Victor Hugo

“ Still, that is impossible,” said she; then, raising her voice: “You must have seen the viceroy’s son; he has been here.”
“That may be, noble lady; of all the men who have been here, I have never seen but one,—my Ordener.”
“Your Ordener!” interrupted the stranger. She added, without seeming to notice Ethel’s blushes: “Do you know a young man with noble face, elegant figure, grave and dignified bearing? His expression is gentle, yet firm; his complexion fresh as that of a maiden; his hair chestnut.”
“Oh!” cried poor Ethel, “that is he; it is my betrothed, my adored Ordener! ”

“ I am about to sacrifice to it my blood, perhaps my honor; but I feel that I shall die without regret or remorse. Do not be surprised at my words, judges; there are mysteries in the soul and in the destiny of man which men cannot penetrate, and which are judged in heaven alone. Hear me, therefore, and act toward me as your conscience may dictate when you have pardoned these unfortunate men, and more especially the much injured Schumacker, who has already, in his long captivity, expiated many more crimes than any one man could ever commit. Yes, I am guilty, noble judges, and I alone. ”

“ You must give up your love for her, Ordener. Never fear; love may be cured as well as hatred.”
“My lord!” exclaimed the astonished Ordener.{196}
“Father!” cried Ethel, clasping her hands.
“Do not be alarmed, my daughter,” interrupted the old man; “I approve of this marriage, but you do not. I will never force your inclinations, Ethel. This last fortnight has wrought a great change in me; you are free to choose for yourself.”
Athanasius Munder smiled. “She is not,” he said.
“You are mistaken, dear father,” added Ethel, taking courage; “I do not hate Ordener.” ”

“ I could drink every drop of blood that flows in your veins with delight. It is my nature to hate mankind, my mission to harm them. Colonel of the Munkholm musketeers, it was I who warned you of the march of the miners through Black Pillar Pass, sure that you would kill numbers of men in those gorges; it was I who destroyed a whole battalion of your regiment by hurling granite bowlders upon their heads. ”

“ Poor young man! he was one of the four subaltern officers of La Rochelle. How horrible is the idea of their (fancied) political necessity, to give the frightful reality of the guillotine for an opinion, a reverie, an abstraction!—And I! I have complained of its severity!—I who have really committed crime—
Ah, what have I seen! I can go no farther in my research! I have just discovered, drawn with chalk in the corner of the wall, that dreadful image, the representation of that scaffold, which even at this moment is perhaps being put up for my execution! ”

“ THE regiment of musketeers from Munkholm was on the march through the narrow passes lying between Throndhjem and Skongen. Sometimes it moved along the brink of a torrent, and the long line of bayonets crept through the ravine like a huge serpent with glittering scales; sometimes it wound around a mountain, making it look like one of those triumphal columns about which curves an army of heroes in bronze.
The soldiers marched with trailing weapons and cloaks dragging in the dust, looking surly and tired, for these noble fellows are averse to anything but battle or inaction. ”

“ Ethel uttered a deep groan as she answered: “Hear me, Ordener, before you judge me so rashly. Perhaps I have more strength than usually falls to the lot of a weak woman. From our lofty prison window I saw them build your scaffold on the parade. Ordener, you do not know what fearful agony it is to see the slow preparations for the death of one whose life is an indissoluble part of your own! Countess d’Ahlefeld, at whose side I sat when I heard the judge pronounce your death sentence, came to the cell to which I had returned with my father. ”

“ It is well. Come, Schumacker, old fool, open your arms to him; the loyal youth has come to stab you to the heart.”
Suddenly he stamped upon the ground, and went on in tones of thunder: “So they send their whole infamous race to insult me in my disgrace and captivity! I have already seen a d’Ahlefeld; I almost smiled upon a Guldenlew! Monsters! Who would ever have thought that this Ordener possessed such a soul and bore such a name? Wretched me! Wretched he!”
Then he fell exhausted into his chair, and while his breast heaved with sighs, poor Ethel, trembling with fright, wept at his feet. ”

“ A man may laugh at shot and shell, and shiver in the dark or on the edge of a precipice; a man may face fierce animals daily, leap across fearful abysses, and yet run from a volley of artillery. Fearlessness is often only a habit; and one who has ceased to fear death under certain forms, dreads it none the less.
Kennybol, surrounded by heaps of dying friends, began himself to despair, although as yet he had received only a slight scratch on his left arm, and the diabolical giant still kept up his fire with the most comforting composure. ”

“ Guldon Stayper, fifty-seven good years have passed over your gray head, which cannot be called youth except for an owl. Guldon Stayper, old friend, I would rather for your sake that the diamonds in that buckle were grains of millet, if you did not come by them honestly,—as honestly as a royal pheasant comes by a leaden bullet.”
As he pronounced this strange sermon, the mountaineer’s tone was both impressive and menacing.
“As truly as Captain Kennybol is the boldest hunter in Kiölen,” replied Guldon, unmoved, “and as truly as these diamonds are diamonds, they are my lawful property.” ”

