the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka. Translated by Ian Johnston. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org. It's a peculiar apparatus said the officer to the traveller, gazing with assertion and admiration at the device with which he was of course thoroughly familiar. It appeared that the traveller had responded to the invitation of the commandant only out of politeness and he had been invited to attend the execution of a soldier condemned for disobeying and insulting his superior. Of course interest in the execution was not very high, not even in the penal colony itself. At least here in the small deep sandy valley, closing on all sides by barren slopes, apart from the officer and the traveller, they were present only the condemned, a vacant looking man with a broad mouth and dilapidated hair and face and the soldier who held the heavy chains to which were connected the small chains which bound the condemned man by his feet and wrist bones as well as by his neck and which were also linked to each other by connecting chains. The condemned man had an expression of such dog-like resignation that it looked as if one could set him free to roam around the slopes and would only have to whistle at the start of the execution for him to return. The traveller had little interest in the apparatus and walked back and forth behind the condemned man almost visibly indifferent while the officer took care of the final preparations. Sometimes he crawled under the apparatus which was built deep into the earth and sometimes he climbed up a ladder to inspect the upper parts. These were really jobs which could have been left to a mechanic but the officer carried them out with great enthusiasm, maybe because he was particularly fond of this apparatus, maybe because there was some other reason why he could not trust the work to anybody else. It's already now, he finally cried and climbed back down the ladder. He was unusually tired, breathing with his mouth wide open and he had pushed two fine ladies handkerchiefs under the collar of his uniform. These uniforms are really too heavy for the tropics, the traveller said, instead of asking some questions about the apparatus as the officer had expected. That's true, said the officer. He washed the oil and grease from his dirty hands in a bucket of water standing ready. But they mean home and we don't want to lose our homeland. Now have a look at this apparatus, he added immediately, drying his hands with a towel and pointing to the device. Up to this point I had to do some work by hand, but from now on the apparatus should work entirely on its own. The traveller nodded and followed the officer. The latter tried to protect himself against all eventualities by saying, of course breakdowns do happen. I really hope none will occur today but we must be prepared for it. The apparatus is supposed to keep going for 12 hours without interruption, but if any breakdowns do occur they'll only be very minor and we'll deal with them right away.  He asked finally as he pulled out a chair from a pile of cane chairs and offered it to the traveller. The latter could not refuse. He sat on the edge of the pit into which he cast a fleeting glance. It was not very deep. On one side of the hole the piled earth was heaped up into a wall and the other side stood the apparatus. I don't know, the officer said, whether the commandant has already explained the apparatus to you. The traveller made a vague gesture with his hand. That was good enough for the officer. For now he could explain the apparatus himself. This apparatus, he said, grasping and connecting Rod and leaning against it, is our previous commandant's invention. I also worked with him on the very first tests and took part in all the work right up to its completion. However, the credit for the invention belongs to him alone. Have you heard of our previous commandant? No? Well, I'm not claiming too much when I say that the organisation of the entire penal colony is his work. We, his friends, already knew at the time of his death that the administration of the colony was so self-contained that even if his success had a thousand new plans in mind he would not be able to alter anything of the old plan, at least not for several years. And our protection is held. The new commandant has had to recognise that. It's a shame that you didn't know the previous commandant. However, the officer said, interrupting himself, un-chattering, and his apparatus stands in front of us. As you see, it consists of three parts. With the passage of time, certain popular names have been developed for each of these parts. The one underneath is called the bed, the upper one is called the inscriber, and here in the middle, this moving part is called the harrow. The harrow, the traveller asked, he had not been listening with full attention. The sun was excessively strong, trapped in the shadowless valley, and one could hardly collect one's thoughts. So the officer appeared to him all the more admirable in his tight tunic, weighed down with epaulets and fastened with braids, ready to go on parade, as he explained the matter so eagerly and while he was talking adjusted screws here and there with the screwdriver. The soldier appeared to be in a state similar to the traveller. He had wound the condemned man's chains around both his wrists and was supporting himself with his hands on his weapon, letting his head hang backward, not bothering about anything. The traveller was not surprised at that, for the officer spoke French, and clearly neither the soldier nor the condemned man understood the language. So it was all the more striking that the condemned man, in spite of that, did what he could to follow the officer's explanation. With a sort of sleepy persistence, he kept directing his gaze to the place where the officer had just pointed, and when the question from the traveller interrupted the officer, the condemned man looked at the traveller too, just as the officer was doing. Yes, the harrow said the officer. The name fits. The needles are arranged as in a harrow, and the whole thing is driven like a harrow, although it stays in one place and is, in principle, much more artistic. You'll understand in a moment. The condemned is laid out here on the bed. First I'll describe the apparatus, and only then let the procedure go to work. That's why you'll be able to follow it better. Also, a sprocket in the inscriber is excessively worn. It really squeaks. When it's in motion, one can hardly make oneself understood. Unfortunately, replacement parts are difficult to come by in this place. So, here is the bed, as I said. The whole thing is completely covered with a layer of cotton wool, the purpose of which you'll find out in a moment. The condemned man is laid out on his stomach on the cotton wool, naked, of course. There are straps for his hands here, for the feet here, and for the throat here, to tie him in securely. At the head of the bed here, where the man, as I have mentioned, first lies face down, is this small protruding lump of felt, which can easily be adjusted so that it presses right into the man's mouth. Its purpose is to prevent him from screaming and biting his tongue to pieces. Of course, the man has to let the felt in his mouth, otherwise the straps around his throat would break his neck. That's cotton wool, asked the traveller and bent down. Yes, it is, said the officer smiling. Feel it for yourself. He took the traveller's hand and led him over to the bed. It's especially prepared cotton wool. That's why it looks so unrecognisable. I'll get around to mentioning its purpose in a moment. The traveller was already being won over a little to the apparatus. With his hand over his eyes to protect him from the sun, he looked at the apparatus in the hole. It was a massive construction. The bed and the inscriber were the same size and looked like two dark chests. The inscriber was set about two metres above the bed, and the two were joined together at the corners by four brass rods, which almost reflected the sun. The harrow hung between the chests on a band of steel. The officer had hardly noticed the earlier indifference of the traveller, but he did have a sense now of how the latter's interest was being aroused for the first time. So he paused in his explanation in order to allow the traveller time to observe the apparatus undisturbed. A condemned man imitated the traveller, but since he could not put his hands over his eyes, he blinked upwards with his eyes uncovered. So now the man is lying down, said the traveller. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.  Now listen. Both the bed and the inscriber have their own electric batteries. The bed needs them for itself and the inscriber for the harrow. As soon as the man is strapped in securely, the bed is set in motion. It quivers with tiny very rapid oscillations from side to side and up and down simultaneously. You will have seen similar devices in mental hospitals. Only with our bed all movements are precisely calibrated. They must be meticulously coordinated with the movements of the harrow. But it's the harrow which has the job of actually carrying out the sentence. What is the sentence? The traveller asked. You don't even know that? Asked the officer in astonishment and bit his lip. Forgive me if my explanations are perhaps confused. I really do beg your pardon. Previously it was the commandant's habit to provide such explanations but the new commandant has excused himself from this honourable duty. The fact that with such an eminent visitor the traveller tried to deflect the honour with both hands but the officer insisted on the expression that with such an eminent visitor he didn't even once make him aware of the form of our sentencing. He's yet again something new which he had a curse on his lips but controlled himself and said merely I was not informed about it. It's not my fault. In any case I am certainly the person best able to explain our style of sentencing. For here I am carrying the patent dispressed pocket, the relevant diagrams drawn by the previous commandant. Diagrams made by the commandant himself asked the traveller then was he in his own person a combination of everything? Was he a soldier, judge, engineer, chemist and draftsman? He was indeed said the officer nodding his head with a fixed and thoughtful expression. Then he looked at his hands examining them. They didn't seem to him clean enough to handle the diagrams so he went to the bucket and washed them again. Then he pulled out a small leather folder and said our sentence does not sound severe the law which a condemned man has violated is inscribed on his body with the harrow. This condemned man for example and the officer pointed to the man will have inscribed on his body honor your superiors. The traveller had a quick look at the man when the officer was pointing at him the man kept his head down and appeared to be directing all his energy into listening in order to learn something. But the movements of his thick pouting lips showed clearly that he was incapable of understanding anything. The traveller wanted to raise various questions but after looking at the condemned man he merely asked does he know his sentence? No said the officer. He wished to get on with his explanation right away but the traveller interrupted him. He doesn't know his own sentence. No said the officer once more. He then paused for a moment as if he was asking the traveller for a more detailed reason for his question and said it would be useless to give him that information. He experiences it on his own body. The traveller really wanted to keep quiet at this point but he felt how the condemned man was gazing at him. He seemed to be asking whether he could approve of the process the officer had described. So the traveller who had up to this point been leaning back bent forward again and kept up his questions. But does he nonetheless have some general idea that he's been condemned? Not that either said the officer. He smiled at the traveller as if he was still waiting for some strange revelations from him. No said the traveller wiping his forehead. Then does the man also not yet know how his defence was received? He has had no opportunity to defend himself said the officer and looked away as if he was talking to himself and wished not to embarrass the traveller with an explanation of matters so self-evident to him. But he must have had a chance to defend himself said the traveller and stood up from his chair. The officer recognised that he was in danger of having his explanation of the apparatus held up for a long time. So he went to the traveller, took him by the arm, pointed with his hand at the condemned man who stood there stiffly now that the attention was so clearly directed at him. The soldier was also pulling on his chain and said the matter stands like this. Here in the penal colony I have been appointed judge in spite of my youth for I stand at the side of our old commandant in all matters of punishment and I also know the most about the apparatus. The basic principle I use for my decisions is this. Guilt is always beyond doubt. Other courts could not follow this principle if they are made up of many heads and in addition have even higher courts above them but that is not the case here or at least it was not that way with the previous commandant. It's true that the new commandant has already shown a desire to get mixed up in my court but I've succeeded so far in fending him off and I'll continue to be successful. You want this case explained? It's simple just like all of them. This morning a captain laid a charge that this man who is assigned to him as a servant and who sleeps before his door had been sleeping on duty. For his task is to stand up every time the clock strikes the hour and slew it in front of the captain's door. That's certainly not difficult duty and is necessary since he is supposed to remain fresh both for guarding and for service. Yesterday night the captain wanted to check whether his servant was fulfilling his duty. He opened the door on the stroke of two and found him curled up asleep. He got his horse whip and hit him across the face.  