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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 260- 264

January 23, 2026 by anarchistbanjo

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

The way was not too long. I looked once more with the
old eyes that had seen so much during my existence, and
enjoyed the colorful multiplicity of the images that showed
themselves to me. I saw the butcher with a steaming, scalded
pig in a wooden trough, and the brass basins of a barber, which
rattled in the wind and rain and hung full of little drops. I took
the pitying look of two dark, beautiful girl’s eyes under a blue
and white bonnet, noticed a black dog that reminded me of
poor Diana, and smelled the strong, sour-tart smell of fresh tan,
coming from a tanner’s workshop. A steel blue fly with little
glass wings sat down on my knees and thus traveled quite a
distance without effort of its own. A bunch of funny screaming
spiders, uninvolved in humanity threw themselves like a brown
cloud over the smoking mountain of horse manure, which came
from one of the front wagons, and an ancient sycamore tree, all
hung with water beads, morosely and indifferently let us pass
by.
And then, with a jerk, all the wagons stopped.
We had arrived at the ugly square, where not long ago I
had spoken with the young officer about the French nation, and
my gaze fell on the gaunt reddish-brown scaffold that towered
high above our heads, with ghastly simplicity.
At that moment the wall of fog broke, and a pale ray of
sunlight fell with dull glint on the slanting knife high up under
the crossbeam.
“How soon all this will be over!” I thought, and
remembered so many moments of impatience and not being
able to wait, which lay far behind me in the old days.
We had to descend, and we were helped to do so. The
people did not shout. There was only that quiet murmur of a
thousand voices that betrayed the excitement of a great crowd.
No one shouted swear words at us, and many eyes looked
sympathetically. I had the feeling that with such a general
mood, the great killings would soon subside and finally stop
altogether. My knees were stiff from sitting and from the
morning chill. The distress of the body cramps set in once
again, and the right hip was very painful when walking.
I saw people appear on the platform, appearing to move.
The knife fell with a dull clang and was raised again. It was red.
Something struck the boards of the bloody scaffold.
The fear of the body almost gained the upper hand. A
thought pushed forward, gained space: To do something to save
myself, to scream, to beg, to break through the crowd, to break
the cords…
That’s when I saw him…
Huddled like a bat. Fangerle. He was sitting on a lantern
of the gallows, grimly distorting his wide mouth, the evil
yellow eyes directed at me, a red, Phrygian cap on his skull
instead of a big hat. His eyes were like two wasps that lived
and crawled around in the cavities of his head.
I closed my eyes. My will kept the upper hand.
“Return to the depths!” I said to myself.
When I looked again with all my strength, the apparition
had disappeared, the pole was empty.
A soldier grasped me almost timidly by the arm and
pushed me forward with gentle force. I saw how clotted, thick
blood flowed sluggishly down the boards of the scaffolding.
Before me the Marquis de Carmignac climbed the slippery
little stairs. Two men with naked arms grabbed him, strapped
him to the board, and tipped it over. The upper part of the wood,
which enclosed the neck, lowered. Whoosh…
A whistling sound came from his headless neck. The feet
with the buckled shoes, manly still in death, softly tapped the
ground, his body moved in the straps, as if he wanted to make
himself more comfortable. They loosened the damp leather,
rolled him aside; the golden pear rolled over the boards, a little
lid opened, brown snuff dusted out. Quickly a hand reached for
the shiny thing.
I was next, climbing the stairs.
A hand supported me kindly, saved me from a fall in a
moment of slipping. I looked into a serious, well-cut face. It
was Samson. He made a polite inviting hand gesture. Behind
him stood the red-bristled monster.
Images circled in my brain in a flash. The arm with the
executioner’s sword in the witch’s room of Krottenriede, the
box with the singing little bird, burning candles in a black room,
the glitter of Aglaja’s crown of death, the little dead man with
the hourglass and the scythe, as it tilted out of the old clock, the
Bavarian Haymon as an Amicist —Firm hands grabbed me by
the arm. Faces slid past me. I stood at the board. The warm
smell of blood rose to my nostrils, tickling and irritating in the
nose. Thin straps snaked around my upper body, my legs. I fell
forward — it creaked softly around me, – pain- my larynx hit a
semicircle.
I thought: Now the knife will cut through my throat,
sawdust will fill my eyes, my mouth —.
Wet wood descended on the back of my neck.
