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?”