Those are the facts. The captain came to me an hour ago. I wrote up his statement right after that the sentence. Then I had the man chained up. It was all very simple. If I had first summoned the man and interrogated him the result would have been confusion. He would have lied and if I had been successful in refuting his lies he would have replaced them with new lies and so forth. But now I have him and I won't release him again. Now does that clarify everything? But time is passing. We should be starting the execution and I haven't finished explaining the apparatus yet. He urged the traveller to sit down in his chair, move to the apparatus again and started. As you see the shape of the harrow corresponds to the shape of a man. This is the harrow for the upper body and here are the harrows for the legs. This small cutter is the only one designated for the head. Is that clear to you? He leaned forward to the traveller in a friendly way ready to give the most comprehensive explanation. The traveller looked at the harrow with a wrinkled frown. The information about the judicial procedures had not satisfied him. However he had to tell himself that here it was a matter of a penal colony that in this place special regulations were necessary and that one had to give precedence to military measures right down to the last detail. Beyond that however he had some hopes in the new commandant who obviously, although slowly, was intending to introduce a new procedure which the limited understanding of this officer could not cope with. Following this train of thought the traveller asked will the commandant be presented the execution? That is not certain said the officer embarrassingly affected by the sudden question and his friendly expression made a grimace. That's why we need to hurry up. As much as I regret the fact I'll have to make my explanation even shorter but tomorrow once the apparatus is clean again the fact that it gets so very dirty as its only fault I could add a detailed explanation. So now only the most important things. When the man is lying on the bed and he starts quivering the harrow sinks into the body. It positions itself automatically in such a way that it touches the body only lightly with the needle tips. Once the machine is set in this position the steel cable tightens up into a rod and now the performance begins. Someone who is not an initiates sees no external difference among the punishments. The harrow seems to do its work uniformly. As it quivers it sticks the tips of its needles into the body which is also vibrating from the movement of the bed. Now to enable someone to check on how the sentence is being carried out the harrow is made of glass. That gave rise to certain technical difficulties with fastening the needle securely but after several attempts we were successful. We didn't spare any efforts and now as the inscription is made on the body everyone can see through the glass. Don't you want to come closer and see the needles for yourself? The travellers stood slowly, moved up and bent over the harrow. You see, the officer said, two sorts of needles in a multiple arrangement. Each long needle has a short one next to it. The long one inscribes and the short one squirts water out to wash away the blood and keep the inscription always clear. The bloody water is then channeled here in the small grooves and finally flows into these main gutters and the outlet pipe takes it into the pit. The officer pointed with his finger to the exact path which the bloody water had to take. As he began to demonstrate with both hands at the mouth of the outlet pipe, in order to make his account as clear as possible, the traveller raised his head and, feeling behind him with his hand, wanted to return to his chair. Then he saw to his horror that the condemned man had also, like him, accepted the officer's invitation to inspect the arrangement of the harrow up close. He had pulled the sleeping soldier holding the chain a little forward, was also bending over the glass. One could see how with a confused gaze he was also looking for what the two gentlemen had just observed, but how he didn't succeed because he lacked the explanation. He leaned forward this way and that. He kept running his eyes over the glass again and again. The traveller wanted to push him back. What he was doing was probably punishable, but the officer held the traveller firmly with one hand and with the other he took a lump of earth from the wall and threw it at the soldier. The latter opened his eyes with a start, saw what the condemned man had dared to do, let his weapon fall, braced his heels in the earth and pulled the condemned man back so that he immediately collapsed. The soldier looked down at him as he writhed around making his chain clink. Stand him up, cried the officer. Then he noticed that the condemned man was distracting the traveller too much. The latter was even leaning out away from the harrow without paying any attention to it, wanting to find out what was happening to the condemned man. Handle him carefully, the officer yelled again. He ran around the apparatus, personally grabbed the condemned man under the armpits, with the help of the soldier stood the man whose feet kept slipping upright. Now I know all about it, said the traveller, as the officer turned back to him again. Except the most important thing, said the latter, grabbing the traveller by the arm and pointing up high. There in the inscribe is the mechanism which determines the movement of the harrow, and this mechanism is arranged according to the diagram on which the sentence is set down. I still use the diagrams of the previous commandant. Here they are. He pulled some pages out of the leather folder. Unfortunately I can't hand them to you. They are the most cherished thing I possess. Sit down and I'll show you them from the distance. Then you'll be able to see it all well. He showed the first sheet. The traveller would have been happy to say something appreciative, but all he saw was a labyrinthine series of lines crisscrossing each other in all sorts of ways. These covered the paper so thickly that only with difficulty could one make out the white spaces in between. Read it, said the officer. I can't, said the traveller. But it's clear, said the officer. It's very elaborate, said the traveller evasively, but I can't decipher it. Yes, said the officer, smiling and putting the folder back again. It's not calligraphy for schoolchildren. One has to read it a long time. You too will finally understand it clearly. Of course it has to be a script that isn't simple. You see, it's not supposed to kill right away, but on average over a period of 12 hours. The turning point is set for the sixth hour. There must also be many, many embellishments surrounding the basic script. The essential script moves around the body only in a narrow belt. The rest of the body is reserved for decoration. Can you now appreciate the work of the harrow and the whole apparatus? Just look at it. He climbed up the ladder, turned a wheel and called down. Watch out, move to the side. Everything started moving. If the wheel had not squeaked it would have been marvellous. The officer threatened the wheel with his fist, as if he was surprised by the disturbance it created. Then he spread his arms, apologising to the traveller, and quickly clamped down in order to observe the operation of the apparatus from below. Something was still not working properly, something only he noticed. He clamped up again and reached with both hands into the inside of the inscriber. Then in order to descend more quickly, instead of using the ladder, he slid down one of the poles, and to make himself understandable through the noise strained his voice to the limit as he yelled in the traveller's ear. Do you understand the process? The Harrow is starting to write. When it's finished with the first part of the script on the man's back the layer of cotton wool rolls and turns the body slowly onto its side to give the Harrow a new area. Meanwhile those parts lacerated by the inscription are laying on the cotton wool, which, because that has been specifically treated, immediately stops the bleeding and prepares the script for a further deepening. Here, as the body continues to rotate, prongs on the edge of the Harrow then pull the cotton wool from the wounds, throw it into the pit and the Harrow goes to work again. In this way it keeps making the inscription deeper for 12 hours. For the first six hours the condemned man goes on living almost as before. He suffers nothing but pain. After two hours the felt is removed, for at that point the man has no more energy for screaming. Here at the head of the bed warm rice pudding is put in this electrically heated bowl. From this the man, if he feels like it, can help himself to what he can lap up with his tongue. No one passes up this opportunity. I don't know of a single one and I've had a lot of experience. He first loses his pleasure in eating around the sixth hour. I usually kneel down at this point and observe the phenomenon. The man rarely swallows the last bit. He turns around in his mouth and spits it into the pit. When he does that I have to lean aside or else he'll get me in the face. But how quiet the man becomes around the sixth hour.  He starts around the eyes and spreads out from there a look that could tempt one to lie down under the harrow. Nothing else happens. The man simply begins to decipher the inscription. He purses his lips as if he is listening. You've seen that it's not easy to figure out the inscription with your eyes but our man deciphers it with his wounds. True it takes a lot of work. It requires six hours to complete. But then the harrow spits him right out and throws him into the pit, where he splashes down into the bloody water and cotton wool. Then the judgment is over and we, the soldier and I, quickly bury him. The traveller had leaned his ear towards the officer and with his hands and his coat pockets was observing the machine at work. The condemned man was also watching but without understanding. He bent forward a little and followed the moving needles as the soldier after a signal from the officer cut through his shirt and trousers with the knife from the back so they fell off the condemned man. He wanted to grab the fallen garments to cover his bare flesh but the soldier held him up and shook the last rags from him. The officer turned the machine off and in the silence which then ensued the condemned man was laid out under the harrow. The chains were taken off and the straps fastened in their place. For the condemned man it seemed at first glance to signify almost a relief and now the harrow sunk down a stage lower for the condemned was a thin man. As the needle tips touched him a shudder went over his skin. While the soldier was busy with the right hand the condemned man stretched out his left with no sense of its direction but it was pointing to where the traveller was standing. The officer kept looking at the traveller from the side without taking his eyes off him as if he was trying to read from his face the impression he was getting of the execution which he had now explained to him at least superficially. The strap meant to hold the wrist ripped off. The soldier probably had pulled on it too hard. The soldier showed the officer the torn off piece of strap wanting