“ The crowd, more deeply moved than the prisoner, eagerly gazed at him. His illustrious rank, his horrible fate, awakened universal envy and pity. Every spectator watched his punishment, without comprehending his crime. In every human heart lurks a strange feeling which urges its owner to behold the tortures of others as well as their pleasures. Men seek with awful avidity to read destruction upon the distorted features of one who is about to die, as if some revelation from heaven or from{161} hell must appear at that awful moment in the poor wretch’s eyes ”

“ Blind and ill-directed penalty; which, on whatever side it turns, strikes the innocent!
Imprison for life this culprit who has a family: in his cell he can still work for those who belong to him. But how can he help them from the depth of the tomb? And can you reflect without shuddering, on what will become of those young children, from whom you take away their father, their support? Do you not feel that they must fall into a career of vice?
In the Colonies, when a slave is condemned to public execution, there are a thousand francs of indemnity paid to the proprietor of the man! ”

“ It is a lover’s greatest happiness to lay down his life, I do not say for the life, but for a smile or a tear, of the loved object.
He was accordingly captured with the rebels, was dragged before the judges assembled to condemn Schumacker, his generous falsehood was uttered, he was sentenced, he must die a cruel death, suffer shameful torments, leave behind him a stained name; but what cared the noble youth? He had saved his Ethel’s father. ”

“ Are you very sure, Ordener? Perhaps she is, she surely is, handsome, amiable, virtuous. She is far superior to her for whom you perish. Do not turn away your head, dear friend, dear Ordener. You are so noble and so young to mount the scaffold. Think! you might live with her in some gay city where you would lose all memory of this fatal dungeon; your days would flow by peacefully, without a thought of me. I consent,—you may drive me from your heart, erase my image from your thoughts, Ordener. ”

“ The ill-fated Kennybol had no sooner fired his gun, than the forest, peopled as by magic with hostile sharpshooters, surrounded them with a ring of fire; while from a level height, commanded by a number of huge bowlders, an entire battalion of the Munkholm regiment, formed in a hollow square, battered them unceasingly with a fearful musketry. In this horrible emergency, Kennybol, distracted and aghast, gazed at the mysterious giant, his only hope of safety lying in some superhuman power such as that of Hans of Iceland ”

“ It is with pleasure that I take my turn to give my feeble stroke, after the all-powerful blow which, seventy years ago, Beccaria gave to the ancient gibbet, which had been standing during so many centuries of Christianity.
I have just said that the scaffold is the only edifice which revolutions do not demolish. It is rare indeed that revolutions are temperate in spilling blood; and although they are sent to prune, to lop, to reform society, the punishment of death is a branch which they have never removed! ”

“ A turnkey appeared at the grating: “What do you want?” said he.
Hans of Iceland rose. “Mate, I am cold; my stone bed is hard and damp. Give me a bundle of straw to sleep on, and a little fire to warm myself.”
“It is only fair,” replied the turnkey, “to give a little comfort to a poor devil who is going to be hung, even if he be the Iceland Devil. I will bring you what you want. Have you any money?”
“No,” replied the brigand.
“What! you, the most famous robber in Norway, and you have not a few scurvy gold ducats in your pouch?” ”

“ First came the mountaineers from Kiölen, under command of Kennybol, whom they all resembled in their dress of wild beasts’ skins, and in their bold, savage mien. Then followed the young miners led by Norbith, and the older ones under Jonas, with their broad-brimmed hats, loose trousers, bare arms, and blackened faces, gazing at the sun in mute surprise. Above this noisy band floated a confused sea of scarlet banners, bearing various mottoes, such as, “Long live Schumacker!” “Let us free our Deliverer!” “Freedom for Miners!” “Liberty for Count Griffenfeld!” ”

“ The man is a spy; he must die.”
“Give me my axe,” repeated the giant.
“He shall not die!” cried Norbith. “What would the spirit of my poor Nedlam say, whom they hung in such cowardly fashion? I tell you he shall not die; for Nedlam will not let him die!”
“As far as that goes,” said old Jonas, “Norbith is right. Why should we kill this stranger, Mr. Hacket? He has Christopher Nedlam’s pass.”
“But he is a spy, a spy!” repeated Hacket.
The old man took his stand with the young one at Ordener’s side, and both said quietly: “He has the pass of Christopher Nedlam, who was hung at Skongen.” ”

