and savage joy. And the error, which he had not
yet discovered, no longer called forth in him vexation or irritation,--it
seemed to speak loudly of something good and unexpected, as though he
had believed a dear friend of his to be dead, and that friend turned out
to be alive, safe and sound and laughing.

Werner again shrugged his shoulders and felt his pulse,--his heart was
beating faster than usual, but soundly and evenly, with a specially
ringing throb. He looked about once more, attentively, like a novice for
the first time in prison,--examined the walls, the bolts, the chair which
was screwed to the floor, and thought:

"Why do I feel so easy, so joyous and free? Yes, so free? I think of the
execution to-morrow--and I feel as though it is not there. I look at
the walls--and I feel as though they are not here, either. And I feel
so free, as though I were not in prison, but had just come out of some
prison where I had spent all my life. What does this mean?"

His hands began to tremble,--something Werner had not experienced before.
His thoughts fluttered ever more furiously. It was as if tongues of
fire had flashed up in his mind, and the fire wanted to burst forth
and illumine the distance which was still dark as night. Now the light
pierced through and the widely illuminated distance began to shine.

The fatigue that had tormented Werner during the last two years had
disappeared; the dead, cold, heavy serpent with its closed eyes and
mouth clinched in death, had fallen away from his breast. Before the
face of death, beautiful Youth came back to him physically. Indeed, it
was more than beautiful Youth. With that wonderful clarity of the spirit
which in rare moments comes over man and lifts him to the loftiest peaks
of meditation, Werner suddenly perceived both life and death, and he was
awed by the splendor of the unprecedented spectacle. It seemed to him
that he was walking along the highest mountain-ridge, which was narrow
like the blade of a knife, and on one side he saw Life, on the other
side--Death,--like two sparkling, deep, beautiful seas, blending in one
boundless, broad surface at the horizon.

"What is this? What a divine spectacle!" he said slowly, rising
involuntarily and straightening himself, as if in the presence of
a supreme being. And destroying the walls, space and time with the
impetuosity of his all-penetrating look, he cast a wide glance somewhere
into the depth of the life he was to forsa