Books: My Life and My Efforts

K >> Karl May >> My Life and My Efforts

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Unfortunately, this violent obstruction of my good intentions did
not just extend to my studies and work, but to a much larger
degree and quite particularly to my lifestyle, my daily routine,
as well. It was as if I had brought quite a lot of invisible
criminals back home from this cell, in which I had been
incarcerated for six weeks; and those criminals, now, had made it
their cause to force their companionship upon me and to turn my
mind to their way of thinking. I did not see them; I only saw
the dark, mocking, main character from the swamp which was my home
town and the trashy novels from Hohenstein; but they persistently
talked to me; they influenced me. And when I resisted, they grew
louder, to cloud my senses and to tire me, so that I lost the
strength to resist. The main point was that was supposed to seek
revenge, revenge against the owner of that watch, who had reported
me to the police just to get rid of me from his apartment, revenge
against the police, revenge against the judge, revenge against the
government, against mankind, against basically everybody! I was a
model citizen, like a lamb so white, pure, and innocent. The
world had cheated me out of my future, my happiness. By what
means? By forever regarding me as this what they had turned me
into: a criminal.

This was what the tempters inside of me were demanding. I
resisted as much as I could, as long as my strength would last.
Everything I wrote at this time, especially my village-tales, I
gave an ethical, strictly lawful, royalist tendency. I did this
not just for the spiritual support of others, but also for my own.
But how hard, how infinitely hard was this on me! Whenever I did
not do as those loud voices demanded, I was assaulted with mocking
laughter, with curses and maledictions, not just for hours, but
for half days and entire nights. To escape these voices, I used
to jump out of my bed and run out into the rain and the snowstorm.
I felt urged to leave, to go so far, so very far away! I quitted
my home to save myself, nobody knew where to, but I felt drawn
back, again and again. I did not let anyone know what took place
inside of me and how inhumanly or even superhumanly I fought,
neither father, nor mother, nor grandmother, nor one of the
sisters. And even much less someone else, a stranger; I would
not have been understood, anyhow; but they would rather have
thought that I had just gone crazy. Whether anybody else in my
place would have been able to bear this, I do not know, but I
hardly think so. I was physically as well as mentally a sturdy,
even a very sturdy person, but nevertheless I grew more and more
tired. First, there were days, then even entire weeks, when
everything within me turned completely dark; then, I sometimes
hardly knew and often did not know at all what I did. At these
times, the luminous character within me had disappeared
completely. The dark entity led me my the hand. It always walked
along the edge of the abyss. At times, I was supposed to do this,
at another time that, in any case something illegal. In the end,
I only resisted like in a dream. If I had only told my parents or
at least my grandmother what state I was in, the deep fall I was
heading for would surely have been avoided. And it came, not at
home, but in Leipzig, to where some business connected with the
theatre had brought me. There I have, though I did not need
anything of the kind, bought furs and ran off with them, without
paying. How I was capable of doing something like this, I can no
longer tell; I probably did not even know it then either. This
is because I feel sure and certain, that I could not have possibly
acted this way while being fully conscious of what I was doing. I
remember nothing at all of the ensuing trail, neither any detail
nor any general impression. I also cannot recall how the verdict
read. Up until now, I had believed that the sentence had been
four years of imprisonment; but according to what the newspapers
have recently reported, it was even one month more. But this is
irrelevant. What matters is that the gaping abyss had not opened
for me in vain. I had plunged into it; I was committed to the
state penitentiary of Zwickau.

