisted in my immortal spirit, which, unlike matter, cannot perish. I must also declare, in closing this chapter, that Matthew Davies told me this again. A few years after the massacre, news of which had leaked out, Lee was arrested by the police of the United States government, condemned to death and taken back, to be executed, to the very spot where our caravan had camped. Chapter 15. Opium Dreams or Realities? When, at the end of my first ten consecutive days in a straitjacket, I was brought back to conscious life by the thumb of Doctor Jackson, who pressed one of my eyelids apart, I opened both eyes in succession and, turning my face towards Governor Atherton, I smiled. “Too miserable to live and too vile to die!” Such was the flattering assessment he gave me. “The ten days are up, Governor… ” “All right,” he grumbled. “We will untie you. ” “That’s not it,” I told him. “You certainly noticed my smile.” And you have not, no doubt, forgotten our little bet. Before you untie me—which is not particularly urgent—give Morrell and Oppenheimer the Bull Durham tobacco and cigarette paper you promised. For good measure, here is another smile… “Yes, yes, I know the bluffs familiar to animals of your species,” declared Governor Atherton sententiously. “You will be no further ahead! I don’t know what prevents me from beating you, you who beat all the records in the straitjacket. ” “The fact is,” opined Doctor Jackson, “that I have never heard of a man smiling after ten days of this treatment. ” “It’s a bluff! I repeat…” replied the governor. “Untie him, Hutchins.” I murmured again, for the life in me had become so weak that I had to summon the little strength I had left, and add all my will to it, to be able to utter only this murmur: “Why the hurry, Governor? Yes, why the hurry? I have no train to catch. And I am so devilishly comfortable in my situation that I prefer, a thousand times over, not to be disturbed. ” They unlaced me, however, and rolled me onto the ground, out of the fetid straitjacket, like an inert and helpless bundle. Captain Jamie bent over me. “I’m not surprised,” he said, “that he’s comfortable in there. He doesn’t feel a thing. He’s paralyzed. ” “Paralyzed like your old grandmother!” sneered the Governor. “Bluff, I tell you. Put him on his feet a little and you’ll see if he can’t stand up.” Hutchins and the doctor combined their efforts to straighten me. When this was done, “Let go now!” commanded Atherton. Life could not, quite naturally, return suddenly to my body, which for ten days had been as if dead. The result was that, having no influence over my matter, I wobbled on my knees, lurched in various twists and turns, and finally came to crush my forehead against the wall of my cell. “You see!” said Captain Jamie. “Yes, yes, well done!” persisted Governor Atherton. “This man has guts , I admit. He is an admirable simulator! ” “You speak gold, Governor,” I murmured, lying on the ground. “I did it on purpose. It is a comedy punchline. Pick me up again and I will do it again. I promise you plenty of laughs… I will not dwell on the torture I experienced, as on previous occasions, as a result of the return of the circulation of the blood. It was already an old story for me, one that would regularly repeat itself with each period in a straitjacket. The indelible marks that this intense suffering had left on my face, I would take to the gallows. When, at last, they left me alone, I lay on the ground for the rest of the day, dazed, in a semi-coma. There is a kind of anesthesia to pain, caused by the pain itself and by its excess. I experienced this anesthesia. Towards evening, I managed to drag myself here and there on the floor of my cell, without being able to stand up. I drank a lot of water—like the little thirsty Jesse, stretched out on the burning sand. It was only the next day that, by a powerful effort of my will, I made up my mind and managed to eat the horrible bread that had been left for me. Governor Atherton’s plan had not changed. To allow me to rest and recover my strength for a few days. Then, if I had not confessed where the dynamite was hidden, to put me back in the straitjacket for ten days. He himself had repeated this to me, and I had simply replied: “I am sorry, with all my heart, to cause you so much trouble, Governor. What a pity that I still insist on living! My death would relieve you of all your torments. What do you expect? If I don’t die, it’s not my fault. I don’t think I weighed more than ninety pounds at that time.” Two years before, when the gates of San Quentin Prison closed upon me, I weighed 165 pounds. I had lost, it seemed, all I could lose. It did not seem possible that I could, at once, lose one more ounce and still live. However, during the months that followed, ounce by ounce, I continued to lose weight, until I was closer, by my rough calculation, to 80 pounds than to 90. Some people are amazed at how hard some men can become. It is a matter of training. Governor Atherton was a hard man, and his hardness hardened me. In turn, my own hardness reacted upon his and increased it. However, whatever he did, he did not succeed in killing me. If I am going to die, it is because a specific law and a merciless judge who applied it condemned me to the gallows for having struck a jailer with my fist. Until the last second, I will always protest that this guard’s nose had a special aptitude for bleeding. When I threw that punch, my eyes blinked in the light, like a bat’s, and I was, literally, a skeleton, tottering on what served as feet. How could I have struck so hard? Sometimes I wonder if that unfortunate nose really bled. Of course, Thurston swore it did, on the witness stand. But I have seen jailers sworn to worse perjuries. Ed. Morrell was burning to know if I had continued to succeed in my experiments. But it was only when, the following night, Jones Pie-Face came to relieve Smith that, taking advantage of his illegal ability to sleep, I was able to seriously engage in conversation with my two companions. When I had finished my story, Oppenheimer declared: “Opium dreams!” Then, after a silence, he continued: “When I was an errand boy, I once smoked opium. I can tell you, Standing, that, as far as seeing things goes , I would have given you points. It is, I imagine, the trick novelists use to build up their imaginations. Ed. Morrell’s opinion was favorable to me, on the contrary. He did not doubt what I was saying. The results, however, were different with him from those I obtained. When his body, he explained to me, died in the straitjacket, he remained Ed. Morrell. He never went back to previous existences. When his spirit was freed from matter, it was to wander forever in the present time. In this state, he was given the opportunity to contemplate her remains, lying on the floor of her dungeon, then to wander through San Francisco and see what was happening there. He had thus visited his mother twice and, both times, he had found her asleep. But he had no power over material things. He could neither open nor close a door, nor move an object, nor manifest his presence by any noise or otherwise. The same material things, on the other hand, had no power over him either. Walls and doors were not obstacles to him. He was only spirit and thought. –In one of these walks in San Francisco, he told us, I learned, by a new sign hung in front of the corner grocery store on the block where my mother lived, that the said grocery store had changed hands. Only six months later was I able to send my first letter to my mother, and inquired from her if what I had observed was correct. She replied that the grocery store had indeed passed into other hands. “So,” asked Jake Oppenheimer, “you were able to read what was on the sign? ” ” Of course, I read it,” replied Morrell. “Otherwise, would I have been able to know that the name of the owner had been changed? ” “Very well!” struck the incredulous Oppenheimer. “Your reasoning is irrefutable. But I demand further proof.” In a while, when we have guards who are a little more manageable, who will allow us to sometimes get a newspaper, you will have yourself put in a straitjacket, you will leave your body, and you will go for a little walk in old Frisco. Slip in, between two and three o’clock in the morning, around Third Street and Market, that’s when the morning papers come off the presses. Read the latest news. Then come back quickly to San Quentin, preceding the tugboat that crosses the Bay and brings the newspapers. Tell me what you have read. I will then obtain, through the intermediary of a guard, one of these newspapers. If I find everything you have told me true, then I will join my thumbs and then absorb, as gospel, everything you tell of your walks. Abbreviation of San Francisco. This was indeed an excellent test, and I could only agree with Oppenheimer, declaring in turn that such an experience would be decisive. Morrell replied that he would willingly agree to it. But it was repugnant to him to leave his body unnecessarily. He would only do so if, one day, he had earned the straitjacket, outside of his will and if he really suffered too much. Oppenheimer observed: “That’s how they all are! They never want to unpack their wares! My mother believed in spirits. When I was a child, she was constantly evoking them and questioning them, asking them for advice. But she never got anything good out of it. They were incapable of telling her where the old father could have found a safe place, or discovered a gold mine, or won the big prize in the Chinese Lottery. I don’t care! They only served her gossip.” Like, for example, that the old father’s uncle had had a goiter, or that his grandfather had died of galloping consumption; or that we would move before he was four months old. And this was not a very clever thing to announce, given that we changed lodgings six times a year, on average! I believe that if Oppenheimer had been lucky enough to receive, in his youth, a good education, he would certainly have become a great scholar, a thinker equal to the most illustrious. He was a positive man, who believed only in well-established facts. His logic was unbeatable, although a little cold.–I want to see first.–Such was the rule by which he conducted all things. There was not the slightest imagination in him, and all other faith was foreign to him. This is precisely what Morrell had observed for his part. Lack of faith had prevented Oppenheimer from succeeding, in the straitjacket, in the experience of the little death. Chapter 16. and What Again, Vandervoot? I was once Adam Strang, an Englishman. The period of this life, as roughly as I can place it, extended from about 1550 to 1650, and I lived this existence to a very advanced age, as you will see from my narrative. One of my great regrets, ever since Morrell taught me how to carry out these interesting experiments, has always been that I did not pursue my historical studies further . In this way I could have identified and stated more exactly many facts, which have remained imprecise to me. While I am forced to walk by trial and error and guess my way through the times and places of my previous existences. A very particular point of my life as Adam Strang is that my memories of it hardly begin before the age of thirty. Several times, in the straitjacket, Adam Strang appeared to me. But he always reappeared in full stature, his muscles bulging, a man in all the strength of his thirty years. The Sparwehr, on which I sailed as a simple sailor, was a Dutch ship, a merchant vessel, left for the Indies, and which had ventured far beyond, on unknown seas, in search of new riches. Old Johannes Maartens, who commanded it, and whose bestial face and square head, all grizzled, had nothing romantic about it , dreamed of the discovery of unexplored lands, of some new Golconda which would provide him with an abundance of silk and spices. The truth compels me to say that we found above all fever, violent deaths, and pestilential paradises, whose beauty covered real charnel houses and marched hand in hand with them. And also cannibals, who nested in the trees and were rabid headhunters. We landed on many a strange island, whose furious waves beat the shores, and where, on the mountaintops, volcanoes smoked. There, tiny men, with tightly curled, frizzy hair, who looked more like monkeys, whose unbearable and plaintive cry they had , camped in the forests and jungles, behind a rampart of stakes and thorns, from which they sent us, in the evening shadow, poisoned splinters of wood. Anyone among us who had been stung by one of these fragments, as if by a bee’s sting, died without fail, with horrible screams. Elsewhere, other men, larger and even more ferocious, confronted us on the very shore. They rained arrows and javelins upon us, to the roar and warlike roll of their small tom-toms and their large drums. And everywhere on land, they lay in ambush on our passage, in tree trunks, while columns of smoke rose from hill to hill, calling the entire population to arms. The supercargo, Hendrik Bamel, was co-owner of the adventurous Sparwehr. Everything that was not his belonged to Captain Johannes Maartens, and vice versa. The latter spoke little English, and Hendrik Hamel hardly more. The sailors I was living with spoke only Dutch. But trust me to quickly learn all languages, Dutch first, then Korean, as you will see! After much tossing and turning, we arrived at an island belonging to Japan, which was not marked on our map. The inhabitants wanted no dealings with us. Two
officials in trailing silk robes and carrying swords, who were the subject of rapt admiration of Johannes Maartens, came on board and very politely invited us to leave as quickly as possible. Beneath the sweet affectation of their manners and speeches shone the warlike ardor of their race, and we hastened to comply. We crossed the Japanese Archipelagos without incident and arrived at the Yellow Sea, heading for China. The Sparwehr was an old, dirty, and abominable clog, which dragged a whole sea hair along its sides and under its keel. Its progress was greatly weighed down and hampered. When one tried to make it change direction, it remained in place, tossing and turning, like a turnip thrown into the water. A river barge was, compared to it, quick in its movements. With a headwind, it would take a good quarter of an hour to turn, and the whole crew had to give in. Now, following a terrible hurricane which, for forty-eight hours, had made us give up the ghost, the wind had suddenly changed. The Sparwehr had refused to obey the rudder and, caught broadside, it was drifting . We were drifting towards the land, in the icy clarity of dawn tempestuous, on a raging sea, whose waves rose as high as mountains. It was winter. Everything, except the sea, was silent around us and, through the opacity of a storm of snow, we could discover, at times, an inhospitable coast. If one can call a broken string of foaming reefs, sinister and innumerable rocks, beyond which appeared confusedly steep cliffs, capes advancing their spurs in the waves. Behind this formidable rampart, a chain of mountains loomed, covered with snow. We did not know what this land was, towards which we were going, and if others besides us had ever landed there. Barely a vague line indicated it on our map. And we were allowed to fear that its inhabitants, if it had any, were as forbidding as its appearance. The Sparwehr’s bow slammed right into a cliff face that jutted out into deep water, and our bowsprit, after reaching up to the sky for a moment, snapped. The foremast slammed down with a terrible roar and tumbled overboard, along with its yards and shrouds. The bowsprit is the one that leans over the water at the front of the ship; the foremast is the one that comes next and precedes the mainmast. The yards are the transverse pieces of wood that, on the masts, support the sails. The shrouds are the ropes that brace the masts together. Streaming with water and tossed around on deck by the waves, I managed to reach Johannes Maartens on the forecastle. Other men of the crew did the same and, like me, tied themselves securely with ropes. We counted ourselves. There were eighteen of us; all the others had perished. Johannes Maartens, whom I have always admired, had not lost his composure. He touched me with his hand, then raised his finger toward a cascade of salt water, which trickled from a crevice in the cliff. I understood what he meant. He wanted to know if I was a man to climb the mainmast, still standing, and jump from there onto the tiny platform that this crevice, twenty feet above the poop deck , created in the sheer rock. The width of the jump varied from second to second, according to the oscillations of the mast. Sometimes it was six feet, and sometimes twenty feet. The mast swayed like a drunkard, from the effect of rolling and pitching, while the ship crushed a little more, with each shock of its hull against the cliff. I untied myself and began to climb. Arriving at the top of the tragic mast, I measured with my eye the width of the jump that was necessary, and threw myself. The operation succeeded and I landed on the crevice of the cliff. There, I got down on all fours, ready to extend a hand to my companions, who had followed me in haste in climbing the mast. There was no time to lose, because the Sparwehr could, at any moment, sink into deep water. All of us, as many as there were, were half- stunned by the icy wind, which blew on us and on our wet clothes. The master chef was, after me, the first to jump. He was thrown into the void and I saw his body spinning on itself, like a car wheel. A pack of sea caught him, as he fell, and crushed him against the cliff. One of our cabin boys, a young man of twenty, bearded, was pinned by the mast against a projection of the cliff. It didn’t take long for him. He died instantly. Two other men fell into the void, as the cook had done. The other fourteen and Captain Maartens, who jumped last, were safe and sound. An hour later, the Sparwehr sank. For two days and two nights, in great mortal danger, we remained clinging to the cliff, with no way out for us, because it was impossible for us to climb any higher, and we could not go back down to the sea, which had calmed down a little. On the third day, in the morning, a fishing boat discovered us on our perch. The men who rode it were entirely dressed in white clothes, very dirty, as you can imagine. Their long hair was curiously knotted on the top of their heads. This knot, I learned later, is, among those who have it, the sign of marriage. It also offers, when a dispute cannot be settled by words, an excellent point of support, allowing one to give one’s interlocutor a solid slap. The boat returned to the village to which those who rode it belonged, in order to seek help. Everyone rushed there with ropes, and almost the whole day was necessary to pull us from our unfortunate position. After which, they took us with them. They were very poor and miserable people, and their food was difficult to digest, even for the stomach of a sailor. Their rice, unspeakably filthy, was brown as chocolate. The grains, which remained three-quarters of their husks, were mixed with bits of straw and bits of wood. At any moment, one had to stop eating, in order to insert one’s thumb or forefinger into one’s mouth, and rid one’s jaw of the hard substances that hurt it. They also ate a kind of millet, seasoned with pickles of a particular kind, with a taste so strong that they ate away at one’s mouth . Chili peppers. The houses were built of dried mud, with a thatched roof. Through the interior partitions were made openings, through which the smoke from the kitchen passed, heating, as it passed, the room where one slept. We rested for several days with these good people, stretched out on the mats they offered us, and consoling ourselves for our misfortune with their tobacco, which was very mild, almost tasteless. We smoked it in pipes whose bowl was tiny, and was fitted with a stem a yard long. They also made a kind of beverage which was sour and drunk hot, and had the appearance of milk. If one took a rather large dose, it quickly went to the head. After having gulped down enormous pots of it, I was drunk to the point of singing, which is, for every sailor, throughout the world, the customary mode of expressing his intoxication. Encouraged by this fine success, my companions imitated me, and soon we all began to roar, without caring about the new storm of snow which was raging outside, completely forgetting also that we had been cast upon an unknown land, abandoned by God. Old Johannes Maartens laughed aloud, made the sound of a trumpet while singing, and beat his thighs vigorously, in the company of the best of our band. Hendrik Hamel, usually impassive and solemn like all the Dutch, a small brown face with two eyes like two black pearls shining, gave himself over, like the worst among us, to a thousand follies. As drunken sailors invariably do, he ceaselessly took out of his pocket all the money he had saved with him, in order to buy more and more milky beverage. Our conduct was shameful. And the women never stopped bringing us drinks, while all the audience the room could hold crowded in to witness our buffoonish outbursts. Thus it was that Captain Johannes Maartens, his partner Hendrik Hamel, their thirteen men, and I, raised a commotion and shouted with all our might in the poor Korean village, while outside the winter wind raged on the Yellow Sea. The white man has victoriously circumnavigated the planet that carries him. I truly believe that if he was driven by his thirst for lucre and plunder, it was to his mad carelessness that he owed the success of his enterprises. What we had seen up to this hour of the land of Cho Sen Ah! ah! what a pretty name, and I really couldn’t have chosen a better one! was not likely to excite our enthusiasm much. If these miserable fishermen were a true sample of his inhabitants, we had no trouble understanding why this land had little attraction for foreign navigators. Chosen, in English, means chosen; hence the narrator’s pun. We were mistaken. The village where we were was part of an island, and those who commanded there had undoubtedly sent a message to the continent. One fine morning, in fact, three enormous two-masted junks, whose lateen sails were made of rice straw mats, dropped anchor some distance from the beach. When the sampans that detached from them had docked at the shore, the eyes of Captain Johannes Maartens widened enormously, for a magnificent silk began to shimmer before his eyes again. A well-dressed Korean had disembarked, dressed from head to toe in silk, a multicolored silk, in pale tones, and he was surrounded by half a dozen obsequious servants, similarly dressed in silk. This nobleman’s name was Kwan Yung Jin, as I later learned . He was a yang ban, or nobleman. He served as magistrate or governor of the province on which the island depended. A highly lucrative job, of course, since he put a lot of pressure on his subjects. At least a hundred soldiers disembarked after him and headed with him toward the village. These soldiers were armed with spears whose blade, long and flat like that of an axe, sharp as a knife blade, was notched with three prongs. Some of them were equipped with a matchlock gun, which dated back to heroic times. It was of such size that one man was needed to carry it, and another man to carry the tripod on which it rested, when it was wanted to be used. The weapon, as I had to observe, sometimes fired. Sometimes, too, it did not. Success depended on a good adjustment of the fuse and the condition of the powder deposited in the basin. This was how Kwan Yung Jin used to travel. The village leaders trembled with fear before him, and no doubt they were not wrong. I stepped forward, as interpreter, on behalf of my companions, and mumbled the few words of Korean I knew. Kwan Yung Jin scowled and gestured for me to step aside. I obeyed without defiance. Why should I have feared him? I was as tall as he was and, in weight, I clearly outweighed him. I was handsome, my skin was white and my hair was golden. He turned his back on me and went toward the village chief, while the six silken servants formed a defensive cordon between him and us. While he was speaking to this man, several soldiers came forward, carrying on their shoulders planks an inch thick, about six feet long and two feet wide, which were curiously split lengthwise. Toward one of their ends was a round hole, of a diameter less than that of a man’s head . Kwan Yung Jin gave an order. Two soldiers carrying one of these planks approached Tromp, who was sitting on the ground, very busy examining a whitlow he had on one of his fingers. The Dutchman Tromp was a clumsy fellow, slow in his movements, slow in his thoughts. Before he had even grasped what it was, the plank opened like a pair of scissors, then closed, firmly riveted, around his neck. Suddenly realizing his predicament, Tromp began to bellow like a bull and dance with such frenzy that we had to step aside to make room for him and the board that was dancing with him. Things then turned ugly. It was clear that Kwan Yung Jin had planned to put us all in the stocks, and the battle began. We fought, bare-fisted, against a hundred well-armed soldiers and the villagers who had joined them, while Kwan Yung Jin stood aside in his silks, in proud disdain. It was then that I earned my name of Yi Yong ik, the Almighty. My My companions had already made their submission and had long since been put in the shackles that I was still fighting. My fists were as hard as the hardest mallets, and I had, to direct them, muscles and a will no less solid. I had quickly understood, to my joy, that the Koreans knew nothing of the art of boxing, both for attack and for guard. I knocked them down like bowling pins, and they fell in heaps, one on top of the other. I could not have respected Kwan Yung Jin more. Having rushed at him, his servants intervened and saved him. They were limp beings . Punching into the mass, I sent them rolling to the right and left, in great disorder, and I made a surprising mess of their silks. But soldiers and villagers, returning to the fight to defend their lord and master who was once again in danger, fell upon me, so numerous that my movements were hampered. Those