him to help so the officer went over to him and said this face turned towards the traveller. This machine is very complicated. Now and then something has to tear or break. One shouldn't let that detract from one's overall opinion. Anyway we have an immediate replacement for the strap. I'll use a chain even though that will affect the sensitivity of the movements for the right arm. While he put the chain in place he kept talking. Our resources for maintaining the machine are very limited at the moment. Under the previous commandant I had free access to a cash box specially set aside for this purpose. There was a storeroom here in which all possible replacement parts were kept. I admit I made almost excravagant use of it. I mean earlier, not now, as the new commandant claims. For him everything serves only as a pretext to fight against the old arrangements. Now he keeps the cash box for machinery under his own control. If I ask him for a new strap he demands the torn one as a piece of evidence. New one doesn't dry for 10 days and it's an inferior brand of not much use to me. But how am I supposed to get the machine to work in the meantime without a strap? No one's concerned about that. The traveler was thinking. It's always questionable to intervene decisively in strange circumstances. He was neither citizen of the penal colony nor a citizen of the state to which it belonged. If he wanted to condemn the execution or even hinder it people could say to him you're a foreigner keep quiet. He would have nothing in response to that. Booked only add that he did not understand what he was doing on this occasion. For the purpose of his traveling was merely to observe and not to alter other people's judicial systems in any way. True at this point the way things were turning out it was very tempting. The injustice of the process and the inhumanity of the execution were beyond doubt. No one could assume that the traveler was acting out of any sense of his own self-interest. The condemned man was a stranger to him. Not a countryman and not someone who invited sympathy in any way. The traveler himself had letters of reference from high officials and had been welcomed here with great courtesy. The fact that he had been invited to this execution even seemed to indicate that people were asking for his judgment of the trial. This was all the more likely since the commandant as he had now heard only too clearly was no supporter of this process and maintained an almost hostile relationship with the officer. Then the traveler heard a cry of rage from the officer.  The officer quickly yanked him up off the stump and wanted to turn his head aside towards the pit but it was too late. The vomit was already flowing down onto the machine. This is all the commandant's fault cried the officer and mindlessly rattled the brass rods at the front. My machine is as filthy as a pig's thigh. With trembling hands he showed the traveler what had happened. Haven't I spent hours trying to make the commandant understand that a day before the execution there should be no more food served but the new lenient administration has a different opinion. Before the man is led away the commandant's women cram sugary things down his throat. His whole life he's fit himself on stinking fish and now he has to eat sweets. But that would be all right and I'd have no objections but why don't they get a new felt the way I've been asking him for three months now how can anyone take this felt into his mouth without feeling disgusted something that a hundred men have sucked and bitten on as they were dying. The condemned man had laid his head down and appeared peaceful. The soldier was busy cleaning up the machine with the condemned man's shirt. The officer went up to the traveler who feeling some premonition took a step backwards but the officer grasped him by the hand and pulled him aside. I want to speak a few words to in confidence he said. May I do that? Of course said the traveler and listened with his eyes lowered. This process and execution which you now have an opportunity to admire have no more open supporters in our colony. I am its only defender just as I am the single advocate for the legacy of the old commandant. I can no longer think about a more extensive organization of the process. I'm using all my powers to maintain what there is at present. When the old commandant was alive the colony was full of his supporters. I have something of the old commandant's power of persuasion but I completely lack his power and as a result the supporters have gone into hiding. There are still a lot of them but no one admits to it. If you go into a tea house today that is to say on the day of execution and keep your ears open perhaps you'll hear nothing but ambiguous remarks. They are all supporters but under the present commandant considering his present views they are totally useless to me. Now I'm asking you such a life's work pointed to the machine come to nothing because of this commandant and the women influencing him. Should people let that happen? Even if one is a foreigner and only on our island for a couple of days but there's no time to lose. People are already preparing something against my judicial proceedings. Discussions are already taking place in the commandant's headquarters to which I am not invited. Even your visit today seems to be typical of the whole situation.  You should have seen the execution in the earlier days the entire valley was overflowing with people even a day before the execution. They all came merely to watch. Early in the morning the commandant appeared with his women. Fanfares woke up the entire campsite. I delivered the news that everything was ready the whole society and every high official had to attend arranged itself around the machine. This pile of cane chairs is a sorry left over from that time. The machine was freshly cleaned and glowed for almost every execution I had new replacement parts. In front of hundreds of eyes all the spectators stood up on tiptoe right up to the hills there. The condemned man was laid down under the hurray by the commandant himself. What nowadays is done by a common soldier was then my work as a senior judge and it was an honor for me and then the execution began. No discordant no disturbed the work of the machine. Many people did not look any more at all but lay down with closed eyes in the sand. They all knew. Now justice was being carried out. In silence people listened to nothing but the groans of the condemned man muffled by the felt. These days the machine no longer manages to squeeze a strong groan out of the condemned man something the felt is not capable of smothering. But back then the needles which made the inscription dripped a caustic liquid which we are not permitted to use any more today. Well then came the sixth hour. It was impossible to grant all the requests people made to be allowed to watch from up close. The commandant in his wisdom arranged that the children should be taken care of before the rest. Naturally I was always allowed to stand close by because of my official position. Often I crouched down there with two small children in my arms on my right and left. How we all took in the expression of transfiguration on the martyred face. How we held our cheeks in the glow of this justice. Finally a tange and already passing away. What times we had my friend.  He had put his arm around the traveller and laid his head on his shoulder. The traveller was extremely embarrassed. Impatiently he looked away over the officer's head. The soldier had ended his task of cleaning and had just shaken some rice pudding into the bowl from a tin. No sooner had the condemned man who seemed to have fully recovered already noticed this and his tongue began to lick at the pudding. The soldier kept pushing him away for the pudding was probably meant for a later time. But in any case it was not proper for the soldier to reach in and grab some food with his dirty hands and eat it in front of the famished condemned man. The officer quickly collected himself. I didn't want to upset you in any way he said. I know it's impossible to make someone understand those days now. Besides the machine still works and operates on its own. It operates on its own even when it is standing alone in this valley. And at the end the body still keeps falling in that incredibly soft flight into the pit. Even if hundreds of people are not gathered like flies around the hole the way they used to be.  It was pulled out long ago. The traveller wanted to turn his face away from the officer and looked aimlessly around him. The officer thought he was looking at the wasteland of the valley so he grabbed his hands, turned him around in order to catch his gaze and asked Do you see the shame of it? But the traveller said nothing. The officer left him alone for a while. With his legs apart and his hands on his hips the officer stood still and looked at the ground. Then he smiled at the traveller cheerfully and said Yesterday I was nearby when the commandant invited you. I heard the invitation. I know the commandant. I understood right away what he intended with his invitation. Although his power might be sufficiently great to take action against me he doesn't yet dare to. But my guess is that with you he is exposing me to the judgment of a respected foreigner. He calculates things with care. You are now in your second day on the island. You didn't know the old commandant and his way of thinking. You are trapped in a European way of seeing things. Perhaps you are fundamentally opposed to the death penalty in general and to this kind of mechanical style of execution in particular. Moreover you see how the execution is a sad procedure without any public participation using a partially damaged machine. Now if we take all this together so the commandant thinks surely one could easily imagine that you would not consider my procedure proper. And if you didn't consider it right you wouldn't keep quiet about it. I'm still speaking the mind of the commandant. For you no doubt have faith that your tried and true convictions are correct. It's true that you have seen many peculiar things among many peoples and have learned to respect them. Thus you will probably not speak out against this procedure with your full power as you would perhaps in your own homeland. But the commandant doesn't really need that. A casual word merely a careless remark is enough. It doesn't have to match your convictions at all so long as it corresponds to his wishes. I'm certain he will use all of his shrewdness to interrogate you.  He will say something like among us the judicial procedures are different or with us the accused is questioned before the verdict or we had torture only in the middle ages. For you these observations appear as correct as they are self-evident. Innocent remarks which do not impugn my procedure but how will the commandant take them. I see him our excellent commandant the way he immediately pushes his stool aside and hurries out to the balcony. I see his woman how they stream after him. I hear his voice the women call it thunder voice and now he's speaking. A great western explorer who has been commissioned to inspect judicial procedures in all countries has just said that our process based on old customs is inhumane. After the verdict of such a personality is his of course no longer possible for me to tolerate this procedure so from this day on I am ordering and so forth. You want to intervene. You didn't say what is reporting you didn't call my procedure inhumane.  You also admire this machinery but it is too late.  You want to attract attention.  