Before I elaborate on my imprisonment, I have to turn against some
prejudices and wrong opinions, concerning everything connected
with the penal system, which should finally be done away with. I
have heard many an educated fellow prisoner threatening with
understandable, but unfounded bitterness, that he would, after he
had been released, write a book about his imprisonment, to
disclose the equally severe as numerous shortcomings of our legal
and penal system. A wise man would smile at such threats, which
might be expressed, but are hardly ever carried out. Every
released prisoner, if he possesses a sense of honour, is glad to
have put the time of his punishment behind him. He would never
consider making this public, what up to now only a few people knew
about, now that he has managed to get through it. Thus, he will
remain silent. And this is good, because his book, if he would
write it, would surely prove that there is hardly one among a
thousand prisoners who would be able to assess himself and his
punishment impartially and objectively. But I believe that I have
worked my way up to this objectivity and impartiality; I regard
my conclusions as well considered and correct and feel obliged to
set the following point straight, here:

The times when the prisons could be described as "schools for
criminals" are long gone. In our penitentiaries, conditions are
not less moral and not less humane than in freedom.

What was one denounced as "the world of the criminals", does not
exist any more. The inmates of today's penitentiaries come from
all classes of the population. In respect to their professions
and intelligence, the same percentages are to be found here as
among the "unpunished".

For the act of the individual, the society as a whole is also
to blame. For its own sake, it has to take a part of the guilt
from him and unto itself.

The German judges are very well aware of this truth. I have not
met a single judge, even among those who had decided against me,
whom I could accuse of any wrongdoing. The numerous lawsuits, my
opponents virtually force me to conduct, give me ample
opportunities to make such experiences, and I have to say that I
have nothing but the utmost respect for all of these gentlemen,
both in the criminal and the civil courts. I have even
experienced one case where a judge in Dresden decided in my
favour, though all of his relatives and acquaintances were against
me and sought to influence him in that respect. What satisfaction
and what confidence in all judges this can give, knows only he who
has experienced something like I did.

In respect to the penal system, I have express the same thing.
During my entire imprisonment, I have not met a single
high-ranking official or guard, who had given me cause for any
complaint in respect to his fairness and humane treatment of the
prisoners. I would even say that the guards feel the harshness of
their duties much more than the prisoners. Hundreds of times, I
have admired a kindness, a patience and forbearance, which I would
not have been capable of. Prison is no concert-hall and no
dance-hall, but a very, very serious place, where a person has to
discover who he is. The detainee who is wise enough to realize
this will never find any cause for complaint, but only all
conceivable help, to erase the memory of what he had been accused
of. There were officials who became so very dear to me, and I am
completely convinced that they not just pretended to return my
kindness, but were perfectly honest about it.

With the achievements of our justice and penal system nonetheless
not being as we would wish them to be, it are truly not the judges
and also not the prison officials who are to blame for this;
instead the cause is to be sought in an entirely different place:
in a flawed legislation, in the foolish self-righteousness of
one's dear neighbour, in certain, too deeply rooted forms of
prejudice, and last but not least also in our so-called, highly
praised "criminal psychology", in which only certain experts
believe, but not those who really know human nature and even much
less those, all this is in the end about, these are the so-called
- - - criminals.

These are the sources from which ever new crimes and recidivisms
spring, though all kinds of measures are being taken, to contain
these murky waters and to dry them out one after another. Should
I give proof for those sources, starting right away with the
latter one, the "criminal psychology", I have several works of
this most interesting, extremely disputed subject opened up right
in front of me, the contents of which are veritably abundant with
evidence for my point. One of the authors, a well known
prosecutor, distinguishes himself by means of his numerous
attempts to turn the legal and penal system towards a milder, more
humane course. He has made a name for himself by this. Whenever
and wherever this humanisation is discussed, he is often quoted,
and he would be a blessing for this cause, if he would not destroy
it all again as a criminal psychologist, which he seeks to build
up as a pioneer of humaneness. I will not name any names here as
well, because I am not concerned with the person, but with the
subject. Being, as a humanitarian, worthy of respect in the
highest degree, he can be, as a psychologist (i.e. someone who
"investigates the soul"), to an almost even higher degree
inconsiderate and cruel. In trying to give evidence for his
public assertions, he does not stop at including persons into his
"psychiatric" studies, who have been punished thirty or more years
ago, and have now, by means of hard work, obtained a public
position, and he makes them thus recognisable in his writings that
everyone knows whom he is referring to. Having been confronted
about this by a lawyer, he answered that he, as a scientist, had
the right to do this; there was an article of law which would
allow it. I will refrain from adding any critical remarks to
this. But even if it were true, that there was such an article,
who would force this public prosecutor, for such an article's
sake, to act against his own, otherwise evident humaneness and to
vivisect with such a knife people who had never done him any harm
and whose protection had been his duty as a representative of the
government? If this article really exists, it is more than time
for parliament, to put it under a serious examination. If every
former prisoner, no matter how high he has worked his way up, is
forced by this law, to allow those criminal psychologists to
publicly put him into their scientific pillory, it is surely not
surprising that criminology displays no tendency for improvement.
I will have to return to this point in the further course of my
discussion.