who were behind pushed those who were in front. I did not stop hitting and littering the ground with my enemies. Finally, they almost suffocated me under the numbers and, like the others, I was put on the plank. My companions and I were loaded, in our stocks, onto one of the junks, which both set sail again. “Good God!” asked Vandervoot, “and what else? Packed like chickens on market day, we were pitifully sitting on the deck, one next to the other.” Just as Vandervoot asked his question, the junk heeled heavily in the breeze , and we all tumbled pell-mell, with our planks, toward the opposite scuppers, in very bad shape and with our necks all grazed. Scuppers are the holes made in the frame of a ship’s deck to let seawater drain. From the poop deck where he was standing, Kwan Yung Jin looked down at us, without appearing to see us. As for Vandervoot, he was known among us for many years only by the nickname: And what now, Vandervoot? Poor fellow! He froze to death one night in the streets of Keijo, without finding a door that would open for him. We were disembarked on the mainland, where we were thrown into a stinking prison, infested with vermin. Such was our entry onto Korean soil and our first contact with the officials of that country. But I had to, for all my companions, take a glorious revenge on Kwan Yung Jin, the day when, as you will see, Lady Om was kind to me and the power was mine. We remained in this prison for many days. Kwan Yung Jin had sent a messenger to Keijo, the capital, to find out what the royal decision would be regarding us. In the meantime, we had passed into the status of a fairground exhibition. From dawn to dusk, the bars of our windows were besieged by the natives, who had never before seen specimens of our race. Among these onlookers, there were not only the populace. Elegant ladies, carried in palanquins on the shoulders of their coolies, came to contemplate the foreign devils vomited by the sea and, while their servants chased the vulgar crowd with blows of their whips, they risked long timid glances towards us. For our part, we could see little of their faces, which were veiled, according to the custom of the country. Only the dancers and the old women walked around outside with their faces uncovered. I have often thought that Kwan Yung Jin suffered from nerves and that, when these particularly tormented him, he would attack us. However , without rhyme or reason, whenever he had the whim, he would order us taken out of prison and beaten in the street, to the cries of joy of the populace. The Asiatic is a cruel beast, who delights, without tiring, in the spectacle of suffering. Then, to our great satisfaction, the beatings ended. The arrival of Kim was the cause. Who was Kim? I will only say of him that he was the purest heart we had ever met in Korea. He was then a captain, and commanded fifty men when we first met him. Then he became commander of the Palace Guards. And finally, he died for the love of Lady Om and for mine. Who was Kim? He was Kim, and that says it all. As soon as he arrived, our necks were freed from their shackles and we were lodged in the best inn in the place. No doubt we were still prisoners. But honorable prisoners, with an honor guard of fifty horsemen. The next day, we traveled along the great royal road, sixteen sailors mounted astride sixteen dwarf horses, such as are found in Korea, and we headed for Keijo. The Emperor, Kim explained to me, had expressed his desire to lower his gaze upon the strange Sea Devils. The journey lasted several days, for it was necessary to cross, from north to south, half of Korean territory. At the first halt, having dismounted, I went to see that our mounts were given food. It was now or never to cry out: And what now, Vandervoot? I did not hesitate and everyone came running. As sure as I am alive, the people of our escort fed their horses with fava bean soup, hot fava bean soup, again and again. And, during the whole time of our journey, the horses had nothing but fava bean soup. They were, as I have said, dwarf horses, dwarfs as they could be. Having bet with Kim, I lifted one of them and, despite its neighing and its resistance, I lifted it, struggling, onto my shoulders, where I held it firmly. So that Kim’s men, who had already heard of my nickname Yi Yong ik, the Almighty, no longer gave me any other name. Kim was rather tall for a Korean, a race of tall stature and well -muscled. And he himself held himself in high esteem in this regard. But, elbow to elbow and palm to palm, I made him lower his arm at will. Also the soldiers and onlookers, who gathered as we passed through the hamlets, stared at me open-mouthed, murmuring: Yi Yong ik! We were, in fact, promoted to the dignity of a traveling menagerie. Our fame preceded us, and the people of the surrounding countryside flocked in crowds to see us parade. They lined up all along the road, as if at a circus. At night, the inns where we stayed were besieged by a multitude eager to contemplate us. We had a little rest only after the soldiers had driven back this crowd with spears and many blows. Beforehand, Kim called the strongest men, the most renowned wrestlers, and amused himself and the crowd enormously by seeing me marmalade them and beat them into the mud, one after the other. Bread was ignored, but we had plenty of very white rice, excellent for the muscles and whose benefits I felt for a long time, as well as a meat that I quickly discovered to be dog meat, an animal that is regularly slaughtered in Korean butcher shops . All seasoned with terribly spicy pickles, but which I ended up loving passionately. For drink, another white beverage, but limpid and strongly going to the head, which came from the distillation of rice, and a pint of which would have been enough to kill a sick person, if it wonderfully invigorated a strong man, even to the point of driving him almost mad. At Chong ho, a fortified city that we passed through, I saw, following an exaggerated absorption of this beverage, Kim and the notables rolling under the table. I should say on the table, because it was none other than the ground, where we were squatting and where, for the hundredth time, I caught some severe cramps in my hamstrings. There again, everyone murmured: Yi Yong ik! and, at the Emperor’s own Court, the glorious rumor preceded me. Still, no longer really feeling like a prisoner, I rode beside Kim, my long legs almost touching the ground. As soon as the road became even a little muddy and my mount sank into it, my feet scraped the mud. Kim was young. Kim was a universal man. In all circumstances, he showed himself to be true to himself. All day and a good half of the night, we would talk and joke together. I had certainly received the gift of languages, and very quickly, I learned Korean. Kim marveled at my progress. He also instructed me in the customs and character of the natives, their qualities and their faults. He taught me many songs, flower songs, love songs, and drinking songs. Here is one that was his own invention, the end of which I will try to translate for you. Kim and Pak, in their youth, signed a pact between them, according to which they would abstain from drinking from now on. The pact was soon broken and they both sang in chorus: No, no, don’t hold me back any longer! The bewitching cup, From which I drank so much, Will make my soul joyful again! Tell me, old man, tell me, oh! tell me Where is ruby-colored wine sold? Isn’t it near that pink peach tree? Good luck, farewell! To hell with our wish! I’m running to drink a good dose. Hendrik Hamel, a scheming and cunning man, encouraged me in my jokes, which earned me Kim’s favor and, in turn, reflected this on Hendrik Hamel and our entire company. Hendrik Hamel never ceased to be my advisor, I must proclaim, and it was by following his instructions that I subsequently won Yunsan’s favor, the heart of Lady Om and the goodwill of the Emperor. I doubtless had within myself the inflexible will and the temerity necessary for the great game I engaged. But, if I was the arm, Hendrik Hamel was the head who ordered everything. Until Keijo, the country we were traveling was dominated by high snowy mountains, on the sides of which were carved numerous fertile valleys. It was dotted with fortified towns, similar to Chong ho, and where we stopped after each of our stages. Every evening, from peak to peak, luminous signals were lit up, their flames running across the entire region. Kim did not fail to observe carefully these chains of fire which, from the coasts to the capital, glowed red, carrying their messages to the Emperor. A single flame per beacon meant that the country was at peace. Two flames announced a revolt or a foreign invasion. Never during our journey did we see more than a single flame. As we rode, Vandervoot, who brought up the rear, never ceased to admire and wonder. And more and more, he asked: “Good heavens! And what else?” Chapter 17. Lord! Lord! A Poor Sailor… Keijo, the capital, was an important city, where the entire population, with the exception of the nobles, or yang bans, was dressed in the eternal white. This, Kim explained to me, allows one to determine at first glance, by the degree of cleanliness or dirtiness of their clothes, the social rank of each person. For it goes without saying that a coolie, who has only one costume, is, inevitably, always dirty. Likewise, one can easily conclude that anyone who appears in immaculate white undoubtedly has many spare clothes and an army of laundresses at his command to keep himself spotless. Only the yang bans, with their pale, multicolored silks, soar far above this common and vulgar classification. After resting for several days in an inn where we washed our linen and repaired, as best we could, in our own clothes, the ravages of a shipwreck and the disorder of our voyage, we were called before the Emperor. A large open space opened up in front of the Imperial Palace, which was preceded by colossal dogs, carved in stone. They were squatting on pedestals twice the height of a tall man , and looked more like tortoises, so much did they flattened. The stone walls of the Palace were formidable and covered with a lacework of sculptures. They were so robust that they could defy the most powerful cannons of a besieging army to breach them . The Main Gate was a monument in itself. It resembled a pagoda, and many floors, each covered with a tiled roof, were superimposed on it, decreasing in width towards the top . Richly equipped soldiers stood guard in front of this gate. These, Kim told me, are the so-called Tiger Hunters, that is to say, the bravest and most formidable warriors of whom Korea is proud. But enough. A thousand pages would be necessary for me to worthily describe the Emperor’s Palace. I will only say that we had before us the most magnificent materialization of power that it was possible for us to contemplate. Only an ancient and powerful civilization had been able to raise these endless and proud walls and these marvelous roofs with their countless gables. We, old sea dogs, were not led into an Audience Hall. But, directly, we were taken into a large Feast Hall, where the Emperor awaited us. The feast was drawing to a close and the crowd of guests was in a joyful mood. What a teeming and superb crowd! High Dignitaries, Princes of the Blood, Nobles bearing swords, Priests with pale faces, Senior Officers with tanned skin, Ladies of the Court with their faces uncovered, Painted dancers who were resting, seated on the ground, from their dances, Duennas, Ladies of Honor, Eunuchs, Servants and Slaves. All these people moved aside before us, however, when the Emperor, accompanied by his familiars, advanced to examine us. He was, especially for an Asian, an amiable monarch. He could not have been more than forty years old, and his skin, fair and pale, had never known the heat of the sun. He had a large paunch, supported by spindly legs. He must have been, however, a handsome man in his youth, and his forehead retained a certain nobility. But his eyes were bleary, with creased eyelids, and his lips contracted with a sort of trembling. This, as I was to learn, was the fruit of the excesses to which he gave himself over, excesses encouraged by Yunsan, the high Buddhist priest and imperial provider, of whom we will speak later. In our sailor attire, my companions and I cut a rather poor figure in the brilliant circle that surrounded us. There were at first astonished exclamations, which soon gave way to laughter. The dancers surrounded us, took us prisoner, attaching three or four to each of us, and dragging us along in their movements, like bears being forced to dance. It was humiliating for us. But what could poor sea dogs do for their own defense? What could old Johannes Maartens do, with a band of laughing young girls on his tail, squeezing his nose, pinching his arms, tickling his ribs to make him wriggle? To escape this treatment, which horrified him, Hans Amden asked for space and began to perform, with a heavy step, a most baroque Dutch dance, until the whole court burst into tumultuous hilarity. As for me, I, who had been, for several days, Kim’s merry companion and equal, considered the role of clown that they were trying to make me play outrageous. I resisted, tooth and nail, the laughing Ki Sang. Stiffening on my legs, my torso straight, my arms crossed, I disdained pinches and tickles, which did not produce in me the slightest shiver. I was abandoned for other prey. Hendrik Hamel, dragging behind him the three Dancers who had attacked him, rushed towards me. He chewed me: –For the love of God, old man, make your effect, and get us out of here… I say that he chewed me, because, each time he opened his mouth to While he was speaking, the three Dancers stuffed it with sweets. He continued, as best he could, tilting his head alternately from right to left, in order to avoid the hands full of sweets, which were persisting: –These antics are deplorable for our dignity. They will sink us. We are reduced to the state of learned animals. I envy you and regret not being able to imitate you in your resistance. Ah! the bitches! Continue to make yourself respected by them. And make us respect them too… He was forced to keep silent, because the terrible young girls had completely blocked his mouth with their sweets. I had understood, however, and my natural audacity was alerted. A eunuch who, behind me, was tickling my neck with a long feather, suddenly made me start. The young dancers, who had achieved nothing with me, watched the eunuch’s maneuvers with a careful eye. Would he succeed where they had failed? I let nothing of my design show. But suddenly, quick as an arrow, without even turning my head or body, I stretched out my arm and delivered a masterful backslap to the man’s face. My hand flattened magnificently on his cheek and jaw. There was a crack, like a plank of a ship’s hull splitting in a storm, and the eunuch rolled over like a ball, only to land on the floor twelve feet from me. The laughter ceased. It gave way to cries of surprise, and I heard a whisper: Yi Yong ik! I crossed my arms again and remained where I was, proud with pride. There was certainly in me the makings of a perfect ham. For listen to what followed. With a proud and disdainful eye, the acknowledged leader, from that moment on, of all my companions, I faced, without lowering my gaze, the hundreds of eyes that stared at me. And it was I who made them all lower or turn away. All except two. These two eyes were those of a young woman, whom, from the richness of her dress and the half dozen maids who surrounded her, I immediately judged to be a lady of quality. It was indeed Lady Om, a true princess, belonging to the House of Min. I have said that she was young. She appeared to be my age, about thirty. And, although she was ripe and beautiful enough to be married, she was not. She looked at me, eye to eye, without flinching, until she had forced me to flee her gaze. There was, in her pupils, neither insolence, nor hostility, nor any defiance. I found nothing but immense fascination in it. I was loath to admit that I was overcome by this little woman. I pretended, turning my head away, to look back at the ashamed group of my comrades, prey to the dancers. Then I clapped my hands, in the Asian fashion, shouting imperiously, in Korean, in a stentorian voice, as one speaks to subordinates: “You others, leave them alone!” My chest was strong, and one would have thought one heard a bull bellowing. Never before had such an imperative and resounding order shaken the sacred air of the Imperial Palace. The entire room was petrified. The women trembled with fear and huddled together, as if seeking mutual protection. The little dancers let go of the sailors and their captain and drew back, terrified, giggling. Only Lady Om did not seem troubled and began to look into my eyes again, which had returned to hers, her eyes wide open. A heavy silence fell again, as if everyone was waiting for some fateful word to resonate. All eyes furtively slid their gaze from the Emperor to me, and from me to the Emperor. I still remained, fortunately without losing my head, motionless and silent, with my arms crossed. Finally the Emperor spoke. “He knows our language…” he said simply. The whole room gasped. You could hear the breaths palpitating in the chests. I didn’t really know what to say and, like a good, joking sailor, I rushed into the first crazy idea that came to mind. “This language,” I declared, “is my native tongue.” The Emperor seemed both astonished and impressed by my assurance. He made a face like someone who had swallowed the wrong way and his lips tightened. Then he asked me: “Explain yourself!” I continued: “This language is my native tongue. I spoke it as soon as I was born, and my precocious wisdom amazed all those who approached me. Then one day I was carried off by pirates to a faraway land, where I was educated. I forgot everything about my origins. But, as soon as I set foot on Korean soil, I spontaneously spoke my ancient language again. I am Korean by birth and only now am I at home.” There were various murmurs and discussions among those present. The Emperor questioned Kim. This excellent man did not hesitate to support my statements and did not fear to lie in my favor. “I testify,” he said, “that he spoke our language when I met him coming out of the sea… ” I interrupted him: “Bring me, without further delay, some clothes worthy of me!” And, turning again to the dancers: “Leave my slaves in peace! They have just completed a long journey and are tired. Yes, these are my faithful slaves. ” Kim took me into another room, where he helped me, according to the request I had expressed, to change my clothes. Then he dismissed the servants and, left alone with me, gave me a brief and useful lesson on how to express myself and conduct myself. He had no more idea than I where I was going with this. But he was, like me, full of confidence. I returned to the Great Hall and this was the most amusing part of the adventure, while I reeled off my Korean, supposedly rusty from my long absence from the country, Hendrik Hamel and the others, who had persisted in speaking only their own language since their arrival on land, did not understand a single word I was saying. “I am,” I proclaimed, “of the noble blood of the House of Koryu, which once reigned in Song do.” And I reeled off, as best I could, an old story that Kim had told me during our ride. While speaking, I watched him strain his ears, with many grimaces, to make sure that I was a good parrot. The Emperor asked me for some additional information about my companions. I replied: “These, as I said, are my slaves. All of them, except that old rascal, I pointed to Johannes Maartens, who is the son of a freedman.” I signaled to Hendrik Hamel to approach. “This other one,” I continued, “was born in my father’s house, of slave stock. He is particularly dear to me. We are the same age, born on the same day, and on that day, my father gave him to me as a present. When, later, Hendrik Hamel, curious to know what I had said, learned the story, he became quite irritated and began to reproach me. “What do you want?” I replied. “I said that like a starling, to say something, without bad intention, believe me. But what’s done is done! When the wine is drawn, it must be drunk. We must continue to play our parts, and you must take your part. Taiwun, the Emperor’s brother, was a great fool among fools. He challenged me to drink.” The Emperor found the challenge amusing and ordered a dozen of his nobles, who were hardly more intelligent, to join in the orgy. The women were asked to withdraw. I also sent away the scowling, growling Hendrik Hamel and all my companions, not without having obtained for them that they would leave their inn and be lodged in the Palace itself. On the other hand, I asked Kim to stay near me. After which, the tournament began. The next day, the whole Palace buzzed like a hive of bees with the noise of my exploits. I had put Taiwun and the other champions in such a state that they were snoring, dead drunk, on their mats, when I withdrew and, without any help, managed to go to bed. And, never since, Taiwun doubted that I was a genuine Korean. Only one of his compatriots, he claimed, was capable of drinking with impunity as much as I had done. The Imperial Palace formed, in itself, a veritable city and I was lodged, with my companions, in its most beautiful district, in a sort of Summer Pavilion, completely isolated. I took for myself, of course, the most magnificent apartment, Hendrik Hamel and Maartens had to accept, as did the other sailors, with grumbling, what I left them. The first day had not passed when Yunsan, the Buddhist High Priest , had me summoned. He ordered, when I was before him, that we be left alone. We were both sitting on thick mats in a dark room. Good heavens! What a man Yunsan was! What a keen and penetrating mind! He immediately began to scrutinize my soul in all its folds. He was very well informed about all the other countries of the universe and knew things that no one in Korea even had the slightest idea existed. Did he believe in the fable of my birth? I could never fathom him. His face, as impassive as bronze, gave no hint of his inner feelings. What Yunsan thought, no one but he knew. But, behind this poorly dressed priest with a thin belly, I sensed the effective power that commanded both in the Imperial Palace and in all of Korea. I also understood, during our conversation, that he intended to use me, that he considered me as being able to be useful to him. Was he acting on his own behalf, or on that of Lady Om? This was a hazelnut to be opened, and I passed it on to Hendrik Hamel, so that he could see what was in its shell. As for me, it was indifferent to me. I lived, as was my custom, in the present moment, caring little about creating or foreseeing, or preventing, if necessary, future troubles. Then, it was Lady Om who, in her turn, sent for me. I followed, to go to her, a eunuch with a smooth face and a feline step, and crossed with him the long silent corridors, which led to the apartment she occupied. She was housed as befitted a Princess of the Blood and possessed, for her sole use, a veritable Palace. A park surrounded it, with ponds blooming with lotuses, and a multitude of three-hundred-year-old trees , so skillfully stunted by the art of the gardeners that they barely reached my height. Bronze bridges, so delicate and finely crafted that they seemed to have come from a goldsmith’s workshop, were thrown over the ponds and lotuses. A grove of tall bamboos concealed Lady Om’s dwelling. My head was spinning. Simple sailor though I was, I was not indifferent to beautiful women, and upon entering this superb and mysterious dwelling, I felt a feeling that was more than mere curiosity. I had heard love stories, which told of men of the people who had been distinguished by queens, and I wondered if the hour of my happy fortune, which would testify to the truth of these tales, had not struck for me. Lady Om did not waste her time on superfluous introductions. She was surrounded by a swarm of her women. But she paid no more attention to their presence than a carter to that of his horse. She made me sit beside her on soft mats, which transformed half the floor of the room into a bed, then ordered that wine and sweets be brought to me. Everything was served on tiny pedestal tables, only a foot high, and encrusted with pearls. Lord! Lord! I only had to look into her eyes to be convinced of her feelings towards me. But, stop there! Lady Om was no fool. She was my age, as I said, thirty, and with the seriousness appropriate to a person of that age. She knew what she wanted and what that she did not want. It was even for this reason that she had never married, despite the pressure that an Asian Court had been able to exert on her. They had claimed to force her to marry one of her distant cousins, belonging to the great Min family, and who was named Chong Mong ju. He too was not stupid and aimed, through this marriage, to seize the real power held by the High Priest. Also Yunsan, who did not claim to give up his place, was himself a secret candidate for the hand of Lady Om and he did everything in his power to turn her away from her cousin, and clip his wings. It goes without saying that I did not discover all this intrigue at once . I guessed it in part, through certain confidences of Lady Om, and the sagacity of Hendrik Hamel penetrated the rest. Lady Om was a rare pearl. Women of her caliber are born barely two per century in the entire universe. She disregarded social rules and conventions. Religion, as she practiced it, was a series of entirely spiritual abstractions, partly learned from Yunsan’s lessons, partly drawn from her own moral fund. As for the religion of the common people, as it was taught to the people, she claimed that it was an invention intended to keep thousands of men under the yoke , who toiled for others. Lady Om had a strong will and a completely feminine heart. And she was beautiful. Beautiful with a universal beauty, not just Asian. Her large black eyes were neither slanted nor too narrowly slitted . They were only long, very long, and the crease of the eyelids that enclosed them only served to give them a special spice. I was intoxicated by the situation in which I found myself. Princess and sailor! What a charming dream! And I racked my brains not to appear more foolish than she was and to push my intrigue to its conclusion. I was playing with fire and I was delighted. So I began by retelling the incredible story I had told in the presence of the entire Court, namely that I was Korean by birth and that I belonged to the ancient line of Koryu. She cut me off by lightly tapping me on the lips with her pheasant-feather fan. “All right, all right!” she said. “Don’t give me children’s stories here . Know that you are to me more and better than a descendant of the house of Koryu. You are…” She stopped speaking and I waited, observing the growing boldness of her gaze. She finished, after a moment: “You are… You are a man!” A man standing before me, such as I have never sensed, even in the most voluptuous dreams of my sleep and my nights. Lord! Lord! What could a poor sailor do, faced with such a confession? The poor sailor, I admit, blushed terribly beneath his sea-tanned skin. Lady Om’s eyes became two wells of mischievous and teasing roguery, while, with all my strength, I held back my arms that were burning to embrace her. Finally, she began to laugh, a laugh that made my mouth water even more, and clapped her hands. It was a sign that the audience was over. I came to find Hendrik Hamel, his head completely capsized. “Ah! the woman!” he pronounced, after a long and deep meditation. And he looked at me with a deep sigh of envy, the meaning of which it was impossible for me to mistake. “The woman, yes…” he continued. It was your biceps, Adam Strang, it was your bull’s neck, it was your tawny gold hair, that won her over! It’s fair game, old fellow. Push your game to the limit! And if you win the game, all will be well with us all. I’ll give you, if you don’t