The traveler was not particularly enthralled by the apparatus and he paced back and forth behind the condemned man with almost visible indifference while the officer made the final preparations, one moment crawling beneath the apparatus that was deeply embedded in the ground, another climbing a ladder to inspect its uppermost parts. These were tasks that could really have been left to a mechanic, but the officer performed them with energetic eagerness, perhaps because he was a devoted admirer of the apparatus or because, for whatever other reasons, the work could be entrusted to no one else. “Now everything’s ready!” he called out at last, and climbed down from the ladder. He had worked up a sweat and was breathing with his mouth wide open; he had also tucked two very fine ladies’ handkerchiefs under the collar of his uniform. “Surely these uniforms are too heavy for the tropics,” said the traveler instead of inquiring, as the officer expected, about the apparatus. “Of course,” the officer said, washing the oil and grease from his hands in a nearby bucket of water, “but they represent home for us; we don’t want to forget about our homeland—but now just take a look at this machine,” he immediately added, drying his hands on a towel and simultaneously indicating the apparatus. “Up to this point I have to do some of the operations by hand, but from now on the apparatus works entirely by itself.” The traveler nodded and followed the officer. Then the officer, seeking to prepare himself for all eventualities, said: “Naturally there are sometimes problems; I hope of course there won’t be any problems today, but one must allow for the possibility. The apparatus should work continually for twelve hours, but even if anything does go wrong, it will be something minor and easy to repair at once.”

“Won’t you sit down?” he inquired at last, pulling out a cane chair from a whole heap of them and offering it to the traveler, who was unable to refuse. The traveler was now sitting at the edge of a pit, and he glanced cursorily in its direction. It was not very deep. On one side of the pit, the excavated earth had been piled up to form an embankment, on the other side of the pit stood the apparatus. “I don’t know,” said the officer, “whether the commandant has already explained the apparatus to you.” The traveler made a vague gesture with his hand, and the officer could not have asked for anything better, for now he was free to explain the apparatus himself. “This apparatus,” he said, grabbing hold of the crankshaft and leaning against it, “was the invention of our former commandant. I myself was involved in the very first experiments and also shared in the work all the way to its completion, but the credit for the invention belongs to him alone. Have you ever heard of our former commandant? No? Well, it wouldn’t be too much to say that the organization of the whole penal colony is his work. We who were his friends knew long before his death that the organization of the colony was so perfectly self-contained that his successor, even if he had a thousand new schemes brewing in his head, would find it impossible to alter a thing from the old system, at least for many years to come. Our prediction has indeed come true, and the new commandant has had to acknowledge as much. It’s too bad you never met the old commandant!—but,” the officer interrupted himself, “I’m rambling, and here is his apparatus standing right in front of us. It consists, as you can see, of three parts. In the course of time each part has acquired its own nickname. The lower part is called the bed, the upper one is the designer, and this one in the middle here that hovers between them is called the harrow.” “The harrow?” asked the traveler. He had not been listening very intently; the sun beat down brutally into the shadeless valley and it was difficult to collect one’s thoughts. He had to admire the officer all the more: He wore his snugly fitting dress uniform, hung with braiding weighted with epaulettes; he expounded on his subject with zeal and tightened a few screws here and there with a screwdriver while he spoke. As for the soldier, he seemed to be in much the same condition as the traveler: He had wound the condemned man’s chain around both his wrists and propped himself up with one hand on his rifle; his head hung down and he took no notice of anything. The traveler was not surprised by this, as the officer was speaking in French and certainly neither the soldier nor the condemned man understood French. It was therefore that much more remarkable that the condemned man nevertheless strove to follow the officer’s explanations. With a drowsy sort of persistence he directed his gaze wherever the officer pointed, and when the traveler broke in with his question, he, like the officer, looked at the traveler.

“Yes, the harrow,” answered the officer, “a perfect name for it. The needles are arranged similarly to the teeth of a harrow and the whole thing works something like a harrow, although it is stationary and performs with much more artistry. You’ll soon understand it anyway. The condemned man is laid here on the bed—you see, first I want to explain the apparatus and then start it up, that way you’ll be able to follow it better; besides, one of the gears in the designer is badly worn, it makes a horrible screeching noise when it’s turning and you can hardly hear yourself speak; unfortunately spare parts are difficult to come by around here—well, so here is the bed, as I said before. It’s completely covered with a layer of cotton wool, you’ll find out what that’s for later. The condemned man is laid facedown on the cotton wool, naked of course; here are straps for the hands, the feet, and here for the neck, in order to hold him down. So, as I was saying, here at the head of the bed, where the condemned man is at first laid facedown, is the little felt gag that can be adjusted easily to fit straight into the man’s mouth. It’s meant to keep him from screaming or biting his tongue. The man has to take the felt in his mouth since otherwise the neck strap would break his neck.” “That’s cotton wool?” asked the traveler, leaning forward. “It certainly is,” the officer said with a smile, “feel for yourself.” He grabbed hold of the traveler’s hand and guided it over the bed’s surface. “It’s specially prepared cotton wool, which is why you don’t recognize it; I’ll come to its purpose in a minute.” The traveler was starting to feel the stirrings of interest in the apparatus; he gazed up at it with one arm raised to shield his eyes from the sun. It was a large structure. The bed and the designer were the same size and looked like two dark steamer trunks. The designer hung about two meters above the bed; they were joined at the corners by four brass rods that practically gleamed in the sunlight. The harrow was suspended on a steel band between the two trunks.

The officer had barely noticed the traveler’s previous indifference but definitely sensed his burgeoning interest, so he paused in his explanations in order to give the traveler time for undisturbed observation. The condemned man imitated the traveler, but since he could not shield his eyes with a hand, he blinked up into the sun.

“So, the man lies down,” said the traveler, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs.