Isa Bektschi! Isa Bektschi!
With all my might I thought of the Ewli. I forced him to
me.
Close to mine I saw his face – his mouth, as if he wanted
to kiss me – kind, dark eyes, like two black suns. His gaze
enclosed me with infinite love and promise.
I thought nothing more. I saw only him – drank his looks,
absorbed his essence into me. Then dazzling, golden rays shot
out from his eyes, piercing me, consuming me in fiery embers –
in golden fire.
But still I saw that face, clearly, sharply, saw it growing
smaller and smaller – small as a dot and yet recognizable -.
I opened my mouth, felt woody, dry splinters, moist
chunks—.
Then night — hissing — sound — a painful tearing – a
thread cut in two —
I found myself outside my body. My body lay in its
brown, rumpled suit, without coat, with blood-soaked shirt
edge on the board of the guillotine. Despite the tight straps, my
upper body reared up a few times violently. Fountains of blood
rushed out of the two large neck veins.
The head lay pale, with wide-open eyes in the basket. Its
face smiled. All the people who were standing around the
scaffold looked on in silence. The board became empty. The
man who had called Astaroth and the fiery dragons was
dragged up the steps. He struggled with all his might, kicking
with his feet, snapping his teeth.
He did not want to – – All this was so indifferent for me. I
rose and floated away over the many heads, glided effortlessly,
and without finding any resistance, through the house walls and
window panes, driven by a force.
I had no eyes and saw everything. I heard. But I felt
nothing. I thought nothing either. I was consciousness itself.
Everything came to me, was immediately recognized.
Vibrations of many kinds trembled through me, without me
feeling pleasure or suffering. It was coldness, warmth, a sound,
light, phenomena for which there are no words in human
language, sensations when encountering beings, that remain
invisible and unknown to people.
I was of a shape, if this is possible to say, like those
glassy-transparent bodies that glide past human eyes when they
look for a long time into the distant pure blue heavens.
Nevertheless I was not a body. I was also not nothing. I was a
soul, like many of those who floated in the world space. But I
had consciousness, I was mindful of my ego and I had a goal.
I was looking for a new house with those instruments of
the senses, which received from outside and could reflect from
the inner back to the outer: Could express thoughts as words. I
was looking for a human body. Inside me I carried the tiny
image of a noble, godlike face, the reflection of which I had
taken with me into infinity when I left the destroyed body.
From this image my consciousness extended along with the
ability to remember.
The will for re-embodiment was the only drive that
dominated me. According to inscrutable laws born of the
eternity of becoming and passing, I strove towards my goal,
devoid of all those feelings that can be called impatience,
expectation or hope. There was no time; there was no distance
and no obstacles.
Forces to which I surrendered of my own accord
willingly lifted me up, made me sink down, and made me to
fade away, to wander and to rest.
I was unmoved in my consciousness.
Everything was offered to me, nothing was hidden from
me, and nothing was veiled, neither in depths nor in heights.
The wind blew through me, the rain fell through me. I had
nothing of the properties that things in space possess. I was big
and small, inside and outside, far and near.
I saw sunsets in ocean wastelands, mountain hikers
crashed in crevasses of ice, blue flowers that slowly withered,
ghosts in waterfalls, beings that lived in crystals, red and
yellow sandstorms, and fermenting garbage, out of which new
creatures of the strangest kind sprang, dwarfs, who would have
appeared as stones to human eyes, winged creatures that rode
and roared, sleeping in beds, seeded with tiny goblins as with
vermin, people, from whom evil flowed like a poisonous breath.
I passed by all this.
There were animals in herds on vast steppes, animals in
the air, in holes in the ground, in the water. Small, crawling,
flying, running animals, animals of all kinds, covered with hair,
feathers, scales, bristles and plates, living animals. They
attracted me because they were alive. They begat young,
hatched them, reproduced thousands of times.
They attracted me strongly, because they had living
bodies, warm bodies. But I carried in me a human face and did
not follow those souls, that lurked waiting to enter into the egg
cell at the moment of conception.
I was only attracted to people. I was attracted to them by
a tremendous force.
It was good to be with people. I attached myself to them,
was with them, in them, slid through them and was a guest with
others. I lived with them. I saw them as one sees a region that
resembles the abandoned homeland. I have to use such
comparisons, although the truth is quite different.

