The Sorrows of Belgium / A Play in Six Scenes

ter, literature and social intercourse. Endowed with an excellent memory and a firm will, he had mastered several European languages and could easily pass

the members of the organization, dared attend the balls given in hig

y day could not inspire him with respect. It was a dense net of stupidity, treachery and falsehood, vile insults and base deceptions. The last incident which seemed to have destroyed in him forever the desire to live, was the murder of the provocateur which he had committed by order of the organization. He had killed him in cold blood, but when he saw that dead, deceitful, now calm, and after all pitiful, human face, he

ed upon them without censure but also without any particular compassion, just as upon a rather contagious illness from which, however, he himself had never suffer

this,-he thought neither of death nor of life,-but concentrated his attention deeply and coolly upon a difficult chess game which he was playing. A superior chess player, he had started this game on the first day of his imprisonment and continued it uninterruptedly. Even the sentence condemning him to death by hanging did not remove a single figure from his imaginary chessboard. Even the knowledge that he would not be able to finish this game, did not stop him; and the morning of the last day that he was to rema

He found no blunder, yet the feeling about a blunder committed not only failed to leave him, but even grew ever more intense and unpleasant. Suddenly an unexpected and offensive thought came into his mind: Did the blunder

n account of the horror and the helplessness of his situation. As though he were going through a strict examination, he looked over the cell, trying not to let anything

e half-questioningly. "Her

us 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 som

y and evenly, with a specially ringing throb. He looked about once more, attentively, like a novice for the

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 thou

. It was as if tongues of fire had flashed up in his mind, and the fire wanted to burst forth and illumine the dist

, 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 spect

as if in the presence of a supreme being. And destroying the walls, space and time with the impetuosity o

human language. That small, cynical and evil feeling which had called forth in him a contempt for mankind and at times even an aversion for the sight of a human face,

never before assumed such a proud, free, commanding pose, had never turned his head and never looked as he did now,-for

n howling like a beast in the forests; and that which had seemed to him terrible in human beings, unpardonable and repulsive, suddenly became very dear to him,-like the inab

hole in the door. And, strange to say, almost instantly he forgot all that he had seen a little while before so clearly and distinctly; and, what is still stranger, he did not even make an effort to recall it. He simply sat down as comfortably as possible

whispered, crying bitte

n? He did not know, nor did he think of it. Did he pity his dear comrades, or did his tears conceal something else, a still l

des! My dear,

o one could have recognized the cold and haughty, weary, yet darin