As far as the flaws in the legislature are concerned, I only need
to point out how completely unprotected someone who has been
previously convicted is against certain lawyers. The worst
scoundrel can, by means of his lawyer, obtain the confidential
criminal records of whomever he would like to ruin; these will
then be published, and the poor devil is doomed! A. is a villain;
B. is an honourable gentleman, but unfortunately with a criminal
record. A. has the intention to destroy B.. He just needs to
insult him and wait for B. to sue him. Being the accused, he will
then demand that the plaintiff's records be presented. This is
done. They are read in a public trail. A. is fined ten marks for
his insult; but B. has been cast back into his former contempt
and into the previous misery, and he will swear that for someone
who had once been punished all resolutions to "better" himself are
useless. If he would now revert to crime, this would surely be no
surprise. Unfortunately, there are not just a few lawyers, who,
entirely without scruples, turn to these most unfair of all means,
to conduct lawsuits which cannot be won based on the facts in a
personally malignant and ruthless manner. I myself was also faced
with such opponents, but I have always seen that our judges never
allowed themselves to be influenced by this kind of filth. I am
convinced that, more than anybody else, those gentlemen would
happily be in favour of a removal of these legal regulations, by
means of which, as I have already said, every scoundrel is enabled
to dig up things again which are long since past and long since
atoned for. Then, the extensive number of repeat offenders due to
so-called embitterment might soon be a thing of the past.

To list the foolish self-righteousness of our "dear neighbours", I
was entire justified. This is and continues to be the main cause
of the evils, which are to be discussed here. By no means, I want
to assert that this is based on a lack of morality. I rather
think that we are faced with old forms of prejudice, which have
sunk in so deeply that they are no longer recognisable as
prejudice, but are regarded as a truth, which no one dares to
question. In old times, a "criminal" was outlawed; and today
there is no difference. Everyone keeps picking on him; if it is
not done openly, it nevertheless happens in secret. When he is
looking for work, for help, for justice, he is always last in line
after everyone else. In life, there are hundreds and hundreds of
situations in which he is regarded and treated as a person of
lower value, and it requires an unusual peace of mind and a rare
strength of will on his part, to bear this again and again,
without allowing himself to be cast back onto his old course. The
greatest danger for him is to be found in the fact that his dear
neighbours, by and by, will numb or even kill his sense for
honour. Once he allows it to come to this, he is doomed, and
criminology will never surrender its victim again, being either
embittered or having become completely indifferent. This will not
and cannot change at all, as long as the old, equally senseless
and cruel prejudice is maintained, that every punished person has
to be regarded as a "criminal" for the entire duration of his
life. Recently, in Charlottenburg, the case occurred that someone
who had been punished more than forty years ago, but had conducted
himself well since then, had been described as a "born criminal"
by a malicious person. The offended one sued the offender, but
the latter was acquitted. Does this not mean that by this a poor
man, who has, with all of his willpower, worked his way up out of
the abyss and has proven himself for forty years at its top, is
cast back down with brutal force? - -

Down there, I also lay. In continuing to report about this, it is
not at all my intention, to do this in a manner which readers who
are in need for excitement and lust for sensations would wish. To
experience these things only once, is more than enough. When
being forced to experience them for a second time, by writing them
down for others, it is surely justified to keep it as short as
possible. I hereby make use of this right.