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 255- 259

January 22, 2026 by anarchistbanjo

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

I went near one of the windows, unfolded the paper and
read:
“My heart weeps for the best and noblest of men; yet I
bow before a heroism that respects death less than the betrayal
of itself. My now impotent gratitude will forever honor your
memory. May there be a reunion that gives you new goals.”
It was the well-known handwriting of the magister.
In the dim morning light we could see through the
windows, which were high up but clean and bright, that a fine
rain was falling outside. Drops hung sparkling on the iron bars
of the lattice.
This dungeon, admittedly the last one in which we were
housed, was in every respect friendlier than the gloomy coal
mine where we had awaited our sentencing. A bow-legged
jailer with a good-natured face and a natural gift for joking
words, brought us washing water in wooden cans and lent us
clean, coarse cloths to dry our faces and hands. For those
prisoners who still had money on them, he provided chocolate
for breakfast and pieces of cake. The others were given a soup
of burnt rye flour and a large slice of bread.
Since everything seemed trivial to me that was still
connected with the needs of the body, I was content with a few
spoonfuls of soup. Also in these last hours of my life, I
sometimes felt as if I were completely outside the events and
saw from afar, like an observer, me and my fellow sufferers.
Nevertheless, this observing being, which was my ego, was
connected by a guiding thread with my body, and felt the
morning chill, hunger and that dull, constricting feeling in the
stomach area, which precedes bad events. This strange out-of-
myself sensation was so strong that my own hands seemed like
something foreign, for I looked at them closely and with a
strange feeling as if I were seeing something familiar again
after a long time. In all these ambivalent feelings was mixed
with a kind of regret over the ingratitude, with which the soul
calmly left forever, the house in which it had been for so long
and through whose senses it had taken in the image of its
changing surroundings. I could not, try as I might, find
anything great or decisive in the imminent departure from the
accustomed form of earthly life. It was as if the body, although
its sensations continued, no longer participated in those of the
soul.
Even the scenes that took place around me could not
move me violently, as much as I was aware of their sadness.
Something constantly stirred in me, as if I had to speak to the
poor people and tell them that all this was only of secondary
importance and that it did not really have to mean much. But it
was also completely clear to me that they would not have
understood me at all, and so I kept silent and out of the way.
Many things happened around me. Women wept bitterly
and their hot tears, with which they said goodbye to life,
dripped into the soup bowls from which they ate. The Marquis
de Carmignac sat in a corner and had his beard shaved and his
hair arranged. A withered, weary smiling old man read to a
small crowd of listeners from the “Consolations of Philosophy”
by Boethius. A handsome young man in a riding suit leaned
against a pillar with rapt eyes and hummed a little song over
and over again, which was obviously dear to him as a memory.
He stopped only when an Abbe, who was whispering prayers
with several older and younger ladies, approached him and
politely asked him not to disturb the religious gathering of the
dying. Several sat dully, despairingly and completely absorbed
in themselves on the straw mattresses of the beds that were set
up here.
After some time, a young, pale-looking barber’s assistant
entered with the jailer, waved to his comrade, who was taking
the marquis’ tip with many bows and with a trembling voice
asked the people present to sit down in turn on a bench placed
in the middle of the room, to have their hair cut. This request
caused loud sobs and a fit of fainting, but the toilet, as the
procedure was called for short, proceeded swiftly. The long
tresses of the ladies, which were carefully cut off and placed in
a small basket, he very politely requested them to be
considered useful for his business, and presented each woman
who gave her consent, a small vial of smelling salts as a return
gift.
The frosty, rattling and moving of the scissor also
touched my neck, and their blades cut through my hair. Coldly
I felt the lack.
All around, the praying grew louder and more fervent. At
eight o’clock a booming drum rattled and the door opened. In
front of a crowd of soldiers, a commissar with a sash appeared
and read off name after name from a list. All those named rose
immediately and lined up to the left of the door.
“Citizen Melchior Dronte!”
I bowed briefly to those who obviously remained behind,
and stood next to a tall, strong man who, with a contemptuous
expression, derisively pushed his chin forward. By his braids
and lapels and the uniform, I recognized him as a major of the
Broglie regiment.
“Skunks – riffraff from the gutter!” he growled and spat
out so violently that a small, hungry-looking soldier jumped to
the side, startled.
A somewhat lopsided, gray-clad man with a mocking
face, who was one of those called up, laughed softly to himself.
“This carnival play will soon be over. And it wasn’t even
very funny.”
We were now; about twenty in number, led out of the
cellar, went up the stairs and came to a courtyard that was
completely surrounded by soldiers. It was still trickling thinly
from the cloudy sky. Some ladder wagons were standing there,
and we were ordered to sit on the boards nailed across. A boy
of about fifteen years old climbed up behind us and tied our
hands behind our backs with strong vine cords, supervised by a
mounted sergeant. I saw that the young lad whispered
something in the ear of each person whom he bound. And when
it came to my turn, I heard from behind, half-breathed, while
the warm breath hit my shivering neck, the words:
“Forgive me!”
I felt how restless and hot the hands were that bound my
arms.
Amidst much shouting, running to and fro, and up and
down trotting of the cavalry escort the wagons were finally
loaded with their human cargo. Next to the coachman, a soldier
swung himself onto the bench and the big door of the courtyard
opened with a loud creak. Incalculable masses of people filled
the street outside and formed two rows, between which our
carts now slowly began to roll.
Quietly, I looked around me. In front of me, stiffly erect
and looking over the people, sat the Marquis de Carmignac,
next to him the major of the Broglie regiment, who, with his
furiously lowered red head reminded of an irritated bull.
Crouched on the bench next to me was an obviously deranged
man, about sixty years old, with white beard stubble, a
wrinkled face and rolling eyes, who was intoning incessant
incantations to himself.
“O Astaroth, O Typhon, O ye seven fiery dragons, you, O
keeper of the seals, hasten to help me! Let flames fall upon
them, let the earth open up and take them to the lowest hell, but
carry me to the garden of the white Ariel Arizoth Araman
Arihel Adonai.”
The words became unintelligible, and at last he burst into
a triumphant giggle and became calm, obviously firmly
convinced of the sure effect of his spirit invocation.
I turned my head with difficulty to the back bench and
caught sight of an aging girl with brick-red spots on her
cheekbones, who was dressed in a black robe, with her eyes
turned to Heaven, praying without ceasing. Beside this nun,
who with glowing eyes, was preparing for martyrdom,
trembled like a jelly, a white-flour covered baker, whose
swollen, puffy eyes gazed out of a hot face in which mortal fear
gaped. His huge belly, which almost burst the buttons of the
trousers, wobbled back and forth with every step of the horses.
I saw excessively clearly, and not the slightest detail
escaped me. I noticed a hanging silver button on the jacket of
the marquis. On the neck of the major an inflamed pustule. On
the vest of the man sitting next to me the remains of an egg
dish, and the medals on the nun’s rosary sometimes clinked
against a board of the cart.
My poor body, which was now to change, was doing
everything in its power to keep the calm serenity of the spirit
that was preparing to leave busy with unimportant worries on
its way into eternity. A natural need, for the satisfaction of
which there was no time left to satisfy, arose with annoying
agony. An old cold pain which had not tormented me for a long
time, had shot into my right hip during the night and caused me
great agony with the shocks of the cart. And to all this was
added the fear of death that the body felt. It manifested itself in
strong stomach pains and finally brought it to the point that
cold drops ran down my face. It was cold sweat, death sweat…
But I stood above or beside these sensations which, in
spite of their strength, could no longer really penetrate to the
consciousness. A sharp and irrevocable divorce between body
and soul had occurred, and the soul realized with joy that no
earthly feeling would accompany it on its way.
From the crowd a song burst forth in full chords, into
which thousands of voices fell. The truly entrancing melody,
the words of which I could not understand, except for
“Fatherland”, “tyranny” and the like, had a strong and moving
effect on me. It was a genuine and noble-born, fiery child of
the time, and it was as if this rapturous singing carried
something hot in it.
Everywhere people were looking out of the windows of
the suburban houses, joining in the song with bright,
enthusiastic voices and waving their scarves. The horses in
front of our wagon, a chestnut and a summer black, neighed
and began to prance and nod their heads in time with the
mighty tune, which was glowing and storming up to the sky.
Even the driver, a scowling man, and the young soldier next to
him sang the hymn, for such it was, with a loud voice.