“Yes,” said the officer, pushing his cap back a little and mop-ping his sweaty face with his hand, “now listen! Both the bed and the designer have their own electric battery; the bed needs one for itself and the designer needs one for the harrow. As soon as the man is strapped in, the bed is set in motion. It quivers with tiny, rapid vibrations, both from side to side and up and down. You will have seen similar contraptions in sanitariums, but for our bed, all the movements are calibrated precisely, for they must correspond to movements of the harrow. But it is the harrow that actually carries out the sentence.”

“And just what is the sentence?” inquired the traveler. “You don’t know that either?” the officer said in astonishment, and bit his lip. “Excuse me if my explanations seem a bit incoherent, I beg your pardon. The commandant always used to take care of the explanations, but the new commandant seems to scorn this duty; but that such a distinguished visitor”—the traveler attempted to wave this distinction away with both hands, but the officer insisted on the expression—“that such a distinguished visitor should not even be made aware of the form our sentencing takes is a new development, which”—an oath was about to pass his lips but he checked himself and said only: “I was not informed of this, it’s not my fault. In any case, I’m certainly the man best equipped to explain our sentencing, since I have here”—he patted his breast pocket—“the relevant drawings made by our former commandant.”

“Drawings by the commandant himself?” the traveler asked. “Was he everything himself? Was he soldier, judge, engineer, chemist, draftsman?”

“Yes sir, he was,” the officer answered, nodding his head with a remote, contemplative look. Then he examined his hands closely; they did not seem to be clean enough for him to handle the drawings, so he went over to the bucket and washed them again. Then he drew out a small leather folder and said: “The sentence does not sound severe. Whatever commandment the condemned man has transgressed is engraved on his body by the harrow. This man, for example”—the officer indicated the man—“will have inscribed on his body: ‘Honor thy superiors!’ ”

The traveler briefly looked at the man, who stood, as the officer pointed him out, with bowed head, apparently straining with all his might to catch something of what was said. But the movement of his thick, closed lips clearly showed that he understood nothing. There were a number of questions the traveler wanted to ask, but at the sight of the man he asked only: “Does he know his sentence?” “No,” said the officer, eager to continue his explanations, but the traveler interrupted him: “He doesn’t know his own sentence?” “No,” repeated the officer, and paused for a moment as if he were waiting for the traveler to elaborate on the reason for his question, then said: “It would be pointless to tell him. He’ll come to know it on his body.” The traveler would not have spoken further, but he felt the condemned man’s gaze trained on him; it seemed to be asking if the traveler approved of all this. So after having already leaned back in his chair, he bent forward again and asked another question: “But does he at least know that he’s been sentenced?” “No, not that either,” the officer replied, smiling at the traveler as if expecting him to make more strange statements. “Well,” said the traveler, “then you mean to tell me that the man is also unaware of the results of his defense?” “He has had no opportunity to defend himself,” said the officer, looking away as if talking to himself and trying to spare the traveler the embarrassment of having such self-evident matters explained to him. “But he must have had some opportunity to defend himself,” the traveler said, and got up from his seat.

The officer realized that his explanations of the apparatus were in danger of being held up for quite some time, so he approached the traveler, put his arm through his, and gestured toward the condemned man, who was standing up straight now that he was so obviously the center of attention—the soldier had also given the chain a jerk—and said: “Here’s the situation. I have been appointed judge in this penal colony—despite my youth—as I was the previous commandant’s assistant in all penal matters and also know the apparatus better than anyone else. The guiding principle for my decisions is this: Guilt is unquestionable. Other courts cannot follow that principle because they have more than one member and even have courts that are higher than themselves. That is not the case here, or at least it was not so during the time of the former commandant. Although the new one has shown signs of interfering with my judgments, I have succeeded in fending him off so far and shall continue to do so—you wanted to have this case explained; it’s quite simple, as they all are. A captain reported to me this morning and charged this man—who is assigned to him as an orderly and sleeps in front of his door—with sleeping on duty. You see, it is his duty to get up every time the hour strikes and salute the captain’s door. This is certainly not a tremendously difficult task but a necessary one, as he must be alert both to guard and wait on his master. Last night the captain wanted to find out whether the orderly was performing his duty. When the clock struck two, he opened the door and found the man curled up asleep. He took his horsewhip and lashed him across the face. Now instead of rising and begging for pardon, the man grabbed his master by the legs, shook him, and cried: ‘Throw away that whip or I’ll swallow you whole’—those are the facts. The captain came to me an hour ago, I wrote down his statement and immediately followed it up with the sentence. Then I had the man put in chains. That was quite simple. If I had called for this man first and interrogated him, it would only have resulted in confusion. He would have lied, and had I been successful in exposing those lies, he would just have replaced them with new ones, and so on. But as it stands now, I have him and I won’t let him go—is everything clear now? But time’s marching on, the execution ought to be starting and I haven’t finished explaining the apparatus yet.” He pressed the traveler back into his seat, returned to the apparatus, and began: “As you can see, the shape of the harrow corresponds to the human form; here is the harrow for the upper body, here are the harrows for the legs. For the head there is just this one small spike. Is that clear?” He bent forward toward the traveler amiably, eager to furnish the most comprehensive explanations.

With a furrowed brow the traveler examined the harrow. He was not satisfied with the explanation of the judicial process. Still, he had to remind himself, this was a penal colony, special measures were needed here, military procedures must be adhered to up to the very end. He also placed some hope in the new commandant, who intended to introduce, albeit slowly, new procedures that the officer’s narrow mind could not conceive of. These thoughts led him to his next question: “Will the commandant attend the execution?” “It’s not certain,” the officer said, wincing at the direct question, and his friendly expression clouded over. “That is why we must hurry. As much as it pains me, I’ll have to cut my explanations short. But of course tomorrow, after the apparatus has been cleaned—its only drawback is that it gets so messy—I can go into more detail. So for now, just the essentials: When the man is laid down on the bed and it has started vibrating, the harrow is lowered onto his body. It automatically adjusts itself so that the needles just graze the skin; once the adjustment is completed, the steel band promptly stiffens to form a rigid bar. And now the performance begins. An uninformed observer would not be able to differentiate between one punishment and another. The harrow appears to do its work in a uniform manner. As it quivers, its points pierce the body, which is itself quivering from the vibrations of the bed. So that the progress of the sentencing can be seen, the harrow is made of glass. Securing the needles in the glass presented some technical difficulties, but after many attempts we were successful. We spared no effort, you understand. And now anyone can observe the sentence being inscribed on the body. Don’t you want to come closer and examine the needles?”