Upon my arrival at the penitentiary, I was received strictly, but
by no means insultingly. He who is polite, complies with the
prison's rules, and is not so stupid to keep on maintaining his
innocence, will never have cause to complain about a hard
treatment. As far as the occupation is concerned which was chosen
for me, I was assigned to the clerical office. You can see from
this how carefully the conditions of the prisoners were considered
by the warden's office. But unfortunately, this care did not bear
the expected success in my case. What happened was, that I failed
so completely as a clerk, that I was regarded as useless. Having
been a new arrival, I had to do the easiest job there was; but
even this I could not cope with. This was noticed. They thought
to themselves that there must have been something rather peculiar
about me; after all, I must have been able to write! Particular
attention was devoted on me. I was given different work, the most
decent manual labour which was available. I was assigned to the
room of the wallet manufacturers and became a member of a team,
which produced fine purses and cigar-cases. Including me, this
team consisted of four persons, these were a merchant from Prague,
a teacher from Leipzig, and what the fourth one was I could not
find out; he never talked about it. These three coworkers were
kind, good people. They had already been working together for a
longer time, were in a good reputation with the superiors, and did
their best to make the training and all the rest of this hard time
as easy as possible for me. No ugly or even illegal word was ever
said between us. The room we worked in held seventy to eighty
people. Among them, I noticed not a single one whose behaviour
would have reminded me of the assertion, that prison would be the
training ground for criminals. On the contrary! Every single one
was constantly trying to make as good an impression as he could on
his superiors and his fellow prisoners. During my entire
imprisonment, I have never heard anything about hatching evil
plans for the future. If anybody had dared to utter anything like
this, even if he would not have been reported to the guards, he
would nonetheless have been rejected in the most determined
manner.

The name of the watchman of this room, or this "visitation" as it
was called there, was Goehler. I mention his name with great,
honest gratitude. He had to observe me and, though he did not
know the slightest thing about psychology, just on account of his
humanity and his rich experience, he tracked down the innermost
part of nature so well, that his reports about me, as it turned
out later, almost reached the truth. He had, as I guess all of
these watchman had, previously served in the military, in his case
it had been the band where he had played the first piston [a].
Therefore he had been put in charge of the musical corps and
brass-band of the prisoners. On Sundays, he had concerts in the
visitations and prison-yards, which he conducted very well. He
also had to accompany the singers with his instrumental music
during the religious services. But unfortunately, neither he nor
the Bible teacher, who was in charge of the church corps,
possessed the necessary theoretical knowledge, to rework, or to
arrange, which is the technical term, the pieces, which were
supposed to be performed, for the available personnel. Therefore,
both gentlemen had already for a long time been looking for a
prisoner, who might be able to fill this void; but there had not
been any.

[a] Piston (French): A special kind of cornet, one octave above
a trumpet; a.k.a. key-bugle or keyed bugle or Kent bugle.

At this point, watchman Goehler, due to his observation of my
psychological condition, got the idea to take me into his
brass-band, to see, if this might have a good effect on me. He
asked the warden's office and received the permission. Then, he
asked me, and quite naturally, I also did not say no. I joined
the band. At that time, only the althorn happened to be
available. I had never held an althorn in my hands before, but
soon I joined in the best I could. The watchman was happy about
this. He was even more happy, when he found out that I had learnt
about compositions and was able to arrange musical pieces.
Immediately, he reported this to the Bible teacher, and the latter
made me one of the church singers. So I was now a member of both
the brass-band and the church corps and was busy in going through
the available pieces of music and to arrange new ones. The
concerts and the performances in church received, from now on, an
entirely different character.