The traveler had to suppress a smile so the work which he had considered so difficult was easy. He said evasively you are exaggerating my influence. The commandant read my letters of recommendation. He knows that I am no expert in judicial processes. If I were to express an opinion it would be that of a lay person no more significant than the opinion of anyone else and in any case far less significant than the opinion of the commandant who as I understand it has very extensive powers in this penal colony. If his views of this procedure are as definite as you think they are then I am afraid the time has come for this procedure to end without the need for my humble opinion. Did the officer understand by now? No he did not get it yet. He shook his head vigorously, briefly looked back at the condemned man and the soldier who both flinched and stopped eating the rice, went up really close to the traveler without looking into his face but gazing at parts of his jacket and said more gently than before you don't know the commandant where he and all of us are concerned you are forgive the expression to a certain extent innocent. Your influence believe me cannot be overestimated. In fact I was blissfully happy when I heard that you were to be present at the execution by yourself. This order of the commandant was aimed at me but now I'll turn it to my advantage. Without being distracted by false insinuations and disparaging looks which could not have been avoided with a greater number of participants at the execution you have listened to my explanation, looked at the machine and are now about to view the execution. Your verdict is no doubt already fixed. If some small uncertainties remain, witnessing the execution will remove them and now I'm asking you help me with the commandant. The traveller did not let him go on talking. How can I do that? He cried. It's totally impossible. I can help you as little as I can harm you. You could do it said the officer. With some apprehension the traveller observed that the officer was clenching his fists. You could do it repeated the officer even more emphatically. I have a plan which must succeed. You think your influence is insufficient. I know it will be enough. But assuming you're right doesn't saving this whole procedure require one to try even those methods which may be inadequate. So listen to my plan. To carry it out it's necessary above all for you to keep as quiet as possible today in the colony about your verdict on this procedure. Unless someone asks you directly you should not express any view whatsoever. But what you do say must be short and vague. People should notice that it's difficult for you to speak about the subject. That you feel bitter that if you were to speak openly you'd have to burst out cursing on the spot. I'm not asking you to lie not at all. You should only give brief answers something like yes I've seen the execution or yes I've heard the full explanation. That is all. Nothing further. For that will be enough of an indication for people to observe in you a certain bitterness. Even if that's not what the commandant will think naturally he will completely misunderstand the issue and interpret it in his own way. My plan is based on that. Tomorrow a large meeting of all the higher administrative officials takes place at the headquarters under the chairmanship of the commandant. He of course understands how to turn such a meeting into a spectacle. A gallery has been built which is always full of spectators. I'm compelled to take part in the discussions though they fill me with disgust. In any case you will certainly be invited to the meeting. If you follow my plan today and behave accordingly the invitation will become an emphatic request. But should you for some inexplicable reasons still not be invited you must make sure you request an invitation. Then you will receive one without question. Now tomorrow you are sitting with the women in the commandant's box. With frequent output glances he reassures himself that you are there. After various trivial and ridiculous agenda items designed for the spectators mostly harbour construction always harbour construction the judicial process comes up for discussion. If it's not raised by the commandant himself or does not occur soon enough I'll make sure that it comes up. I'll stand up and report on today's execution really briefly just the report. Such a report is not really customary however I'll do it nonetheless. The commandant thanks me as always with a friendly smile and now he cannot restrain himself. He seizes this excellent opportunity. The report of this execution he'll say or something like that has just been given. I would like to add to this report only the fact that this particular execution was attended by the great explorer whose visit confers such extraordinary honour on our colony as you all know. Even the significance of our meeting today has been increased by his presence. Should we not now ask this great explorer for his appraisal of the execution based on old customs and of the process which preceded it. Of course there is the noise of applause everywhere universal agreement and I am louder than anyone. The commandant bows before you and says then in everyone's name I'm putting the question to you and now you step up to the railing place your hands where everyone can see them otherwise the ladies will grab them and play with your fingers and now finally come your remarks I don't know how I'll bear the tension up to them in your speech you mustn't hold back let truth resound lean over the railing and shout it out yes yes roar your opinion of the commandant your unshakable opinion but perhaps you don't want to do that it doesn't suit your character perhaps in your country people behave differently in such situations that's alright that's perfectly satisfactory don't stand up at all just say a couple of words whisper them so that only the officials underneath you can just hear them that's enough you don't even have to say anything at all about the lack of the tendons of the execution or about the squeaky wheel or about the disgusting felt no I'll take over all the further details and believe me if my speech doesn't chase him out of the room it'll force him to his knees so we'll have to admit it old commandant I bow down before you that's my plan do you want to help me carry it out but of course you want to more than that you have to and the officer gripped the traveller by both arms and looked at him heavily into his face he had yelled the last sentences so loudly that even the soldier and the condemned man were paying attention although they couldn't understand a thing they stopped eating and looked over at the traveller still chewing from the start the traveller had had no doubt about the answer he must give he had experienced too much in his life to be able to waver here basically he was honest and unafraid still with the soldier and the condemned man looking at him for a moment but finally he said as he had to no the officer's eyes blinked several times but he did not take his eyes off the traveller would you like an explanation asked the traveller the officer nodded dumbly I am opposed to this procedure said the traveller even before you took me into your confidence and of course I will never abuse your confidence under any circumstances I was already thinking about whether I was entitled to intervene against this procedure and whether my intervention could have had the smallest chance of success and if that was the case it was clear to me whom I had to turn to first of all naturally to the commandant you clarified the issue for me even more but without reinforcing my decision in any way quite the reverse I find your conviction genuinely moving even if it cannot deter me the officer remained quiet he turned towards the machine grabbed one of the brass rods and then leaning back a little looked up at the inscriber as if he was checking that everything was in order the soldier and the condemned man seemed to have made friends with each other the condemned man was making signs to the soldier although given the tight straps on him this was difficult for him to do the soldier was leaning into him the condemned man whispered something to him and the soldier nodded the traveller went over to the officer and said you don't yet know what I'll do yes I will tell the commandant my opinion of this procedure not in a meeting but in private in addition I won't stay here long enough to be able to get called to some meeting or other early tomorrow morning I leave or at least I go on board ship it didn't look as if the officer had been listening so the process is not convinced you he said to himself smiling away an old man smiles over the silliness of a child concealing his own true thoughts behind that smile well then it's time he said finally and suddenly looked at the traveller with bright eyes which contained some sort of demand some appeal for participation time for what asked the traveller uneasily but there was no answer you are free the officer told the condemned man in his own language at first the man did not believe him you are free now said the officer for the first time the face of the condemned man showed signs of real life was it the truth was it only the officer's mood which could change had the foreign traveller brought him a reprieve what was it that's what the man's face seemed to be asking but not for long whatever the case might be if he could he wanted to be truly free and he began to shake back and forth as much as the harrow permitted you're tearing my straps cried the officer be still, well undo them right away I'm giving a signal to the soldier he's set to work with him the condemned man said nothing and smiled slightly to himself he turned his face to the officer and then to the soldier and then back again without ignoring the traveller pull him out the officer ordered the soldier this process required a certain amount of care because of the harrow the condemned man already had a few small wounds on his back thanks to his own impatience from this point on however the officer paid him hardly any attention he went up to the traveller pulled out the small leather folder once more leafed through it finally found the sheet he was looking for and showed it to the traveller read that he said I can't said the traveller I've already told you I can't read these pages but take a close look at the page said the officer and moved up right next to the traveller in order to read with him when that didn't help he raised his little finger high up over the paper said the page must not be touched under any circumstances so that using this he might make the task of reading easier for the traveller the traveller also made an effort so that at least he could satisfy the officer but it was impossible for him then the officer began to spell out the inscription and then read out once again the joined up letters be just it states now you can read it the traveller bent so low over the paper that the officer afraid that he might touch it and move it further away the traveller didn't say anything more but it was clear that he was still unable to read anything be just it says the officer remarked once again that could be said the traveller I do believe that's written there good said the officer at least partially satisfied he climbed up the ladder holding the paper with great care he said the page and the inscriber and appeared to rotate the gear mechanism completely around this was very tiring work it must have required him to deal with extremely small wheels he had to inspect the gears so closely that sometimes his head disappeared completely into the inscriber the traveller followed his work from below without looking away his neck grew stiff and his eyes found the sunlight pouring down from the sky painful the soldier and the condemned man were keeping each other busy with the tip of his bayonet the soldier pulled out the condemned man's shirt and trousers which were lying in the hole the shirt was horribly dirty and the condemned man washed it in the bucket of water when he was putting on his shirt and his trousers the soldier and the condemned man had to laugh out loud for the pieces of clothing were cut in two up the back perhaps the condemned man thought that it was his duty to amuse the soldier in his ripped up clothes he circled around the soldier he crouched down on the ground laughed and slapped his knees but they restrained themselves out of consideration for the two gentlemen present when the officer was finally finished up on the machine he looked over the whole thing and all his parts one more time and this time closed the cover of the inscriber which had been open up to this point he climbed down looked into the hole and then at the condemned man observed with satisfaction that he had pulled out his clothes then went to the bucket of water to wash his hands recognised too late that it was disgustingly dirty and was upset that now he couldn't wash his hands finally he pushed them into the sand this option didn't satisfy him but he had to do what he could in the circumstances then he stood up and began to unbutton the coat of his uniform as he did this the two ladies handkerchiefs which he had pushed into the back of his collar fell into his hands here you have your handkerchiefs he said and threw them over to the condemned man and the traveller he said by way of an explanation presents from the ladies in spite of the obvious speed with which he took off the coat of his uniform and then undressed himself completely he handled each piece of clothing very carefully even running his fingers over the silver braids on his tunic with special care and shaking a tassel into place but in great contrast to this care as soon as he was finished handling an article of clothing he immediately flung it angrily into the hole the last items he had left were his short sword and its