“ Perhaps the perusal may render them less heedless, when throwing a human life into what they call ‘the scale of justice.’ Perhaps they have never reflected on the slow succession of tortures conveyed in the expeditious formula of a sentence of death. Have they ever paused on the important idea, that in the man whose days they shorten there is an immortal spirit which had calculated on life, a soul which is not prepared for death? No! they see nothing but the execution, and doubtless think that for the condemned there is nothing anterior or subsequent! ”

“ What is the use of inflicting death? You argue that a prisoner may escape from gaol,—keep watch more strictly! If you do not believe in the solidity of iron bars, how do{319} you venture to have menageries? Let there be no executioner where the jailer can be sufficient.
They continue, “But society must avenge itself, society must punish.”
Neither one nor the other; vengeance is an individual act, and punishment belongs to God. Society is between the two; punishment is above its power, retaliation beneath it. Society should not punish, to avenge itself; it should correct, to ameliorate others! ”

“ Let those who deem him guilty or foolish judge the generous Ordener now, as he judges himself in his own soul with holy rapture. For it had been his one thought, when he entered the rebel ranks, that if he could not prevent Schumacker from carrying out his guilty purpose, he might at least help him to escape punishment by drawing it upon his own head.{129}
“Alas!” he thought, “Schumacker is undoubtedly guilty; but embittered as he is by misfortune and imprisonment, his crime is excusable. He sighs to be set free; he struggles to acquire his liberty, even by rebellion. ”

“ The prisoner answered: “I do; I am Hans of Iceland.”
“You hear, Bishop?”
The little man shouted in the same breath with the president: “You lie, mountaineer of Kiölen! you lie! Do not persist in bearing a name which must crush you; remember that it has been fatal to you already.”
“I am Hans from Klipstadur, in Iceland,” repeated the giant, his eye riveted on the private secretary.
The small man approached the Munkholm soldier, who, like the rest of the audience, had watched this scene with eager curiosity.
“Mountaineer of Kiölen,” he cried, “they say that Hans of Iceland drinks human blood. ”

“ And when she grows up, what will become of her? Her Father will be one of the disgraces of Paris. She will blush for me and at hearing my name; she will be despised, rejected, reviled, on account of him who loved her with all the tenderness of his heart. Oh, my little Mary, whom I so idolized! can it be true that thou wilt encounter shame and horror through me?
Oh! can it be true that I shall die before the close of day? Those distant shouts which I hear, that mass of animated spectators who are already hastening to the Quays, those gendarmes preparing in their barracks,—is it all for me? ”

“ Ordener sighed deeply, while Ethel in her heart disclaimed her father’s assertion; and he fell back upon his bench, quivering with wrath.
“The court will decide for itself,” said the president.
Ordener, who, at Schumacker’s words, had silently cast down his eyes, seemed to awake: “Oh, hear me, noble judges! You are about to examine your consciences; do not forget that Ordener Guldenlew is alone guilty; Schumacker is innocent. These other unfortunate men were deceived by my agent, Hacket. I did everything else.” ”

“ You punish him because his infancy trailed on the ground, without stem, or support: you make him pay the penalty of the isolated position in which you left him! you make a crime of his misfortune! No one taught him to know what he was doing; this man lived in ignorance: the fault was in his destiny, not himself. You destroy one who is innocent.
Or, Secondly,—the man has a family; and then do you think the fatal stroke wounds him alone?—that his father, his mother, or his children will not suffer by it? In killing him, you vitally injure all his family: and thus again you punish the innocent. ”

“ That being, full of health and strength, moving, breathing, living, and which in another instant must cease to move, breathe, and live, surrounded by beings like himself, whom he never harmed, all of whom pity him, and none of whom can help him; that wretched being, dying, though not dead, bending alike beneath an earthly power and an invisible might; this life, which society could not give, but which it takes with all the pomp and ceremony of legal murder,—profoundly stir the popular imagination. ”

“ Schumacker advanced toward him.{157}
“Take my hand,” said he.
“Do you wish me to devour it?”
“Hans of Iceland,” rejoined Schumacker, “I like you because you hate mankind.”
“And for that reason I hate you.”
“Hark ye, I hate men, as you do, because they have returned me evil for good.”
“You do not hate them as I do; I hate them because they have returned me good for evil.”
Schumacker shuddered at the monster’s expression. In vain he conquered his natural disposition; he could not sympathize with this fiend.
“Yes,” he exclaimed, “I abhor men because they are false, ungrateful, cruel. ”

“ The people of the town, who had waited in vain to see seven successive executions, began to despair of ever having that pleasure; and purblind old women declared that, on the night of the lamentable fire at the barracks, they had seen Hans of Iceland fly up in the flames, laughing amid the blaze, as he dashed the burning roof of the building upon the Munkholm musketeers; when, after an absence which to his Ethel seemed an age, Ordener returned to the Lion of Schleswig tower, accompanied by General Levin de Knud and Chaplain Athanasius Munder. ”