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.