mind, a few more tips on how to behave with her. I bristled. For being a simple sailor, I was still a man, and I didn’t have to be directed in my dealings with a woman. Hendrik Hamel may have been co-owner of the old Sparwehr. He possessed, I admit, astronomical knowledge, gleaned by him from books intended for sailors, superior to mine. But, on the subject of women, he had and could have no authority over me. He smiled, his lips pursed, and asked me: “Do you really love Lady Om?” “Whether I love her or not, it doesn’t matter!” I replied. He darted the black pearls of his sharp eyes at me and repeated: “Do you really love her? ” “Hey! Hey! Passably…” I replied. “And more than passably, if that interests you. ” “Then go ahead! And, through her, we will one day obtain a ship, thanks to which we will flee this accursed land. I would give half the silk of all the Indies to make another good Christian meal .” He began to stare at me again, as if to sense my thoughts. “Do you think,” he said, “that you’ll succeed with her?” This absurd question made me jump. He smiled with a satisfied air. “Perfect! Perfect! But, believe me, don’t rush things too much. Conquests that are too quick are worthless. Make yourself stand out. Make yourself desired. Don’t be lavish with your kindnesses. Put a price on your bull’s neck and your golden hair. Your luck is in them, happy mortal! And they will do more for you than the brains of all the scholars in the universe combined. The days that followed were dizzying for me. All my time was divided between my audiences with the Emperor, my drinking bouts with Taiwun, my conversations with the High Priest, and the delicious hours I spent in Lady Om’s society. Moreover, I stayed awake part of the nights, on Hendrik Hamel’s orders, and occupied them in learning from Kim the thousand details of Etiquette, the manners of the Court, the history of Korea and its gods, young and old, all the refinements of fine language, and even the vulgar language of the coolies. Never had a poor sailor been made to toil so much. I was, in reality, a puppet in the hands of the High Priest Yunsan, who used me for his secret purposes. He pulled the strings without my understanding a word of this great affair. With Lady Om, yes, I was a man, as she had said, not a puppet. And yet, yet, when I look back and meditate through time, I have doubts on this point. I believe that, while seeking to satisfy her passion with me, she made me do as she pleased. The fact remains that, on one point, we understood each other. Our mutual desires for each other were so ardent, so pressing, that no will, not even Yunsan’s, could have managed to stand in the way. The palace intrigue, which I vaguely guessed, but whose exact plot I could not grasp, was directed against Chong Mong ju, Lady Om’s cousin and suitor. There were endless threads in it , and I lost myself in the tangle of this labyrinth. However, I did not worry about it otherwise. I contented myself with reporting to Hendrik Hamel, my mentor, all the interesting details I discovered. And he, sitting with a furrowed brow, during interminable hours of the night, applied himself to ordering and untangling, if not to confusing, this spider’s web. As my faithful slave, he insisted on accompanying me everywhere, and seeing everything for himself. But Yunsan often opposed his presence and, for my part, I excluded him from my conversations with Lady Om. I contented myself with reporting to him what had happened in our private conversations, keeping quiet, of course, about the tender incidents that did not concern him. I believe that, deep down, Hendrik Hamel was not sorry to see me assume alone the responsibility and the risks of the comedy that was being played out. If I succeeded, his fortune would have been made. If, on the contrary, I collapsed, he had nothing left to do but retire in peace to his hole. Such was, I am convinced, his prudent reasoning. It did not, however, save him from the common disaster, as you will learn shortly. To Kim, I repeated constantly: “Help me! In gratitude, I will grant all your wishes. Do you desire anything?” He told me that he wished to command the Tiger Hunters, charged with the guard of the Imperial Palace, whose fate would henceforth be in his hands. “A little patience!” I replied with aplomb. “Your wish will be granted.” I said. How I would fulfill my promise, I knew nothing. Also, having nothing to give, I had shown myself, without hesitation, magnanimous and generous. The most curious thing is that a day came when Kim indeed obtained the captaincy of the Tiger Hunters. And he too had no reason to be proud of it. So I practically left to Hamel and Yunsan, who were both profound politicians, the task of combining their intrigues and preparing their batteries. I was above all a lover, and my fate was undoubtedly more enviable than theirs. Can you imagine my situation? That of a sailor, long buffeted by storms, who now rejoiced, dined, and drank wine in the company of the great men of the earth, who was the declared lover of a beautiful Princess, and who, moreover, relied on brains of the caliber of Hendrik Hamel and the High Priest Yunsan for all serious business? Wasn’t that truly admirable? On several occasions, Yunsan had tried to learn, from Hendrik Hamel, the truth about my past. But immediately, Hendrik Hamel became a stupid slave again, solely occupied with pleasing his good master in everything, whose designs he had never fathomed. And, to divert the conversation, he lingered over admiring tales of my drinking tournaments with Taiwun. I will not go into the details of all the exquisite things that happened between Lady Om and me, although she has been nothing more than an ashen dear to my heart for many centuries . But we had nothing to refuse each other. When a man and a woman love each other , nothing can keep them apart, and kingdoms can crumble without loosening the grip of their arms. Then, little by little, the question of our marriage appeared on the water. It arose gradually, slowly, at first, through simple Court gossip, through whispered conversations between eunuchs and maids. But, throughout the Palace, there is no kitchen boy gossip that does not gradually rise to the throne. Soon this rumor was no longer a secret to anyone. The Palace, and all of Korea with it, vibrating in unison, were in great agitation. There was good reason. This marriage was, for Chong Mong ju, a full blown punch between the eyes. He fought against it with all his might, and accepted, with Yunsan, the decisive battle for which the latter was ready. He succeeded in attracting half the provincial clergy to his party, and, right up to the gates of his Palace, the panic-stricken Emperor saw endless processions of protesting priests file past. Yunsan stood firm as a rock. The other half of the clergy had embraced his cause and remained loyal to him, as did all the great cities of the Empire, such as Keijo, Fusan, Song do, Pyen Yang, Chenampo, and Chomulpo. He and Lady Om completely invested the Emperor. As she later confessed to me, she put pressure on him with her nervous breakdowns and her tears, and threatened him with a public scandal that would shake the very foundations of the Throne. Yunsan completed the rout of this weak spirit, by launching this pitiful monarch into new debaucheries, kept ready for this purpose. So much so that a day came when Yunsan, by way of warning, with an imperceptible blink of her austere eyes, suddenly more mocking and more human than I would have ever believed them capable of, declared to me: –You must let your hair grow, for the wedding knot. As it is not in the natural order of things that a Princess of Imperial Blood marries a sailor, even when the latter claims, without visible and palpable proof, to be a descendant of the Princes of Koryu, a decree was promulgated by the Emperor, declaring that such was my authentic ancestry. At the same time, the rebel Governors of five provinces having been broken on the wheel and beheaded, I was appointed, myself, sole Governor of these five provinces. And, as it was necessary to perfect the number seven, which is considered in Korea as a magic number, two other Governors of two other provinces were similarly revoked to make way for me. Lord! Lord! a poor sailor… So here I am sent on the great roads of Korea, with an escort of five hundred soldiers, and a numerous retinue, to go and take possession of the government of seven provinces, where fifty thousand troops awaited me under arms! Everywhere I went, I distributed life, death and torture at my pleasure. I had a treasury of my own, with a guardian to defend it, and a regiment of Scribes at my command, to dictate my wishes to them. A thousand tax collectors were also waiting for me, charged with extracting from the people, in my name, their last pennies. The seven provinces that had been allocated to me constituted the northern border of Korea. Beyond stretched the country that we call today Manchuria, and which was then known under the name of the Land of the Hongdas, or of the Red Heads. They were bold mounted raiders, who sometimes crossed the Yalu on their swift horses, in compact masses, to fall like locusts on Korean territory. It was rumored that they indulged in cannibalism. Still, as I learned from my own experience, they were formidable fighters, and it was not easy to overcome them. The year that passed was greatly tormented. While at Keijo, Yunsan and Lady Om completed the loss of Chong Mong ju, I carved out a glorious reputation for myself in my government. It was still Hendrik Hamel who, in my shadow, pushed me and directed me. But, for everyone, I was the skilled head who commanded and acted. In my name, Hendrik Hamel taught my troops European tactics and drill, and led them to measure themselves against the Red Heads. It was a magnificent struggle, which lasted an entire year. But, at the end of the year, the northern border of Korea was at peace, and on the Korean shore there was not a single Red Head left, except for the dead left by the enemy. I do not know if this invasion of Red Heads is recorded in Western histories. I also do not know if they mention the one which, during the previous generation, was led into Korea by Hideyoshi, then Soghu of Japan. This invasion penetrated as far south as Korea, and Hideyoshi shipped to Japan a thousand barrels filled with ears and noses, soaked in brine, from Koreans killed on the battlefields. I have often spoken about it with many old men of both sexes, eyewitnesses of these battles, who had escaped the marinade. If these two great invasions, Japanese and Redhead, are recorded in the history books, you will know exactly in what era Adam Strang lived. But let us return to Keijo and Lady Om. Lord! Lord! She was a real woman! For four years, I possessed her in peace. All Korea had accepted our marriage. Chong Mongju, dispossessed of all influence, fallen into complete disgrace, had retired somewhere on the coast of the far northeast to sleep off his anger. Yunsan ruled like a dictator. Peace reigned over the land where, every night, the signals proclaiming it ran. The Emperor’s slender legs, immersed in his debauchery, grew weaker and weaker, his eyes became more and more bleary. Lady Om and I had won the game our hearts had desired . Kim commanded the Palace guards. As for Kwan Yung Jin, the unfortunate governor who had inflicted on me and my companions, the torture of the pillory and had us beaten in public, upon our arrival in Korea, I had dismissed him and forbidden him to ever appear in Keijo. Oh! Johannes Maartens had not been forgotten either! Discipline is firmly anchored in the mind of a sailor and, despite my newfound grandeur, I could not forget that he had been my captain, in the old days when we sailed together on the Sparwehr, in search of the New Indies. According to the story I had told, when I first started at Court, he was the only free man in my entourage. The remaining sailors, considered by all as my slaves, could not claim any official position. The case of Johannes Maartens was different and he rose in rank. The old rogue! I was far from guessing his intentions, when he asked me to be appointed Governor of the miserable little province of Kyong ju! This one possessed no wealth of its own, due to its agriculture or its fisheries. The income from taxes barely covered the costs of their collection and the position of Governor was more than honorary. The place was in truth a real tomb—a sacred tomb—for on the mountain of Tabong were buried, at its summit, in rich reliquaries placed in vaults, the bones of the ancient Kings of Silla. Johannes Maartens told me that he preferred to be the first in the small province of Kyong ju than the follower of Adam Strang. And I was far from suspecting that, if he took with him four of the sailors, it was not only to populate his solitude. Magnificent were for me the first times of my elevation. I governed my seven provinces through needy Nobles, devoted to Yunsan, who had chosen them for my benefit. All the work was for them and my only role was to indulge, from time to time, in some inspection, carried out with all the pomp worthy of my grandeur and where Lady Om accompanied me. We both owned, on the south coast, a very pleasant Summer Palace and where we preferably resided . For amusement, I encouraged sports among the Nobles, mainly wrestling and archery, in which their fathers had excelled. I also went on tiger hunts with Lady Om in the northern mountains. The movement of the tides was, in Korea, most curious. On the northeast coast, the sea rose and fell by only a foot. On the west coast, the difference against the ebb and flow reached sixty feet. Korea did not possess a merchant fleet for foreign trade. Native ships did not leave the coasts where foreigners, for their part, never landed. This policy of isolation was immemorial in Korea. Only once every ten or twenty years did Chinese ambassadors arrive. Not by water, but by land, skirting the Yellow Sea through the land of the Hong du, and down the Mandarin Road to Keijo. Their journey, there and back, lasted a year. The purpose of their visit was to demand from the Korean Emperor the completion of the fictitious ceremony of his former vassalage to China. Hendrik Hamel did not, however, rest in the delights of Capua. He was preparing to act, and his plans were becoming clearer day by day. In the absence of the New Indies that we had not found, he fell back on Korea. It was not until I was appointed admiral of the entire flotilla of Korean junks. Then he inquired frankly, near me, about the secret arcana which enclosed the Imperial Treasury. From then on, I was settled. I had no desire, for my part, to leave Korea, unless it was in the company of Lady Om. I opened up to her on this subject. She replied, pressing me passionately in her arms, that I was her king and that, wherever I went, she would follow me. Chapter 18. now, O My King!. The High Priest Yunsan had committed an unforgivable fault in leaving Live Chong Mong Ju. A mistake! In reality, he had not dared to act otherwise. Disgraced and banished from the Court, Chong Mong Ju, while appearing to nurse his anger on the northeast coast, had secretly intrigued and maintained his popularity intact with the provincial clergy. Buddhist priests served, for the most part, as his emissaries. They constantly traveled throughout the country, winning over all the imperial officials to his cause, and had obtained from them, in his favor, an oath of obedience. Yunsan was not unaware of what was going on in the shadows, but, there again, he did not dare to act. The Asian excels, with his cold patience, at these vast and complicated conspiracies. Even within the Imperial Palace, Chong Mong Ju’s party was growing beyond what Yunsan could even imagine. The Palace guards, the famous Tiger Hunters commanded by Kim, were themselves bought. And while Yunsan nodded to the people prostrate at his feet; while I peacefully devoted myself to Lady Om and sports; while Hendrik Hamel perfected his plans for escape and sacking the Imperial Treasury; while Johannes Maartens cooked up his marvelous projects, among the tombs of Tabong Mountain, the volcano that was heating up beneath our feet, Chong Mong ju gave us almost no visible sign of its next eruption. Lord! Lord! When the storm broke loose, it was something truly terrible! It came out, at once, in all directions. Run for your lives! And not everyone was saved. It was Johannes Maartens who actually precipitated the catastrophe and brought the conspiracy to light before the time set by Chong Mong ju. But he provided him with such a good opportunity to act that he would have been very foolish not to take advantage of it. Judge for yourself! While the Koreans have a fanatical cult for the ancestral dead, did not this old Dutch pirate, thirsty for plunder, in the company of his four sailors, in his lost province of Kyong ju, commit the madness of profaning the tombs of the ancient Kings of Silla, who had slept there for centuries in their golden coffins? The operation took place during the night and, before daybreak, the five conspirators hastened to set off, in order to reach the coast. But, the following day, an intense fog fell over the entire region, in which they lost their way. They were unable to reach the junk that was waiting for them and that Maartens had chartered in great secrecy. A local official named Yi Sun Sin, devoted to Chong Mong Ju, set out in pursuit with soldiers. They were surrounded and taken prisoner. Only Herman Tromp managed to escape in the fog and was later able to tell me the details of what had happened. All that night, although news of the sacrilege had already spread throughout the northern provinces, which immediately rose up against the imperial officials, Keijo and the Court slept peacefully, in complete ignorance of the events. On Chong Mong Ju’s orders , the peace lamps continued to shine throughout Korea. It was the same during the following nights, while Chong Mong Ju’s messengers killed their horses, to go everywhere carrying his sovereign orders. As I was leaving Keijo on horseback at dusk to go for a ride in the countryside, I saw, under the Great Gate of the capital, the tired mount of one of these messengers fall, and his rider, getting up, continue on foot. I continued on my way, without worrying about who this man was, and little suspecting that he brought my destiny with him. The message he was carrying caused a revolution to break out in the Imperial Palace. When I returned there at midnight, everything was over. By nine o’clock in the evening, the conspirators had seized the Emperor in his own apartment. He was forced to summon all his ministers before him and, as they appeared , they were shot down. The Tiger Hunters had raised, too. Yunsan and Hendrik Hamel were taken prisoner, and ferociously beaten by them, with saber flats. The eight other sailors were able to escape from the palace, taking Lady Om with them. They succeeded thanks to Kim who, sword in hand, opened a passage for them through his own rebellious soldiers. Kim fell in the battle and was trampled underfoot. But, unfortunately for him, he did not die of his wounds. Like a gust of wind rising during a summer night, the revolution blew and passed quite naturally over the Palace. The next day, Chong Mong ju was back in the saddle and once again all-powerful. The Emperor subscribed to all his wishes. Except for the emotion, which was general, at the news of the desecration of the ancient Royal Tombs, Korea remained peaceful. Chong Mong ju was acclaimed everywhere. The heads of the old officials were falling all over the country, and they were being replaced by creatures of the new potentate. There was no uprising anywhere. Now this is our fate. Johannes Maartens, and the three sailors captured with him, were brought to Keijo, covered in the spit of the rabble of all the villages and towns they passed through. Then they were buried, up to their necks, in the ground of the Great Square, which stretched out in front of the Imperial Palace. They were given something to drink, in order to prolong their existence and so that they could, for a longer time, yearn ardently for the food, all steaming and tasty, which was placed before them and renewed once an hour, to tempt them. I am assured that old Johannes Maartens survived last and did not give up the ghost for another fortnight. Kim had his bones crushed, one by one, and his joints dislocated, one after the other, by learned torturers, and he, too, took a long time to die. Hendrik Hamel, whom Chong Mong ju thought was the mastermind who had acted for me, was beaten to death, to the joyful cheers of the populace of Keijo. High Priest Yunsan died courageously and his end was worthy of him. He was busy playing chess with his jailer when the messenger of the Emperor, or rather of Chong Mong ju, appeared before him, carrying a cup of poison. Yunsan asked him to wait a moment. “You have,” he said, “discourteous manners, and one does not disturb a man in the middle of a game of chess. I will drink as soon as I have finished.” The messenger waited while Yunsan finished and won his game, then emptied the cup. One must be an Asian to know how to measure one’s bile and how to sate one’s revenge, persistently and regularly, throughout a lifetime. This is what Chong Mong ju did, with Lady Om and with me. He did not eliminate us. He did not even have us imprisoned. But
while Lady Om was stripped of her rank and dispossessed of all her possessions, an Imperial Decree was promulgated and posted in every village in the Korean Empire, to inform the people that I belonged to the House of Koryu and that consequently I was not to be killed, by anyone. The eight surviving sailors, my slaves, were not to be killed either. Like me and like Lady Om, they would remain, for the rest of their lives, beggars on the highways. Thus it was for forty years, for Chong Mongju’s hatred was immortal, and fate would have it that he should live long and happy days, while we all dragged out our cursed existence. I have already said that Lady Om was an admirable woman. I must never tire of repeating it, and words fail me to be able to express all the veneration I have for her. I heard somewhere that a great lady once declared to her lover: A simple tent and a crust of bread with you! That is also what Lady Om told me. And she did not only say it, she did it. With the aggravation that, very often, crusts of bread were rare and that, for a tent, we had nothing but the sky. All my efforts to escape begging were thwarted by Chong Mong Ju’s tenacious hatred. At Song Do, I became a fuel carrier, and the two of us shared a hut, which, against the bitter winter weather, was barely more comfortable than the open road. Chong Mong Ju found us there. I was beaten, put in a pillory, and thrown back onto the road. It was a horrible, terribly cold winter, during which poor Vandervoot, And what else?, froze to death in the streets of Keijo. At Pyeng Yang, I transformed myself into a water carrier. For you should know that this ancient city, whose walls are very contemporary with King David, was considered by its inhabitants to float, like a ship, on a layer of underground water. Digging a well within its walls would have risked submerging it. That is why, from morning to night, thousands of coolies, with buckets suspended from both ends of a yoke resting on their necks, were busy shuttling from the city to the neighboring river, and vice versa. I got myself hired among them and practiced this trade until the day Chong Mong ju spotted me. I was beaten again, chased out of Pyeng yang, and put back on the road. And it was always like this. In the distant city of Wiju, I became a dog butcher. I killed the animals, publicly, in front of my stall open to the wind. Then I cut up and sold the meat, while spreading the skins in the mud, in the middle of the street, the bleeding side up , I left them to the dirty feet of buyers and passersby to tan them. Chong Mong ju discovered me and I had to flee again. I was a dyer’s assistant in Pyonhan, a gold prospector in the Kang Wun placers, a rope maker, which I twisted, in Chiksan. I wove straw hats in Padok, mowed grass in Whang haï. In Masenpo, I hired myself out, or rather sold myself to a rice planter, at a wage lower than that of the lowest coolie, and bent my back in the flooded rice paddies. There was never an hour, nor a place, where the long arm of Chong Mong ju did not reach me, have me beaten, and make me a beggar again. For two whole seasons, Lady Om and I searched for and finally found a unique, rare and precious ginseng root, so renowned among doctors that, from the price of its sale, we could both have lived comfortably for a whole year. But, just as I was negotiating, I was arrested. The root was confiscated and I was beaten even more, put in the stocks longer than usual. Always the wandering members of the great guild of Peddlers informed Chong Mong ju, in Keijo, about my actions and my doings, warned his Governors and his agents. Whatever we did, it was impossible for us to flee, either by crossing the northern borders or by embarking at sea, on some sampan. Everywhere, as soon as we arrived, we were burned. Only once, before the last, did I meet Chong Mong ju. It was on a winter night, shaken by a violent storm, on the high mountains of Kong wu. Some small change, saved, had allowed me to rent, for Lady Om and me, a shelter for the night, in the dirtiest corner and furthest from the fire of the only large room of an inn. We were about to begin our meager meal of fava beans and wild garlic swimming in a horrible stew, accompanied by a tiny piece of beef, so tough that the animal from which it came had undoubtedly died of old age. At that moment, we heard the bronze bells outside tinkling and the sound of the hooves of a team of ponies. The door opened and Chong Mong ju, the living personification of well-being, prosperity, and power, entered, shaking the snow from his priceless Mongolian furs. Everyone made room for him and the twelve men who formed his entourage. Suddenly, his eyes stopped, by the greatest of chances, for one There were many in the inn, on Lady Om and on me. “Rid me,” he ordered, “of this vermin, which is there, in this corner…” Then his squires scourged us with their whips and threw us back into the storm. Lord! Lord! There is not, O Korea, a single one of your roads, not one of your mountain paths, not one of your fortified cities, not one of your villages, that has not known me. For forty years, I have wandered on your soil and I have been hungry, and Lady Om has shared this misery with me. Pushed to the limit, what have we not eaten? Unsaleable refuse of dog meat, which the mocking butchers threw at us. Minari, a kind of watercress, picked by us from the mud of stagnant marshes. Spoiled kimchi, which would have made peasant stomachs vomit and which poisoned a mile away. Yes, I fought with the dogs for their bones, picked up grains of rice that had fallen on the roads, and stole steaming fava bean soup from the horses on icy nights . Don’t be surprised, however, that I didn’t die. Two things sustained me: the presence of Lady Om at my side; then the certain faith I had