The idea to this painting was
inspired by Kafka's story "In the Penal
Colony". A traveler had been invited by the
Commandant of a Penal Colony to attend the
execution of a Soldier condemned for disobeying
and insulting his superior. The execution officer
explains the execution apparatus to the traveler.
(...)
Its a peculiar
apparatus, said the Officer to the
Traveler, gazing with a certain admiration at the
device, with which he was, of course, thoroughly familiar.
(...)
"As you see, it consists
of three parts. With the passage of time
certain popular names have been developed for
each of these parts.The one underneath is called
the bed, the upper one is called the inscriber,
and here in the middle, this moving part is
called the harrow.
The harrow? the
Traveler asked.
(...)
Yes, the harrow,
said the Officer.The name fits. The needles
are arranged as in a harrow, and the whole thing
is driven like a harrow, although it stays in one
place and is, in principle, much more artistic.
Youll understand in a moment. The
condemned is laid out here on the
bed. First, Ill describe the apparatus
and only then let the procedure go to
work. That way youll be able to follow
it better. Also a sprocket in the inscriber
is excessively worn. It really squeaks. When
its in motion one can hardly make oneself
understood. Unfortunately replacement parts
are difficult to come by in this place.So, here
is the bed, as I said. The whole thing is
completely covered with a layer of cotton wool,
the purpose of which youll find out in a
moment. The condemned man is laid out on his
stomach on the cotton woolnaked, of course.
There are straps for the hands here, for the feet
here, and for the throat here, to tie him in
securely. At the head of the bed here, where
the man, as I have mentioned, first lies face
down, is this small protruding lump of felt,
which can easily be adjusted so that it presses
right into the mans mouth. Its purpose
is to prevent him screaming and biting his tongue
to pieces. Of course, the man has to let the
felt in his mouthotherwise the straps
around his throat would break his
neck.
Thats cotton
wool? asked the Traveler and bent
down.
Yes, it is, said
the Officer smiling, feel it for
yourself. He took the Travelers hand
and led him over to the bed.
Its a specially
prepared cotton wool. Thats why it
looks so unrecognizable. Ill get around to
mentioning its purpose in a moment.
The Traveler was already being
won over a little to the apparatus. With his
hand over his eyes to protect them from the sun,
he looked at the apparatus in the hole. It
was a massive construction. The bed and the
inscriber were the same size and looked like two
dark chests. The inscriber was set about two
metres above the bed, and the two were joined
together at the corners by four brass rods, which
almost reflected the sun. The harrow hung
between the chests on a band of steel.
(...)
So now the man is lying
down, said the Traveler. He leaned
back in his chair and crossed his legs.
Yes, said the
Officer, pushing his cap back a little and
running his hand over his hot
face. Now, listen. Both the bed
and the inscriber have their own electric
batteries. The bed needs them for itself,
and the inscriber for the harrow. As soon as
the man is strapped in securely, the bed is set
in motion. It quivers with tiny, very rapid
oscillations from side to side and up and down
simultaneously. You will have seen similar
devices in mental hospitals. Only with our bed
all movements are precisely calibrated, for they
must be meticulously coordinated with the
movements of the harrow. But its the
harrow which has the job of actually carrying out
the sentence.
What is the
sentence? the Traveler asked.
You dont even know
that? asked the Officer in astonishment and
bit his lip
(...)
Our sentence does not
sound severe. The law which a condemned man
has violated is inscribed on his body with the
harrow. This Condemned Man, for
example, and the Officer pointed to the
man, will have inscribed on his body,
Honour your superiors.
(...)
The Traveler wanted to raise
various questions, but after looking at the
Condemned Man he merely asked, Does he know
his sentence?
No, said the
Officer. He wished to get on with his explanation
right away, but the Traveler interrupted him:
He doesnt know his
own sentence?
No, said the
Officer once more. He then paused for a moment,
as if he was asking the Traveler for a more
detailed reason for his question, and said,
It would be useless to
give him that information. He experiences it on
his own
body.
The Traveler really wanted to
keep quiet at this point, but he felt how the
Condemned Man was gazing at himhe seemed to
be asking whether he could approve of the process
the Officer had described. So the Traveler,
who had up to this point been leaning back, bent
forward again and kept up his questions,
But does he nonetheless
have some general idea that hes been
condemned?
Not that either,
said the Officer, and he smiled at the traveler,
as if he was still waiting for some strange
revelations from him.
No? said the
Traveler, wiping his forehead, then does
the man also not yet know how his defence was
received?
He has had no
opportunity to defend himself, said the
Officer and looked away, as if he was talking to
himself and wished not to embarrass the Traveler
with an explanation of matters so self-evident to
him.
But he must have had a
chance to defend himself, said the Traveler
and stood up from his chair.
(...)
The matter stands like
this. Here in the penal colony I have been
appointed judge. In spite of my
youth. For I stood at the side of our Old
Commandant in all matters of punishment, and I
also know the most about the apparatus. The
basic principle I use for my decisions is this:
Guilt is always beyond a doubt. Other courts
could not follow this principle, for they are
made up of many heads and, in addition, have even
higher courts above them. But that is not
the case here, (...) You want this case
explained. Its simplejust like
all of them. This morning a captain laid a
charge that this man, who is assigned to him as a
servant and who sleeps before his door, had been
sleeping on duty. (...) Yesterday night the
captain wanted to check whether his servant was
fulfilling his duty. He opened the door on
the stroke of two and found him curled up
asleep. He got his horsewhip and hit him
across the face. Now, instead of standing up
and begging for forgiveness, the man grabbed his
master by the legs, shook him, and cried out,
Throw away that whip or Ill eat you
up. Those are the facts. The
captain came to me an hour ago. I wrote up
his statement and right after that the
sentence. Then I had the man chained up. It
was all very simple. If I had first summoned the
man and interrogated him, the result would have
been confusion. He would have lied, and if I
had been successful in refuting his lies, he
would have replaced them with new lies, and so
forth. But now I have him, and I wont
release him again. Now, does that clarify
everything? But time is passing. We
should be starting the execution, and I
havent finished explaining the apparatus
yet.