harness he pulled the sword out of its scabbard broke it in pieces gathered up everything the pieces of sword, the scabbard and the harness and threw them away so forcefully that they rattled against each other down in the pit now he stood there naked the traveller bit his lip and said nothing for he was aware what would happen but he had no right to hinder the officer in any way if the judicial process to which the officer clung was really so close to the point of being cancelled perhaps as a result of the intervention of the traveller something to which for his part fell duty bound then the officer was now acting in a completely correct manner in his place the traveller would not have acted any differently the soldier and the condemned man at first didn't understand a thing to begin with they didn't look not even once the condemned man was extremely happy to get the handkerchiefs back but he couldn't enjoy them very long for the soldier snatched them from him with a quick grab which he had not anticipated the condemned man then tried to pull the handkerchiefs out from the soldier's belt where he had put them for safe keeping but the soldier was too wary so they were fighting half in jest only when the officer was fully naked did they start to pay attention the condemned man especially seemed to be struck by a premonition of some sort of significant transformation what had happened to him was now taking place with the officer perhaps this time the procedure would play itself out to its conclusion the foreign traveller had probably given the order so that was revenge without having suffered all the way to the end himself nonetheless he would be completely avenged a wide silent laugh now appeared on his face and did not go away the officer however had turned towards the machine if earlier on it had already become clear that he understood the machine thoroughly one might well get alarmed now at the way he handled it and how it obeyed he only had to bring his hand near the harrow for it to rise and sink several times until it had reached the correct position to make room for him he only had to grasp the bed by the edges and it already began to quiver the stump of felt moved up to his mouth one could see how the officer didn't want to accept it but his hesitation was only momentary he immediately submitted and took it in everything was ready except that the strap still hung down on the sides but they were clearly unnecessary the officer did not have to be strapped down when the condemned man saw the loose straps he thought the execution would be incomplete unless they were fastened he waved eagerly to the soldier and they ran over to strap in the officer the latter had already stuck out his foot to kick the crank designed to set the inscriber in motion then he saw the two men coming so he pulled his foot back and let himself be strapped in but now he could no longer reach the crank neither the soldier nor the condemned man would find it and the traveller was determined not to touch it but that was unnecessary hardly were the straps attached when the machine already started working the bed quivered the needles danced on his skin and the harrow swung up and down the traveller had already been staring for some time before he remembered that a wheel in the inscriber was supposed to squeak but everything was quiet without the slightest audible hum because of its silent working the machine did not really attract attention the traveller looked over at the soldier and the condemned man the condemned man was the livelier of the two everything in the machine interested him the times he bent down the other times he stretched up all the time pointing with his forefinger in order to show something to the soldier for the traveller it was embarrassing he was determined to remain here until the end but he could no longer endure the sight of the two men go home he said the soldier might have been ready to do that but the condemned man took the order as a direct punishment with his hands folded he begged and pleaded to be allowed to stay there and when the traveller shook his head and was unwilling to give in he even knelt down seeing that orders were of no help here the traveller wanted to go over and chase the two away then he heard a noise from up in the inscriber he looked up so was the gear wheel going out of alignment but it was something else the lid on the inscriber was lifting up slowly then it fell completely open the teeth of a cogwheel were exposed and lifted up soon the entire wheel appeared it was if some huge force was compressing the inscriber so there was no longer sufficient room for this wheel the wheel rolled all the way down to the edge of the inscriber fell down rolled upright a bit in the sand and then fell over and lay still but already up on the inscriber another gear wheel was moving upwards several others followed large ones, small ones distinguished with each of them the same thing happened one kept thinking that now the inscriber must surely be empty then a new cluster with lots of parts would move up, fall down, roll in the sand and lie still with all this going on the condemned man totally forgot the traveller's order the gear wheels completely delighted him he kept wanting to grab one and at the same time he was urging the soldier to help him but he kept pulling his hand back startled completely another wheel followed which at least in its initial rolling surprised him the traveller by contrast was very upset obviously the machine was breaking up its quiet operation had been an illusion he felt as if he had to look after the officer now that the latter could no longer look after himself but while the falling gear wheels were claiming all his attention he had neglected to look at the rest of the machine however when he now bent over the harrow once the last gear wheel had left the inscriber he had a new even more unpleasant surprise the harrow was not writing but only stabbing and the bed was not rolling the body but lifting it, quivering up into the needles the traveller wanted to reach in to stop the whole thing if possible this was not the torture the officer wished to attain it was murder, pure and simple he stretched out his hands but at that point the harrow was already moving upwards and to the side with a skewered body just as it did in other cases but only in the 12th hour blood flowed out in hundreds of streams not mixed with water the water tubes had also failed to work this time then one last thing went wrong the body would not come loose from the needles its blood streamed out but it hung over the pit without falling the harrow wanted to move back to its original position but as if it realised that it could not free itself from its load it remained over the hole help the traveller yelled out to the soldier and the condemned man grabbed the officer's feet he wanted to push against the feet himself and have the two others grab the officer's head from the other side so he could be slowly taken off the needles but now the two men could not make up their mind whether to come or not the condemned man turned away at once the traveller had to go over to him and drag him to the officer's head by force at this point, almost against his will he looked at the face of the corpse it was as it had been in life he could see no sign of the promised transfiguration what all the others had found in his machine the officer had not his lips were pressed firmly together his eyes were open and looked at they had when he was alive his gaze was calm and convinced the tip of a large iron needle had gone through his forehead as the traveller with the soldier and the condemned man behind him came to the first houses in the colony the soldier pointed to one and said that's the tea house on the ground floor of one of the houses was a deep low room like a cave with smoke covered walls and ceiling on the street side it was open along its full width although there were little difference between the tea house and the rest of the houses in the colony which were all very dilapidated except for the commandant's palatial structure the traveller was struck by the impression of historical memory and he felt the power of earlier times followed by his companions he walked closer going between the unoccupied tables which stood in the street in front of the tea house and took a breath of the cool stuffier which came from inside the old man is buried here said the soldier a place in the cemetery was denied him by the chaplain for a long time people run decide where they should bury him finally they buried him here of course the officer explained none of that to you for naturally he was the one most ashamed about it a few times he even tried to dig up the old man at night but he was always chased off where is the grave asked the traveller who could not believe the soldier instantly both men, the soldier and the condemned man ran in front of him with hands outstretched pointed to the place where the grave was located they led the traveller to the back wall where guests were sitting at a few tables they were presumably dock workers strong men with short shiny black beards none of them wore coats and their shirts were torn they were poor oppressed people as the traveller came closer a few got up leaned against the wall and looked at him whisper went up around the traveller to foreigner he wants to look at the grave they pushed one of the tables aside under which there was a real gravestone it was a simple stone low enough for it to remain hidden under a table it bore an inscription in very small letters in order to read it the traveller had to kneel down it reads he arrests the old commandant his followers who are now not permitted to have a name buried him in this grave and directed this stone there exists a prophecy that the commandant will rise again after a certain number of years and from this house will lead his followers to a reconquest of the colony have faith and wait when the traveller had read it and got up he saw the men standing around him and smiling as if they had read the inscription with him found it ridiculous and were asking him to share their opinion the traveller acted as if he hadn't noticed distributed some coins among them waited until the table was pushed back over the grave left the tea house and went to the harbour in the tea house the soldier and the commandant had come across some people they knew who detained them however they must have broken free of them soon because by the time the traveller found himself in the middle of a long staircase which led to the boats they were already running after him they probably wanted to force the traveller at the last minute to take them with him while the traveller was haggling at the bottom of the stairs with a sailor about his passage out to the steamer the two men were racing down the steps in silence but they didn't dare cry out but as they reached the bottom the traveller was already in the boat and the sailor had once cast off from shore they could still have jumped onto the boat but the traveller picked up a heavy knotted rope from the boat bottom threatened them with it and thus prevented them from jumping in the penal colony by Franz Kafka end of in the penal colony by Franz Kafka the last lesson by Alphonse Daudet this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Mike Harris the last lesson by Alphonse Daudet I started for school very late that morning and was in great dread of a scolding especially because Misha Hamel had said that he would question us on participants and I did not know the first word about them for a moment I thought of running away and spending the day out of doors it was so warm, so bright the birds were chirping at the edge of the woods and in the open field back of the sawmill the Prussian soldiers were drilling it was all much more tempting than the rule for participants but I had the strength to resist and hurried off to school when I passed the town hall there was a crowd in front of the bulletin board for the last two years all our bad news had come from there the lost battles, the drafts the orders of the commanding officer and I thought to myself without stopping what can be the matter now then as I hurried by as fast as I could go the blacksmith doctor who was there with his apprentice reading the bulletin called after me well go so fast Bob you'll get to your school in plenty of time I thought he was making fun of me and reached Misha Hamel's little garden all out of breath usually when school began there was a great bustle which could be heard out in the street the opening and closing of desks lessons repeated in unison very loud with our hands over our ears to understand it better and the teacher's great ruler wrapping on the table but now it was all so