that a day would come when the grip of my thumbs and fingers would tighten around Chong Mong ju’s throat. I had first sought him in Keijo, but the very gates of the city were forbidden to me. Yet I knew that with patience we would eventually find each other again. For forty years, every scrap of Korean soil told our sandals its old stories. However vast the Empire was, there was no longer a living soul there who did not know who we were, or what our punishment was. More than once, the coolies and peddlers, who shouted their insults at Lady Om, experienced the force of my fist as it struck their hair buns, the anger of my hand as it slapped their faces. Sometimes, in the mountains, in remote villages, we met old women who, when they saw Lady Om, the great fallen Princess, pass by me, would sigh, nodding their heads, while their eyes darkened with tears. Others, young women, would pity my broad shoulders, my long tawny hair, the man who had once been the Prince of Coryu and the governor of seven provinces. Crowds of children would stick to our heels. They had no mercy and stoned us, with piercing cries and filthy words. Beyond the Yalu, forty miles wide, stretched an immense desolation which, from the Sea of ​​Japan to the Yellow Sea, constituted the northern Korean border. These were not, strictly speaking, barren lands, but lands that had been made so, in application of the policy of isolating Korea. On this strip, itself forty miles wide, towns, villages, farms, everything had been destroyed. It was no man’s land, infested with wild beasts, and crisscrossed only by companies of Tiger Hunters on horseback, whose mission was to kill any human being they encountered there. There was therefore no hope of escape in that direction. After having wandered for a long time like me, almost everywhere, my eight fellow sailors fell back on the south coast, where the climate was mildest. It was, moreover, the country closest to Japan. Across the straits that separated it from Korea, its coasts could be seen fading away in the distance. The Korean Straits, between the southeast of Korea and the Japanese Islands, are about 125 kilometers wide at their narrowest point. There was the only hope of salvation. Perhaps some ship from Europe would appear one day. I can still see those eight old men, standing or sitting on the cliffs of Fusan, sighing with all their souls towards this sea on which they were henceforth forbidden to sail. One did see, sometimes, Japanese junks, but never did a sail, with shapes familiar to old Europe, appear on the waves. The years passed. Lady Om and I, like the eight sailors, had passed from middle age to middle age, then to old age. We , too, preferred to return to Fusan, where we would all meet up together. Then, as the years ticked by, one after the other would successively miss the usual rendezvous. Hans Amden was the first to leave us. Jacob Brinker, his usual traveling companion, brought us the news. Brinker was the last of the eight. He was almost ninety when he died, and about two years older than Tromp. I remember, as if it were yesterday, this pair of friends who, at the end of their lives, weak and worn out, in beggars’ rags, warmed themselves side by side in the sun, their begging bowls beside them, on the cliffs of Fusan. They cackled in their shrill voices, like children’s, and told each other a thousand tales of the past. Tromp kept repeating, between his teeth, how Johannes Maartens and his four sailors, of whom he was one, violated the Tombs of the Kings, on the mountain of Tabong, how they found each of them embalmed in his golden coffin, between two virgins, to their right and to their left, embalmed like them; how, finally, these superb ghosts, reappearing in the daylight, crumbled into dust, while Johannes Maartens and his four sailors swore and sweated profusely, breaking their coffins. As sure as it was a magnificent stroke, Johannes Maartens would have fled with his booty, over the Yellow Sea, if it were not for the fog in which, the next day, he was lost. Cursed fog! It was made into a song that, until my dying day, I heard, clenching my fists, being sung in Korea. Yanggukeni chajin anga Wheanpong tora deunda…, she said. Which can be translated as follows: On the summit of Whean, a thick fog is preparing for the men of the West… Yes, for forty years, I was a beggar on Korean soil. Of all my companions, banished like me to the highways, I survived last. Lady Om also had a hard life, and we grew old together. She had become, in the end, a toothless and shriveled old woman. But her beautiful soul did not weaken, and she possessed my heart until the hour of my death. I, for a man of seventy, had remained vigorous. If my face had wrinkled, if my golden hair had turned white, if my broad shoulders had stooped, something still survived, in my muscles, of my former strength. Thanks to which I was able to accomplish what I am now going to relate. On a beautiful spring morning, I was sitting with Lady Om on the cliffs of Fusan, and we were warming ourselves in the sun, a few steps from the highway. We were in rags, miserably, in the dust. And yet, both of us, we were laughing heartily at a joke that Lady Om had just muttered. A shadow, suddenly, fell upon us. It was the great litter of Chong Mong ju, carried by seven coolies, preceded and followed by an escort of horsemen, and framed, on each side, by a swarm of servants, who were wriggling as best they could. Two emperors, a civil war, and a dozen palace revolutions had passed without Chong Mong Ju’s power being shaken. He could have been nearly eighty years old when, that spring morning on the cliff, he signaled with his hand, three-quarters paralyzed, so that his litter would stop and he could once more contemplate those whom, for so long, he had been punishing. Lady Om whispered in my ear: “It is now, O my King…” Then, quickly, she turned away to beg for alms from Chong Mong Ju, whom she pretended not to recognize. I was not unaware of what was passing through her thoughts. Had not this thought been common to us for forty years? And the hour of its culmination had finally arrived. Then, I too, pretended not to recognize my enemy. Feigning stupid senility, I crawled in the dust, like Lady Om, towards the litter, whimpering for the grace of charity. Chong Mong ju’s servants were about to push me away. The master’s quavering voice held them back. I saw him raise himself on one elbow, trembling, and with his other hand, part the silk curtains wide. His withered face lit up with a joyful flash as he looked down upon us. Lady Om murmured again in my ear her lamentable beggar’s song:
“Now, now, O my King! All her faithful and imperishable love, all her faith in my supreme undertaking were enclosed in her song and in her voice. And red anger rose within me. In vain I tried to struggle and fight against her. And, in this fight, I was seized by a trembling of my whole being. Chong Mong ju saw this trembling and thought that old age alone was the cause. I held out my copper bowl to him and wept even more lamentably. I hid the burning fire of my blue eyes under my tears, and I calculated the distance and my strength, before leaping. It was like a jet of flame, of red flame. There was a great crash of the curtains and their rods, then piercing cries and endless yelling from the panicked servants, while my hands closed around Chong Mong ju’s throat. The litter tipped over and I hardly knew where I was. My fingers, however, did not relax. In the jumble of cushions and blankets, I was hardly affected, at first, except by blows from the servants. But soon the horsemen came to the rescue and their massive whip handles fell upon my head, while a multitude of hands seized me and tore me apart. A dizziness seized me. I still had enough consciousness, however, to feel that my old, emaciated fingers were firmly embedded in that old, thin throat, which I had long sought. The blows continued to rain down upon my head, where a thousand thoughts swirled, and I compared myself inwardly to a bulldog, whose jaws nothing can make unclench. Chong Mong ju could no longer escape me, and I knew well that he was dead, before night descended upon me, like an anesthetic, on the cliffs of Fusan, opposite the Yellow Sea. Chapter 19. Oppenheimer Remains Skeptical. Governor Atherton, when he remembers Darrell Standing, must not exactly feel very proud. I taught him the superiority of the mind over brute force, I humbled him with my moral strength, and showed him that it hovered, invulnerable, above all his tortures. I am here, at Folsom, in the Assassin’s Quarters, and I await the hour when I will be hanged. He, Governor Atherton, continues, at San Quentin, to fulfill his functions, to reign as king over all the damned that the prison, where he commands, confines within its walls. And yet, in the depths of his heart, he knows very well that I am superior to him. In vain he tried to break my courage, and I have no doubt that he would have been very happy to see me die in the straitjacket. As he had told me many times, it was necessary to choose between surrendering the dynamite or giving up the ghost. Captain Jamie was a veteran of the prison. It was he who had witnessed more horrors in the dungeons. A moment came, however, when he felt himself weaken, and could not control the disturbance I caused in him and his other acolytes. He was so disconcerted by the spectacle I offered him that he came out of his usual reserve towards the governor and declared to him that, as far as I was concerned, he repudiated all personal responsibility. And, in fact, he no longer appeared in my cell. It was then Governor Atherton’s turn to be shaken. Jake Oppenheimer, who was fearless and did not mince his words, and who had emerged unscathed from all the hells he had been subjected to, undertook it one day, concerning me. Morrell struck me with the story. “Governor,” Oppenheimer had said to my executioner, “you have bitten off more than you can chew. If you succeed in killing Standing, you will have to kill us too, Morrell and me. Otherwise, have no doubt, we will spill the beans. As soon as we are out of here, we will shout your infamy to the whole prison; and it will be the devil if it does not transpire outside. Yes, all of California will know that you have exceeded your powers and that you are a murderer. And he will be able to give you grief! You have the choice. Either leave Standing in peace, or kill us too, Morrell and me. We are your masters. You, you are an abominable coward, who will never dare to kill all three of us. Your vocation as a butcher is incomplete. This speech earned Oppenheimer a hundred hours in a straitjacket. When he was untied, he spat in Governor Atherton’s face. Which earned him another hundred hours. And when, this time, he was untied, Atherton abstained from being present. Oppenheimer’s threat and his courageous words had carried the day. There was no doubt about it. The most tenacious in diabolical cruelty was Doctor Jackson. I was a rare subject for him, and he was curious to know how long I could resist. “He can hold out for another twenty days before the final somersault,” he declared to the governor, in my presence, with a smug air. I cut him off. “You’re mistaken,” I said. “I am capable of holding out not twenty, but forty days. Forty days… Uh! Put it at one hundred days.” Remembering the patience my courage had once shown, when I waited forty years for the hour when I could seize Chong Mongju by the throat, I added: “You prison dogs do not know what a man is. Look at me, you will see one! You are, in front of me, nothing but feeble abortions . I am the master of you all. You cannot manage to get a single complaint from me. And that surprises you, because, if you were in my place, you would scream at a hundredth part of my sufferings.” I continued to insult them copiously. I called them sons of toads, scullions of Hell, monsters of villainy. I repeated to them, ad nauseam, that I was above them, a thousand feet above them. They were slaves, my slaves. I was a free man. My flesh alone was tied up in this dungeon. While this poor flesh lay inert on the ground, not even suffering, my mind flew through time and space. The world belonged to me. They withdrew without finding anything to answer me. They were no longer there when I was still insulting them. I beat all my retrospective adventures to my two comrades. Morrell did not doubt the veracity of what I told him. But, while captivated by my stories, Oppenheimer remained skeptical to the end. And he was sorry that I had devoted my life to agronomy, instead of writing novels of the imagination. I tried to explain to him that I knew nothing, as Darrell Standing, of Korea and its inhabitants, of its customs and the life that is led there. –Oh! That’s enough! he struck, with a sharp, imperative blow… Shut up, Morrell, and don’t come between me and the professor… Adam Strang is the product of an opium dream. You’ve read somewhere, Standing, all these stories. Do you remember, answer, all your old reading? No, do you? You’re stuck… In vain I protested that I had never read anything about Korea, only a few war correspondences, during the Russo-Japanese conflict. “That’s right!” Jake Oppenheimer triumphed. “Korea is not as unknown to you as you like to say. There’s the confession! It was impossible for me to convince Oppenheimer. He claimed that I invented my adventures, as I struck them, and he concluded, jokingly, as soon as I fell silent: “Thank you for today! More in the next issue…” And, if I insisted, he repeated, mockingly, that I must have, once upon a time, lingered in San Francisco, in the opium dens of Chinatown, much longer than was appropriate for a respectable professor. Something, ever since, had always remained with me! Our discussions on this subject were interminable and constantly renewed. “Hey, professor,” Oppenheimer struck me one day, “you claim to have played chess with a lout, who was the brother of the emperor. Can you tell me if these chess sets were similar to those used in America, and if the games differed from ours?” I replied that my memories were, on this point, rather vague and that I could not affirm anything. Oppenheimer, naturally, laughed at me.
I said that in fact my wanderings through time intermingled with each other and that, often, the various characters I reincarnated reversed their roles. So that I was then forced to put all these existences in order. Perpetually, I happened to go back and relive the same acts several times.
Thus, being, during one of the splits of my being, Adam Strang again, a month after the question Oppenheimer had asked me and I had not ceased, all this time, to be the target of his mockery, I observed my chess more closely and noted that it differed notably from those we use today. Only the principle of the game was the same. But, instead of our sixty-four checkerboard squares, there were eighty. While in our country one player has eight pawns, the other nine, in ancient Korea there were twenty pawns in total. So much so that the resulting combinations were completely different. Moreover, there was no Queen. This is what I next had the pleasure of hitting with Oppenheimer. I even taught him this new game, although it was much more complicated than ours. It fascinated us to such an extent that it occupied us all the following winter. We were so absorbed in it that we forgot, in those gloomy days, the biting cold. For the dungeons are not heated. It would be immoral to mitigate even a little, for a condemned man, the natural harshness of the elements. Oppenheimer, however, was not convinced that I had drawn my knowledge from past centuries. He claimed that the game, like my so-called adventures, had come fully armed from my brain. “You should,” he typed, “patent it. I remember knowing, when I was an errand boy, a guy who invented a stupid game called Pigs in Clubs. This stupid game was a huge success and its inventor made millions from it. I replied that my patent would come too late and that the Asians had taken it before me, probably thousands of years ago. The discussion ended there. Oppenheimer stubbornly stuck to his position. And I stuck to mine. I’ll add just one more word. There is here—or rather there was here—in Folsom, a murderer of Japanese nationality, who was executed last week. I talked with him about this famous game of chess, which I played when I was Adam Strang. Now this game does exist, and it’s also the one played in Japan.” So I didn’t invent it, as Oppenheimer claims. Chapter 20. When I Was Ragnar Lodbrog. You, reader, certainly haven’t forgotten what I told you at the beginning of this story, and how, when I was shown, as a child on my father’s farm in Minnesota, photographs of the Holy Land, I recognized the places they represented, I pointed out the changes that had taken place there. You also remember that in describing the scene of Jesus’ healing of the lepers , which I had witnessed, I had declared to the missionary who came to our house that I was a colossus of a man, who looked, with great sword, astride a horse. This incident of my childhood was then, in my brain, only a trailing cloud of light, as Wordsworth puts it. The little Darrell Standing that I was had not, when I came into the world, completely forgotten the past. But these memories of other times and other places flickered in my childhood consciousness, and their faint glow had not been long in disappearing there. For me, as for all these little beings, the shadows of the prison of my new body were closing in on my former existences. William Wordsworth, English poet, 1770-1850. This is an allusion to his Ode to Immortality, where he says, in particular: Not in utter nakedness—But in trailing clouds of light—That one day we shall see God. Every man has, like myself, a mighty and long past. But very few men have had the good fortune to know the isolation of the Solitary Dungeons and the prolonged, simultaneously destructive and invigorating experience of the straitjacket. This was my good fortune. This is what allowed me to relive a great number of my previous existences and, among these, that of the colossal horseman, contemporary of Christ. My name was then Ragnar Lodbrog. Enormous, I truly was, and I towered over the most handsome Romans of the Legion by half a head. Of all my former lives, this one is perhaps the most adventurous and the strangest. Volumes could be written about it. I will content myself with relating the most salient events. Ragnar Lodbrog had not known his mother. I was later told that I was born in a storm, in the seas of northern Europe, on a ship with a prow that jutted out, as sharp as a bird’s beak. Born of a woman taken captive following a naval battle, a victorious descent on a foreign coast and the sacking of one of its fortified towns. I never knew the name of this mother. Old Lingaard told me only that she died, in the height of the storm, after giving birth to me, and that she was of Danish origin. Of all that Lingaard told me, and which my young age had partly forgotten, I only remember that he spoke of a naval battle, a land battle, the sacking of a captured and burned city, then of a hasty flight on the ships, in the midst of an icy and stormy sea, while the enemy, returned in greater numbers, rained down an avalanche of rocks on the ships from the top of the cliffs. Many of the attackers perished during the embarkation. The others rushed, their feet clinging to their ship, on the gloomy road to death. Old Lingaard, too old to maneuver the ship and to row, fulfilled various duties on board, including that of surgeon and, incidentally, midwife. It was he who delivered the pregnant captives, crammed together on the decks, in the hurricane. So it was he who brought me into the world, in the salty foam of the raging waves, which beat down on my mother and on him, and on myself. I have been fully aware of my being, from the moment my eyes opened. I was barely a few hours old when Tostig Lodbrog first laid eyes on me. Tostig Lodbrog was the captain of the sleek ship on which we were sailing, and of the seven other ships that followed his, and that had taken part in the bold and savage expedition. Tostig Lodbrog was nicknamed Muspell, which means the Burning Fire. For the flame of anger never ceased to burn within him. He was brave and cruel, and in his broad chest there was no trace of mercy or pity. Even before the sweat of the Battle of Hasfarth had dried on his body, Tostig Lodbrog, leaning on his axe, was devouring Ngrun’s heart, which he had just torn from the vanquished’s open chest. In a fit of mad anger, he one day sold his son Garulf into slavery. I remember seeing him at Brunanbuhr, under the smoky beams of the rough palace where he was feasting, demanding the Guthlaf’s skull, to use it as a cup. He never drank perfumed wine except from Guthlaf’s skull. Brunanbuhr is the name of an uncertain place, situated in the north of England, where a great battle was once fought against the Scandinavian pirates. Now it was to him that, on the swaying deck, old Lingaard brought me. I was wrapped, naked, in a wolf’s skin, impregnated with sea salt. Having come prematurely, I was, therefore, very small. “Ho! Ho! A dwarf!” cried Tostig, removing from his lips, to look at me, a large pot of mead, half drunk. The cold was biting. This did not prevent Tostig Lodbrog from pulling me completely naked from the wolf’s skin. Then, taking me by the foot, between his thumb and forefinger, which were bigger, one than my thigh and the other than my leg, he held me suspended in the air, biting by the wind. “Ho! Ho! Ho!” he exclaimed. “A roach! A shrimp! A sea louse!” And he continued to swing me, head down, between his thumb and forefinger. After which, another fancy crossed his mind. “The youngster is thirsty!” he said. “I want to give him a drink!” He brought me over his pot of mead and dropped me in. I, who had not yet tasted the milk of a mother’s breast, was about to drown in this beverage, made for men. Lingaard, fortunately, rushed over and took me out of the pot, then hurriedly put me back in the wolf’s skin. Tostig Lodbrog blazed. He roughly pushed us back, the old man and me, and we rolled onto the deck of the ship. His enormous dogs, like bears, which took part in all the battles, rushed at us. “Ho! Ho! Ho!” thundered Tostig. But Lingaard managed, not without difficulty, to tear me away from the mastiffs, to whom he left the wolf’s skin. Tostig Lodbrog, however, had started drinking again and was finishing his pot of mead. He calmed down little by little, without the old man daring to intervene, to ask for pity that he knew did not exist. “It’s Tom Thumb!” Tostig continued. “By Odin! Danish women are a very miserable race. They give birth to dwarves and not men! What can be done with this abortion?” Listen, you, Lingaard, you will raise him all the same, and later he will serve as my cupbearer. Watch over the dogs, so that they don’t make a mouthful of him , like a little piece of meat left on the table. It was old Lingaard who, in fact, took care of my squawking childhood, and I never knew the affection or caresses of any woman. I followed the destiny of Tostig Lodbrog, sometimes on land, where they fought, sometimes on the ships that tottered in the storms. How I survived and was able one day to prove wrong Tostig’s prophecy, which had declared that I would never be anything but a dwarf, God only knows! In any case , I grew up quickly. Tostig had to give up dipping me into his pot of mead and trying to drown me in it, a wild joke he was very fond of. I had , no doubt, my soul firmly anchored to my body and I began to fulfill my role as cupbearer. While our ships were immobilized in the frozen sea, I can still see myself, in the hall of Brunanbuhr’s feast, staggering, holding in my hands the skull of Guthlaf, filled with fragrant mulled wine, and which I was about to present to Tostig, seated at the head of the table. Tostig Lodbrog, completely drunk, roared, and all the guests with him. It was like being in a madhouse. Skalds sang of the exploits of Hialli, those of the valiant Hogni, and the gold of Nibelung, and the vengeance of Gudrune, when she served Atli the hearts of their own children to eat. I lived among ferocious men, as ferocious in their games as in their fights, and, knowing no others, I found their company quite natural. The hour came when I, too, had my great anger, my red anger. I was still only eight years old when my teeth were bared. It was during a great drinking binge at Brunanbuhr, where Lodbrog had invited to his table the Danish chief Agard, his ally. An argument soon arose between the two men, on the mutual merit of the fighters of the two nations, and suddenly Tostig Lodbrog, near whom I was standing with Guthlaf’s skull, which stank and smoked, began to insult and insultingly despise the Danish women. Then, remembering my Danish mother, I saw red. I lifted Guthlaf’s skull into the air and struck a violent blow on Tostig Lodbrog’s head, who was flooded, scalded and blinded by the mulled wine. Moreover, while, having risen, he staggered, beating the air with his great arms, in order to find me and crush me, I took out the small dagger that I carried. Three times I struck him, in the stomach, the thigh and the buttocks, for I was not tall enough to reach higher . Seeing this, Agard drew his sword, and his men imitated him, while he cried: “A bear cub! A bear cub! By Odin, let the bear cub fight!” And, under the tumultuous roof of Brunanbuhr, the little cupbearer of Danish race was seen to begin a full-scale battle with the enormous Tostig Lodbrog, who staggered without being able to reach him. He finally managed to seize me, and threw me to the other end of the table, among the jugs and cups, yelling: “Get him out of here! Let him be fed to the dogs!” But Agard intervened and, striking Lodbrog on the shoulder, asked for me as a gift of friendship. When the sea had thawed and the ships could leave the fjords, I left on Agard’s ship, who appointed me his cupbearer and swordbearer, and named me Ragnar Lodbrog. We sailed south and arrived in the land of Agard, which was close to that of the Frisians. It was a sad and flat land, marshy and misty. I lived for three years with my new master, always behind him, whether he was hunting wolves in the marshes or drinking in the Great Hall of his palace, where Elgiva, his young wife, often came to sit, surrounded by her women. I accompanied him on one of his expeditions, even further south, and we sailed with our ships along what would today be called the coast of France. It was then that I learned that the further south one went, the warmer the seasons were, and the milder the women and the climate. We landed and gave battle. Agard was mortally wounded. We brought him back to his country, where he finished expiring. A large pyre was erected to burn him, near which stood Elgiva, in a corselet woven with gold, and singing. She then climbed onto the pyre, where she burned, and with her all the master’s servants, all his male slaves and nine female slaves, adorned with gold necklaces. Then eight more captives of noble birth, who had been taken in a raid into the land of the Angles. Two falcons were also thrown there, and the two young