The traveler rose to his feet slowly, walked across, and bent over the harrow. “You see,” said the officer, “there are two types of needles arranged in various patterns. Each long needle has a short one adjacent to it. The long needle does the writing, and the short one flushes away the blood with water so that the writing is always clearly legible. The bloody water is then conducted through grooves and finally flows into this main pipe, which empties into the pit.” With his finger the officer outlined the exact route the bloody water had to take. When, in order to make the image as vivid as possible, he cupped his hands under the mouth of the pipe as if to catch the outflow, the traveler drew his head back and, groping behind him with one hand, tried to return to his chair. To his horror he then saw that the condemned man had also accepted the officer’s invitation to examine the harrow more closely. He had tugged the sleepy soldier forward a little and was leaning over the glass. One could see that he was searching, with a puzzled expression, for what the gentlemen had been examining, but since he had not heard the explanation he was not successful. He bent this way and that; he repeatedly ran his eyes over the glass. The traveler wanted to drive him back because what he was doing was probably a criminal offense, but the officer restrained the traveler with a firm hand and with the other hand picked up a clump of dirt from the embankment and hurled it at the soldier. The soldier jerked awake and saw what the condemned man had dared to do; he dropped his rifle, dug in his heels, yanked the condemned man back so forcefully that he immediately fell, and then stood over him, watching him writhe around and rattle his chains. “Get him on his feet!” shouted the officer, for he noticed that the traveler was dangerously distracted by the condemned man. The traveler even leaned across the harrow, taking no notice of it, only concerned with what was happening to the condemned man. “Be careful with him!” the officer yelled again. He circled the apparatus and grasped the condemned man under the armpits himself; with the help of the soldier he hauled him to his feet, which kept slipping and sliding.

“Now I know all there is to know about it,” the traveler said as the officer returned to his side. “All but the most important thing,” he replied, seizing the traveler by the arm and pointing upward. “Up there in the designer is the machinery that controls the movements of the harrow, and this mechanism is then programmed to correspond with the drawing of the prescribed sentence. I am still using the former commandant’s drawings. Here they are”—he pulled some sheets out of the leather folder—“unfortunately I can’t let you touch them, they’re my most prized and valuable possession. Just sit, and I’ll show them to you from here, then you’ll be able to see everything perfectly.” He held up the first drawing. The traveler would gladly have said something complimentary, but all he saw was a labyrinth of crisscross ing lines that covered the paper so thickly that it was difficult to discern the blank spaces between them. The officer said: “Read it.” “I can’t,” said the traveler. “Well, it’s clear enough,” remarked the officer. “It’s very artistic,” the traveler offered evasively, “but I can’t make it out.” “Sure,” agreed the officer, with a laugh, and put away the folder, “it’s not calligraphy for schoolchildren. It must be carefully studied. I’m sure you’d eventually understand it too. Of course the script can’t be too simple: It’s not meant to kill on first contact, but only after twelve hours, on average; but the turning point is calculated to come at the sixth hour. So the lettering itself must be surrounded by lots and lots of flourishes; the actual wording runs around the body only in a narrow strip, and the rest of the body is reserved for the ornamentation. Now do you appreciate the work of the harrow and the whole apparatus? —Just watch!” and he leaped up the ladder, rotated a wheel, and called out: “Look out, step to the side!” then everything started up. If it had not been for the screeching gear it would have been fantastic. As if he were surprised by the noisy gear, he shook his fist at it, then shrugged apologetically to the traveler and clambered down the ladder to check the working of the apparatus from below. Something that only he could detect was still not in order; he climbed up again and reached inside the designer with both hands, then, instead of using the ladder, slid down one of the rails to get down quicker and started hollering into the traveler’s ear at the top of his lungs in order to be heard above the din: “Are you following the process? First, the harrow begins to write; as soon as it has finished the initial draft of the inscription on the man’s back, the layer of cotton wool is set rolling and slowly turns the body onto its side, giving the harrow fresh room to write. Meanwhile, the raw flesh that has already been inscribed rests against the cotton wool, which is specially prepared to staunch the bleeding immediately and ready everything for a further deepening of the script. Then, as the body continues to turn, these teeth here at the edge of the harrow tear the cotton wool away from the wounds and toss it into the pit; now there is fresh work for the harrow. So it keeps on writing more and more deeply for all twelve hours. For the first six hours the condemned man is alive almost as before, he only suffers pain. The felt gag is removed after two hours, as he no longer has the strength to scream. This electrically heated bowl at the head of the bed is filled with warm rice gruel, and the man is welcome, should he so desire, to take as much as his tongue can reach. No one ever passes up the opportunity; I don’t know of one, and my experience is vast. The man loses his pleasure in eating only around the sixth hour. At this point I usually kneel down to observe the phenomenon. The man rarely swallows the last mouthful but merely rolls it around in his mouth and spits it into the pit. I have to duck just then, otherwise he would spit it in my face. But how still the man becomes in the sixth hour! Enlightenment comes to even the dimmest. It begins around the eyes, and it spreads outward from there—a sight that might tempt one to lie down under the harrow oneself. Nothing more happens, just that the man starts to interpret the writing, he screws up his mouth as if he were listening. You’ve seen yourself how difficult the writing is to decipher with your eyes, but our man deciphers it with his wounds. Of course it is hard work and it takes him six hours to accomplish it, but then the harrow pierces him clean through and throws him into the pit, where he’s flung down onto the cotton wool and bloody water. This concludes the sentence and we, the soldier and I, bury him.”

