crime and long ardently for respectability and virtue. I have shown capacity to be useful to my country; I hope that some of this capacity is still left to be of use to Your Highness.
I know that I request something unheard of. My life is lost; nothing else is left to me to intermediate with Justice. However, I appear not in chains and bands before you. I am still free, and fear has the least part in my request.
It is grace which I long for. A pretence to Justice, if I still have some, I dare not any more make prevail. However, may I remind my Judge of something. The time of my crimes began with the sentence which took from me, for always, my honour. Were it less severely pronounced against me then; hence, maybe I would not need grace now.
Allow yourself to show grace for rightfulness, my Prince. If it is in your princely power to influence law in my favour; hence, you will offer me a life. It should be dedicated to your service from now on. If it pleases you, hence, allow me to request your most gracious clemency through public announcement, and I will appear, upon your princely instructions, in the capital. Should you decide otherwise with my case; hence, Justice will accomplish your will, and I must do mine.”
This request remained without any answer, the same way as a second and a third one in which the supplicant offered himself to become a horseman at the Prince's service. His hope for a pardon has completely vanished, he decided, then, to flee from the country and to die as a courageous soldier at the King of Prussia's service.
He separated happily from his band and went on for the journey. It led him through a small town where he would spend the night over.
Shortly before, more severe mandates to research travellers were issued, because the ruler, an imperial Prince, has opted for one party in the war. The town gatekeeper who sat on a bench before the gate, has also received such an order when the Boss came into town.
The demeanour of this man had something funny and, at the same time, horrifying and wild. The skinny horse which he rod and the burlesque choice of his clothing in which, apparently, less his taste than the chronology of his robbery was summoned into advice, contrasted strangely enough with a face on which so many outraged affects, the same expressions seen in mutilated people exposed on a public scene, appeared exaggerated. The gatekeeper was made curious at the sight of such a strange wanderer. He has grown old at the barrier, and a forty year service has educated in him an infallible physiognomy for all sorts of criminals. The hawk sight of this gatekeeper did not fail him also with this man.
He closed immediately the town gate and demanded to the rider a pass with which he would only secure his passage.
Wolf was ready for such a case, and always carried with him a pass which he has, not long ago, captured from a plundered merchant. However, this single proof was not enough to deter the gatekeeper's forty year observance and to dismiss in his mind the oracle he foresaw at the barrier. The gatekeeper believed his eyes more than the piece of paper, and Wolf was summoned to follow him at the office.
The town High Officer looked at the pass and held it for correct. He was an avowed amateur of news and loved particularly to comment the newspapers around a bottle. The pass told him that its possessor came directly from the hostile territories where war was raging. He hoped to obtain confidential news from this foreign land, and sent a secretary back with the pass, to invite the foreigner for a glass of beer.
In the meantime, the Boss has halted before the office; his ridiculous appearance has massively gathered around him all the curious people of the small town.
People whispered something to one another in the ears, pointing alternatively at the horse and the rider; the comments rose, finally, into a loud tumult. In an unfortunate manner, the horse at which, now, all the fingers were pointing, was a stolen one; he imagined that the horse was described in some public announcement and was being recognized.
The unexpected hospitality of the High Officer completed his suspicion. Now, he was convinced that the falsification of the pass was discovered, and that this invitation was only an attempt to catch him alive and without any resistance.
Bad conscience made him into a very unintelligent person, he hushed his horse and run from the place without giving any answer.
This sudden escape was taken as a sign of rebellion.
- “A swindler!” shouted people around, and everyone rushed behind him.
To the rider, this signal meant life and death; however, he has already had the lead, and his followers panted breathlessly after him, the hour of his destiny was coming, the merciless Nemesis was about to seize her obligated man. Unfortunately, the street which he took, ended in an impasse; hence, he had to turn backwards and face his followers.
The noise produced by this event has, in the meantime, brought the whole town into turmoil, crowd gathered everywhere; and all the streets were closed, a horde of enemies was marching toward him. He showed a pistol, and made people stop; hence, he thought he could make a way through the crowd.
- “This shot”, he said, “should be for the daredevil who will try to stop me!”
Fear commanded a general silence among the crowd. A fearless locksmith journeyman, finally, caught him by the arm from behind, seized precisely the finger which would press the pistol, and trampled him down.
The pistol fell; the unarmed man would be pulled down from the horse and brought back in triumph to the office.
- ”Who are you? “ asked him the judge with a rather brutal voice.
- “A man who is decided not to answer any question, until he is politely asked to!”
- “Who! Are! You!?”
- “I am what I pretend to be! I have travelled through the whole Germany and have found shamelessness, nowhere else than here, at home!”
- "Your sudden escape made you a very suspicious person. Why did you flee?”
- “Because I had enough of the bullying of your people!"
- "You were menacing to shoot at them!”
- “But my pistol is not armed!”
People then checked his weapon, and there actually was not any bullet inside.
- “Why do you carry a hidden weapon with you?”
- “Because I carry valuables with me, and because people have warned me against a certain Boss who is active in these territories.”
- “Your answers prove very much of your brazenness, however, of nothing good about your case! I give you until tomorrow to tell me the truth!”
- “I will stick to my declaration!”
- “Bring him to the tower!”
- "Why in the tower!? Mister High Officer, I hope, there is still Justice in this country. I demand satisfaction!?”
- “I will give it to you, as soon as you have justified yourself!”
The High Officer examined the case the next morning: the stranger wanted, hence, really pass himself for an innocent man; any commanding attitude toward him did not do anything with his obstinacy; it would, maybe, much better to treat him with decency and restraint. He gathered the town council and called for the imprisoned.
- “Forgive me my previous agitation, Sir, if I was, somehow, abrupt with you yesterday!”
- “Very well, if you so request!”
- “Our laws are pretty severe, and your act has made a lot of noise. I cannot release you without failing my duty. The appearances are against you. I wished that you could tell me something that could be refuting them.”
- “But I have nothing to confess!”
- “Hence, I must report the incident to the government, and you remain until then under custody.”
- “And then!?”
- "You are running the danger of being accused for begging beyond the border, or, if things go