falconers with their birds. Saxon people, settled in the north of Germania and south of the Cimbrian Chersonese, present-day Jutland. They then crossed into the island of Britain, since called England. But I, the cupbearer Ragnar Lodbrog, did not burn. I was eleven years old, I was bold and had never worn woven clothes, but only animal skins. As the flames of the pyre leaped toward the sky, while before throwing herself into it Elgiva finished her dirge, and while the slave women and men desperately howled their refusal to die, I broke my bonds. Then, leaping, I quickly reached the marshes, still having around my neck the golden collar of my servitude, and struggling for speed with the pack of dogs sent after me. In the marshes, I found other men who lived there in a wild state, but free, escaped slaves and a lot of outlaws, who were hunted from time to time, by way of entertainment, as one hunted wolves. I lived there, for three more years, without a roof, without a fire, and hardening myself to privations and cold. Then during a race that I attempted to abduct a woman from the Frisians, I allowed myself to be captured after a two-day chase. The Frisians were a people of Germania who, originally, apparently inhabited the Isle of the Batavians, one of the islands at the mouth of the Rhine, and then occupied the entire coast of the Germanic Sea, between the mouths of the Rhine and the Ems. Present-day Holland occupies most of their territory. I was stripped of my gold collar and traded for two wolf dogs to the Saxon Edwy, who put an iron collar on me, and later gave me as a present, along with fifty slaves, to Athel, a chief of the land of the Angles. I was a fighting slave there until, lost during an unfortunate incursion in an eastern direction, I was captured and sold to the Huns. I became a pig herder among them, escaped to the great forests of southern Germany and was taken in, as a freedman, by the Teutons, whose tribes, under pressure from the Huns, had come, like me, to seek asylum there. And, one day, through these forests, coming up from even further south , appeared the Romans, whose legions drove us back to the Huns. The peoples clashed and crushed each other, for lack of space, on the soil of Europe. During a melee, I was taken prisoner and taken to Rome. It would take too long to detail to you how, after having been used at first for cleaning duties on board a galley, I became a free man, a citizen and a Roman soldier, and in what way, as I reached the age of thirty, I made the voyage to Alexandria, then to Jerusalem. If I have told you both my birth and how I was baptized in Tostig Lodbrog’s pot of mead, it is so that you may know exactly who the man was, who, mounted on a horse, passed under the Jaffa Gate and made all heads turn away towards his tall stature . Chapter 21. On the Jewish Volcano of Jerusalem. The people who were present could indeed look at me. They were of small race, all these Jews, small in bones and muscles, and had never seen blond men, like me. All along the narrow streets, they moved aside as I passed, then stopped, their eyes wide open, staring at this wild creature, come from the North and from God knows where. Almost all the soldiers at Pilate’s disposal were Auxiliaries. There were only a handful of Romans on foot guarding the Proconsul’s palace, and twenty horsemen, of whom I was the captain. The Auxiliaries were not bad soldiers, but he might not be sure of trusting them entirely. Generally speaking, I found that they and the Romans were more regular warriors than we northerners, who were brave when the heart told us to be, but whose bravery fell just as easily, at the mercy of our whims. There was a woman at Herod’s court who was friends with Pilate’s wife. I saw her at his house the very evening of my arrival. We will call her Miriam, for that is the name by which I loved her. She possessed that particular charm, special to every woman, which is other than beauty, and which cannot be described. She pleased me, above all else, and I thus became the collaborator of her charm. As soon as I saw her, my whole being rushed towards her, arms wide open. There was something sublime about her. I am not exaggerating, and I use that word intentionally. Her superb body was much taller than the average Jewish woman. Everything about her was aristocratic, the caste to which she belonged, as well as her gestures and her bearing. Her beautiful oval face was deeply amber, her opulent hair was black, with blue highlights, and her two eyes were like two dark wells. It was impossible to find in creation a blond man and a dark woman, as marked by types as we both were. And, in her breast, palpitated a passionate heart. From the first meeting, we vibrated in unison. There was no inner struggle in us, no hesitation or expectation. She knew at once that I was hers, as I knew that she was mine. I advanced towards her. Miriam half sat up on the couch where she was lying, as if a magnet had drawn her towards me. Our eyes met, blue pupils in black pupils, and never left each other , until the moment when Pilate’s wife, a dry, stiff and faded woman, separated us with a nervous laugh. While I bowed respectfully before the illustrious company, I thought I saw Pilate give Miriam a knowing glance, which seemed to say: “Is he not as I promised you?” For I had known Pilate for quite a long time, and we had conversed together, long before he was sent to Judea, on the Jewish volcano in Jerusalem. The conversation continued between us, in the presence of the two women, well into the night. Pilate spoke to me about the political situation in the country. He seemed worried, and eager to have someone confide in his worries, even to ask for advice. Pilate was the very type of Roman, unshakeable and calm, capable of maintaining the authority of Rome with an iron fist. But, when pushed to the limit, his customary calm quickly gave way to anger. Now, it was obvious that night that he was deeply preoccupied. The attitude of the Jews was getting on his nerves. These people were spasmodic and eruptive to the extreme. And very subtle, too. The Romans dealt with things straightforwardly, straight to the point. The Jews, on the contrary, bent their backs and, if they attacked, it was from behind, walking sideways to approach. Hence Pilate’s irritation with them. They constantly schemed to diminish his authority and, consequently, that of Rome, and had only one goal: to make him play the role of a dupe in their religious dissensions. Rome, I was not unaware, did not interfere in the religious quarrels of the peoples conquered by it. But the Jews, by a thousand devious means, managed to give a political turn to events completely unrelated to politics. Pilate gradually became heated, explaining the present situation, the perpetual uprisings and fanatical riots that were occurring at the instigation of various Jewish sects. “Lodbrog,” he said to me, “who could say that these deliberate troubles, which still appear only as a light cloud in the blue sky, will not one day swell into a formidable storm, full of thunderclaps , deafening clamor, and the clash of weapons? Rome sent me here to maintain order. And, despite my efforts, Judea is nothing but a wasp’s nest, constantly in commotion. I would a thousand times prefer to govern the Scythians, or the distant and wild Britons, than these enigmatic people, who are always quarreling with God. At this hour as I speak, one man worries me most, a fisherman of fish who has made himself a fisherman of souls, and who goes everywhere, preaching and performing supposed miracles. Who can tell me that tomorrow he will not draw all these people after him and bring down upon me the displeasure and disgrace of Rome? This was the first time I had heard of the man named Jesus, and this conversation came back to me later, when, indeed, the little cloud that was rising in the sky had turned into a raging storm. “According to the reports that have reached me about him,” Pilate continued, “this Jesus is not involved in politics. There is no doubt about that . But I fear that Caiaphas, and Hanan behind him, will turn this man into a sharp thorn, destined to prick Rome and ruin my credit. ” “Caiaphas,” I interjected, “is High Priest, I am told. But who is this Hanan? ” “The true High Priest,” replied Pilate, “a cunning fox, of whom Caiaphas is only the shadow and the spokesman.” Hanan or Annas, former High Priest deposed at the accession of Tiberius, was the father-in-law of Caiaphas or Caiphas. He had, in reality, retained all authority and remained the head of the priestly party. Caiaphas made no important decision without consulting the old pontiff. Pilate believed neither in God nor the devil, nor in the immortality of the soul, and death, for him, was only darkness and eternal sleep. One can imagine how all these religious discussions, which enveloped him in Jerusalem, must have exasperated him. During a trip I made to Idumea, I had as a valet a sort of idiot who could never learn to saddle a horse properly. He could, on the other hand, discuss without losing his breath, from morning to night and from night to morning, the teachings of the rabbis of all Judea, and excelled, in religious matters, at splitting hairs. But let us return to Miriam. I learned from Pilate’s wife that she was of old royal lineage. Her sister was the wife of Herod Philip, Tetrarch of Batanea, Trachonitis, and Gaulonitis, and who was himself the brother of Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee. Both were sons of Herod the Great, who had killed his wife and three other of his sons, and rebuilt, shortly before his death, the Temple of Jerusalem. Hence the popularity her name enjoyed among the Jews. I met several times with Miriam, who had not married, having never met a husband worthy of her. This was undoubtedly an effect of the ambient air we breathed. But, as soon as we were together, religious questions came up. “So,” she asked me one day, “you believe yourself immortal? ” “With complete certainty, I believe it!” I replied. “And what is your immortality? Tell me a little about it.” I told her about Niflheim and Muspell, about the giant Imir, who was born from snowflakes, about the Cow Audhumbla, about Fenrir and Loki, about Thor and Odin, and about our Valhalla. As she listened to me, she clapped her hands, and when I had finished, she cried out, her eyes sparkling: “Oh! you barbarian! You big child! You poor wild giant, with hair bleached by the cold! You, believing a thousand fairy tales and thinking only of the satisfaction of the belly! So, after your death, you go to Valhalla? ” “Yes, mind and body. ” “And what to do there? Eat, drink, and fight! ” “That’s all? ” “And make love too. We need women in Heaven! Otherwise, what would it be for? ” She retorted: “I don’t like your Heaven.” It is a coarse place, where the tumult of life continues to rage, as well as the frost and the storm. “And your Paradise,” I asked, “what is it? ” “It is an endless summer, a spring at once and an autumn, where the flowers are always in bloom, the most beautiful fruits always ripe. ” I shook my head and grumbled: “I don’t like your Heaven either. It is a sad and soft place, a place good at most for the weak and eunuchs, for the obese, incapable of moving, for weeping shadows and not for men.” Her eyes were passionate about the dispute and sparkled ardently. She wanted to try to convince me and win me over to her faith: “My Heaven,” she continued, “is the true abode of the Blessed! ” I retorted energetically: “The only abode of the Blessed is Valhalla! For, think of it well! Who cares about flowers when they always bloom? But when the iron winter is over, when the sun chases the long nights away, when the first flowers shine on the surface of the melting snow, then, only then, do the soul and our eyes never cease to look… And the fire! The glorious and sublime fire! What can your Paradise be, where one ignores the joy of a fire roaring under a well-enclosed roof, while outside the wind and snow rage? Miriam smiled gently. “You are simple people down there,” she said. “You raise a roof among the snow, you light a big fire there, and that is enough to make you a Heaven.
–This fire and this roof, I have not always known them, in my life! For three years, I was deprived of them. I have not weakened, however. At sixteen, my body did not know what a woven fabric is. I was born in storm and battle, and that is why I love them! My jersey was a wolf’s skin. Look at me, and you will know who are the men who populate Valhalla… She looked at me, as if fascinated, and murmured: –Poor wild giant! Then, thoughtful, she added: –I almost regret that there are no men like you in my Heaven… I moved closer to her. –To each of us, I told her, is reserved the kind of Heaven that pleases his heart. The one that awaits me, beyond the tomb, is a beautiful country! I do not, however, affirm that I will never leave the Feasting Halls of our Valhalla, to come and make an incursion into your Paradise of sun and flowers, to snatch you away and carry you away with me! Thus was my mother made captive… There was then, between us, a silence. I looked at her. She looked at me. And, before mine, her eyes did not lower. My blood, by Odin! flowed in my veins, like burning lava. I do not know what would have become of us if Pilate had not made, at that moment, his entrance and interrupted the conversation. “You hear him, Miriam,” he mocked. “He is a real rabbi, a rabbi from Teutoberg! Here, in Jerusalem, a new preacher and a new doctrine have arrived to us. Even more than in the past, there will be theological discussions here, riots and prophets, carried in triumph or stoned!” May the Gods save us from all these fanatics! Jerusalem is a madhouse. Lodbrog, I would never have believed this of you. To think that now you are like the others, getting carried away and ranting about our ultimate ends, like those madmen who arrive at us every day from the Desert. Let us live our lives, Lodbrog! And only one at a time. That will spare us many unnecessary worries. Pilate’s wife was less skeptical. She was enthusiastic about these discussions, ecstatic, and her hands were tightly clasped. She was, as I said, a thin woman, who seemed worn down by fever. Her skin was stretched taut over her muscles, and so transparent that through her interposed hand one could see the light. She was not, at heart, a wicked creature. But she was astonishingly nervous, had visions, thought she heard voices, and had faith in signs and omens. The missions with which Pilate , in the name of Tiberius, the Emperor of Rome, entrusted me , took me away at every moment, and further than I would have wished, from Jerusalem and Miriam. I went to Idumea and as far as Syria, and always, on my way, I met Jews interested in God with an equal fury. This was indeed the special characteristic of their whole race. Instead of abandoning theological discussions to the priests, as elsewhere, each Jew became a priest and, as soon as he could find a listener, which was not difficult, began to preach. They abandoned, at every moment, their occupations, to go wandering through the country, like beggars on a road, and to discuss and quarrel with the rabbis and the Talmudists, in the synagogues and under the porches of the temples. It was in Galilee, a little-visited province, that I crossed the trail of the man who was called Jesus. He was, it seemed, a former carpenter, who had later become a fisherman, and whom his fishing companions, abandoning their nets, had finally followed into his wandering life. Some considered him a genuine prophet. But, for the majority of people, he was considered mad. My idiot of a servant, who prided himself on knowing the Talmud like no other, sneered when Jesus passed by, calling him the King of Beggars, because, he explained to me, according to the doctrine preached by the Galilean, Heaven was reserved only for poor, while the rich and powerful would burn eternally in a lake of fire. I noticed that it was the custom of the country to call his fellow man mad. In my opinion, mad, they all were. There was an epidemic of prophets , who drove out demons with magic charms, cured diseases by the laying on of hands, absorbed poisons with impunity reputed to be devastating, and handled the most venomous snakes without danger. They retired to the Desert to fast, and returned to proclaim some new doctrine, to gather the crowd around them and engender one more sect, which soon divided into four or five other divergent sects, separated from each other by points of detail in the interpretation of this doctrine. “By Odin!” I often said to Pilate, a little of our frost and snow from the North would do wonders to refresh their ideas. The climate they enjoy is excessively mild. Instead of cutting down trees to build roofs and hunting for meat, they construct doctrines! If I ever leave this country of madmen in my right mind, I will split in two the first chatterbox who comes to talk to me again about what will happen to me after my death. Never have such agitators been seen. For them, everything under the sun was pious or impious. The Proconsuls and Governors sent to them by Rome were on edge. They saw in everything, in the Roman eagles, in the statues, and even in the votive shields hanging in front of Pilate’s house, an attack on their beliefs. The levy of the Cens was considered the abomination of desolation. The Cens was, however, the very basis of the Roman tax. But the Jews, who claimed to pay nothing to the State, declared that the census was contrary to divine law, to their Law. Oh! this Law! It was constantly played with, it was used in every possible way. There were the zealots, who were specially charged with enforcing it. Their hands were often red with blood. But, if Pilate had intervened to punish them, he would have raised a riot, caused an insurrection to break out. Everything was accomplished in the name of God. All doctrines were proven by miracles. It is almost as if one were undertaking to demonstrate the accuracy of the multiplication table by changing a stick into a snake, or even into two snakes. When I returned to Jerusalem, this agitation was at its height. It was constantly growing. The crowd ran from right to left, chattering, holding forth, and declaiming. Some announced that the end of the world was near. Others declared the ruin of the Temple alone to be imminent. Ardent revolutionaries were proclaiming the end of Roman law and the imminent advent of a new Kingdom of the Jews. Pilate, by ricochet, seemed to me no less worried and angry. “If Rome,” he told me, “would send me only half a legion, good Roman legionaries, I would take Jerusalem by the throat and force it to keep quiet! ” I was lodged in his very Palace and, to my great satisfaction, I found Miriam there. But the political situation was too tense, too many serious worries troubled the present moment for us to have much leisure to talk about love. The whole city was buzzing, like a nest of irritated wasps. The great festival called Passover—yet another religious affair!—was approaching and thousands of people were flocking from the countryside to come, according to tradition, to celebrate it in Jerusalem. These pilgrims were no less talkative and noisy than the usual inhabitants of the city. And it was so full of them that many of them were forced to camp outside the walls. I asked Pilate whether this excitement was due to the teachings of the wandering fisherman, or to the hatred of the Jews against Rome. He answered me: “A tenth, no more, of all this rumor is due to this Jesus. Caiaphas and Hanan are the main cause. They are the ones who stir up all the people. For what purpose? I still don’t know. Here Miriam intervened: “It is certain,” she said, “that in this turmoil Caiaphas and Hanan have their part, their large part of responsibility. But you, Pontius Pilate, you are only a Roman and you do not see the situation in its true light. If you were a Jew, you would understand that this is not just a question of disputes between miracle workers and sectarians, nor of causing you and Rome deliberate embarrassment. The High Priest, the Pharisees, all intelligent Jews, Herod Antipas, Herod Philip, and myself, we are all fighting for our existence. This fisherman may be a madman. But his madness is not without artifice. He preaches the doctrine of the poor. He threatens our Law. And our Law is our very life, you are not unaware of that.” We are jealous of our Law, as of the air we breathe. To pretend to take it away from us is as if they were taking away, by strangling you, the air necessary for your lungs. The struggle is engaged between Caiaphas and Hanan, and all that they represent, and the fisherman. They will destroy him or he will destroy them. Pilate’s wife listened eagerly. “It is strange, indeed,” she said, “that a simple fisherman should have such power. Where does he get his power from? I should be curious to know this man, to see him with my own eyes. ” Pilate’s brow furrowed even more and Miriam exclaimed, with a contemptuous laugh: “If you are so keen to see him, go and look for him in the dives of the city. You will find him drinking wine, in the company of prostitutes. Never has such a strange prophet been seen in Jerusalem!” I protested: “Drinking a little wine in a dive is not a great crime. I myself have done as much many times in my past life! This is not a hanging case… ” “He is a dangerous madman, I repeat!” insisted Miriam. “He is a revolutionary who will destroy what remains of the Jewish State and overthrow the Temple. I do not know, moreover, if he is fully aware of the work he is accomplishing and the seed he is sowing. But, conscious or not, he is a scourge and, as with any scourge, it is right to block his path. ” Warmed by this dispute, I took Jesus’ side and declared: “From all I have heard of him, this man is simple, he has a good heart and has never done evil.” And I testified to the healing of the ten lepers, at which I had been present in Samaria, on the road to Jericho. “You believe, then, in this miracle?” Pilate asked me, while from outside came the distant clamors of the crowd, which our soldiers were doubtless pushing back. “Do you believe, Lodbrog, that in an instant the corrupted wounds of these unfortunates disappeared? ” “I saw them healed,” I replied… I verified it with my own eyes. “But had you seen them sick?” “No. But everyone around me assured me of it, and they first. They were ecstatic. One of them, sitting in the sun, did not stop examining every part of his body. He stared, and stared again at his smooth flesh, and could not believe his gaze. He remained there, sitting in the sun, his eyes fixed on his skin, indifferent to anything else. Pilate smiled disdainfully, and I saw that the same skepticism was imprinted on Miriam’s. Pilate’s wife, on the contrary, was becoming more and more suggestive. She was barely breathing, her eyes dilated. “Be careful, Pilate!” concluded Miriam. “He will undermine your authority as he did that of Caiaphas and Hanan, as he will undermine the Law. You have, in the name of Tiberius and Rome, a task to accomplish and you will not be able to shirk it. ” “And what is that task?” asked Pilate. “To have this fisherman executed.” Pilate shrugged his shoulders and the conversation ended. Miriam and Pilate’s wife returned to their apartments. I went to bed and dozed off to the buzzing murmur of the city of madmen. From the next day, events were speeding along. During the night, tempers, already heated to white-hot fever, became even more heated. When I rode out at noon with half a dozen of my men, the city streets were so crowded that I could barely make my way through. Even more than usual, people were reluctant to give me space, and if looks could have killed, I would soon have been dead. They didn’t hesitate to spit in my face as an insult, and grunts and jeers rose from every mouth. For them, I wore the harness of hatred for Rome. And I didn’t dare, for fear of making the situation even worse, order my men to silence all these scoundrels with blows from the flat of their swords. Hanan and Caiaphas had done a good job! I passed Miriam in the crowd. She was walking, followed only by one of her wives. It was not the time for her, in fact, to display her rank in such turbulence. She wore very simple clothes, like a woman of the people, and had her face covered. I recognized her, however, by the nobility of her appearance, by her elegant gait, so different from that of the other women. We exchanged a few words quickly, while a turbulence of the crowd jostled her and jostled all of us, me, my men and our horses. Miriam took shelter in the corner recess of a house and I managed to join her there. “Have they already,” I asked, “obtained the death of the fisherman? ” “Not yet,” she replied. “He is currently outside the city walls . He has just arrived, mounted on a donkey, surrounded by his disciples, and some poor dupes have greeted him with the name of King of the Jews. This is a seditious cry, for which Caiaphas and Hanan will force Pilate to act.” If this man’s sentence has not yet been pronounced, it has already been written. He is a dead man. At that moment, a new wave of humanity swept over us and separated us. It swept me and my soldiers along, almost crushing our horses and crushing our legs under the pressure of their flanks. Sometimes, some madman fell. Then I felt my horse, which was trampling him, kick and half-rear. The Jew shouted aloud, and a tumult of threats rose towards me. Suddenly, one of these fanatics seized my horse’s bridle with one hand and, with the other, gripping my leg, tried to unseat me. With my large hand, I slapped the man, which covered his entire face and made him lose his hold. I never saw him again, and the blow had been so violent that I still wonder if my slap did not kill him. I found Miriam the next day at Pilate’s Palace. She seemed to me lost in a dream. She barely raised her eyes to me. She barely seemed to recognize me. Her strange gaze, as if dazzled and lost in the distance, reminded me of that of the lepers on the road to Jericho. She made an effort to regain control of herself. I greeted her. But she continued not to see me and, as she stood up, I came to stand in front of her, blocking her path. She stopped and then became aware of my presence. Then she murmured a few words mechanically, while her eyes bored into mine. I had never seen eyes like those of any woman. There was an indecipherable message in them. “I saw Him, Lodbrog,” she said finally, in a low voice. “I saw Him.” “May the gods grant,” I replied jokingly, “that upon seeing you, He did not feel His heart soften more than was fitting.” She paid no attention to my words. Her eyes remained filled with the vision that was in them and she wanted to continue on her way. A second time, I held her back. “Is it He,” I asked, “who put that singular light in your eyes? ” “Yes, it is He,” she replied. “He who raised the dead. He is truly the Prince of Light and the Son of God. I have seen Him and no longer doubt it. The Son of God… you hear me well, Lodbrog, the Son of God! ” Anger rose within me and I cried out: “So he has bewitched you!” Unshed tears moistened her eyes, which seemed even deeper.
