When one officer grew tired, he rested.  Then the next one took up the attack, and then he rested.  But not one moment’s respite for me.  I don’t know what they call it in German, but it was the third degree with a vengeance.  Under this sweating process my nerves were being torn to tatters.  I felt like screaming and it seemed that if this continued I would smash an officer with a chair and put an end to it all.  But the fact that I am writing these lines shows that I didn’t.  Human nature is so constituted that it can always endure a little more, and though they kept the tension high for many minutes I did not buckle under the strain.  However, I couldn’t call up any arguments to show the utter absurdity of the charge against me.  And my defense was very feeble.

The onslaught now ceased as suddenly as it had begun.  There was a coming and going of officers and some consultation in an undertone.  The judge left the room and the impassive-faced Javert began that machine-like writing.  After a while he stopped.

“Will you give me some idea of what you expect to do with me?” I queried.

“A full report of your case goes up to the General for decision and sentence,” was his response.

My spirits took a downward plunge.  Then a fierce resentment amounting almost to rage came surging up within me.  Masking it as well as I could, I asked permission to send word to the American authorities.  Javert’s reply was evasive.

“I have had nothing to eat all day,” I announced.  “Can’t you do something for me?”

“Go to that door there and open it,” said Javert.

I did so and there stood four soldiers of the Kaiser, who ranged themselves two in front and two behind, and marched me away.  Javert had a well-developed sense of the dramatic.

While I am excoriating Javert as representing the genius of German officialdom, it is only fair that I should present his antithesis.  By continually referring to the German army as a machine one gets the idea that it is an impersonal collection of inhuman beings remorselessly and mechanically devoted to duty.  For a broad general impression that is perhaps a fair enough statement to start with; but when I am tempted to let it go at that, there is one striking exception that always rises up to point the finger of denial at this easy and common generalization.  It is that of a young German officer, a mere stripling of twenty or thereabouts, with the most frank, open, ingenuous expression.  One would expect to find him presiding at a Christian Endeavor social, rather than right here at the very pivot of the most terrible military organization of the world.

I had caught his look riveted upon me in my trial, and recognized him when he came into the detention-room, to which the four soldiers had led me.  Hurriedly, he said to me:  “Really, you know, I ought not to come in here, but I heard your story, and it looks rather bad; but somehow I almost believe in you.  Tell me the whole truth about your affair.”