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 250- 254

January 21, 2026 by anarchistbanjo

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

“I wanted to protect the defenseless woman,” I said,
looking him in the eye. He shook his head reluctantly.
There was a murmur.
“Are you a friend of freedom?”
I thought for a moment and then answered the question
with a “yes.”
“Was it known to you that citizen Lamballe had fled to
England and returned from there to Paris?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, it was reasonable to assume that there was
valuable information about her co-conspirators located here
that could be obtained. Not so?”
I was silent.
He looked at me again with a quiet, disapproving head
movement and with a tongue-lashing spoke slowly and clearly,
emphasizing each word:
“I know what you are trying to say, Citizen Dronte. In
your zeal to serve the republic and prevent a premature and
early end of the traitor, you have sought to use violence to
prevent the execution of the sentence. However, you fared
badly enough. Is that so? Give me answer!”
He nodded an almost imperceptible “yes” and waited.
I felt briefly and strongly the lure to return to freedom
from the horror of this justice. But a powerful, insurmountable
feeling inside me made the friendly images of imminent
freedom quickly fade away. I realized, like a holy necessity,
that I had to be hard and merciless against myself, otherwise I
should be thrown back into levels from which I had ascended
and not allowed to higher ones whose aura I had attained.
“I have tried to save the princess on the basis of feelings
of a personal nature!”
The chairman heaved a sigh of annoyance, swayed his
head, drummed on the table and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
The committee members looked at me bored, and in the
auditorium a yawning voice said:
“These are quibbles, Jeannot – Do you understand any of
it?”
“In a nutshell: you had no intention of protecting the
woman as such, but rather to render a service to the Republic.
We have no time, Citizen Dronte, and I hope that your sincere
admission of this fact will settle the case!”
A cold breath passed over my face. The scales stood: a lie
had to sink the bowl —
“I did not think of the Republic in my deed!”
Now it was spoken.
Great unrest arose. Even the drowsiest among the
listeners understood, awakened to irritated attention. The face
of the chairman turned red with anger. He threw his head back
so that his hair flew and hissed at me:
“You dare tell me that?”
“It is the truth,” I replied.
It was clear to me that the grateful magister must have
had his hand in this, and it saddened me that his not without
danger effort had now been in vain. But I had to follow the
path that my innermost feeling was the right one, to go to the
end, regardless of the feelings that arise from the body’s
instinct for self-preservation.
The behavior of the chairman changed immediately. A
deep vertical wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows, and he
bit his lips angrily before continuing the interrogation.
“You are a stranger. For what purpose did you come to
Paris?”
“To become acquainted with the Revolution and its aims-
.”
“With friendly or hostile intent?”
“I did not come with hostile intentions.”
“You are a baron. – How can an aristocrat’s opinion of the
Revolution be otherwise than hostile?” suddenly the bilious
committee member intervened.
“Does such a person love the poor people -?” growled the
one with the stained red cap. “How?” he turned to me.
“I love all the people.”
“These are sayings such as every priest has in his pocket
who stands before the tribunal,” the judge snapped at me and
assumed a frowning pose with a lurking look at me. “You have
thus joined the brave ones who have gone the Lamballe way,
not in the interest of the state, but in order to protect the queen’s
intimate for some other dark motive.”
“Don’t make such long stories!” grumbled someone
behind me.
“He’s one of the whore’s lovers, nothing else!”
Shrill whistles sounded.
Wild stomping of feet revealed that the people wanted an
end.
The skinny man talked to the chairman. The latter
shrugged and turned to the other committee member, who
nodded his head vigorously, raised his right hand and dropped
it with the edge on the table. It was clearly understandable what
he meant by this.
The chairman stood up, stretched out his right hand
toward me like a king of the theater, while the left hand rested
on his heart, and spoke with his voice low and rolling the R’s:
“Citizen Dronte is guilty of treason against the
Republic!”
Thunderous clapping of hands resounded. I sat down,
completely calm and certain of the end.
Then the man in the dark blue, gold-embroidered jacket
slowly turned his stern and stony face toward me, smiled and
said very loudly and audibly:
“Allow me, Baron, to express to you my sincere esteem!”
Laughter and jeering followed his words. An apple case
flew past my head and remained in front of the judge’s table.
The theatrical chairman slammed his fist on the table and
shouted, “Quiet!”
Gradually, the scolding, laughing and whistling ceased.
“Citizen Carmignac!” rang out the complacent voice.
The man in the blue jacket stood up.
“I am Philipp Anton Maria Marquis of Carmignac, Pair
of France, Privy Councillor of His Majesty the King, Chairman
of the Breton Chamber of Nobility, Commander of the Order of
Louis —“
The hall cheered. This tall man and his proud manner
promised a spectacle. The emphasis on his rank even evoked a
certain respect.
“He looks well, the marquis,” someone said.
“But his neck is as thin as that of Lamballe’s lover,”
laughed in response.
“Curses! And the thing is settled.”
The marquis took a pinch from his little gold pear and
carefully patted his brocade vest with a small lace cloth to
clean off the tobacco dust.
“You are accused of -,” began the presiding chairman.
“Above all,” said the nobleman with inimitable
haughtiness, “I wish to make the declaration that the privileges
to which I am entitled have been violated with unlawful
violence and I was brought here by unlawfully armed persons.
Now, as to this court I note that it is not made up of royal
courtiers, but of a bad actor, a master carpenter and a runaway
servant of the church, “and therefore offers no cause for further
consideration.”
After these words the marquis sat down, contemptuously
staring into the air.
For a few seconds there remained silence. The
stupefaction was general. But then arose such a thunderous
noise, such a roar of anger that the soldiers present were hardly
able to hold back the frenzied crowd. Meanwhile, the presiding
judge stood up. One saw him waving his hands urgently to call
for silence. It took long enough for him to make himself
understood. He directed an angry, scornful look at the count,
who looked past him equanimously.
“Citizen Carmignac, I demand that you stand up before I
have to use violence and give the tribunal of the people the
homage it deserves.”
The marquis shrugged his shoulders and nonchalantly
stood up on his feet.
“I do not wish to get dirt stains on my jacket,” he said.
“For this I rise.”
The actor sat down and pushed his chin forward.
“If I understand you correctly, Citizen Carmignac, you
fell asleep before the revolution and still haven’t awakened,
eh?”
The mocked man made no reply. Some people in the hall
laughed.
“You have made an attempt to bribe the turnkey of the
Temple to give Citizen Capet, who is kept there, information
on the successes of the emigrants at the Austrian and the
Prussian court, by means of a small piece of paper concealed in
a gold case, which was hidden in one of six lemons. Is it this
case?”
The hand of the judge was holding a tiny gold case of
elongated shape. The marquis measured it under half-closed
lids.
“Since you are playing court here, you will have to go to
the trouble of proving your accusations.”
The displeasure in the room grew noticeably.
“He shall be embraced by Samson’s coquette!” roared the
voice of one of the angriest screamers.
The courtiers bowed their heads to each other, whispered,
nodded, the chairman stood up and without any movement
pronounced his “guilty”.
The court rose. Four soldiers stepped in to us and told us
to stand up. It was fairly quiet as we were led out of the hall.
The people were satisfied.
When we stepped out of the door, where a new troop of
anxious, well-guarded people of both sexes were waiting to be
interrogated, I felt something angular in my right palm, like a
piece of folded paper, and closed my fingers tightly around it.
We were going a different way than the one that had
brought us here from the prison, under an open portcullis, and
finally found ourselves in a spacious, dry and bright cellar. It
was full of people.