I have to mention that this musical work was not my main
occupation. By no means, it caused me to be relieved from
performing the same amount of work which any other prisoner had to
do every day, if he wanted to avoid getting into trouble. This
workload was not too much; everyone who is willing to work could
make it. The skillful ones would even make it in a few hours.
Therefore, I was left with amply enough time for my compositions,
which I did not even abandon, after I had been transfered out of
the visitation of the wallet manufacturers. This was when they
fulfilled my profound wish to be by myself.

Right from the start, when I had been committed, I had asked to be
given a cell for myself; but a fulfilment of this wish had not
been possible. Not until now, after the final psychological
judgement had been made about me, I was transfered to the
isolation building and received my room right next to the office
of its inspector. He was a highly educated and humane gentleman,
who was very conscious of his duties, and I became his personal
clerk. This had been a job which had not existed up until this
point. Let me here draw your attention to this psychologically
meaningful point, that at the time of my commitment I had been
completely unable to be a clerk, but was now regarded as capable,
to perform the job of a clerk, which required great mental
carefulness and insight and was the position of the highest
confidence in the entire institution. This is because, aside from
being the head of the isolation building, my inspector's
professional duties also included the preparation of written
documents. This work of his concerned the peculiar statistics of
our institution and the manner and the tasks of the penal system
in general. He wrote the reports which dealt with his subject and
was very busy corresponding with all outstanding men of the penal
system. My task was to determine the statistical figures, to
investigate their reliability, to compile and compare them, and
finally to extract result out of them. Basically, this was a very
hard, strenuous, and seemingly boring occupation with a set of
lifeless numbers; but to piece these numbers together into
characters and to breathe life and soul into these characters, to
make them speak, this was most interesting, and I may very well
say that I have learnt much, very much there, and that this work
in my quiet, lonely cell has advanced my progress in understanding
the psychology of mankind much further, than what I would have
been able to achieve without this imprisonment. That, for this
purpose, only the best and most reliable documents were at my
disposal, goes entirely without saying. There, I have learnt to
understand the most peculiar things. There, I have looked into
the deepest depths of human existence and seen things, which
others will never see, because they are blind to them. There, I
have realized that grandmother's fable was telling the truth, that
there is a Jinnistan and an Ardistan, an ethical highland and an
ethical lowland, and that the main movement, we all have to
participate in, is not downwards, but upwards, up, up towards
liberation from sin, rising towards the nobler state of the human
soul. This realization has been the greatest blessing for me; it
has even freed me as well. I have heard those voices, I talked
about earlier, also in the cell, screaming inside of me. I have
fought them, and I have always silenced them. They returned,
though; they rose their voices again, but with longer and longer
intervals, until I could finally assume, that they had become
completely mute once and for all.

Furthermore, I had to manage the prisoner's library, and the
official's library was also made available to me. The works
collected in the latter were not at all just concerned with the
criminal law and the penal system, but rather all fields of
science were represented. I have not just read these delightful
books, which were so rich in contents, but rather I have studied
them and gained very much from them. And there were not just the
volumes of the institution's libraries, which were made available
to me, but I was also happily granted the opportunity to access
books from outside. I felt the irresistible desire, to use the
quiet and undisturbed situation in my cell as much as possible to
progress mentally, and the officials enjoyed in assisting me in
this in every manner which did not contradict the institution's
regulations. Thus, the time of my punishment transformed for me
into a time of studying, in which I found greater opportunities
for being focused and greater possibilities for in-depth studies
than any university student would ever find in freedom. I will
say more about this great, inestimable benefit, which the
imprisonment afforded me, later on. Even today, I am still in
particularly grateful for the fact that I was not prohibited to
obtain books on foreign grammar and to lay, by this, the actual
foundation of my later traveller's tales, which are, as is well
known, not based on any actual travels at all, but were meant to
form an entirely different, up to this point untreated, genre.
But for now, it is not my intention, to elaborate on these studies
of mine, but rather I have to concentrate here solely and in
particular on the fact that the management of the prisoner's
library, which I had been entrusted with, gave me the opportunity
to make most important observations and experiences, under the
influence of which my work as an author has taken on the shape in
which it appears now.

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