Chapter VIII

Last Sunday a great misfortune occurred in our prison: The artist K., whom the reader knows already, ended his life in suicide by flinging himself from the table with his head against the stone floor. The fall and the force of the blow had been so skilfully calculated by the unfortunate young man that his skull was split in two. The grief of the Warden was indescribable. Having called me to the office, the Warden, without shaking hands with me, reproached me in angry and harsh terms for having deceived him, and he regained his calm, only after my hearty apologies and promises that such accidents would not happen again. I promised to prepare a project for watching the criminals which would render suicide impossible. The esteemed wife of the Warden, whose portrait remained unfinished, was also grieved by the death of the artist.

Of course, I had not expected this outcome, either, although a few days before committing suicide, K. had provoked in me a feeling of uneasiness. Upon entering his cell one morning, and greeting him, I noticed with amazement that he was sitting before his slate once more drawing human figures.

"What does this mean, my friend?" I inquired cautiously. "And how about the portrait of the second assistant?"

"The devil take it!"

"But you--"

"The devil take it!"

After a pause I remarked distractedly:

"Your portrait of the Warden is meeting with great success. Although some of the people who have seen it say that the right moustache is somewhat shorter than the left--"

"Shorter?"

"Yes, shorter. But in general they find that you caught the likeness very successfully."

K. had put aside his slate pencil and, perfectly calm, said:

"Tell your Warden that I am not going to paint that prison riffraff any more."

After these words there was nothing left for me to do but leave him, which I decided to do. But the artist, who could not get along without giving vent to his effusions, seized me by the hand and said with his usual enthusiasm:

"Just think of it, old man, what a horror! Every day a new repulsive face appears before me. They sit and stare at me with their froglike eyes. What am I to do? At first I laughed--I even liked it--but when the froglike eyes stared at me every day I was seized with horror. I was afraid they might start to quack--qua-qua!"

Indeed there was a certain fear, even madness, in the eyes of the artist--the madness which shortly led him to his untimely grave.

"Old man, it is necessary to have something beautiful. Do you understand me?"

"And the wife of the Warden? Is she not--"

I shall pass in silence the unbecoming expressions with which he spoke of the lady in his excitement. I must, however, admit that to a