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Gaia as Master Power Source

January 20, 2026 by anarchistbanjo

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 246- 249

January 20, 2026 by anarchistbanjo

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

Only when complete silence had fallen in the background
he leaned back in his armchair, so that the blue-white-red sash
wrapped around his body tightened, took a sheet of paper from
the table, as if playing, and said with a singing and theatrical
voice:
“Citizen Anastasia Beaujonin!”
Loud murmuring, throat clearing and spitting out behind
us betrayed the now beginning tension of the audience.
The young woman next to me had let out a small scream
at the mention of her name. She stood up, burst into a new
torrent of tears and pressed a tiny handkerchief to her eyes. I
looked at her pityingly. Her pretty dress, pink and blue
flowered, was badly wrinkled and disfigured. Several times she
ran with her hand, smoothing out the wrinkles. Surely the
appearance of her person preoccupied her just as much as the
concern about the outcome of a trial that knew neither
witnesses nor in its deliberate brevity offered little hope.
The chairman assumed a significant posture, made a
beautiful gesture with his right hand, and spoke with an
emphasis as if he wanted to declaim:
“Pay attention to what I say, Citizen Beaujonin! Think
about your answers, because our time is short. It does not
belong to us, but to the nation. You are accused of keeping
Baron Hautecorne hidden in the attic of your house for three
days although you must have known that he belonged among
the proscribed. What do you have to reply?”
“Oh, my God,” the woman stammered. “I loved him so
much — -“
The judge smiled. From behind one heard a coarse
woman’s voice:
“She is brave, the little one, and speaks as a woman
should speak.”
“Silence, Mother Flanche!” shouted the judge. “You must
not make any remarks here!”
“Don’t break anything, my sweet boy!” it came back. “I
have known you since you were a Temple singer.”
The chairman was about to start up, but then only made a
dismissive gesture with his hand and said, turning to the young
woman, “So?”
She swallowed a few times and directed her shy, fearful
gaze on me for a moment, as if she were trying to get courage
from me. This seemed to annoy the judge, because he took a
petition and knocked violently on the table with it.
“And why did you love citizen Hautecorne so much?” he
asked mockingly, showing his white teeth.
“Because he was so beautiful-almost as beautiful as
you!” She said softly, looking at him with a full gaze.
A storm of applause, mixed with shouts, laughter and the
trampling of feet roared through the hall.
Even the committee members smiled sourly, and the
chairman stroked back a curl of hair that had fallen across his
forehead with a smug movement.
“Let the little girl go – -,” cried one.
“She needs her head to give it to you-,” they laughed.
“Well said, Rodolphe.”
“She knows how you men must be treated.”
When silence had returned, the Judge said in a gentle
voice:
“Madame, I have reason to believe that you were
unaware of the danger of this enemy of the Republic when
your assistance was rendered?”
“Oh – no,” sobbed the accused, quickly grasping her
advantage. “I love the Republic -. I would have never –“
“Did he at least do his thing well, your baron?” roared
one of the audience.
The judge struck the butt of the file angrily.
“Hey, now, Perrin, Verrou, and Mastiche, see who’s
trying to make my acquaintance back there!” he shouted, and at
once three soldiers stumbled into the background, their heavy
rifles in their arms.
Immediately there was silence.
The judge leaned toward the committee members. They
whispered and nodded to him.
“Madame,” then said the presiding judge, “I will dare to
set you at liberty for the time being. But take care!”
“Oh -” the woman cried out and laughed all over her face.
“Wait Madame. I want to take it upon myself. I have a
responsibility to answer to the nation. You see, the people are
mild and chivalrous to women, if that is possible. Before you
leave you will have the goodness to write your future address
on a piece of paper and hand it to me!”
“Oh, you damned truffle pig,” laughed one of them. The
soldiers spoke fiercely at him.
“I’ll say no more,” he assured them. “Let go of my
paws!”
Silence fell again.
The little girl smiled gracefully, pattered on her high
heels to the tribune table and scribbled a few words on a piece
of paper, which the judge held out to her, read and pocketed.
Suppressed laughter in the auditorium accompanied this action.
“You may go, Madame, but you will remain at the
Tribunal’s disposal!”
The woman stopped, looked sheepishly and uncertainly
at the judges and then at the laughing spectators, turned
suddenly and ran quickly, looking neither to the right nor to the
left, right through the middle of the dumbfounded looking
soldiers and out of the room.
Immediately, the chairman assumed a dreadful official
face, rustled with paper and then said briefly and sharply:
“Citizen Melchior Dronte!”
I stood up.
Everything in me was calm, all fear disappeared. Again, I
felt as if I were now contemplating a fate, whose further
development was completely clear to me. Without any hostility
I looked at the vain man who had set himself as a judge over
me. His gaze immediately met mine and passed me by. In order
to hide this weakness, he took his eyes off me and taking some
sheets from the table acted as if he needed a constant insight
into the act, which would explain the circumstances of my
capture and the charges against me.
At last he raised his head and said:
“In the case of an expression of the will of the people,
which was directed against the rightfully detested citizen
Lamballe —“
A many-voiced outburst of rage arose.
“Death to the aristocrat! Down with her!”
“Shut your mouths!”
“She’s already perished!”
“Death to Lamballe!”
The judge waited patiently for the noise to subside, and
then continued:
“- The detested citizen Lamballe, from whom important
information about a conspiracy in England against the republic
were to be hoped for, has been crushed by the holy wrath of the
citizens. You, citizen Dronte, have made the attempt to obstruct
the people, who were passing and carrying out its judgment.
What were your intentions with the way you handled this?”