The traveler had his ear cocked toward the officer and, with his hands in his pockets, was watching the machine at work. The condemned man watched as well but with no understanding. He was bent slightly forward, watching the moving needles intently when the soldier, at a sign from the officer, sliced through his shirt and trousers from behind with a knife so that they slipped off him; he tried to grab at the falling clothes to cover his nakedness, but the soldier lifted him up in the air and shook off the last of his rags. The officer turned off the machine, and in the ensuing silence the condemned man was placed under the harrow. The chains were removed and the straps fastened in their stead; for a moment this almost seemed a relief to the condemned man. The harrow now lowered itself a bit farther—as this was a thin man. When the needle points reached his skin, a shudder ran through him; while the soldier was busy with the condemned man’s right hand, he stretched the left one out in a random direction; it was, however, in the direction of the traveler. The officer kept glancing at the traveler out of the corner of his eye as if to ascertain from his face how the execution, which had been at least nominally explained to him by now, impressed him.

The wrist strap snapped; the soldier had probably pulled it too tight. The officer’s help was required; the soldier showed him the frayed piece of strap. So the officer went over to him and said, still facing the traveler: “The machine is very complex so something or other is bound to break down or tear, but one mustn’t allow this to cloud one’s overall judgment. Anyway, a substitute for the strap is easy to find: I will use a chain—of course the delicacy of the vibrations for the right arm will be adversely affected.” And while he was arranging the chain, he remarked further: “The resources for maintaining the machine are quite limited these days. Under the old commandant I had unlimited access to a fund set aside for just this purpose. There was a store here that stocked all sorts of spare parts. I must confess I wasn’t exactly frugal—I mean before, not now as the new commandant claims, but he uses everything as an excuse to attack the old ways. Now he’s wrested control of the machine fund; if I request a new strap, the old one is required as evidence and the new one takes ten days to arrive and is of inferior quality, not much use at all. But in the meantime, how I’m supposed to operate the machine without a strap—no one worries about that.”

The traveler reflected that it is always dicey to meddle decisively in the affairs of other people. He was neither a citizen of the penal colony nor a citizen of the state to which it belonged. If he were to condemn, to say nothing of prevent, the execution, they could say to him: “You are a foreigner, keep quiet.” He could make no answer to that, he could only add that he himself didn’t understand his actions, for he traveled solely as an observer and certainly had no intention of revamping other people’s judicial systems. But in the present circumstances it was very tempting: The injustice of the process and the inhumanity of the execution were unquestionable. No one could assume any selfish interest on the traveler’s part, as the condemned man was a complete stranger, not even a fellow countryman, and he certainly inspired no sympathy. The traveler himself had been recommended by men in high office and received here with great courtesy, and the very fact that he had been invited to attend this execution seemed to suggest that his views on the judicial process were being solicited. And this was all the more probable since the commandant, as had just been made plain, was no fan of this procedure and was nearly hostile in his attitude toward the officer.

Just then the traveler heard the officer howl in rage. He had just succeeded, and not without difficulty, in shoving the felt gag into the mouth of the condemned man who, in an uncontrollable fit of nausea, squeezed his eyes shut and vomited. The officer rushed to pull him away from the gag and turn his head toward the pit, but it was too late, the vomit was running down the machine. “It’s all that commandant’s fault!” he shouted, thoughtlessly shaking at the brass rods closest to him. “The machine is as filthy as a sty.” With trembling hands, he showed the traveler what had happened. “Haven’t I spent hours trying to explain to the commandant that no food should be given for a whole day preceding the execution? But there are other opinions in this new, permissive regime. The commandant’s ladies stuff the man’s gullet full of sweets before he’s led away. He’s lived on stinking fish his whole life and now he must dine on sweets! But that would be all right, I wouldn’t object to it, but why can’t they get me a new felt gag like I’ve been asking for the last three months? How could a man not be sickened when the felt in his mouth has been gnawed and drooled on by more than a hundred men as they lay dying?”

The condemned man had laid his head down and looked quite peaceful; the soldier was busy cleaning the machine with the condemmed man’s shirt. The officer approached the traveler, who stepped back a pace in some vague dread, but the officer grasped his hand and drew him aside. “I would like to speak to you confidentially,” he said, “if I may.” “Of course,” said the traveler, and listened with his eyes cast down.

“This procedure and execution, which you now have the opportunity to admire, no longer have any open supporters in our colony. I am their sole advocate and, at the same time, the sole advocate of our former commandant’s legacy. No longer can I ponder possible developments for the system, I spend all my energy preserving what’s left. When the old commandant was alive, the colony was full of his supporters; I do possess some of his strength of conviction, but I have none of his power, and consequently his supporters have drifted away; there are many of them left but none will admit to it. If you went into the teahouse today, an execution day, and listened to what was being said, you’d probably hear only very ambiguous remarks. These would all be made by supporters, but considering the present commandant and his current beliefs, they’re completely useless to me. And now I ask you: Is a life’s work such as this”—he indicated the machine—“to be destroyed because of the commandant and the influence his women have over him? Should this be allowed to happen? Even by a stranger who has only come to our island for a few days? But there’s no time to lose, plans are being made to undermine my jurisdiction. Meetings that I am excluded from are already being held in the commandant’s headquarters. Even your presence here today seems significant: They are cowards and sent you ahead, you, a foreigner. Oh, how different an execution used to be in the old days! As much as a whole day before the event the valley would be packed with people: They lived just to see it. The commandant appeared early in the morning with his coterie of ladies; fanfares roused the entire camp; I reported that everything was ready; the assembly—no high official could be absent—arranged themselves around the machine. This stack of cane chairs is a pathetic leftover from that time. The machine was freshly cleaned and gleaming; for almost every execution I used new spare parts. Before hundreds of eyes—all the spectators would stand on tiptoe to the very rims of the slopes—the commandant himself installed the condemned man beneath the harrow. What today is left to a common soldier was performed by me, the presiding judge, at that time, and it was a great honor for me. And then the execution began! There were no discordant sounds to disturb the working of the machine. Many no longer watched but lay in the sand with their eyes closed; everyone knew: The wheels of justice were turning. In the silence nothing but the moaning of the condemned man could be heard, though his moans were muffled by the gag. These days the machine can induce no moan too loud for the gag to stifle; of course back then an acid that we’re no longer allowed to use dripped from the writing needles. Well, anyway—then came the sixth hour! It was not possible to grant every request to watch from close-up. In his wisdom, the commandant decreed that children should be given first priority. By virtue of my office, of course, I was always nearby; often I was squatting there with a small child in either arm. How we drank in the transfigured look on the sufferer’s face, how we bathed our cheeks in the warmth of that justice—achieved at long last and fading quickly. What times those were, my comrade!” The officer had evidently forgotten whom he was addressing; he had embraced the traveler and laid his head on his shoulder. The traveler was deeply embarrassed and stared impatiently past the officer’s head. The soldier had finished cleaning by now and was pouring rice gruel into the bowl from a can. As soon as the condemned man, who seemed to be fully recovered, saw this, he began to lap after the gruel with his tongue. The soldier continually pushed him away, since it was certainly meant for another time, but it was equally unfair of the soldier to stick his dirty hands into the basin and eat in the condemned man’s ravenous face.