“Oh! Lodbrog, Lodbrog, the fascination within Him surpasses all thought, all description. I have seen Him. I have heard Him. You see me transfigured by it. I will distribute all my goods to the poor, and I will follow Him. ” I retorted, sneering: “Follow him then, this walking prophet! And no doubt, when he is King, he will make you share his crown.” She nodded affirmatively, and it was with great difficulty that I could stop myself from striking her full in the face, to punish her for her folly. Something, however, made me step aside to let her pass, and she moved away, murmuring: “His Kingdom is not of this world…” What followed is known to all. After Jesus, arrested by order of Caiaphas, had been condemned to death by the Sanhedrin, or Tribunal of Priests, he was, surrounded by a howling mob, sent to Pilate for the execution of the sentence. Now Pilate was not at all concerned about the death of Jesus, whom he continued to regard as a simple visionary, and not as a seditious person. The life of one man, in itself, mattered little to him and he would have put a hundred to death, if he had considered that their death mattered to his own safety and to the interest of Rome. But he did not like anyone to try to force his hand. So he left his house, scowling, to go to meet the prisoner who was brought to him. And the charm, at once, seized him. I know it. I was there. It was the first time he had seen Jesus, and he was captivated. A noisy vermin filled the courtyard of the palace, barely held in check by the soldiers, and shouted: Crucify him! Pilate, fixing his gaze on the fisherman, loudly disavowed the jurisdiction of the priests and took him with him into the praetorium. What passed between them? I do not know. When he returned, he was firmly resolved to save the condemned man. But in vain he tried to divert the storm, by presenting Jesus as a harmless madman, then by offering to release him in honor of the Passover. The rapid whispers of the priests, who were mingled with the crowd, decided the latter to demand, instead of the release of Jesus, that of Barabbas. The tumult increased from moment to moment and, from the courtyard, now spread to the whole city. When, in a last effort to save the fisherman, Pilate declared that Jesus, having been born a subject of Herod Antipas, must be sent back to him, and could not be tried or executed in Jerusalem, a furious clamor arose from the crowd, which my twenty legionaries and I could barely contain. The crowd shouted that Pilate was a traitor, that he was not Tiberius’s friend! Very close to me, a fanatic, all lousy, with a long beard and long hair, kept jumping up and down, singing without respite: “Tiberius is emperor! There is no King of the Jews! Tiberius alone is emperor! ” Irritated, and thinking thus to silence him, I placed my heavy sandal on one of his feet, as if by mistake, which crushed it. But the madman did not seem to pay attention, and he continued to sing: “Tiberius alone is emperor!” There is no King of the Jews! I saw Pilate, the man of iron, hesitating. His eyes wandered over me, as if asking for advice. My legionaries and I were so disgusted by the spectacle of cowardice presented to us by this mob that we were only waiting for a sign to draw our swords and clear the ground. Jesus was looking at me. He was commanding me… We know that it was prudence that finally won out for Pilate, that he washed his hands of the death of the fisherman, and that the rioters accepted that the blood of the crucified man should fall on their heads and those of their children. Then , in a final mockery of this vile people, Pilate, despite the protests of the priests, had a sign nailed the next day to the cross of Jesus, which read in Hebrew, Greek and Latin: The King of the Jews. For the moment, the storm had abated. The palace courtyard emptied. The crowd and the priests were satisfied. While Jesus was being led away, one of Miriam’s wives came to fetch me, to bring me to her. When she saw me, she ordered that we be left alone. Then she drew me towards her and, letting herself go in my arms: “I know,” she said, “that Pilate has allowed himself to be swayed by the priests and the populace. He has given the order that He be crucified. But there is still time to save Him. Your men, Lodbrog, are devoted to you, and it is only the auxiliaries who must lead Him to the cross. The dreadful procession must not reach Golgotha. Wait until it has crossed the city walls, then deliver the Son of God.” Take for Him an extra horse, and take Him with you, to Idumea, to Syria, anywhere, provided He is saved! She put her beautiful arms around my neck, raised her deep eyes to mine, and her face brushed my cheeks. All the intense seduction that emanated from her seemed to say: “Do as I ask, and I belong to you!” I remained devastated. This admirable woman promised me her love… if I betrayed Rome! She was even more of a woman than I believed. I fell silent, unable to reply. Miriam took my silence for acquiescence. She slowly freed herself from my embrace, seemed to reflect for a long time, then added: “You will take, Lodbrog, one more horse. It will be for me.” I will leave with you… And I will follow you throughout the world, wherever you please to go… It was a king’s gift to me, a gift in exchange for which I was asked to perform a shameful act. I still said nothing. I was sad, immensely sad. Not that I hesitated about my duty. But I understood that I was going to lose, forever, the one who was there, before me. She continued insistently: “There is only one man in Jerusalem today who is capable of saving Him. And that man is you, Lodbrog!” As I remained motionless and silent, she seized me in her nervous hands and shook me so violently that my weapons rattled. “Speak, Lodbrog! Speak!” she ordered. “You are a strong and valiant man! You do not fear, I know, the vermin who would like to destroy Him. Say yes and He is saved.” And I, for what you have done, will love you eternally! I answered, very slowly, for for me it was the abandonment of all hope in this woman: “I am Roman…” She became angry: “You are a slave of Tiberius, a dog of Rome… You are not Roman! You are a giant beast of the North! ” I shook my head. “I have given myself,” I replied, “loyally. I wear the harness and I eat the bread of Rome. I will not be ungrateful. If I am not Roman, the Romans are my brothers… And then, what good is all this fuss over the life or death of a man? We must all die. A little sooner or a little later, what does it matter! ” She was trembling in my arms, quivering with passion to save him. “You do not understand, Lodbrog!” she cried. “This one is not a man like the others. He is beyond the others. He is, among men, a living God!” I tightened my embrace. “Forget him!” I begged. “You are a woman and I am a man. Let us live our lives, without worrying about the rest! Let us leave the Hereafter. Let the madmen follow their dreams. Their dreams are more to them than meat and wine, more than joyful songs and the intoxication of battles, more even than the love of a woman. Through the darkness of the tomb, they follow their dreams into eternity. Let them pass! But we, let us remain in the mutual sweetness that we have discovered in each other. The night of the grave will come soon enough! And then we will go, each our own way. You, to your Paradise of sun and flowers! I, to the roaring table of Valhalla! She made an effort to free herself. “You don’t understand! You don’t understand!” she said angrily. “You don’t understand that this man is God, and that the ignominious death that awaits him is that of slaves and thieves! He is neither. He is immortal! He is God! ” “Well!” I continued, “if he is immortal, what does it matter to him if he dies? His immortality will not, in the measure of time, be diminished by a hair’s breadth. He is God, you say? According to everything I have been taught, a God cannot die. ” She grew more and more exalted. “Oh!” she moaned, “you don’t want to understand me. You are only a great mass of flesh.” I tried to struggle again and, recalling the subtle lessons of the Jews, I asked: “Did you not tell me that this event was predicted in the ancient prophecies?” “Yes, yes, in the most ancient prophecies, which announced to us the coming of a Messiah. ” “Let the prophecies be fulfilled,” I exclaimed triumphantly, ” who am I to dare stand in their way? What must be fulfilled will be fulfilled. I have no business thwarting the will of God. ” She repeated: “You don’t understand… you don’t understand…” Then she threw herself back, escaping from my eager arms, and we stood apart from each other, silent, listening to the tumult outside in the street and the frenzied clamors that accompanied Jesus, who at that very moment was being led to his execution. Her voice became infinitely caressing. Her eyes plunged their great black wells into mine. She offered herself, in an immense promise, so vast and profound that no words could translate it. “Do you love me?” she asked. “Yes, I love you,” I replied. “I love you, even beyond my understanding! But Rome is my foster mother. If I betrayed her, I would, by that very fact, become unworthy of your love.” Outside, the clamor that followed Jesus had faded. Everything in Jerusalem had become silent again, as in the palace. Miriam turned her back on me, without a word of farewell, and headed for the door to leave. A rush of mad desires rose up within me. I ran after her, and on her struggling flesh, my arms tightened their powerful grip. I shouted to her that I would put her with me on my horse and carry her far from this accursed city, this city of madness. I crushed her against me. She struck me in the face. But I did not let go, for her blows were gentle to me. Then she stopped struggling. She became cold and inert. And I understood that the one I was embracing no longer loved me. It was nothing but her corpse that I had in my arms. Slowly, I loosened my embrace. Slowly she drew back, slowly she moved away and, lifting the curtains of the door, disappeared. These are the facts of which I, Ragnar Lodbrog, affirm, with simplicity and honesty, to have been a witness. As I have recounted them, I reported them to Sulpicius Quirinus, legate of Rome in Syria, to whom I was subsequently sent by Pilate, to inform him of the events that had taken place in Jerusalem. Chapter 22. How I Will Be Hanged. The possibility of temporarily suspending the normal course of life is a common occurrence, not only among the plant world and among the lower animal species, but even in the human organism, which is much more complex and developed. From time immemorial, the fakirs of India, by putting themselves in a cataleptic state, have enjoyed this faculty which allows them to be buried alive with impunity. It also happens that doctors order, in good faith, the burial of people whose life is momentarily suspended, and who nevertheless are not at all dead. This is what I often thought about, while carrying out on myself these repeated experiments of the little death. And I still remembered the case of these peasants of the far north of Siberia, who, during the long winters they go through, fall asleep, like bears and many another wild beast of this region, until the return of spring. Scientists, who have studied this prolonged sleep of the Siberian peasant, have found that, during this time, the respiratory and digestive functions cease almost completely. The heart beats so weakly that hardly the most practiced ear can perceive its beats. It goes without saying that in this cataleptic state, and this is why Siberian peasants resort to it, the quantity of air and food necessary to sustain life are minimal, almost negligible. With these precedents, duly noted, I dared to challenge Governor Atherton and Doctor Jackson to impose a hundred consecutive days in a straitjacket on me. They did not dare to accept my challenge. I succeeded, however, in going without water and food for entire periods of ten days. And this was the worst torture for me, to be dragged from the wandering depths of my dream through time and space, by a miserable prison doctor, who pried my lips open to compel me to drink. In consequence of which, I informed Doctor Jackson that I insisted on being left alone during my time in the straitjacket, and that I would resist all his efforts to make me take anything. There was, of course, some pulling, before I could get Doctor Jackson to accept my point of view. But he finally had to give in. The result was that my periods in the straitjacket now seemed to last exactly the time of a tick-tock of a clock. As soon as I was laced up, the darkness of this world enveloped me very quickly and, no less quickly, I saw the light again, oh wonder! another light, all nebulous at first, but soon dazzling, and, in this light, other spectral faces, which soon became clearer, leaning towards me. I only knew when I was unlaced that ten new days had suddenly passed. As for the scientific conclusion that I drew from these experiences of other lives, it gradually became clearer and clearer. My being, and that of all other men like mine, is a resultant of other beings. I did not begin to exist when I was born, nor even when I was conceived. I was formed through myriads of centuries. Myriads of lives have conspired to compose the material and moral substance of my being. Where did the red impulse come from in me, Darrell Standing, that ruined my life and threw me into the condemned cell? It was not born, I repeat, with the child who was to one day be Darrell Standing. This old red anger is older than me, older than my mother, older than the first mother of men. It was in embryo, like all our passions of hate or love, in the primitive substance from which the first man was formed. And the innumerable procession of each of my previous existences has put in me its nuances and its successive evolutions, tempering or sharpening my impulses and my thoughts. The substance of all life is malleable and can take various forms . But, at the same time, it never forgets the past. Mold it as you please, the past persists. All breeds of horses, from the heavy and powerful draft horses to the dwarf horses of Iceland, are commonly descended from the first wild horses, which primitive man once domesticated. And yet the successive education of the horse has never succeeded in preventing it from kicking. The kick is in him and remains in him. It is the same for me, in whom, throughout all my existences, the red wrath has never been tamed. We know that this law of evolution, proclaimed by Darwin, has since been undermined by science, which, faced with the evolution of species, has proven the perpetuity of some of them. I am a man born of woman. My days are numbered. But the substance of which I am composed is eternal. I am a man in this life. In other lives I was a woman and I bore children. And I I will be reborn again, countless times. Oh! the brutes, who think, by stretching out my neck with a rope, that they are taking away life! Yes, I will be hanged… soon hanged. Here is the month of June ending . In a few moments, they will try to deceive me. From this cell, they will take me to the weekly bath, according to prison custom . But they will not bring me back here. Once the bath is over, they will give me new clothes, and they will take me to the Death Cell. There, they will place a special guard near me. Night and day, awake or asleep, I will be watched. They will not allow me to bury my head under my covers, for fear that by suffocating myself I will anticipate the action of the State. They will never leave me in the night, but always a bright light will illuminate my cell. Then, when I have been thoroughly tormented in this way, I will be taken away one fine morning, dressed in a collarless shirt, and I will be dropped into the trapdoor. Oh! I know, everything will work out well. The rope that will be used has been, long in advance, prepared and adjusted by the executioner of Folsom, who has stretched it to the limit by suspending heavy weights from it, in order to remove all elasticity, which would be hindering the operation. My plunge into the trapdoor will be as deep as desired. They have drawn up very ingenious calculation tables, similar to scales of interest, which rigorously establish what the length of the fall must be, this one proportionate to the weight of the victim. As I am extraordinarily thin, my fall will have to be very deep, for it to succeed in breaking my neck. Then the assistants will take off their hats and, while I am still swaying, the doctors will come and press their ears against my chest, counting the faint beats of my heart. Then they will say that I am dead. Is the effrontery of these human larvae, who claim to kill me, grotesque enough? I am immortal, you imbeciles! And you are as much as me. The only difference between us consists in this, that I know it, and you do not. Ugh! You disgust me. I too was an executioner, in one of my past existences. But I killed with a sword, not with a rope! The sword is the noblest of all killing machines. And, all of them, as long as they exist, they are worthless. Steel nor hemp could take away life. Chapter 23. Like Robinson Crusoe. After Oppenheimer and Morrell, who were rotting like me in those dark years, I was considered the most dangerous prisoner in San Quentin. And even more than them, I was deemed resistant to the worst punishments, reputed to be tenacious and stubborn. The more terrible the tortures my torturers used to break me, the more I endured, without flinching. Dynamite or death! That had been Governor Atherton’s ultimatum. In the end, it was neither. I could produce the dynamite, and the governor was incapable of killing me. And this endurance, too, had come to me from my past lives. It was they that made me harder than steel. Of one of these, allow me, for the irrefutable proof it contains, to speak to you briefly again. And that will be all, before they hang me. I remember it only as an interminable nightmare. I found myself on a small rocky island, buffeted by waves and so low in the sea that, during great storms, the sea spray covered it with its damp, salty dust. I lived there in the midst of a thousand sufferings, deprived of fire and eating only raw meat. I had a little joy only when the sun shone. Then I warmed my frozen limbs with its rays. My only distraction was an oar and my pocket knife. With the knife, I endeavored to mark a new notch on the oar, for each week that passed, and to trace tiny letters on it which served as a memory aid, on my deserted island. Letters and notches were numerous. I sharpened my knife on a flat stone, and no barber was ever more jealous than I of the maintenance of his favorite blade of shining steel. This knife was for me a priceless treasure. On my oar, I engraved among other things this inscription: This is to inform the person into whose hands this oar may fall that Daniel Foss, born in Elkton, in the State of Maryland, in the United States of America, embarked at the port of Philadelphia, in 1809, on board the brig Negociator and bound for the Friendly Islands. He was, the following February, cast away on this desolate land, where he built himself a hut and lived for a number of years, feeding on seals. He is the only survivor of the crew of this brig, which encountered an ice floe and sank on November 25, 1809. I had retained the terrible memory of this shipwreck, of the brig’s cracking against the ice floe in the middle of the night, and how it sank. The wind was blowing in a storm and, under the moon which at times emerged from the hollows of the clouds, the sails, the ropes and all the masting of the brig which was sinking, appeared fringed with ice floes. The large boat, at the cost of a thousand difficulties, had been able to be lowered to sea, and all the crew, except a few men who drowned in their haste, embarked. It was terribly cold. While our Captain Nicoll held the helm, I kept rubbing my nose, with one hand or the other, to prevent it from freezing. We sailed towards the northeast. But in the boat, completely uncovered, death soon struck. One of us was found, one fine morning, in the gray dawn, lying doubled over at the bow of the boat, completely frozen and already stiff. One of the cabin boys, the oldest, died second. Then the other cabin boy, after ten to twelve days. Other men followed. Five weeks passed like this. Only the captain, the ship’s surgeon, and myself remained on board . The cold was such that beer and water froze solid. We had to break them up, to divide the pieces among ourselves, which we then sucked until they melted. On February 27, a terrible snowstorm broke out. Our supplies were completely exhausted. The surgeon, who had accepted the idea of ​​death, was resigned to everything, and the captain was very close to imitating him. I was at the helm, my two companions lying like two corpses, when I sighted land. It was a small island of rocks, beaten by the waves. I steered towards it. A few yards from the shore, the boat escaped my control. It was capsized in the blink of an eye, and I felt the salt water enter my throat and suffocate me. I never saw my two companions again. I was able to stay afloat and hold on to an oar, while at the same moment a blow from the sea threw me far away, over the line of coastal reefs. I got up all bruised, but without serious injuries. Only my head was spinning, due to my extreme weakness. I was able, however, to drag myself on my stomach, a little further from the shore and out of the way of the waves that would have infallibly carried me away. I got up in an instant, knowing that I was saved and thanking God. I was not unaware that the boat had certainly been broken into a thousand pieces, and I guessed how terribly the bodies of Captain Nicoll and the surgeon must have been crushed . Then I staggered and fainted. I remained, all night, half dead, in a sort of stupor throughout my being, feeling confusedly the damp and the cold to which I was a prey. The morning, showing me the sinister place where I had run aground, brought me a renewal of terror. Not a plant, not a blade of grass grew on this desolate piece of ground, on this rocky outgrowth of the ocean. For a quarter of a mile in width and half a mile in length, there were only piled rocks. I could discover nothing that was likely to sustain my Exhaustion. I was dying of thirst, and there was no fresh water. In vain I tried to drink from every rocky cavity I came across. The spray from the storm had salted any rainwater that had collected there , and I only fueled my thirst. All day long, I dragged myself on my bleeding hands and knees, searching in vain for a drop of drinking water. As for the boat, nothing remained except the single oar to which I had clung and which had come ashore with me. The second day, my condition worsened. I, who had not eaten for so long, began to swell enormously. My legs, my arms, my whole body swelled. My fingers sank an inch into my skin, and the depressions they formed took a long time to disappear. Despite all my troubles, I continued to struggle, determined to fulfill God’s will, which was that I live, to the end. Carefully, I emptied with my hands all the salt water contained in the holes in the rocks, in the hope that the next showers would fill them with fresh water. Indeed, I was awakened during the night by the pounding of a downpour. I crawled from hole to hole, lapping up the rain or licking it off the rocks. This water was still brackish, but tolerable. It saved me. I went back to sleep, and when, in the morning, I awoke, a profuse sweat soaked me and I was freed from all delirium. This profusion of brackish water made me astonishingly happy. When I discovered the body of a seal, which the waves had, like myself, thrown onto the island, over the breakers of the coast, and which had been lying there for several days, my happiness knew no bounds. No merchant whose ships return safely from a long, prosperous voyage, whose stores are filled to the roof with precious commodities, whose safe is overflowing with an influx of dollars, ever considers himself, I am certain, as rich as I now judged myself to be . I threw myself on my knees to thank God once more. God, I was more and more convinced, had decided, from the first hour, that I should not die. I also gathered a few armfuls of seaweed, which I dried in the sun, and which, in the evening, spread out on the rock, served as a mattress, to the great relief of my poor bruised body. For the first time in many weeks, my clothes were no longer wet. So much so that I fell into a deep sleep, the fruit of both my exhaustion and my returning health. When, after that good night, I awoke, I was a different man. The sun had set again. But I was not affected and I quickly learned that God, who had not forgotten me during my sleep, had prepared other wonderful joys for me. As far as the eye could see, the coastal rocks were strewn with seals, which lazily sprawled there. I opened my eyes wide and rubbed them with my hand to make sure I was not seeing things. There were thousands of them there, and others, no less numerous, frolicked in the sea. From their throats came hoarse sounds, which together formed a prodigious and deafening din. My first thought was that it was meat that was being offered to me, meat for a dozen crews. I immediately seized my oar, which was the only weapon I possessed, and I advanced cautiously towards this immense supply. But I soon understood that all these marine creatures ignored man. They betrayed no fear at my approach, and it was child’s play for me to strike them repeatedly on the head with my oar. I killed one, two, three, four, five, and I continued to strike and kill, in the grip of true madness. This relentless murder had neither rhyme nor reason. For two hours I exhausted myself with this massacre, until I collapsed from exhaustion. The seals let me do it, as if stunned. Then suddenly, as if on cue, all the survivors returned to the water and rushed in, only to disappear in the blink of an eye. The number of seals I had killed exceeded two hundred. When I came to my senses, I was scandalized and frightened, at the same time, at the madness of murder that had possessed me. I had foolishly wasted what God had given me. And, to use at least the fruit of my exploits, I set to work without delay. Not without kneeling once more, and without renewing my thanks to the Supreme Being whose mercy never tired , I skinned the seals. Then, with my knife, I cut their meat into long strips, which I put to dry on the surface of the rocks, in the sun that had fortunately reappeared. I also discovered, in cracks in the rocks, small deposits of salt, formed by the sea. I collected this salt and rubbed the meat with it, to preserve it. This task took me four whole days and, when I had finished, I reflected, with legitimate pride, that God must be pleased with me. Not a scrap of the meat he had given me would be wasted. This labor also did me the greatest good. It restored healthy circulation to my body and I had the pleasure of soon being able, without inconvenience, to eat my fill. Never, during the eight years I spent on this islet, was the weather as regularly clear and sunny as I found it, after this massacre, to dry my strips of meat. And I did not fail to see this as renewed proof of God’s Providence. Several years were to pass, in fact, before these frightened animals returned to visit my island. But I was careful not to rest on my laurels. I built myself a stone hut and, adjoining the hut, a storeroom to receive my salted meat. I covered my hut with most of the sealskins and thus made the roof waterproof. Every time the rain beat against my roof, I reflected with admiration that all these skins, which so humbly served as protection for a poor man, abandoned on a desert island, would have represented, at the London fur market, a king’s ransom. One of my first preoccupations was to ingeniously find some means by which I could calculate time. Without which I would soon lose all notion, not only of months and years, but even of the days of the week and, what was most unfortunate of all, of the one consecrated to the Lord. I therefore endeavored to recall to my mind, with as much precision as possible, the number of days that had passed since the shipwreck of the boat, where the captain kept, in his own way, a register of time. When I had found my bearings, I established my weekly calendar with the help of seven stakes placed near my hut . Then I made, on my oar, henceforth, a notch for each week that had passed, and another for the months, taking care to add the additional days to my count of the four weeks. By this process, I was able to worthily observe and sanctify the holy Sabbath day. I composed and engraved on my oar a little Hymn appropriate to my situation, and which I did not fail to sing every Sunday. God had not forgotten me. By a just return of good deeds, I never forgot him, neither on Sundays nor on established holidays. One would not believe the amount of work necessary for a man left alone to satisfy the most elementary needs of existence. In truth, I had little leisure during this first year. The construction of the hut, which was in total only a sort of cavern, required six weeks of labor. For months and months, I had to watch over my preserves and renew the layers of salt. Then also, at the cost of infinite pains, scrape and soften a certain number of seal skins, in order to be able, if necessary, to make myself clothes. The question of fresh water also gave me a lot of trouble. The holes in the rocks, where I kept it, were not deep enough. I undertook, by rubbing a softer stone against a harder one, to make myself a jar that could hold, at a rough estimate, one and a half gallons. This was the arduous work of five weeks. Later, by the same process, I made another, larger jar , holding four gallons. I toiled at it for nine weeks. I also made several smaller ones in my spare time. A very large one, which I had undertaken, and which was to hold eight gallons, cracked after seven weeks of work. About five liters. After four years had passed, and having made up my mind to spend the rest of my life on my island, I succeeded in my masterpiece. It was a long, narrow jar, very deep, with a capacity of thirty gallons. I absorbed eight months of labor and patience into it. But, when I had happily finished this superb container, which was truly very elegant, I forgot my customary humility and was seized by a blameworthy excess of pride, which I hastened to restrain, so as not to displease God. It was, on the other hand, only a game for me to make a small vase, a quarter of a gallon, which I used to collect water from holes in the rocks and to transport it to my jars, where I kept it in reserve. I will add, in order to accurately inform my reader, that this little vase weighed between twenty-five and thirty pounds. And judge by that the fatigue that its handling, and the necessary comings and goings represented for me. Thus I made my solitude as comfortable as possible. In order to protect my hut against the great winds which, at the equinoxes, redoubled their fury and, at these moments, the poor hut weighed no more than a petrel in the jaws of the hurricane, I built around it a stone wall, thirty feet long and twelve feet high. I did not consider, when I had finished, that I had wasted my effort. My wall broke the violence of the wind wonderfully and I remained calm, in my hut, over which the spray passed, streaming. The seals had, one fine day, reappeared. They always landed on the same side of the island, but were now wary. I built two other walls, which framed the pass of rocks by which they reached the mainland. In this way, I easily cut off their retreat and stunned them without their being able to flee to the right or to the left. So much so that I always had in reserve, before me, six months’ worth of dried and salted provisions. Although deprived of the right to enjoy the society of any human creature, not even that of a dog or a cat, I accepted my fate with much more resignation than thousands of men. First of all, my conscience was clear, which is a lot. And I often reflected how many criminals, dragging in a detention cell the weight of an infamy, whose remorse, without a doubt, burned them constantly like a red-hot iron, were a thousand times more unhappy than I. I had no doubt, moreover, that Providence, which had already done so much in my favor, would one day send someone for my deliverance. Weaned as I was from the company of my brothers and the customary comforts of life, I had to admit, on reflection, that my situation included notable advantages. My island was small, but I was its undisputed master. It was very unlikely that anyone, except the beasts of the ocean, would ever dispute my peaceful enjoyment of it. Moreover, the island being inaccessible, my rest was not disturbed at night by any fear, and I had nothing to fear from an invasion of cannibals or wild beasts. But man is a strange creature, whom some new desire constantly torments. I, who for so long had asked the goodness of God for nothing but a little rotten meat to satisfy my hunger and a drop of brackish water to quench my thirst, was no sooner in possession of a reserve of excellent salted meat and a sure supply of fresh water than I began to grumble. I wanted a fire, and feel in my mouth the flavor of cooked meat. From there to wishing for some of the excellent delicacies I enjoyed at the family table, there was only one step. It was quickly taken, and I saw floating in my reveries a host of delicious dishes, to which I promised myself to do ample honor, if ever God took me from my island.