still I had counted on the commotion to get to my desk without being seen but of course that day everything had to be as quiet as a Sunday morning through the window I saw my classmates already in their places and Misha Hamel walking up and down with his terrible iron ruler under his arm I had to open the door and go in before everybody you can imagine how I blush and how frightened I was but nothing happened Misha Hamel saw me and said very kindly go to your place quickly little friends we are beginning without you I jumped over the bench and sat down at my desk not till then when I had got a little over my fright did I see that our teacher had on his beautiful green coat his frilled shirt and the little black silk cap all embroidered that he never wore except on inspection and prize days besides the whole school seemed so strange and solemn but the thing that surprised me most was to see on the back benches that were always empty the village people sitting quietly like ourselves old Hauser with his three cornered hat the former mayor and several others besides everybody looked sad and Hauser had brought an old primer thumbed at the edges and he held it open on his knees with his great spectacles lying across the pages what I was wondering about it all Misha Hamel mounted his chair and the same grave and gentle tone which he had used to me said my children this is the last lesson I shall give you the order has come from Berlin to teach only German in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine the new master comes tomorrow this is your last French lesson I want you to be very attentive what a thunder clap these words were to me oh the wretches that was what they put up at the town hall my last French lesson why I hardly knew how to write I should never learn any more I must stop there then oh how sorry I was for not learning my lessons for seeking birds eggs or going sliding on the Tsar my books that had seemed such a nuisance a while ago so heavy to carry my grammar and my history of the saints were old friends now that I couldn't give up and Misha Hamel too the idea that he was going away that I should never see him again made me forget all about his ruler and how cranky he was poor man it was an honor of this last lesson that he put on his fine Sunday clothes and now I understood why the old men of the village were sitting there in the back of the room it was because they were sorry too that they had not gone to school more it was their way of thanking our master for his 40 years of faithful service and of showing their respect for the country that was theirs no more while I was thinking of all this I heard my name called it was my turn to recite what would I not have given to be able to say that dreadful rule for the participle all through very loud and clear and without one mistake but I got mixed up on the first words and stood there holding on to my desk my heart beating and not daring to look up I heard Misha Hamel say to me I won't scold you little friends you must feel bad enough see how it is every day we have said to ourselves I have plenty of time I'll learn it tomorrow and now you see where we've come out that's the great trouble with Alsace she puts off learning till tomorrow now those fellas out there will have the right to say to you how is it you pretend to be Frenchman and yet you can neither speak nor write your own language but you are not the worst poor little friends we've all a great deal to reproach ourselves with your parents were not anxious enough to have you learn they preferred to put you to work on a farm or at the mills so as to have a little more money and I I've been to blame too have I not often sent you to water my flowers instead of learning your lessons and when I wanted to go fishing did I not just give you a holiday then from one thing to another Misha Hamel went on to talk of the French language saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world the clearest, the most logical that we must guard it among us and never forget it because when a people are enslaved as long as they hold fast to their language it's as if they had the key to their prism then he opened a grammar and read us our lesson I was amazed to see how well I understood it all he said seemed so easy so easy I think too that I had never listened so carefully in that he had never explained everything with so much patience it seemed almost as if the poor man wanted to give us all he knew before going away and to put it all into our heads at one stroke after the grammar we had a lesson in writing that day Misha Hamel had new copies for us written in a beautiful round hand France, Alsace, France Alsace they looked like little flags floating everywhere in the school room hung from the rod at the top of our desks you ought to have seen how everyone set to work and how quiet it was the only sound was the scratching of the pens over the paper once some Beatles flew in but nobody paid any attention to them not even the littlest ones who worked right on tracing their fish hooks as if that was French too on the roof the pigeons cooed very low and I thought to myself will they make them sing in German even the pigeons whenever I looked up from my writing I saw Misha Hamel sitting motionless in his chair and gazing first at one thing then at another as if he wanted to fix in his mind just how everything looked in that little school room fancy for forty years he'd been there in the same place with his garden outside the window in his glass in front of him just like that only the desks and benches had been worn smooth the walnut trees in the garden were taller and the hop fine that he had planted himself twined about the windows to the roof how it must have broken his heart to leave it all poor man to hear his sister moving about in the room above packing their trunks for they must leave the country the next day but he had the courage to hear every lesson to the very last after the writing we had a lesson in history and then the babies chanted there Bobby by Bobo down there at the back of the room old Hauser had put on his spectacles and holding his primer in both hands spelled the letters with them you could see that he too was crying his voice trembled with emotion and it was so funny to hear him that we all wanted to laugh and cry well I remember it that last lesson all at once the church clock struck twelve then the Angeles at the same moment the trumpets of the Prussians returning from drills sounded under our windows Monsieur Hermel stood up very pale in his chair I never saw him look so tall my friends said he I but something choked him he could not go on then he turned to the blackboard took a piece of chalk and bearing on with all his might he wrote as large as he could Vive la France then he stopped and leaned his head against the wall without a word he made a gesture to us with his hand school is dismissed he may go end of the last lesson by Alfons today recording by Mike Harris long odds by H. Ryder Haggett this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Mike Harris long odds by H. Ryder Haggett the story which is narrated in the following pages came to me from the lips of my old friend Alan Quartermaine or Hunter Quartermaine as we used to call him in South Africa he told it to me one evening when I was stopping with him at the place he bought in Yorkshire shortly after that no one settled him that he immediately left England accompanied by two companions his old fellow voyagers Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good and has now utterly vanished into the dark heart of Africa he is persuaded that a white people of which he has heard rumors all his life exists somewhere on the highlands in the vast still unexplored interior and his great ambition is to find them before he dies this is the wild quest which he and his companions have departed and from which I shrewdly suspect they never will return one letter only have I received from the old gentleman dated from a mission station high up the Tana it's a river on the east coast about 300 miles north of Zanzibar in it he says that they have gone through many hardships and adventures but are alive and well and have found traces which go far toward making him hope that the results of their wild quest may be a magnificent and unexampled discovery I greatly fear however that all he has discovered is death for this letter came a long while ago and nobody has heard a single word of the party since they have totally vanished it was on the last evening of my stay at his house that he told the ensuing story to me and Captain Good who was dining with him he'd eaten his dinner and drunk two or three glasses of old port just to help Good and myself with a second bottle it was an unusual thing for him to do for he is a most epistemious man having conceived as he used to say a great horror of drink from observing its effects upon the class of colonists, hunters, transport riders and others amongst whom he had passed so many years of his life consequently the good wine took more effect on him than it would have done on most men sending a little flush into his wrinkled cheeks and making him talk more freely than usual dear old man I can see him now as he went limping up and down the vestibule with his grey hairs sticking up in scrubbing brush fashion his shriveled yellow face and his large dark eyes that were as keen as any hawks and yet soft as a box the whole room was hung with trophies of his numerous hunting expeditions and he had some story about every one of them if only he could be got to tell it generally he would not for he was not very fond of narrating his own adventures but tonight the port wine made him more communicative ha! you brute! he said, stopping beneath an unusually large skull of a lion which was fixed just over the mantelpiece beneath a long row of guns its jaws distended to their utmost width ha! you brute! you have given me a lot of trouble for the last dozen years and well I suppose to my dying day they tell us the yarn quarter man said good you have often promised to tell me and you never have better not ask me too quarter man answered for it's a longish one all right I said the evening is young and there is some more port thus abjured he filled his pipe from a jar of coarse cut board to back of that was always standing on the mantelpiece and still walking up and down the room began it was I think in the March of 69 when I was up in Sikuni's country it was just after old Sikwati's time and Sikuni had got into power I forget how anyway I was there I had heard that the Bepedi people had brought down an enormous quantity of ivory from the interior and so I started with a wagon load of goods and came straight away from Middleburg to try and trade some of it it was a risky thing to do going into the country so early on account of the fever I knew that there were one or two others after that lot I determined to have a try for it and take my chance of fever I had become so tough from continual knocking about that I did not set it down at much well I got on all right for a while it's a wonderfully beautiful piece of bush felt with great ranges of mountains running through it and round granite copies starting up here and there looking like sentinels over the rolling waste of bush but it was very hot hot as a stupend and when I was there that March which of course is autumn in this part of Africa the whole place reeked of fever every morning as I trekked along down by the Elephant River I used to creep from the wagon at dawn and look out but there was no river to be seen only a long line of billows of what looked like the finest cotton wool tossed up lightly with a pitchfork it was the fever mist out from among the scrub too came little spirals of vapor as though there were hundreds of tiny fires alight in it reek rising from thousands of tons of rotting vegetation it was a beautiful place but the beauty was the beauty of death and all those lines and blots of vapor wrote one great word across the surface of the country and that word was fever it was a dreadful year of illness that I came I remember to one little ball of knob noses and went up to it to see if I could get some moss or curdled buttermilk and a few mealy's as I drew near I was struck with the silence of the place no children began to chatter no dogs bark nor could I see any native sheep or cattle the place though it had evidently been inhabited of late was as still as the bush rounded and some guinea fowl got up out of the prickly pear bushes right at the crowd gave I remember that I hesitated a little such an air of desolation about the spot nature never looks desolate when man has not yet laid his hand upon her breast she's only lonely but when man has been and has passed away