The officer quickly recovered, “I did not want to upset you,” he said. “I know it’s impossible to make you understand what it was like then. In any event, the machine still works and is effective in and of itself. It is effective even though it stands alone in this valley. And in the end the corpse still slips unbelievably smoothly into the pit, even if there aren’t, as there once were, hundreds gathered like flies all around it. At that time, we had to erect a sturdy fence around the pit. It was torn down long ago.”

The traveler wanted to avert his face from the officer and looked about aimlessly. The officer assumed that he was marking the desolation of the valley, so he seized his hands and turned him around to meet his gaze and asked: “Can’t you just see the shame of it?”

But the traveler said nothing. The officer left him alone for a little while and stood absolutely still, his legs apart, hands on his hips, staring at the ground, then he smiled encouragingly at the traveler and said: “I was right beside you yesterday when the commandant invited you. I heard him, I know the commandant, I immediately understood what his intentions were. Although he’s powerful enough to move against me, he doesn’t yet dare do it, but he certainly intends to subject me to your judgment, the judgment of a respected foreigner. He has calculated carefully: This is your second day on the island, you didn’t know the old commandant and his ways, you’re conditioned by European mores, perhaps on principle you object to the death penalty in general and such a mechanical method as this one in particular; besides, you can see that executions are pathetic and have no public support here, even the machine is badly worn—now, taking all this into consideration (so thinks the commandant), isn’t it quite possible that you would disapprove of my methods? And if you do disapprove (I am still speaking as the commandant), you wouldn’t conceal this fact, for certainly you have confidence in your own tried and true convictions. Of course you have seen and learned to respect the peculiarities of many other peoples, and you probably wouldn’t condemn our proceedings as forcefully as you would in your own land. But the commandant has no need for all that. Just letting slip a casual little remark will suffice. It may not even reflect your true opinions, so long as it serves his purpose. He will be very clever in his interrogation, of that I am sure, and his ladies will circle around you and prick up their ears. You might just say: ‘Our judicial system is quite different, ’ or, ‘The defendant is questioned before he is sentenced in our country,’ or, ‘In our country the condemned man is informed of his sentence,’ or ‘We haven’t used torture since the Middle Ages’—all of which are statements that are as true as they seem self-evident to you, innocent enough remarks that don’t malign my methods in any way. But how will the commandant take them? I can picture him, the good commandant, hastily shoving his chair aside and rushing onto the balcony, I can see his ladies streaming out after him, I can hear his voice—the ladies call it a booming, thunderous voice—and so now he speaks: ‘A renowned scholar from the West, charged with investigating the judicial systems of all the countries in the world, has just pronounced our traditional system of administering justice inhumane. After receiving the verdict of such a distinguished person, I can naturally no longer tolerate this procedure. Effective immediately I therefore ordain . . . ,’ and so on and so forth. You would like to recant: You never said what he is asserting; you never called my methods inhumane, on the contrary you regard them, in keeping with your deep insight, as the most humane and worthy of humanity; you also admire this machinery—but it’s too late; you’ll never get to the balcony, which is already crowded with ladies; you’ll try to draw attention to yourself; you’ll want to shout but your mouth will be covered by a lady’s hand—and both I and the work of the old commandant will be finished.”

The traveler had to suppress a smile; the task that he thought would be so difficult was now so easy. He evasively said: “You overestimate my influence; the commandant has read my letters of recommendation and knows that I am no expert in legal matters. If I were to express an opinion, it would be the opinion of a private individual, with no more weight than anyone else’s and in any case far less influential than the opinion of the commandant, who, as I understand it, has very extensive powers in this penal colony. If he is as decidedly against you as you believe, then I fear that the end of your procedure is indeed near—without any modest assistance on my part.”

Did the officer finally understand? No, he still didn’t understand. He shook his head firmly, glanced at the condemned man and the soldier, who both flinched and abruptly abandoned their rice, came right up to the traveler, and instead of looking him in the eye, addressed some spot of his coat and said in a lower voice: “You don’t know the commandant, you believe your position in regard to him and the rest of us is somewhat—please pardon the expression—ineffectual, but trust me, your influence cannot be rated too highly. I was overjoyed when I heard that you would attend the execution alone. This decision of the commandant’s was intended as a blow to me, but I shall now turn it to my advantage. Without the distraction of whispered lies and scornful glances—which would have been unavoidable with a large crowd of spectators—you have heard my explanations, seen the machine, and are now on the verge of watching the execution. I’m sure you’ve already formed an opinion; if you still have any niggling doubts left, the sight of the execution will eliminate them. And now I put this request to you: Help me defeat the commandant!”

The traveler allowed him to speak no further. “How could I do that,” he exclaimed. “It’s absolutely impossible. I can’t help you any more than I can hinder you.”