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 240- 245

January 19, 2026 by anarchistbanjo

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

“At the risk of disturbing your meditations, I would like
to ask you, with your kind permission, a few more serious
questions, the answers to which I am very anxious to hear.”
With a quiet unwillingness I tried to recognize the facial
features of the interrupter. But I could only determine that he
was no longer young and that his white and very narrow hands
were folded around his knee.
“I am glad to be at your service,” I said quietly, so as not
to disturb the deepening silence.
The unknown man moved with his stool close to me and
whispered, as it seemed to me, in some agitation:
“All of us, who are here, so far as human calculation is
correct, will be sentenced to death in a few days. In the
certainty that our life, which would lead anyway to annihilation
will now be completed more quickly than nature demands,
there is nothing frightening for me. Another question worries
me, my lord. What happens, when the path of life, which leads
from the brain to the most distant and smallest parts of the body,
is cut by the axe?”
“Any doctor can tell you,” I answered.
“What happens is what we call death.”
“What we call it!” hissed the stranger close to me. “But
have you never heard that the severed heads are still alive? Do
you know that they move the eyes, the hairs stand up straight
against the walls of the basket? That they look in the direction
of the caller, when their name is called, and form clearly
recognizable words with their lips when they are asked? How?
Come to me, esteemed one, but not with Doctor Galvani’s frog.
Here we are talking about the ability to think, to be conscious–
“
“The problem is idle in a higher sense,” I said, “even if
we assume that the cut-off head still thinks and tries to act, this
lasts only a few seconds as a result of the lack of blood supply.
Then the standstill is there.”
The man slid his stool even closer.
“Good, good,” he said excitedly. “Let’s not bother with
that. It is indeed of little importance. What however, is death?
Is it the death of the body and the freedom of the soul, or are
the body and the soul so much together that one dies with the
other? Can you give me a comforting answer?”
The last words sounded like a plea. It had become
completely quiet in our dungeon, and nothing could be heard
but the stomping of the guards in front of the windows and a
soft whistling, the breath of the sleepers.
“Since you seem to be interested in the opinion of a
stranger, I will answer you. Now then, my dear Herr, I believe
that after death, the soul is separated from the body and enters
the eternal life from which it comes,” I said in a muffled voice.
He shook his head vigorously.
“The priests of all creeds say such things. But no one can
imagine what they are really saying. What do you mean:
Return to eternity? Without the artful apparatus of the brain,
the soul is incapable of expressing itself. What becomes of it?
A vortex of air, a cloud of smoke, transparent ether? Where
does it go?”
“It goes into a new vessel.”
I felt as if someone else was speaking out of me. I had
never thought this thought, and yet now it was there as if I had
always carried it within me.
The other laughed unwillingly.
“Into a new vessel, that is, a new body! Here is already
the absurdity. The number of departed are so great that not
even a thousand of them can find a new home.”
I listened to the inner voice.
“Whoever can preserve the consciousness of his earthly
existence beyond death will be reborn in a human body. That is
my belief.”
“And if it succeeds – how often would such a return have
to take place?”
“As often as needed until the soul is purified,” I replied,
moved.
“And then?”
“Then the soul rests consciously in God.”
The man struck his knees with his fist.
“Always the same old stories! Purified! Pure! And the
hatred? The burning greed for revenge, the rage beyond the end,
the hope to retaliate a thousand fold?”
“These are all impurities that must fall off,” I repeated
what my inner voice said. “In the purification of purgatory -“
“Purgatory?” he cried out. “You talk like a Catholic priest.