then, then she looks desolate well I passed into the crowd and went up to the principal hut in front of the hut but something with an old sheepskin carouse thrown over it I stooped down and drew off the rug and then shrank back amazed it was the body of a young woman recently dead for a moment I thought of turning back but my curiosity overcame me so going past the dead woman I went down in my hands and knees and crept into the hut it was so dark that I could not see anything though I could smell a great deal so I lit a match it was a time to stick out a match and burnt slowly and dimly and as the light gradually increased I made out what I took to be a family of people men, women and children fast asleep presently it burned up brightly and I saw that they too, five of them all together were quite dead one was a baby I dropped the match in a hurry and was making my way from the hut as quick as I could go when I caught sight of two bright eyes staring out of a corner thinking it was a wild cat or some such animal I redoubled my haste when suddenly a voice near the eyes began first to mutter and then to send up a succession of pawful yells hastily I lit another match and received that the eyes belonged to an old woman wrapped up in a greasy leather garment taking her by the arm I dragged her out for she could not or would not come by herself and the stench was overpowering me such a sight as she was a bag of bones covered over with black shriveled parchment the only white thing about her was her wool and she seemed to be pretty well dead except for her eyes and her voice she thought that I was a devil come to take her and that's why she yelled so well I got her down to the wagon and gave her a taut of caped smoke and then as soon as it was ready poured about a pint of beef tea down her throat made from the flesh of a blue Velderbeest I had killed the day before and after that she brightened up wonderfully she could talk Zulu indeed it turned out that she had run away from Zululand in Chakka's time and she told me that all the people whom I'd seen had died of fever when they had died the other inhabitants of the Kral had taken the cattle and gone away leaving the poor old woman who was helpless from age and infirmity to perish of salvation or disease as the case might be she'd been sitting there for three days among the bodies when I found her I took her on to the next Kral and gave the headman a blanket to look after her promising him another blanket if I found her well when I came back I remember that he was much astonished at my parting with two blankets for the sake of such a worthless old creature then why did I not leave her in the bush? he asked those people carried a doctrine of the survival of the fittest to an extreme you see it was the night after I had got rid of the old woman that I made my first acquaintance with my friend Yander and he nodded towards the skull that seemed to be grinning down at us I trekked from dawn till eleven o'clock a long trek but I wanted to get on and had turned the oxen out to graze sending the vorloper to look after them my intention being to in-span again about six o'clock and trek with the moon till ten then I got into the wagon and had a good sleep till half past two or so in the afternoon when I rose and cooked some meat and had my dinner washing it down with a panic and a black coffee for it was difficult to get some milk in those days just as I had finished and the driver a man called Tom was washing up the thing in comes the young scoundrel of a vorloper driving one ox before him where are the other oxen that I asked course he said course the other oxen have gone away I turned my back for a minute and when I looked round again they were all gone except Capitaine here who was rubbing his back against a tree the other of your back against a stick I answered feeling very angry for it was not a pleasant prospect to be stuck up in that fever trap for a week or so while we were hunting for the oxen off you go and you too Tom and mind you don't come back till you have found them they've trekked back along the Middleburg road and are a dozen miles off by now I'll be bound now no words cold both of you Tom the driver swore and caught the lad a hearty kick which he richly deserved and up to the Disselboom with a rain they took their assing eyes and sticks and started I would have gone too only I knew that somebody must look after the wagon and I did not like to leave either of the boys with it at night I was in a very bad temper indeed although I was pretty well used to these sorts of occurrences and soothed myself by taking a rifle and going to kill something for a couple of hours I poked about without seeing anything I could get a shot at but at last just as I was again within seventy yards of the wagon I put up an old Impala ram from behind a Mamosa thorn he ran straight for the wagon and it was not till he was passing within a few feet of it that I could get a decent shot at him then I pulled and caught him halfway down the spine over he went did as a doornail and a pretty shot it was though I ought not to say it this little incident put me into the bucket road right against the after part of the wagon so I had only to gut him fix a ram round his legs and haul him up by the time I'd done this the sun was down and the full moon was up and a beautiful moon it was and then there came that wonderful hush which sometimes falls over the African bush in the early hours of the night no beast was moving and no bird called not a breath of air stirred the quiet trees and the shadows did not even quiver they only grew it was very oppressive and very lonely for there was not a sign of the cattle or the boys I was quite thankful for the society of old captain who was lying down contentedly against the Disselboom chewing the cod with a good conscience presently however captain began to get restless first he snorted then he got up and snorted again I could not make it out so like a fool I got down off the wagon box to have a look round thinking it might be the lost ox I'm coming next instant I regretted it for all of a sudden I heard a roar and saw something yellow flash past me and light on poor captain then came a bellow of agony from the ox on a crunch as the lion put his teeth through the poor brute's neck and I began to understand what had happened my rifle was in the wagon and my first thought being to get hold of it I turned and made a bolt for the box on the wheel and flung my body forward onto the wagon and there I stopped as if I were frozen and no wonder for as I was about to spring up I heard the lion behind me and next second I felt the brute eye as plainly as I can feel this table I felt him I say sniffing at my left leg that was hanging down my word I did feel queer I don't think that I ever felt so queer before I dare not move for the life of me and the odd thing was that I seemed to lose power over my leg which developed an insane sort of inclination to kick out of its own mere motion just as hysterical people want to laugh when they ought to be particularly solemn while the lion sniffed and sniffed beginning at my ankle and slowly nosing away up to my thigh I thought that he was going to get hold then but he did not he only growled softly and went back to the ox shifting my head a little I got a full view of him he was about the biggest lion I ever saw and I've seen a great many and he had a most tremendous black mane what his teeth were like you can see look there pretty big ones ain't they altogether he was a magnificent animal and as I lay sprawling on the foretongue of the wagon it occurred to me that he'd look uncommonly well in a cage he stood there by the carcass of poor captain and deliberately disemboweled him as neatly as a butcher could have done all this while I dared not move he kept lifting his head and keeping an eye on me as he licked his bloody chops when he had cleaned the captain out he opened his mouth and roared and I'm not exaggerating when I say that the sound shook the wagon instantly there came back an answering roar heaven's I thought there's his mate hardly was the thought out of my head but sighted the moonlight of the lioness bounding along through the long grass and after her a couple of cubs about the size of mastiffs she stopped within a few feet of my head and stood waving her tail and fixed me with her glowing yellow eyes but just as I thought that it was all over she turned and began to feed on captain and so did the cubs there were the four of them within eight feet of me growling and quarrelling, rending and tearing captain's bones and their eye-lays shaking with terror and the cold perspiration pouring out of me feeling like another Daniel come to judgment in a new sense of the phrase well presently the cubs had eaten their fill and began to get restless one went round to the back of the wagon and pulled at the impala box that hung there and the other came round my way and commenced the sniffing game at my leg indeed he did more than that for my trouser being hitched up a little he began to lick the bear's skin with his rough tongue the more he licked, the more he liked it to judge from his increased vigor and the loud purring-noise he made then I knew that the end had come for in another second his file-like tongue would have rassed through the skin of my leg which was luckily pretty tough and have drawn the blood and there there would be no chance for me so I just lay there, thought of my sins and prayed to the Almighty and reflected that after all life was a very enjoyable thing then, of a sudden I heard a crashing of bushes and the shouting and whistling of men and there were the two boys coming back with the cattle which they found trekking along all together the lions lifted their heads and listened then bound it off without a sound and I fainted the lions came back no more that night and by the next morning my nerves had got pretty straight again but I was full of wrath when I thought of all that I had gone through with the hands or rather noses of those poor brutes and of the fate of my after-ox captain he was a splendid ox and I was very fond of it so wroth was I that like a fool I determined to attack the whole family of them it was worthy of a green horn out on his first hunting trip but I did it nonetheless accordingly after breakfast having rubbed some oil upon my leg which was very sore from the cub's tongue I took the driver Tom who did not half like the business and having armed myself with an ordinary double number 12 smooth-bore the first breach loader I ever had I started I took the smooth-bore because it shot a bullet very well and my experience has been that a round ball from a smooth-bore is quite as effective against a lion as an express bullet the lion is soft and not a difficult animal to finish if you hit him anywhere in the body the buck takes far more killing and the first thing I set to work to do was to try to discover whereabouts the brooks lay up for the day about 300 yards from the wagon was the crest of a rise covered with single mimosa trees dotted about in a park fashion and beyond this lay a stretch of open plain running down to a dry pan a water hole which covered about an acre of ground and was densely clothed with reeds now in the sear and yellow leaf from the further edge of this pan the ground sloped up again to a great cleft of nulla which had been cut out by the action of the water and was pretty thickly sprinkled with bush amongst which grew some large trees and I forget of what sort yet it once struck me that the dry pan would be a likely place to find my friends in as there is nothing a lion as fond of than lying up in reeds through which he can see things without being seen himself accordingly thither I went and prospected before I got halfway round the pan I found the remains of a blue vilder beast that had evidently been killed within the last three or four days and partially devoured by lions and from other indications about I was soon assured that if the family were not in the pan that day they spent a good deal of their spare time there but if there the question was how to get them out for it was clearly impossible to think of going in after them unless one was quite determined to commit suicide now there was a strong wind blowing from the direction of the wagon across the beaky plain toward the bush-clad clue for Donga and this first gave me the idea of firing the reeds which as I think I told you were pretty dry accordingly Tom took some matches and began starting little fires to the left and I did the same to the right but the reeds were still green at the bottom and we should never have got them well alight had it not been for the wind which grew stronger and stronger as the sun climbed higher and forced the