“Yes, you can,” replied the officer. With some alarm, the traveler noticed that the officer was clenching his fists. “Yes, you can,” the officer repeated more urgently. “I have a plan that is bound to succeed. You don’t believe you have sufficient influence, but I know that you do. However, even granting that you’re right, isn’t it necessary for the sake of the old system’s preservation that we try everything, even things that are potentially ineffective? So listen to my plan. In order for it to succeed, it is extremely important that you say as little as possible in the colony today concerning the conclusions you’ve drawn about the procedure. Unless asked directly you should on no account comment. What you do say, however, must be brief and noncommittal, it should appear that you find the matter difficult to speak about, that you’re embittered over it, that if you were to speak freely you would almost be tempted to curse. I’m not asking you to lie, by any means; you should just answer curtly: ‘Yes, I have seen the execution,’ or, ‘Yes, it was all explained to me.’ Just that, nothing more. Your bitterness, which should be made obvious, is sufficiently justified, although not in the way the commandant imagines. He will completely misunderstand its meaning of course and interpret it to suit his own needs. My plan’s success hinges on this. Tomorrow there’s to be a large conference of all the high administrative officials at the commandant’s headquarters, presided over by the commandant himself. Naturally the commandant has turned these meetings into public exhibitions. He has built a gallery that is always packed with spectators. I am compelled to participate in these meetings, though they sicken and disgust me. No matter what the case, you are sure to be invited to this meeting; if you behave today as I have outlined, the invitation will become an urgent request. But if you are not invited for some obscure reason, you’ll have to ask for an invitation—that will ensure your getting one without a doubt. So now tomorrow you’re sitting in the commandant’s box with the ladies. He keeps looking up to make sure you are there. After discussing various ludicrous and unimportant issues, introduced solely for the benefit of the audience—usually it’s some harbor works, it’s always harbor works!—our judicial procedure is brought to the agenda. If the commandant fails to introduce it, or fails to do so soon enough, I’ll make it my business to get it mentioned. I’ll stand up and report on today’s execution. A very brief statement:

only that it has taken place. A statement of this sort is not quite standard at these meetings, but I will make it anyhow. The commandant thanks me, as always, with a friendly smile and then can’t restrain himself; he seizes the fortunate opportunity. ‘It has just been reported,’ he will say, or words to that effect, ‘that there has been an execution. I should merely like to add that this execution was witnessed by the great scholar who as you all know has done our colony an immense honor by his visit. His presence here today lends further importance to this occasion. Shouldn’t we now ask the great scholar his opinion of our traditional mode of execution and the whole process surrounding it? Of course there’s applause and general approval all around, of which mine is the loudest. The commandant bows to you and says: ‘Then I put the question to you in the name of all assembled here.’ And now you step up to the balustrade—keep your hands where everyone can see them, otherwise the ladies will press them and play with your fingers—and now you can speak out at last. I don’t know how I’ll be able to endure the tension while waiting for that moment. You mustn’t put any restrictions on yourself in your speech, let the truth be heard out loud, lean over the railing and roar, yes, roar your judgment, your immutable judgment, down on the commandant. But perhaps that is not what you wish to do, it’s not in keeping with your character; perhaps in your country one behaves differently in such situations. That’s fine, that’ll work just as well. Don’t stand up at all, just say a few words, in a whisper so that only those officials below you can hear. That will be enough. You don’t even have to mention the lack of public support, the screeching gear, the torn strap, the repulsive felt; no, I’ll take care of all that and, believe me, if my speech does not hound him from the hall, it will force him to his knees in confession: ‘Old Commandant, I bow down before you. . . . ’ That is my plan, will you help me carry it out? But of course you will, what’s more, you must.” And the officer seized the traveler by the arms and, breathing heavily, stared into his face. He had shouted his last sentences so loudly that even the soldier and the condemned man were paying attention; though they couldn’t understand a word, they stopped eating for a moment and looked over, still chewing, at the traveler.

The answer that he was obliged to give was absolutely clear to the traveler from the very beginning. He had experienced far too much in his lifetime to falter here; at heart he was honorable and without fear, all the same he did hesitate now for a beat, in the face of the officer and the condemned man. But at last he said what he had to: “No.” The officer blinked several times but kept his eyes locked on the traveler’s. “Would you like an explanation?” asked the traveler. The officer nodded dumbly. “I am opposed to this procedure,” the traveler then continued, “even before you confided in me—and naturally under no circumstances would I ever betray your confidence. I had already been considering whether I would be justified in intervening and whether any such intervention on my part would have the slightest chance of success. It was clear to me whom I had to turn to first: the commandant, of course. You helped make this even clearer, although you did not strengthen my resolve; on the contrary, your sincere conviction has moved me, even though it cannot influence my judgment.”

The officer remained mute, turned and approached the machine, took hold of one of the brass rods, and leaning back a little, gazed up at the designer as if to check that all was in order. The soldier and the condemned man seemed to have become quite friendly; the condemned man was gesturing to the soldier, though movement was difficult for him due to the tightly binding straps; the soldier bent down to him and the condemned man whispered something in his ear; the soldier nodded.

The traveler followed the officer and said: “You don’t know what I plan to do yet. I’ll certainly tell the commandant my thoughts on the procedure, but I will do so privately, not at a public meeting. Nor will I be here long enough to attend any such meeting; I’m sailing early tomorrow morning, or boarding my ship at the least.”

It did not look as if the officer had been listening. “So you weren’t convinced by the procedure,” he muttered to himself, smiling the smile of an old man listening to a child’s nonsense while pursuing thoughts of his own.

“Well, then the time has come,” he said at last, and looked at the traveler suddenly with bright, somewhat challenging eyes, apparently appealing for some kind of cooperation.

“Time for what?” the traveler inquired uneasily, but got no answer.

“You are free,” the officer said to the condemned man in his own language. He did not believe this at first. “You are free now,” repeated the officer. For the first time the face of the condemned man was truly animated. Was it true? Was it just a whim of the officer’s that might pass? Had the foreigner obtained this reprieve? What was it? His face seemed to be asking these questions. But not for long. Whatever the reason might be, he wanted to be really free if he could, and he began to thrash about as far as the harrow would allow.