Where is it supposed to be, this fabulous purgatory?”
“Here, it is life. Life in human form or -“
“Or?”
“Or in the body of an animal,” I said, and saw in my
mind’s eye how tears were streaming from the parrot’s ugly
spherical eyes.
“But these are theories. I want certainty -“, my late
companion insistently demanded.
“There is only one certainty: that of feeling.”
“Faith, then, my lord.”
It was I who spoke thus.
“Fairy tales, my lord, fairy tales. I will tell you what is
after death: nothing is. And that’s the terrible thing, this
extinction of being. To have never been! It is horrible. And I
don’t need to believe in it. I know it.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you more comfort,” I said, and
was seized with intense pity.
“It is my fault,” he defended me politely. “A few days
ago I spoke to ‘Abbe Gautier before he was executed. An old
man with white hair, a worthy priest. He was struggling to find
a hunchbacked quack- who had been convicted of common
crimes, and pointed him to the infinite, eternal goodness of
God. But the Italian with the hump would have nothing of it
and kept shouting:
“Niente! – Finito -nulla. Nix immortalita – o Dio, Dio!”
“Then why did God call upon him?” I asked.
“Out of habit, I guess. That good Abbe Gautier said about
the same thing as you. I envy him and you. Sleep well!”
He slipped into a dark corner with his stool. I heard him
sigh deeply.
A bunch of keys jingled. The iron door creaked open.
The sleepers groaned unwillingly, turned around, and muttered
unintelligible words.
A turnkey, carrying a large, dimly burning lantern,
entered, and followed by a commissar with a tricolor sash.
Carefully he examined the paper that the official had handed to
him, and then called out half aloud:
“Citizen Dronte!”
I stood up and saw the commissar make a violent
movement of surprise or of joy. He took the lantern from the
overseer’s hand, motioned for him to stop at the door, and came
quickly towards me.
“I am Commissar Cordeau!,” he said hastily and quietly.
It was Magister Hemmetschnur whom I had taken from
Krottenriede.
“I can only stay for a minute,” he repeated in a
monotonous, indifferent voice, while the lantern in his hand
clinked and trembled.
“I went to all the prisons when I found your name on the
list. This is the last one. I know everything. As many of the
cursed Aristocrats I have sent to the Orkus. I would go back to
being the poor miserable Hemmetschnur on Krottenriede if I
could save your noble life, which is so dear to me. Do not
move, do not speak. There are spies in every dungeon, even
here. I’ve spoken to the chairman of your tribunal. The charge
is false. It was not your intention to free Lamballe, but rather as
a loyal supporter of the Republic, you wanted to prevent the
ignorant people from a rash act through which the discovery
and exploration of the dangerous plans in which the princess
was involved are now forever impossible to determine. They
will believe you. You were providing an important function
that will protect you forever. Do not move your head. You must
accept. Otherwise, you will be lost. If you have not understood
me, clasp your hands together as if pleading. You don’t? So you
have understood everything. Now a necessary comedy begins.
Do not be frightened of me, who would like to kiss your hand.”
And with a loud voice he continued, “So you refuse? You want
to know the whereabouts of the escaped traitor? Good. You will
stand in front of your judges tomorrow. Don’t forget that the
lictors’ bundle also contains a hatchet.”
Seemingly angrily, he stomped up and waved at the
turnkey.
“Citizen Gaspard! You’re liable to me for this dangerous
person!”
The turnkey shone his light in my face and grinned:
“This head is loose! I’m getting the hang of this thing,
Citizen Commissar!”
Laughing, the magister slapped him on the shoulder, and
they both left the dungeon. The door slammed shut with a thud,
the key rattled.
“Francois!” scolded one in his sleep. “See, which of the
cursed peasants drives over the inner yard.”
Then there was silence. The darkness dripped down like
pitch.
Before me in the darkness I saw the face of Isa Bektshi.
The kind gaze was directed at me. The narrow scar between the
eyebrows shone like the dawn.
“I will not lie,” I said to myself.
I saw nothing but the black night and I stretched out on
the thin straw of the floor to rest a little. After breakfast, which
the turnkey brought in on his board, a commissar appeared
with several soldiers and brought three of us, including me, to
the court session.
A young, pretty woman, who had mostly been sitting on
a cot, crying, and had received little notice by the ladies in my
prison, was brought in with me and a tall, very haughty looking
man in a dark blue, gold-embroidered jacket and white
stockings was led away. The name of my fated companion I
had not understood when I was introduced yesterday. The only
thing that struck me was the deference with which the
aristocratic prisoners had treated him, and his careless,
condescending manner with which he had spoken a few words
to this one, then to that one, while he hardly noticed me. I was
walking behind these two, the woman and the haughty man; I
was walking alone between two soldiers who had been
specially commanded to guard me. We were led through a
narrow, terribly dirty alley, in which all kinds of garbage rotted,
to an old building, over the archway of which fluttered the
three-color flag. Then we reached a corridor into a low, very
large room, and had to pass behind a freshly painted cabinet,
smelling of fresh oil paint and then stopped.
The inner elevation, in which I had spent yesterday
evening, was gone from me. The thought that this day was to
be one of my last lay heavy as lead on me and filled me with a
dull ache. Even the inanimate objects around me took on a
strange and unfamiliar ghostly form, and even the early
morning light that shone through the dirty windows had a
mysterious reddish glow.
When a soldier motioned for us to sit down, I was given
the seat between the young woman, who from time to time
sobbed violently, and the gentleman in the blue jacket, who
looked before him with a stern and unapproachable face,
without paying any attention to anyone. Now and then he
would pull out of his pocket a gold can in the shape of a pear
and sniffed it with an extremely affected movement. In front of
us stood a heavy table with carved legs, on which everything
necessary for writing was piled up. On the walls lolled pale,
long-haired soldiers, some of them wearing wooden shoes on
their bare feet, and blowing foul-smelling tobacco smoke from
their lime pipes. They only changed their comfortable position,
when a rumbling drum roll outside the door announced the
entrance of the revolution tribunal.
We were compelled to stand and wait until the judges
were seated at the large table. I looked at the men who
presumed to decide on the duration of the lives of others. The
first at the table on the left was a craftsman with badly cleaned,
hands, whose imprint was visible on the rim of his red cap. In
the middle between him and a constantly coughing, obviously
sickly person with pointed, gray-yellow face, was enthroned a
black-haired young man of peculiarly impudent, but not
unhandsome appearance. His restless, dark eyes sparkled under
strong brows, and his long, carefully stranded hair under the
two-cornered hat hung down to his shoulders. He stretched his
legs, clad in white pants and boots with cuffs, far under the
table, waved to an acquaintance in the densely packed area in
the back of the room, and then rummaged with a pile of files
that lay in front of him. Then he spoke a few half-loud words to
the sitters and to the skinny clerk at the narrow end of the table,
propped his elbows on the tabletop, rested his chin on his
clasped hands and looked at us in turn with a look that seemed
to command the highest respect.