fire into them at last after half an hour's trouble the flames got a hold and began to spread out like a fan whereupon I went round to the farther side of the pan to wait for the lions standing well out in the open as we stood at the copes today where you shot the woodcock it was a rather risky thing to do but I used to be so sure of my shooting in those days that I did not so much mind the risk scarcely had I got round when I heard the reeds parting would rush of some animal now for it said I on it came I could see that it was yellow and prepared for action when instead of a lion outbounded a beautiful right buck which had been lying in the shelter of the pan it must by the way have been a right buck of peculiarly confiding nature to lay itself down with a lion like a lamb of prophecy but I suppose the reeds were thick and that it kept a long way off well I let the right buck go and it went like the wind and kept my eyes fixed on the reeds the fire was burning like a furnace now the flames crackling and roaring as they bit into the reeds sending spouts of fire twenty feet and more into the air and making the hot air dance above in a way that was perfectly dazzling but the reeds were still half green and created an enormous quantity of smoke which came rolling toward me like a curtain lying very low on account of the wind presently above the crackling of the fire I heard a startled roar and then another and another so the lions were at home I was beginning to get excited now for as you fellas know there's nothing in experience to warm up your nerves like a lion at close quarters unless of course it's a wounded buffalo and I became still more so when I made out through the smoke that the lions were all moving about at the edge of the reeds occasionally they'd pop their heads out like rabbits from a burrow and then catching sight of me standing about fifty yards away draw them back in again I knew that it must be getting pretty warm behind them and that they could not keep the game up for long and I was not mistaken for suddenly all four of them broke covered together the old black main lion leading by a few yards I never saw a more splendid sight in all my hunting experience bounding across the belt overshadowed by the dense pall of smoke and backed by the fiery furnace with the burning reeds I reckoned that they'd pass on their way to the bushy cloup within about five and twenty yards of me so taking a long breath I got my gun well onto the lion's shoulder the black main one so as to allow for an inch or two of motion and catch him through the heart I was on, dead on and my finger was just beginning to tighten when suddenly I went blind a bit of redash it drifted into my right eye I danced and rubbed and succeeded in clearing it more or less just in time to see the tail of the last lion vanishing around the bushes up the clouf if ever a man was mad I was that man it was too bad and such a shot in the open however I was not going to be beaten so I just turned and marched for the clouf Tom the driver begged and implored me not to go but though as a general rule I never pretend to be very brave in which I am not I was determined that I would either kill those lions or they should kill me so I told Tom that he need not come unless he liked but I was going and being a plucky fellow as Swazi by Bert he shrugged his shoulders muttered that I was mad or bewitched and followed doggedly in my tracks well we soon reached the clouf which was about 300 yards in length but sparsely would it and then the real fun began there might be a lion behind every bush there certainly were four lions somewhere the delicate question was where I peeped and poked and looked in every possible direction with my heart and my mouth and was it last rewarded by catching a glimpse of something yellow moving behind a bush at the same moment from another bush he sent out the men but then that man looked at me and aware he was, and he could see where he was and saw this lurking and I was confused and who is it and I was confused but I was confused to get in the next new cartridge it would only enter half way in. Would you believe it? This was the moment that the lioness, attracted no doubt by the outcry of her cobb, chose to put in an appearance. There she stood, twenty paces or so, from me lashing her tail, and looking just as wicked as it's possible to conceive. Slowly I stepped backwards trying to push in the new case, and as I did so she moved on in little runs, dropping down after each run. The danger was imminent, and the case would not go in. At the moment I oddly enough thought of the cartridge-maker whose name I will not mention, and earnestly hoped that if the lion got me some con-dying punishment would overtake him. It would not go in, so I tried to pull it out. It would not come out, either, and my gun was useless if I could not shut it to use the other barrel. I might as well have had no gun at all. Meanwhile I was walking backward keeping my eye on the lioness who was creeping forward on her belly without a sound, but lashing her tail and keeping her eye on me, and in it I saw that she was coming in a few seconds more. I dashed my wrist and the palm of my hand against the brass rim of the cartridge till the blood poured from the look there are the scars of it to this day. Air-quarterman held up his right hand to the light and showed us four or five white kick-at-reases, just where the wrist is set into the hand. But it was not the slightest use, he went on. The cartridge would not move. I only hoped that no other man will ever be put in such an awful position. The lioness gathered herself together and I gave myself up for lost when suddenly Tom shouted out from somewhere in my rear, You're walking onto the wounded cub. Turn to the right. I had the sense today as I was to take the hint, and slewing round at right angles, but still keeping my eyes on the lioness, I continued my backward walk. To my intense relief with a low growl she straightened herself turned and bounded further up the cliff. Come on, Maccuma's eyes, sit Tom, let's get back to the wagon. All right, Tom, I answered. I will when I've killed those three other lions. For by this time I was bent on shooting them as I never remember being bent on anything before, a sense. You can go if you like, or you can get up a tree. He considered the position a little, and then he very wisely got up a tree. I wished that I had done the same. Meanwhile, I had found my knife which had an extractor, and it had succeeded after some difficulty in pulling out the cartridge, which had so nearly been the cause of my death. And removing the obstruction in the barrel.  This time I loaded the gun, bound a handkerchief round my wrist, and hand to staunch the flowing of the blood, and started on again. I had noticed that the lioness went into a thick green bush, or rather cluster of bushes, growing near the water about fifty yards higher up, for there was a little stream running down the cliff, and I walked toward this bush. When I got there, however, I could see nothing, so I took up a big stone and threw it into the bushes. I believed that it hit the other cub, for out it came with a rush giving me a broadside shot, of which I promptly availed myself, knocking it over dead. Out, too, came the lioness like a flash of light, but quick as she went I managed to put the other bullet into her ribs, so that she rolled right over three times like a shot rabbit. I instantly got two more cartridges into the gun, as I did so. The lioness rose again, and came crawling toward me on her forepaws, roaring and groaning, and with such an expression of diabolical fury on her countenance as I have not often seen. I shot her again through the chest, and she fell over on her side, quite dead. That was the first and last time that I ever killed a brace of lions right and left, and what is more, I never heard of anybody else doing it. Naturally I was considerably pleased with myself, and having again loaded up, I went on to look for the black-meined beauty who had killed Captain. Slowly, and with the greatest care I proceeded up the cliff, searching every bush and tuft of grass as I went. It was wonderfully exciting work for I never was sure from one moment to another but that he would be on me. I took comfort, however, from the reflection that a lion rarely attacks a man. Rarely, I say. Sometimes he does, as you'll see. Unless he's cornered or wounded, I must have been nearly an hour hunting after that lion. Once I thought, I saw something move in a clump of taboo-key grass, but I could not be sure when I trod out the grass I could not find it. At last I worked up to the head of the cliff, which made a cul-de-sac. It was formed of a wall of rock about fifty feet high. Down this rock trickled a little water wall and in front of it, some seventy feet from its face, rose a great piled-up mass of boulders in the crevices and on the top of which grew ferns, grasses, and stunted bushes. This mass was about twenty-five feet high. The sides of the cliff were also very steep. While I came to the top of the null I looked all around, no signs of the lion. Evidently I had either overlooked him further down, or he had escaped right away. It was very vexatious, but still, three lions were not a bad bag for one gun before dinner, and I was feign to be content. Accordingly I departed back again, making my way round the isolated pillar of boulders, beginning to feel, as I did so, that I was pretty well done up with excitement and fatigue, and should be more so before I had skinned to those three lions. When I had got as nearly as I could judge about eighteen yards past the pillar or mass of boulders, I turned to have another look around. I have a pretty sharp eye, but I could see nothing at all. Then on a sudden I saw something sufficiently alarming. On the top of the mass of boulders, opposite to me, standing out clear against the rock beyond, was the huge black-maned lion. He'd been crouching there and now arose as though by magic. There he stood lashing his tail just like a living reproduction of the animal on the gateway of Northumberland House that I have seen in a picture. But he did not stand long. Before I could fire, before I could do more than get the gun to my shoulder, he sprang straight up and out from the rock, and driven by the impetus of that one mighty bound came curdling through the air toward me. Heavens, how grand he looked, and how awful! High into the air he flew, describing a great arch. Just as he touched the highest point of his spring, I fired. I did not dare to wait for I saw that he would clear the whole space and land right upon me. Without a sight, almost without aim, I fired, as one would fire a snapshot at a snipe. The bullet told, for I distinctly heard its thud above the rushing sound caused by the passage of the lion through the air. Next second I was swept to the ground. Luckily I fell into a low, creeper-clad bush which broke the shock. And the lion was on the top of me, and the next those great white teeth of his had met in my thigh. I heard them great against the bone. I yelled out in agony for I did not feel in the least benumped and happy like Dr. Livingston, whom by the way I knew very well, and gave myself up for dead. But suddenly at that moment the lion's grip on my thigh loosened, and he stood over me swaying to and fro his huge mouth from which the blood was gushing, wide open. Then he roared and the sound shook the rocks. To and fro he swung. And then the great head dropped on me, knocking all the breath from my body. And he was dead. My bullet had entered in the center of his chest and passed out on the right side of the spine about half way down the back. The pain of my wound kept me from fainting, and as soon as I got my breath I managed to drag myself from under him. Thank heavens his great teeth had not crushed my thigh bone, but I was losing a great deal of blood, and had it not been for the timely arrival of Tom, with whose aid I loosened the handkerchief from my wrist and tied it round to my leg, twisting it tight with a stick, I think that I should have bled to death. Well it was a just reward for my folly in trying to tackle a family of lions single-handed. The odds were way too long, I have been lame ever since, and shall be to my dying day. In the month of March the wound always troubles me a great deal, and every three years it breaks out raw. I need scarcely add that I never traded the lot of ivory at Scucconi's. Another man got it. The German had made five hundred pounds out of it after paying expenses. I spent the next month on the broad of my back, and was a cripple for six months after that. Well, now I've told you the tale, so I'll have a drop of Holland's or go to bed. Good night, you all. Good night.