“You’ll tear my straps,” barked the officer. “Be still! We’ll undo them.” He signaled to the soldier and they both set about doing so. The condemned man laughed quietly to himself without a word, turning his head first to the officer on his left, then to the soldier on his right, and not forgetting the traveler either.

“Pull him out,” ordered the officer. This required a certain amount of care because of the harrow. Through his own impatience, the condemned man had already sliced up his back a little.

But from here on the officer paid little attention to him. He went up to the traveler, drew out his small leather folder again, thumbed through the pages, finally finding the one he wanted, and showed it to the traveler. “Read it,” he said. “I can’t,” said the traveler, “I already told you that I can’t read these scripts.” “Take a closer look,” the officer insisted, stepping around next to the traveler so they could read it together. When that proved just as futile, he tried helping the traveler read by tracing the script with his little finger, though he held it far away from the paper as if that must never be touched. The traveler did make every effort in an attempt to please the officer at least in this respect, but it was impossible. Now the officer began to spell it out letter by letter, and then he read it all together. “ ‘Be just!’ it says,” he explained. “Surely you can read it now.” The traveler bent down so close to the paper that the officer, fearing he would touch it, pulled it farther away; the traveler said nothing more, but it was clear that he still could not decipher it. “ ‘Be just!’ it says,” the officer repeated. “That may be,” said the traveler, “I’m prepared to take your word for it.” “Well then,” said the officer, at least partly satisfied, and climbed the ladder with the sheet; he inserted the sheet into the designer with great care and seemed to completely rearrange all the gears; it was very difficult and intricate work that involved even the smallest gears, for the officer’s head sometimes disappeared into the designer entirely, so precisely did he have to examine the mechanism.

The traveler followed this activity closely from below; his neck grew stiff and his eyes ached from the blaze of sunlight glaring across the sky. The soldier and the condemned man were absorbed with each other. The condemned man’s shirt and trousers, which had already been dumped in the pit, were fished out by the soldier with the point of his bayonet. The shirt was filthy beyond belief, and the condemned man washed it in the bucket of water. When the condemned man donned the shirt and trousers, neither of the men could help bursting out laughing because the garments had been slit up the back. Perhaps the condemned man felt obliged to amuse the soldier, he twirled around again and again in his slashed clothes while the soldier squatted on the ground, slapping his knees in merriment. They did, however, control themselves somewhat out of consideration for the gentlemen’s presence.

When at long last the officer had finished his work up above, he surveyed each part of the entire machine with a smile and closed the cover of the designer, which had remained open until now. He climbed down, looked into the pit and then at the condemned man, noting with satisfaction that he had taken back his clothes, then went over to wash his hands in the water bucket, realizing only too late how revoltingly dirty it was, and disheartened that he could no longer wash his hands, he ultimately thrust them—this alternative did not please him, but he had to accept it—into the sand. He then rose and began to unbutton his tunic. As he did this, the two ladies’ handkerchiefs that he had tucked behind his collar fell into his hands. “Here, take your handkerchiefs,” he said, and tossed them over to the condemned man. And to the traveler he said by way of explanation: “Presents from the ladies.”

Despite the obvious haste with which he removed the tunic and then the rest of his clothing, he handled each garment with the utmost care, even running his fingers over the tunic’s silver braid and shaking a tassel into place. But all this care was in direct contrast with the fact that no sooner was he finished removing a garment than he hurled it unceremoniously into the pit with an indignant jerk. The last thing left to him was his short sword and its belt. He drew the sword out of the scabbard and broke it, then gathered it all up, the pieces of sword, the scabbard, the belt, and threw them into the pit so violently they clanked against each other.

Now he stood there naked. The traveler chewed his lip and said nothing. He knew without a doubt what was going to happen, but he had no right to prevent the officer from doing anything. If the judicial procedure that was so dear to the officer was truly near its end—possibly due to the traveler’s intervention, to which he felt quite committed—then the officer’s actions were proper; the traveler would have done the same in his place.

The soldier and the condemned man understood nothing at first, they weren’t even watching. The condemned man was delighted to have his handkerchiefs returned, but he was not allowed to enjoy them for long, as the soldier snatched them with a sudden, unexpected motion. Now the condemned man tried in turn to grab at the handkerchiefs, which the soldier had tucked under his belt for safekeeping, but the soldier was on his guard. So they half jokingly wrestled with each other. Only when the officer was totally naked did they begin to pay attention. The notion that some drastic reversal was about to take place seemed to have struck the condemned man in particular. What had happened to him was now happening to the officer. Perhaps it would be seen through to the end. The foreign traveler had probably ordered it. This, then, was revenge. Without having suffered to the end himself, he would be avenged to the end. A broad, silent grin now appeared on his face and stayed there.

The officer, however, had turned to the machine. It had previously been clear enough that he understood the machine well, but now it was almost mind-boggling to see how he handled it and how it obeyed him. He had only to reach out a hand toward the harrow for it to raise and lower itself several times until it found the proper position to receive him; he merely nudged the edge of the bed and it started to vibrate; it was plain that he was rather reluctant, when the felt gag came to meet his mouth, to receive it, but his hesitation only lasted a moment; he promptly submitted and received it. Everything was ready; only the straps still hung down at the sides, but they were evidently superfluous; the officer did not need to be strapped in. But the condemned man noticed the loose straps, and in his opinion the execution was not complete unless the straps were fastened; he eagerly beckoned to the soldier and they both ran over to strap the officer down. The latter had already stretched out one foot to push the crank that would start the designer, then he saw the two men approaching; he withdrew his foot and allowed himself to be strapped in. But now he could no longer reach the crank; neither the soldier nor the condemned man would be able to find it, and the traveler was determined not to lift a finger. It wasn’t necessary; hardly were the straps in place when the machine started to operate: The bed shook, the needles danced over the flesh, the harrow gently bobbed up and down. The traveler had already been staring at it for some time before remembering that a gear in the designer should be screeching, but everything was still, not even the slightest whirring could be heard.