(...)
As you see, the shape of
the harrow corresponds to the shape of a
man. This is the harrow for the upper body,
and here are the harrows for the legs. This
small cutter is the only one designated for the
head. Is that clear to you? He
leaned forward to the Traveler in a friendly way,
ready to give the most comprehensive explanation.
"When the man is lying on
the bed and it starts quivering, the harrow sinks
onto the body. It positions itself automatically
in such a way that it touches the body only
lightly with the needle tips. Once the
machine is set in this position, this steel cable
tightens up into a rod. And now the
performance begins. Someone who is not an
initiate sees no external difference among the
punishments. The harrow seems to do its work
uniformly. As it quivers, it sticks the tips
of its needles into the body, which is also
vibrating from the movement of the bed. Now,
to enable someone to check on how the sentence is
being carried out, the harrow is made of
glass. That gave rise to certain technical
difficulties with fastening the needles securely,
but after several attempts we were successful. We
didnt spare any efforts. And now, as
the inscription is made on the body, everyone can
see through the glass. Dont you want
to come closer and see the needles for
yourself.
The Traveler stood slowly,
moved up, and bent over the harrow.
You see, the
Officer said, two sorts of needles in a
multiple arrangement. Each long needle has a
short one next to it. The long one
inscribes, and the short one squirts water out to
wash away the blood and keep the inscription
always clear.The bloody water is then
channeled here in small grooves and finally flows
into these main gutters, and the outlet pipe
takes it to the pit. The officer
pointed with his finger to the exact path which
the bloody water had to take.
(...)
Now I know all about
it, said the Traveler, as the Officer
turned back to him again.
Except the most
important thing, said the latter, grabbing
the Traveler by the arm and pointing up high.
There in the inscriber is the mechanism
which determines the movement of the harrow, and
this mechanism is arranged according to the
diagram on which the sentence is set down. I
still use the diagrams of the previous
Commandant. Here they are. He pulled some
pages out of the leather folder.
Unfortunately I cant hand them to
you. They are the most cherished thing I
possess. Sit down, and Ill show you
them from this distance. Then youll be able
to see it all well.
He showed the first
sheet. The Traveler would have been happy to
say something appreciative, but all he saw was a
labyrinthine series of lines, criss-crossing each
other in all sort of ways. These covered the
paper so thickly that only with difficulty could
one make out the white spaces in between.
Read it, said the
Officer.
I cant, said
the Traveler.
But its
clear, said the Officer.
Its very
elaborate, said the Traveler evasively,
but I cant decipher it.
Yes, said the
Officer, smiling and putting the folder back
again, its not calligraphy for school
children. One has to read it a long
time. You too will finally understand it
clearly. Of course, it has to be a script
that isnt simple. You see, its not
supposed to kill right away, but on average over
a period of twelve hours. The turning point
is set for the sixth hour. There must also
be many, many embellishments surrounding the
basic script. The essential script moves
around the body only in a narrow belt. The
rest of the body is reserved for
decoration. Can you now appreciate the work
of the harrow and the whole apparatus? Just
look at it!
He jumped up the ladder,
turned a wheel, and called down, Watch
outmove to the side! Everything
started moving.
(...)
Do you understand the
process? The harrow is starting to
write. When its finished with the
first part of the script on the mans back,
the layer of cotton wool rolls and turns the body
slowly onto its side to give the harrow a new
area. Meanwhile those parts lacerated by the
inscription are lying on the cotton wool which,
because it has been specially treated,
immediately stops the bleeding and prepares the
script for a further deepening. Here, as the
body continues to rotate, prongs on the edge of
the harrow then pull the cotton wool from the
wounds, throw it into the pit, and the harrow
goes to work again. In this way it keeps
making the inscription deeper for twelve
hours. For the first six hours the condemned
man goes on living almost as before. He
suffers nothing but pain. After two hours,
the felt is removed, for at that point the man
has no more energy for screaming. Here at
the head of the bed warm rice pudding is put in
this electrically heated bowl. From this the
man, if he feels like it, can help himself to
what he can lap up with his tongue. No one
passes up this opportunity. I dont
know of a single one, and I have had a lot of
experience. He first loses his pleasure in
eating around the sixth hour. I usually
kneel down at this point and observe the
phenomenon. The man rarely swallows the last
bit. He turns it around in his mouth and
spits it into the pit. When he does that, I
have to lean aside or else hell get me in
the face. But how quiet the man becomes
around the sixth hour! The most stupid of
them begin to understand. It starts around
the eyes and spreads out from there. A look that
could tempt one to lie down under the
harrow. Nothing else happens. The man
simply begins to decipher the
inscription. He purses his lips, as if he is
listening. Youve seen that its
not easy to figure out the inscription with your
eyes, but our man deciphers it with his wounds.
True, it takes a lot of work. It requires
six hours to complete. But then the harrow
spits him right out and throws him into the pit,
where he splashes down into the bloody water and
cotton wool. Then the judgment is over, and
we (...) quickly bury him. |