It was then, I am convinced, the old Adam who reappeared in me, this distant father who rebelled, the first, against the Commandments of the Lord. A perpetual revolt is in man. It torments, with useless desires and vain efforts, his restless spirit, his stubborn and wicked heart. Would you believe that I was, at times, at the point of despairing of no longer having my tobacco? This thought returned to torture me even in my sleep, and I saw, until morning, entire bales of tobacco, tobacco stores, cargoes of tobacco, entire tobacco plantations dancing before my closed eyes! But I quickly curbed these evil thoughts and soon regained self-control. With a humble heart, I offered to God all the sufferings of my flesh, all its unfulfilled desires. During the third year, I began the construction of a tower or, if you prefer, a four-sided pyramid, which widened towards the base, tapering towards the top. It was hard work to pile up all these blocks, all by myself, without the aid of any rope or pulley, or any scaffolding. The inclined shape of my building alone allowed me to overcome this difficulty. I reached forty feet at the extreme tip of my pyramid, and, if one considers that the island, at its highest point, had the same height above the waves, one will recognize as I did that I had thus doubled its altitude. When I arrived at this astonishing result, I had a scruple, I confess. The good Christian in me wondered, with anxiety, if, by thus modifying the apparent structure of this islet on which God had taken me, I had not offended God. He had made this land completely flat, on the ocean. And now it projected towards the sky and towards the clouds. I meditated for a long time on this troubling problem, and ended up convincing myself that, by the work of my back which had carried the stones, of my hands which had adjusted them, I had , on the contrary, only perfected, with his approval, the primitive plan of the Lord Almighty. In the sixth year, I raised my pyramid. After eight months of work, it was fifty feet above the island. Obviously, it was not yet the Tower of Babel. But it met the two goals I had set for myself. First, to provide me with an observation post, allowing me to scan the ocean far and wide, in order to discover a ship passing offshore. Second, to increase, for this same ship, the possibility of noticing my island, which might perhaps be glimpsed by the wandering gaze of some sailor. I had continued, moreover, to maintain my good health, physical and moral, through this work, and to thwart Satan’s traps. During my sleep alone, he persisted in tormenting me with vain visions of succulent foods and that pernicious herb called tobacco. On June 18 of the sixth year, I perceived a ship in the distance. But the distance at which it was sailing, downwind, was too great for it to be able to discern me. Far from feeling disappointed, this fleeting apparition was a comfort to me. I could no longer doubt, as I had sometimes done, that human ships sometimes plowed these waters. I therefore continued to wait patiently for events to unfold. No doubt tired of seeing that he had no serious hold over me, Satan gave up and ceased, almost completely, to torment me with tempting but superfluous desires. I occupied my leisure time engraving on my oar the account of the most notorious events that had happened to me since my departure from the peaceful shores of America. In order to save the space I had on the wood, I applied myself to writing as little as possible. My effort was so great at this work that sometimes five or six letters represented a whole day’s work. Perhaps, if I never saw my family again, this oar would reach them one day and at least inform them of my deplorable fate. Also, when it was covered with my writing, it became, as one can imagine, even more precious to me than in the past. No longer wanting to use it to stun seals, I made myself a stone club to replace it, which gave me the best service. In order to protect my oar from the elements, I made a sealskin sheath for it . I only took it out to hoist it, in fine weather, to the top of my pyramid, after having provided it, as a flag, with a banner, always made of sealskin. During the following winter, I had to endure a particularly terrible storm. It broke out around nine o’clock in the evening, announced by enormous black clouds and a fresh southwest wind which, around eleven o’clock, became furious, accompanied by incessant thunderclaps and lightning of incredible length. I was not without fear for my safety. The raging waves completely covered the island and, if I had not climbed to the top of my pyramid, there was no doubt that I would have been drowned. It alone saved me. My hut was completely submerged and all my supply of seal meat swept away and reduced to nothing. Here again, however, my lucky star did not abandon me. The sea, in retreating, had sown the surface of the island with a multitude of fish, of the mullet species, or approaching it. I gathered no less than twelve hundred and nineteen of these fish, which I hastened to open, salt, and put to dry in the sun, as one does with cod. This happy change in my diet came at the right time to awaken my appetite. But I was guilty of gluttony and ate so much that, the following night, I almost died. At the beginning of my seventh year of stay on the island, in the month of March to be exact, a second storm, no less formidable, occurred. When it had abated, this time it was the fresh corpse of a gigantic whale that I discovered on the rocks, where the waves had thrown it. And you will understand my joy when I tell you that I found, deeply embedded in the entrails of the monster, a harpoon, still equipped with its rope, several fathoms long. My courage and my hope for a better future were once again comforted. But, at the sight of the exquisite food that this whale offered me, I fell back into the sin of gluttony and gorged myself so much that I almost died again. The flesh of the large cetacean provided me with a year’s worth of food and from then on alternated, at my meals, with that of the mules and the seals. From its fat, I expressed, in one of my jars, an exquisite and perfumed oil, in which I dipped, while eating them, my slices of meat or fish . I could even have made myself a wick, with the rag that served as my shirt, and, dipping it in the oil, lit it, making the fire spring from the strike of a flint against the steel of the harpoon. But I felt that this lamp would have been a superfluous luxury for me, and I immediately abandoned this idea. I had no need of light when the darkness of God descended upon me and I had become accustomed to sleeping, winter and summer, from sunset to sunrise. I, Darrell Standing, who writes these lines in Folsom Prison, allow myself to place here a personal reflection. After having lived, in a previous existence, the harsh life that I have just described, and all this torture of my body, all these privations of my stomach, how, yes, could I have been moved by the torments inflicted on me by Governor Atherton? My present life is a structure built, through the centuries, by my past lives. What could have been for I, an imbecile governor, ten days and ten nights in a straitjacket? For me , who, when I was Daniel Foss, had patiently languished for eight years on a rocky islet, lost on the ocean! The eighth year was ending. It was September, and I had developed the audacious plan of raising my pyramid, sixty feet above the ground. But, as I awoke one morning, I saw a ship firing broadsides, seemingly inspecting the shore. It was almost within my earshot. In order to be seen, I climbed my pyramid and waved my oar and its banner in the air. Then I ran over the coastal rocks, shouting and dancing, using, in short, every means to prove to the new arrivals that I was indeed alive. I was sighted, and I distinguished the captain and his mate standing on the quarterdeck, examining me with their spyglasses. In response to my signals, they ordered their men, who numbered about a dozen, to maneuver on the western point of the island, toward which I made for them in haste. As I was to learn later, it was my pyramid that had, from a distance, first attracted their attention and excited their curiosity. They had advanced in order to ascertain what, on this island, this strange monument that stood there could be. A boat was put to sea and attempted to land. But the breakers made any landing impossible and, after several fruitless attempts, those who were on it signaled to me that they should return to the ship. Imagine my despair! I seized my oar, which I had long ago decided to offer to the Philadelphia Museum if I ever escaped, and in his company I plunged into the foaming waves. My lucky star, my energy and skill, and the protection of God, made it possible for me to reach the boat. As for the ship, it had been, during this time, drifted so far away that we could not reach it and board it until after rowing for a good hour. My first impulse was to indulge one of my oldest and dearest inclinations. I immediately begged the mate for a piece of chewing tobacco, the tobacco from which I had been weaned for eight years. He did better and handed me his pipe, previously filled for me with excellent Virginia tobacco. I began to smoke. But, at the end of five minutes, my head began to spin, and I was soon violently ill. Nothing surprising in this. My body had completely purified itself of the fatal poison, which worked in me as it does in any young man who is smoking his first cigarette. I handed over the pipe and renounced, from that day on, forever, the fatal plant, well cured and thanking God for this last blessing he had granted me. I, Darrell Standing, must now complete the story of this existence, relived by me in the straitjacket of San Quentin Prison, by adding that I often wondered, upon waking in my cell, if Daniel Foss had been faithful to his resolution to deposit his oar in the Philadelphia Museum. It is difficult for a prisoner, under guard as I was, to communicate with the outside world. However, one day I entrusted to a guard a letter that I had written on this subject to the Curator of the Philadelphia Museum. The letter did not reach its destination, despite the promises I had received. But a time came when, by a strange twist of fate, Ed. Morrell, his cell sentence over, was, as a result of his exemplary conduct, appointed a trusted man in the prison. I gave him another letter, which was more successful. Here is the reply I received and which Ed. Morrell smuggled to me: It is true that there is in our Museum an oar such as you describe. Few people know about it because it is not exhibited in the public rooms. I myself, who have been in office for eighteen years, was unaware of its existence. After consulting our old records, I found mention of the said oar, which had been given to us by a certain Daniel Foss, originally from Elkton, State of Maryland, in the year 1821. It was only after long research that I succeeded in finding this object, in an abandoned storage room, located under the attic of the Museum. The notches and inscriptions are engraved on the wood, exactly as you describe them to me. I also found, in our archives, a pamphlet which had been given to us by the same Daniel Foss, and which had been written by him and published in Boston, by the bookstore N. Coverly Jr., in 1834. This pamphlet tells of eight years in the life of a man cast away on a deserted island. It seems evident that this sailor, grown old and pressed by need, offered it for purchase, in the street, to charitable people. I would be interested to know how you became aware of this oar, the existence of which was unknown to everyone. Am I right in assuming that the little pamphlet, published by this Daniel Foss, one day, by chance, fell into your hands and that you read it? I would be happy to be informed by you on this subject and I am making the necessary arrangements for the oar and the pamphlet to be exhibited again. Hosea Salsburty. Chapter 24. The Double Straitjacket. The time came when the humiliations I subjected Governor Atherton to forced him to surrender unconditionally, despite his eternal: Dynamite or death! This was not, however, without having tried on me a last joke, in too good taste for me to omit to tell you about it. Here is the occasion. It happened that one of the principal newspapers of San Francisco opened an investigation into the prisons. A number of politicians became interested, and a committee of several members of the Senate was formed to investigate the various state prisons. This committee, naturally, came to San Quentin to inquire. And, of course, it was recognized that it was a model house of detention. The convicts themselves testified to this. It was impossible to ask for more. They had already, in the past, experienced similar investigations. They were not ignorant, therefore, of the side on which they would find butter on their bread. They knew that their backs and ribs would soon be stewing, after the departure of the investigators, if their testimony had been hostile to the penitentiary administration. This is a tradition, from all eternity. It was already so in the dungeons of Babylon, when I was rotting there during one of my previous existences, thousands of years ago. It was therefore up to who, in the prison, would demonstrate the feelings of humanity shown to their inmates by Governor Atherton and his subordinates. They dwelt so much on the kindness of the governor, on the healthy and varied food given to them, and on its excellent preparation, on the friendliness of the guards towards them, in short on all the comfort and well-being of the house, that they declared, with a touching, absolutely perfect ensemble , that the opposition newspapers of San Francisco were scandalized and took offense. They protested vehemently, demanding more rigor and firmness in the management of the prisons. They declared that, failing which, honest people, even if a little lazy, would have only one idea: to commit some misdeed, in order to be interned. The senatorial committee was careful not to forget the solitary confinement cells, which it invaded noisily. Oppenheimer and Ed. Morrell, who, like me, had little to lose and nothing to gain, did not hesitate to vent their bile. Jake Oppenheimer spat in their faces and told them to go to hell. Ed. Morrell declared that nothing more foul had ever been seen than this establishment, and severely insulted the governor in their presence. Indignant, the committee urged Governor Atherton to be more severe than he was towards these bad heads and to make them taste, without fear, worse punishments, even those that their excessive cruelty had caused to fall into disuse. As for me, I was careful not to imitate my two comrades. I did not insult the governor and testified without anger, calmly, scientifically, as best I could, avoiding, at the beginning, any excessive recrimination, so that no one would doubt my good faith and that as I advanced in my exposition my listeners would take a growing interest in my fate. I cajoled them delicately and did not stop talking, in order to avoid any retorts to my arguments. So much so that I succeeded in telling my story from beginning to end . Alas! not an iota of what I had divulged crossed the prison walls . The committee wrote a magnificent report, which gave Governor Atherton a clean chit and had insufficient praise for San Quentin. The newspapers that had initiated the investigation communicated its excellent results to their readers. They even added that the straitjacket, although it was true that its use had, in principle, remained legal, was, in fact, never used, never, never, under any circumstances. And, while the poor fools who read this nonsense naively swallowed it, while the Senate Committee banqueted and drank fine wines in the prison itself, in the company of Governor Atherton, at the expense of the State and the taxpayers, Ed. Morrell, Jake Oppenheimer and I lay on the floor of our cells, in our straitjackets savagely laced, which had been tightened even more. –You have to laugh at all these puppets! Ed. Morrell struck me with the edge of his shoe sole, when our visitors had left. “That’s what I do,” Jake replied. I struck, in turn, my contempt and my laughter, then wasted no time in fleeing into the little death, wandering towards other lives and other ages, a rider of time, solidly armored in his insensible armor. Yes, dear brothers of the outside world, while we were there and the newspapers began to publish the results of the investigation, the august senators, to close their work, were feasting around Governor Atherton, in his private apartment. Dinner over, Atherton, a little tipsy from having drunk well, returned to the three living dead that we were, in order to see for himself the torture we were sweating in our canvas jackets. He found me in a coma, and was alarmed. Doctor Jackson was summoned and brought me back to consciousness by putting the sting of ammonia under my nostrils. I regained my senses, and Governor Atherton, who had a red face and a thick tongue from his binge, growled: “Cheating! Cheating again! ” I ran my tongue over my lips to make it clear that I wanted a little water so that I could speak. I managed, not without difficulty, to express myself more or less, and said: “You are a donkey, Governor! A donkey, a pig, a dog, a being so vile that I no longer want to soil my saliva by spitting it in your face! Jake Oppenheimer was less disgusted than I was a moment ago, and I blame him for it. A man should respect himself more. ” He bellowed: “My patience is at an end, at an end, at an end!” But I’ll still manage to kill you, Standing… I replied: “You’ve been drinking, Governor! Be careful not to talk like that in front of your guards. Those prison dogs will betray you one day and spill the beans. And then it’s you who’ll be the one to get hurt.” The wine went to his head, so much so that he lost all self-control . “Put a second straitjacket on him!” he ordered. “A second over the first! You’ll die of it, you scoundrel… But not here. In the Infirmary, according to the regulations. In the Infirmary, where you will be taken before your last breath, and from where you will go to the cemetery!” His command was carried out, and over my first straitjacket, I was made to put on a second one, worn backwards, this one with its chest on my back and laced up on me in front. I sneered: “Good heavens, Governor! What an interest you take in my health! The cold is sharp and biting… Thank you for thinking of keeping me warm. Two straitjackets! I’ll be even better in them. ” “Tighten! Tighten harder!” he yelled. “Put your foot on his stomach. Break his bones! ” Hutchins fought back in conscience. Governor Atherton had turned rosy. He had one last fit of mad rage: “Ah! Ah! You tried to lie to these gentlemen! To tell them falsehoods about me! Now that’s it for you! You hear me, Standing. You’ll die this time! ” I wanted to retaliate. But the pressure I was under was truly terrible. I felt my mind wandering. The walls of the cell revolved around me, sloping down on me, as if to crush me. I still had the strength to murmur: “Governor… a third straitjacket… a third, I beg you… I shall have… I shall have… warmer still… much warmer…” And the voice died away on my lips. I escaped. But never again, after that, was it possible to eat properly. I suffered from internal pains, to a degree I cannot estimate. As I write these lines, my ribs and stomach are still prey to intolerable cramps. Yet my miserable organism resisted. It had allowed me to live until the hour of my supreme condemnation. It will lead me until the moment when the executioner stretches out my neck with his rope stretched taut. This was the last experiment Governor Atherton attempted on me. He then gave up, and yielded to this last proof that it was impossible to kill me legally. I told him, in plain words: “The only way left to you, Governor, if you want to have me, is to slip into my cell one night and strike me down with an axe.” Yet many others had been killed before me in straitjackets. Some, after only a few hours. Others, after several days. And always they had been untied in time and transported to the prison infirmary on a stretcher, to breathe their last according to the rules, provided with an authentic certificate from the doctor that they had died of pneumonia, Bright’s disease, or a heart condition. Chapter 25. I Visit Jake Oppenheimer. So, from then on, I was left alone in my cell. And, thus deprived of these straitjacket sessions, I found myself very disappointed. I no longer knew how, at first, to produce in myself the little death and fly away in a dream among the stars. Then I discovered that I could, by my will alone and by the compression of my blanket on my chest, produce the cataleptic trance myself. The physiological and psychological results were the same, and I was very satisfied. This is how I was able, one day, to go and visit Jake Oppenheimer, in his dungeon. Ed. Morrell, as I have said, gave complete credence to all my adventures in the beyond, which I typed out for him. But Oppenheimer still persisted in his skepticism. One day, then, while I was in catalepsy, I found myself, without having wanted to, transported near him. My body, I realized , was lying on the floor, in my own cell. But I was, in spirit, present nevertheless near Oppenheimer. Although I had never seen this man, I recognized him easily and knew that it was him. It was summer. He lay, undressed and completely naked, on his blanket. I was painfully affected by the cadaverous appearance of his face and by that of his skeletal body. It was barely a human carcass. His bones, stripped of all flesh, were now covered only by a taut and wrinkled skin, which resembled parchment. Later, when I was back in my cell and when I came to my senses, I realized that Jake Oppenheimer’s physical state must have been identical, in every way, to mine and to Ed. Morrell’s. And I marveled that our beautiful minds could still subsist in such sad carcasses. There are people who admire and adore flesh, this flesh born of grass and which returns to grass. Let them go and feel a little of the solitary dungeons of San Quentin prison! There they will learn the superiority of mind over matter. But let us return to Oppenheimer. His body was like that of a man who had been dead for a long time, and had been shriveled up by the burning desert sun. The skin that covered him was the color of dry mud . The eyes, wide open, seemed to be all that was still alive in him. They were of a yellowish gray, and their ardent gaze never remained at rest. As Jake lay motionless on his back , his eyes wandered and darted their pupils toward several flies, which fluttered above him, frolicking in the gloom of the cell. I also noticed a scar on his right elbow, and another on his right ankle. After a moment, he began to yawn, turned on his side, and examined a wound, placed above his hip, which seemed to itch. He began to clean and dress it, by the rudimentary means a prisoner can employ. I recognized, without difficulty, that this wound was of the nature caused by a straitjacket. After which, Oppenheimer rolled onto his back. He gently grasped, between his thumb and forefinger, one of the teeth of his upper jaw, placed under the eye, and shook it back and forth, very carefully. Then he yawned, stretched his arms, turned again, and rapped his call to Ed. Morrell. I listened to what he said. “How are you?” he rapped. “Are you asleep or awake? How’s the professor?” Confused and distant, I heard Morrell’s answering raps . “He’s a very classy fellow!” Oppenheimer continued. “I’ve always distrusted educated people. But this one, education hasn’t corrupted him. He’s a frank and straightforward man. He has great courage, and for gold or silver, you wouldn’t make him cough up what he didn’t have in his head to say. They’ll never have dynamite.” Ed. Morrell approved, and further amplified my praise. I have had, both in this existence and in my past existences, many a movement of pride. Well! I must say that I never felt so flattered as when I heard my two comrades, these noble spirits, express themselves thus on my behalf and equalize myself with them. Perfectly. Nothing has been to me, at all times, so precious as the moral embrace of these two lifers, whom the world considers as the refuse of the human dump. When I had regained my body, in my cell, I reported to Jake and typed for him the visit I had paid him. But he remained steadfast in his incredulity. When I had described to him how he had appeared to me and the acts in which he indulged, he replied: “You both guess and imagine.” Since you’ve been in the dungeon like us, Professor, you’ve easily realized in your mind what Morrell and I can do there to kill time: lie around without clothes when it’s hot; watch the flies; dress our wounds; strike up a conversation. These are things we’ve talked about many times. Ed. Morrell intervened in vain. “Don’t be angry, Professor, at what I’m telling you!” Oppenheimer continued. “I’m not trying to offend you. I’m not saying you lied. I’m simply saying you’re having fumes, like an alcoholic. And then you take at face value the visions that have crossed your mind.” brain. “Excuse me!” I protested. “You know as well as I do, Jake, that we’ve never seen each other. Is that true? ” “I don’t know and I’m happy to take your word for it. Although you may have seen me once, somewhere, without knowing who I was. ” “Excuse me! Excuse me! Let’s not digress. In any case, I’ve never seen you undressed. How, then, could I know and tell you that you have two old scars, one on your right elbow, the other on your right ankle? ” “Trifles! My description, like my face, is circulating in every police station in the United States. It’s not a rarity! ” “Never, I assure you, have I been aware of it. ” “You believe it as you say. But you’ve forgotten. There are lots of things in life that you no longer remember and that suddenly come back to you. It happens to everyone. Listen to me.” Among the jurors who sentenced me, in Oakland, to fifty years in prison, there was one whose name I completely forgot one fine day. Well, uh! I stayed, for weeks, lying on my back in my cell, looking for him, without being able to find him. Impossible to extricate him from my skull! I could rightly believe that he was gone forever. He was only lost. One morning, when I was no longer even thinking about it, he descended of his own accord from my cerebellum, onto the tip of my tongue. Stacy… I started to say out loud, Joseph Stacy… That was the famous name! There are lots of people, I repeat, who know these two scars. They will have told you about them, I don’t know where or how. City in California, on the Pacific Ocean. Jack London worked there, in his youth, as a newspaper seller. Jake Oppenheimer, however, was a surprisingly honest and scrupulous man. Listen to me carefully. The following night, as I began to doze off, I heard him knocking. He said to me: “One thing troubles me, Professor. You told me you saw one of my loose teeth move between my fingers… I’m at a loss here . It didn’t start moving a week ago, and I haven’t told anyone! ” Chapter 26. It Was Love That Lost Me. I, Darrell Standing, am, at this hour, peacefully sitting in the death row cell at Folsom, while flies buzz around me in the heavy drowsiness of this afternoon. And I think of all the women I have loved, both in this life and in my other lives, since the time of the geological periods, when I grazed my herd of reindeer, guarded by domestic wolves, on the then icy shores of the Mediterranean, which have since become France, Italy and Spain. I see again the one I called Igar and who, in the time of the Bronze Age, crouched beside me, at dusk, before our fire, while I carved and bent bows of red and fragrant wood, like cedar wood, or made, from bones, jagged arrows, intended to pierce fish in the clear water. I had captured her by force and stolen her from the men of another tribe. As she walked slowly through the jungle grass, I threw myself upon her from an overhanging tree branch where I was lying in ambush. I fell squarely upon her shoulders with the full weight of my body, and clung to her with my clenched hands. She squealed like a cat, lying there in the tall grass. She struggled and bit me furiously. Her fingernails plucked at my skin like a lynx’s. But I held firm and overpowered her, and for two days I beat her to force her to submit to me. Then she obeyed me and followed me obediently to my hut, which was set on stilts in a swamp, like a perch. She was half-dressed, to protect herself from the cold, in the bloody and sordid skins of beasts I had killed. His dark skin was blackened by the smoke from our fireplace and, when the rains of the spring, often remained for months on end without being washed. She had calloused hands, with gnarled fingers and shriveled nails, like beasts’ claws, and her feet, with pads tanned by walking, looked more like the ends of paws. But her eyes were blue like the azure of the sky, deep like the sea , and when I pressed her to my hairy chest, when her wild arms embraced me and when our legs entwined, her heart was already beating in unison with mine. I had a rival, I remember, old Sabretooth, with long fangs and long hair, whose roars and shrill cries, during the night, often reached us. So, to destroy him, I set a trap, like those I used to catch wild beasts and bears: a deep pit, covered with branches, with a sharp spear driven into the bottom. Igar was broad-built, with large breasts. We both laughed in the morning sun, while our man-child and our woman-child, their bodies golden like bees, crawled and rolled on the ground among the thorns of the bushes. Thus we had several sons and several daughters, who in turn procreated other children. My companion and I were already old, when there surged towards us, like a great wave, a rush of black men, with flat foreheads and frizzy hair, before whom we all began to flee over the hills. They overtook us, despite the speed of our run, and there was, between them and us, a fierce battle. I fought until dawn, with my sons and grandsons, to the song of bows and the quivering of poisoned arrows. We made a great massacre of frizzy heads. Then I fell, struck dead, towards the end of the battle, and the funeral chants, which I myself had once composed, resounded over my corpse. Woman, here below, is everything to man. She attracts him to her, willingly or unwillingly, as the pole calls the magnetic needle. She charms the gaze of man with the marvelous sway of her body, with the waves of her hair, brown or blond, black as the night, or which seems dusted with gold by the sun. Her feet are divine. Her chest and arms are a paradise for those who rest there. The perfume she exhales delights the nostrils. Her voice, when she sings or laughs, in the sun or the moonlight, or when she sobs with love in the night, lying on her back and dizzy , is sweeter than all other music, more melodious than the song of swords in battle. Her words are an exaltation of her whole being. They electrify ours and make fire run through it, better than a thunderous blast of trumpets. In Heaven itself, man, with the Houris and the Valkyries, those in the Christian Paradise, transformed into Angels, who took wings from their horses , has reserved for her a place of honor. For, no more than the earth, can man conceive of a Heaven where woman would not be . The constellations move in the firmament. The North Star, Hercules, Vega, the Swan, Cepheus were not formerly where they are today. Woman alone remains. She alone is immutable in Eternity. She is the lover and she is the mother, who broods over her children, like the partridge under her wings. She is Cleopatra and Herodias, Esther and the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene. She is Brunhilde and Isolde, Juliet and Heloise, Eve and Astarte. And always, in my innumerable lives, I have loved her madly. In this cell, where I wait for someone to come and get me to hang me, I see again leaning over my bed, and Igar, the wild woman, and Lady Om, with whom I dragged, for forty years, my existence as a beggar, on the roads of Korea; and Miriam, who claimed that I betray my oath to Rome, to save the fisherman of Judea; and the mother of little Jesse, besieged with me among the Mormons, in the circle of our forty wagons, then treacherously massacred at the Mountain Meadows. Many times in my past lives, I killed to possess the woman I loved and celebrated my wedding in hot blood. And, if I am here, in this dungeon of infamy, I, Darrell Standing, awaiting the death to which the law has condemned me, it is still because I loved.