Because the machine was working so silently, it became virtually unnoticeable. The traveler looked over at the soldier and the condemned man. The condemned was the livelier of the two, every facet of the machine interested him—one moment he was bending down, the next reaching up, his forefinger always extended to point something out to the soldier. This made the traveler extremely uncomfortable. He was determined to stay here till the end, but he couldn’t bear the sight of those two for long. “Go on home,” he said. The soldier might have been willing to do so, but the condemned man considered the order a punishment. With clasped hands he begged to be allowed to stay, and when the traveler, shaking his head, did not relent, he even went down on his knees. The traveler realized that giving orders was useless and was at the point of going over to chase the pair away. Just then he heard a noise in the designer above him. He looked up. Was it that troublesome gear after all? But it was something else. The cover of the designer rose slowly and then fell completely open. The teeth of a gear wheel emerged and rose higher, soon the whole wheel could be seen. It was as if some monumental force were compressing the designer so that there was no more room for this wheel—the wheel spun to the edge of the designer, fell, and rolled a little ways in the sand before it toppled onto its side. But a second wheel was already following it, with many others rolling after it—large ones, small ones, some so tiny they were hard to see; the same thing happened with all of them. One kept imagining that the designer was finally empty, but then a fresh, particularly numerous group would come into view, climb out, fall, spin in the sand, and lie still. In the thrall of this spectacle, the condemned man completely forgot the traveler’s order. He was fascinated by the wheels and kept trying to catch one, urging the soldier at the same time to help him; but he always drew back his hand in alarm, for another wheel would immediately come speeding along and frighten him, at least when it started to roll.

The traveler on the other hand was deeply troubled—the machine was obviously falling apart—its silent operation was an illusion. He had the feeling that it was now his duty to take care of the officer, since he was no longer capable of looking after himself. However, while the chaos of the gear wheels claimed all his attention, he had failed to keep an eye on the rest of the machine; now that the last wheel had left the designer, he went over to the harrow and had a new and even less welcome surprise. The harrow wasn’t writing at all but just stabbing, and the bed wasn’t rolling the body over but thrusting it up, quivering, into the needles. The traveler wanted to do something, bring the whole machine to a stop if possible, because this was not the exquisite torture the officer had wished for; this was out-and-out murder. He reached out, but at that moment the harrow rose with the body already spitted upon it and swung to the side as it usually only did at the twelfth hour. Blood flowed in a hundred streams—not mixed with water, the water jets had also failed to function this time—and the last function failed to complete itself, the body did not drop from the long needles: It hung over the pit, streaming with blood, without falling. The harrow tried to return to its original position, but as if it also noticed that it had not unloaded its burden, it stayed where it was, suspended over the pit. “Come and help!” the traveler shouted to the soldier and the condemned man, and grabbed the officer by the feet. He wanted to push against the feet from this side while the other two took hold of the head from the other side so the officer could gently be removed from the needles. But the others couldn’t make up their minds to come right away; the condemned man had even turned away. The traveler was compelled to go over to them and force them to get in position by the officer’s head. And from this vantage point he had to look, almost against his will, at the face of the corpse. It was as it had been in life (no sign of the promised deliverance could be detected). What all the others had found in the machine, the officer had not; his lips were clamped together, the eyes were open and bore the same expression as in life, a quiet, convinced look; and through the forehead was the point of the great iron spike.

On the ground floor of this house was a deep, low, cavernous room whose walls and ceiling were blackened with smoke. It was open to the street along the whole of its width. Although the teahouse differed very little from the other houses in the colony, which, except for the palatial buildings of the commandant’s headquarters, were all very dilapidated, it gave the traveler the impression of being a historic landmark, and he felt the power of earlier times. Followed by his companions, he went closer, passed between the empty tables that stood on the street in front of the teahouse, and breathed in the damp, cool air that came from the interior. “The old man is buried here,” said the soldier. “The priest wouldn’t allow him in the cemetery. For a while no one knew where to bury him, they ended up burying him here. The officer didn’t tell you about it because, naturally, it’s what he’s most ashamed of. A few times he even tried to dig the old man up at night, but he was always chased away.” “Where’s the grave?” asked the traveler, finding it impossible to believe the soldier. Both the soldier and the condemned man immediately ran in front of him, pointing with outstretched hands to where the grave was. They led the traveler to the far wall, where several customers were sitting at tables. They were apparently dock workers, strong men with black, glistening, full beards. They were all in their shirt-sleeves and their shirts were raggedy: These were poor, humble people. As the traveler approached, some of them rose and edged back against the wall, staring at him. “He’s a foreigner,” was whispered around him, “he wants to see the grave.” They pushed one of the tables aside, and under it there actually was a gravestone. It was a simple stone, low enough to be hidden beneath a table. It bore an inscription in very small lettering; the traveler had to kneel down in order to read it. It read: “Here lies the old commandant. His followers, who must now remain nameless, have dug this grave and set this stone. It has been prophesied that after a certain number of years he will rise again and lead his followers out of this house to reclaim the colony. Have faith and wait!” When the traveler read this, he rose to his feet. He saw the men surrounding him smile, as if they had read the inscription with him, found it absurd, and were inviting him to agree with them. The traveler pretended not to notice, distributed a few coins among them, and waiting until the table was pushed back over the grave, left the teahouse and made for the harbor.

The soldier and the condemned man were detained in the teahouse by some acquaintances. But they must have broken away from them relatively quickly because the traveler had only descended half the long flight of stairs that led to the boats when they came running after him. They probably wanted to force the traveler to take them with him at the last minute. While he was down below negotiating with a ferryman to take him to the steamer, the two men charged down the steps in silence, as they did not dare shout. But by the time they arrived at the foot of the steps, the traveler was already in the boat and the ferryman was casting off. They could still have jumped aboard, but the traveler hoisted a heavy, knotted rope from the floor of the boat and threatened them with it, thereby preventing them from attempting the leap.