For it was not for nothing, nor for my pleasure, that I killed my colleague, Professor Haskell, in his laboratory at the California Agricultural University. He was a man and I was one. And there was between us a beautiful woman, and whom I loved. Whom I loved with all the heredity of love that was mine, since the howling and tenebrous chaos, where neither man nor love had yet taken form. And I killed Professor Haskell, as I had exterminated, in my trap covered with branches, old Sabretooth who, in the Bronze Age, claimed to dispute Igar with me. Twelve jurors, at whom I laugh, then gathered. Twelve zealous jurors, to judge and condemn me. Twelve has always been a fateful number. Long before the twelve tribes of Israel, the Magi, stargazers, had placed twelve Signs of the Zodiac in the sky. And, in Scandinavian Olympus , when Odin sat down to judge men, he had around him, I remember, twelve gods as assessors: Thor, Baldur, Niod, Frey, Tyr, Bregi, Heimdal, Hoder, Vidar, Ull, Forseti and Loki. Chapter 27. A Bat in the Light. The time I have left to live is getting shorter and shorter! This manuscript, which I am finishing writing, will be smuggled out of the prison by a reliable man. It will go into the hands of another person, in whom I can also have complete confidence, and who will see to its publication. I am no longer in the ordinary Assassin’s Quarters, but in the Death Cell, where I have been transferred. The Death Guard has been placed near me to spy on me. It watches night and day, without straying far, and its paradoxical function is to ensure that I do not attempt to take my own life. I must be kept alive for hanging. Otherwise the public would be duped, the law flouted, and a bad report would come to the governor of this prison, whose first duty is to ensure that the condemned are duly and properly hanged. There are men, and I admire them, who have a singular way of earning their living. This session, in which I am writing, is the last. The time has been set for tomorrow morning. Although the League Against the Death Penalty is busy, at this moment, fomenting a major movement in California against this punishment, the governor of Folsom Prison has refused either to pardon me or to stay the execution. Already the reporters are assembled. I know them all. If any of them are married, the description of Professor Standing’s execution, and the manner in which he died at the end of a rope, will pay for their children’s shoes and schoolbooks. Strange! Strange! I would wager that when the matter is settled, they will be sicker of it than I am.
As I sit in this cell, meditating on all these things, I hear, outside my cage, the steady step of my guard going up and down the corridor. When he passes in front of the gate, I see his suspicious eye fixed on me. I have lived so many lives that I am weary, at times, of this eternal recommencement. What a hassle on this earth! What I would like, in my next reincarnation, is to simply occupy the body, no longer of a professor, but of a simple and peaceful farmer. Large meadows of esparto grass; a good herd of Jersey cows; pastures covering the slopes of scrubby hills and bordering plowed fields; abundant water, which by means of a dike I would collect in a deep basin, from where I would then direct it to my fields, by irrigation canals… For, observe this. The summer, which is long and dry in California, constitutes a great obstacle to intensive cultivation. A properly irrigated land could easily, on the contrary, provide, with good fertilizers, three harvests a year… That, yes, would be my dream from now on. I have just undergone, I repeat undergone, a visit from the governor of the prison. He is quite different from Governor Atherton of San Quentin. Recently promoted to his position, he was very moved, very angry, and it was I who had to invite him to speak. It is his first hanging. He frankly admitted it to me. I, to try to cheer him up as best I could, wittily replied that it was also the first time I had been hanged. But I wasted my time, and he remained gloomy and sad.
He is, moreover, a man who has domestic troubles. He has two children, a daughter who attends High School, and a son, a freshman at Stanford University. He has no personal fortune and only lives on his salary. His wife is infirm, and he himself is in poor health. He tried to get life insurance. But the Company doctors decided he was an undesirable risk. It was he who confided all his troubles to me. Once he left, he never stopped, and didn’t notice that he was boring me, with all his stories. I had to politely break off the interview. Otherwise, he would still be here. But I realize that I, myself, have omitted to tell you exactly how I find myself here. Released from the straitjacket, I spent two more depressing and melancholy years in my solitary confinement cell at San Quentin. Ed. Morrell, as I have said, after being taken from his cell, was, by a chance unexpected by himself, appointed chief trustman of the prison. He succeeded Hutchins in this position, which earned its holder a net profit of three thousand dollars a year. When he was no longer there, I found myself very alone. Jake Oppenheimer, who had been rotting for so many years in his dungeon, had, in the long run, soured his temper. He resented the entire universe. For eight months, he refused to speak to anyone, not even me. It is an incredible thing the speed with which news spreads in a prison. A little more slowly, but infallibly, it reaches the very isolation cells. That is how I learned, one fine day, that Cecil Winwood, the poet forger, the coward, the traitor, and the informer, had returned to San Quentin, in order to serve a new sentence, for another forgery he had committed. We remember who this Cecil Winwood was, who had fabricated the story of the dynamite, supposedly received by me and which I had hidden. He was the one responsible for all my misfortune. I decided to kill Cecil Winwood. You understand the situation. Morrell was gone; Oppenheimer, as I said, had become mute. This lasted until the day when, having severely manhandled one of our guards, whom he struck with the bread knife , he left, in turn, but to be hanged, as I myself am about to be. I had been alone for a year. I had to do something. So I went back to the distant time when I was Adam Strang and when, patiently, I brooded, for forty years, the hope of my revenge. What Adam Strang had done, I could do again, by closing my hands once again around Cecil Winwood’s throat. I got myself four needles. How, don’t expect me to tell you. They were very small needles, good for sewing cambric . I was so thin that I would only have to saw through the four bars of my wicket for my body to pass through. I sawed through these bars. For each of them, that is to say for two cuts, one at the top, one at the bottom, I used up a needle. And each cut took me a month of work. It therefore took me eight months, in total, to make my way through. Unfortunately, I broke my fourth needle on the last bar, before I had finished, and I It took another three months before I could get a fifth needle. Finally, I finished my work and managed to get out. I had calculated everything. The certain luck I had was to meet Cecil Winwood in the refectory, at lunchtime. So I waited for the moment when Jones Pie Face would start his shift at noon. Pie Face, you know, was the guard who slept continually. It was hot and he was soon, indeed, snoring. I finished popping my bars and squeezed through the wicket, compressing myself tightly, an operation to which the straitjacket had accustomed me. After which, I passed in front of Pie Face, reached the end of the corridor and found myself free… in the prison. But then happened the only thing I had not foreseen. I had been locked up in my solitary cell for five years. I was frightfully and hideously weak. My weight had dropped to sixty-four pounds. My eyes were almost blind. I was suddenly struck with agoraphobia upon finding myself outside. The space around me terrified me. Five years in this narrow cage had made me incapable of descending the vertiginous slope of the staircase that opened before me. I tried, however, and succeeded. It was the most heroic act I had performed in my entire life. And so I arrived at one of the prison’s inner courtyards. The courtyard, at that hour, was deserted. The dazzling sun shone full upon it. Three times I tried to cross it. But my head spun and I had to seek protection in the shadow cast by one of its walls. Having recovered a little, I again steeled my courage and renewed my attempt. My poor, bleary eyes, stunned like a bat’s, made me jump with fear at the sight of my shadow stretching out before me on the paving stones. I tried to avoid my shadow, stumbled, and then fell upon it. Then, like a man about to drown, struggling to reach the shore, I crawled on my knees and hands toward the shelter of the saving wall. I leaned against it and began to cry. It had been many years since I had shed tears. I still remember feeling, in that final distress, the warmth of my tears as they rolled down my cheek, and the salty taste that, upon reaching them, they brought to my lips. A shudder seized me, like an attack of intermittent fever, and, despite the torrid heat of the sun, in that narrow courtyard, I began to tremble all over. I recognized that crossing the courtyard was a feat I was incapable of, and still panting, I began to go around it, crouching against the wall and leaning on it with my hands. It was in this position that Warden Thurston, who had been watching me for some moments, came to seize me. I saw him, distorted by my bleary eyes, a sort of enormous and well-fed monster, disproportionately enlarged, rushing towards me with dizzying speed. He was, in reality, only about twenty feet from me, and it seemed to me that he had emerged from the Infinite. He weighed about one hundred and seventy pounds, and it is easy to imagine what, under the conditions in which we were, a struggle might have been between us. It was during this brief struggle that he claimed to have received a punch from me on the nose, a punch so terrible that blood flowed. Be that as it may, being a life sentence prisoner, and for a life sentence prisoner who commits assault, California law provides for the death penalty, I was thus declared guilty and struck by the jury. The jury could not, legally, ignore the solemn affirmations of Warden Thurston, to which were added those of the other hanging dogs of the prison, who did not fail to charge me. The arrest was inevitable. During the entire journey that I had to travel in the opposite direction to return to my cell, and especially during the ascent of the vertiginous stairs, I was gently beaten up, both by Thurston and by the swarm of auxiliaries who rushed to lend him a hand. Kicks, punches, and slaps. It rained down. If Thurston’s nose really bled, which I would refrain from asserting, it must have been, probably, during the melee, due to one of those overzealous acolytes, who hit at random. I fully absolve myself of responsibility. But the pretext was no less excellent for hanging myself! Chapter 28. Who Will I Be When I Live Again? I have just had a conversation with the Death guard on duty. He knew Jake Oppenheimer, who occupied this very cell a year ago, before marching to the gallows as I am about to do myself. He is a former soldier. He chews tobacco constantly, and in a filthy manner. His gray beard and mustache are all stained with yellow streaks. He is a widower, with fourteen living children, all married, and he is the grandfather of thirty-one living grandchildren, the great-grandfather of four little girls. It was not without difficulty that I obtained this information. I had to extract it from him with as much difficulty as if it had been a matter of extracting a molar. He is a sort of boor, of very inferior intelligence. The mind has never tormented him. And it is for this reason, no doubt, that he has lived so long and has, without being troubled, procreated so many children. His ideas must have become blocked in him, from the age of thirty. The world is indifferent to him. He is usually content to answer yes or no to my questions. It is not that he is naturally surly or morose. But he has no ideas to express. I wonder if I should not wish, for my next reincarnation, for an existence like his, purely vegetative, and which would greatly rest me from the divine impulses of my intelligence. After having been shaken, jostled, knocked out with punches and kicks , by Thurston and his hanging dogs, while climbing those terrible stairs, I felt an immense, an infinite relief, when I found myself in my narrow cell. There, everything seemed so sure, so stable. I was like a lost child who, after an escapade, returns to the paternal home. I grew fond of these walls that, for years, I had hated so much. These good walls, thick and solid, which I had, on the right and on the left, within immediate reach of my hand, prevented space from leaping on me, like a wild beast. Agoraphobia is a terrible disease. I sincerely pity those who suffer from it. From the little I’ve tasted of it, I’m not afraid to say that overcoming it is harder than accepting hanging. I’ve just made myself a pint of good blood. The prison doctor, imagine, a very nice man by the way, came into my Death Cell, to have a little chat with me… and incidentally offer me his good offices. That is to say, a sufficient dose of morphine, which he would provide for me, and which I would absorb during the night. Tomorrow morning, he assured me, I wouldn’t even realize I was walking to the gallows. I declined his offer. I laughed out loud. I remember the case of Jake Oppenheimer, which I was told about. He, too, was not afraid of death. His last morning having come, and his breakfast finished, as he was already in his collarless shirt, the reporters were brought into his cell, curious to hear his last words. Listen to how he mystified them. When they asked him what he thought of the death penalty—to ask such a question to a man who is about to die and whom we are about to see die, is, you will admit, the nerve of a savage—he answered them, a good sport as he had always been in his life: “Gentlemen, I think I will live long enough to see it abolished one day… That was a good one! I have lived countless lives and I can affirm that, since the Since the creation of the world, human barbarity has not taken a single step toward progress. Over the centuries, we have applied a light veneer to it. Nothing more. Thou shalt not kill… proclaimed the divine Law. Bluff! The proof is that I will be hanged tomorrow morning. In the arsenals of all nations, cannons and ships, dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts, and a thousand learned instruments, designed to kill, are being built at this hour. Thou shalt not kill… Bluff! Bluff! Bluff! Our women, in the Stone Age, were more virtuous than ours are today. We did not eat adulterated food, poisoned by shameless commercialism. The daughters of the poor were not condemned to prostitution in order to survive. Prostitution was unknown. I told you what I endured in my dungeon at the beginning of the twentieth century after Jesus Christ, and all the tortures of the straitjacket. Never in past centuries have I known equivalent torments. We are as savage as our first ancestors. But when they killed, they did so frankly and with raised heads, they accepted responsibility for their act. We have added hypocrisy to our murders. We did not hide, in the past, behind the authority of philosophers, subsidized preachers and law professors. A hundred years ago, fifty years ago, only five years ago, assault did not carry the death penalty in the United States. Today, Jake Oppenheimer was hanged in California, for this single offense. And I am going to be, for a punch to a man’s nose. That is progress, goodness! But, if monkeys and tigers were subjected to such a regime, the race would have disappeared long ago! Isn’t that what you think? Lord! Lord! We pity Christ because he was crucified… What would Oppenheimer and I say then? As Ed. Morrell once rapped me with his fingers, the worst use that can be made of a man is to hang him. No, I really have no respect for capital punishment. And it is not only a bad deed for the hanging dogs who carry it out, for hire. It is a disgrace to the society that tolerates it, and pays taxes for it. To be hung by the neck, until death ensues… So says the Code, in its bizarre phraseology. But hanging is a foolish, stupid, and, above all, unscientific thing. That is why it disgusts me. Morning has come. My last morning. I slept, all night, like a child. Slept so peacefully that at one point the Death Guard was frightened. He thought I had suffocated under my covers. The poor man’s anxiety was pitiful. His bread and butter were at stake. If I had really been dead, he would have been badly graded, perhaps dismissed, and the prospect of swelling the number of the unemployed is bitter at this hour. Europe, I was told, has been liquidating a very heavy debt for the past two years. Next it will be the United States’ turn. This means an impending commercial crisis, perhaps a financial panic, and that the army of the unemployed will provide, next winter, longer queues at the bread distributions of relief organizations. My breakfast was brought to me. It sounds silly, but I ate it heartily. The governor himself offered me a liter of whiskey. I thanked him and told him to please donate it on my behalf to the Assassins’ Quarters. Poor governor! He’s afraid that if I’m not drunk, I’ll rebel and disrupt the ceremony, and that I’ll reproach him, in front of the reporters, about his prison. They put a collarless shirt on me… It seems that I’ve suddenly become an important person. It’s incredible, the large number of people who are interested in me… The doctor has just left. I asked him to feel my pulse. The beat is normal… I jot these lines down at random on paper. Sheet by sheet, they emerge from the prison walls, by a secret route. I am the calmest man in this prison. I look like a child ready to undertake a journey. I am eager to leave, curious about the new countries I must see. Why should I be afraid of death, I who have so often entered the darkness of voluntary death, only to emerge again immediately? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The governor, instead of the liter of whisky, sent me a bottle of champagne. I sent it to the Assassins’ Quarter. What consideration is shown to me, on this last day! Strange! Strange! These men who are going to kill me are, I imagine, terrified by my death. They want to come to terms with their consciences, and I must seem to them a superior being, already with one foot in Eternity. Ed. Morrell has just sent me a little note. He tells me that he has been pacing up and down all night in front of the wall of Death Row. He has been forbidden, administratively, to come and say goodbye to me. Bandits! I say it without knowing it. But I suppose so. They must have mistrusted him. These people are children. They are killing me, and tomorrow night, when they have stretched out my neck, most of them will be afraid to remain in the darkness. This was Ed. Morrell’s message: My hand is in yours, old comrade! I know that, even at the end of the rope, it is you who will have won the game. They will not have had the dynamite. The reporters have moved on. I will only see them, the next and last time, from the top of the gallows, before the executioner hides my face under the black veil. A few more lines… By writing them, I delay the ceremony. The corridor is full of officials and high dignitaries. All are nervous. They obviously want to get this over with as quickly as possible. No doubt several of them are expected for lunch. I am greatly offending them by still holding my pen … The priest has renewed his request to stay with me until the end. The poor man! Why should I refuse him this consolation? I consented, and now he looks quite delighted. My God, how little it takes to make some men happy! I could linger laughing at it for five more joyful minutes, if they weren’t in such a hurry. … . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I end here. I can only repeat myself. There is no absolute death. The spirit is life, and the spirit cannot die. Only the flesh dies and passes away, and, through the effect of chemical fermentation, dissolves and transmutes, to be reborn, like a plastic material, in new and diverse forms. Ephemeral forms which, in turn, will perish to be reborn again. Who will I be when I live again? That… That is what concerns me… Who will I be and by what women will I be loved? Translators’ Notes. Thus ends Jack London’s The Star Wanderer, a meditation on the power of the spirit and the dignity of man in the face of adversity. Through the voice of Darrell Standing, we have glimpsed the infinity of past lives and the grandeur of thought as the ultimate refuge. This timeless masterpiece reminds us that even in the deepest darkness, imagination can offer light and freedom. Thank you for sharing this literary journey on Audiobooks. Subscribe to discover more powerful stories and be guided by the finest writers of classic literature.