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 235- 239

January 18, 2026 by anarchistbanjo

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

In the prison they must have long since heard the howls
of the insane crowd, because several times, inquiring and
peering faces appeared at the windows of the first floor. But
soon the obstinate shouting of the crowd was followed by
action; axe blows thundered against the small, heavy door, a
dusty pane of glass shattered under the thrown stones. Then a
window opened upstairs, a sleepy face with half-closed eyes
and sagging cheeks appeared, smiled and nodded to the people,
whereupon the shouting intensified to the point of madness.
Only for a moment my eyes were on a gray relief on the
wall, when a hurricane-like howling of many thousand voices
passed over men, the windows of La Force were shaking. The
small door opened-
In the stone frame stood pale as a corpse, a distorted
smile of fear in the beautiful face, her small hands raised as if
pleading, a young woman –
“Aglaja!” I cried out. It was her. Aglaja.
My beloved, slipped into the realm of shadows,

awakened from a deep sleep by the roaring of irritated animals.

There she stood, threatened by madmen, murderers, by
rusty weapons, stones, shaking -.
I screamed, screamed -.
Her blinding forehead opened in a red, gaping crack, her
eyes opened wide – from the light brocade of the bodice
suddenly rose a greasy, wooden lance shaft – Silk tore with a
high-pitched hiss — a small, plaintive cry – – like a bird call.
Flames fell from the sky, flared up from the earth, and
enveloped me.
I pushed and hurled people at people, smashed my cane
into a face, slammed my fist into a screaming mouth, sobbed,
screamed, kicked, grabbed the handle of a saber, struck so that
it sprayed, spitting and roaring louder than the thousands – –
My gaze was drawn tightly to a twitching, white body
adorned with blood roses, rough red laughter – I saw a dark
hand tugging at something long and pale pink, a naked black
foot kicked at a trembling woman’s breast —
A booming blow struck my head.
I fell. I tried to get up on my knees. Devilish faces
neighed all around me; in a wide mouth were greenish stumps.
In the hollow of two large hands, close to my face, moved
twitching a bloody piece of meat, shining red, terrible to look
at – a throbbing heart – I fell down on my face. In an unearthly
roar the world passed away.
The prison in which I found myself was an old coal cellar
and received only a faint light through the small windows,
which had never been cleaned. The bars in front of the
windows were thickly covered with street excrement, and the
yellowish glow left the background in complete dimness.
It took quite some time before the dull pain in my head
subsided to such an extent that I could look around in this
subterranean room. Again and again I felt the painful lump on
the back of my head, which a terrible blow had left behind, and
repeatedly I tried to remove my torn, bloody and covered with
street excrement suit in order to clean it. I was not indifferent to
my appearance because several ladies were present. They had
been given the largest part of the dirty wooden enclosure, and
some of the gentlemen who were also in the prison, who, at the
moment of their arrest, had an overcoat at the time of their
arrest, had disposed of this garment in order to be used as
blankets and bedding.
“May I ask your name, Herr?” a tall, impeccably dressed
gentleman in a poppy red jacket addressed me. “So that I can
introduce you to the others if that is alright with you.”
I named myself and was thereupon formally introduced
by the Vicomte de la Tour d’Aury to the other prisoners. I was
spoken to in an amiable manner with regrets that my so
desirable acquaintance had to be made on such a sad occasion.
I had unfortunately arrived in Paris several years too late, said a
very pretty lady with a little beauty spot on her white and rosy
face, and it was more than deplorable that under the present
circumstances, one must get a completely wrong impression of
the French way of life.
With a bow, I replied that the setting in which people are
found is not as important as the fact that people find each other,
and that I had already experienced in just a few moments so
many pleasant acquaintances, I had been abundantly showered
with chivalrous attentions on the part of my accidental
comrades in destiny.
Asked about the cause of my arrest, I could not avoid
mentioning the murder of the poor Princess Lamballe in the
gentlest form. The ladies immediately burst into tears, and
several gentlemen, with clenched fists, expressed the ardent
desire for unprecedented revenge. To all, however, the sudden
death of the beautiful woman on whose energy they had placed
great hopes was a heavy blow, which destroyed a large part of
their secretly cherished expectations. Now all their wishes were
directed to a terrible and bloody retribution, while two floors
above, it was surely decided to send the heads in which such
plans flourished, into Samson’s wicker basket.
The tremendous mental shock into which the
resemblance between the slain princess and my beloved one,
who was always fleeing into the shadows of eternity, had given
way in this prison to a feeling of desolate emptiness. And
secretly blossomed in me, like a pale Asphodelos, the longing
for the beloved image, which approached me in all kinds of
forms, leaving me to follow into the unexplored realm, where
her eternal home was. Without any excitement I thought of the
probability of my end. The hand on my pocket watch, which I
found in my vest with the glass broken, measured the last hours
of my life in the circle of numbers. For a long time I watched
the Arabic numerals on the white disc, adorned with a wreath
of cheerful roses, and thought that by one of the sixty strokes,
or between two of them, a sharp, short pain would fly through
my throat and extinguish my thoughts. With unheard-of clarity
I saw my headless torso in this badly battered brown suit lying
and twitching on the board, with two intermittently leaping
fountains of blood in place of the head, and this roll into the
basket of the Executioner. I looked at this shuddering self-
image so calmly, as if the thing didn’t concern me at all.
The addiction of the ladies for entertainment also in the
present place of stay soon snatched me from this sinking, and I
was compelled to answer all sorts of questions about my early
life, my adult life, my family and any adventures I might have
had in Paris. With graceful ease things were touched upon of
which I had not been accustomed to speak of for a long time
and whose description was embarrassing to me. But I soon saw
that the interest of the women was not as insistent as one would
have expected from the graceful eagerness of the questioning.
Everything that was done and talked about here had only
one purpose, to fill the gloomy and hopeless days that lay
before the sad end in the most distracting and entertaining way
possible. Some gentlemen dressed in the office of the maitre de
plaisir immediately offered, if someone covered himself in a
thoughtful silence, everything they had to dispel the contagious
gloom. They danced minuets and gavotte, practiced the almost
lost pavane, sang, arranged games of forfeits and blind man’s
bluff, played a little music and excelled in piquant anecdotes
and joking questions. This way of getting through the slowly
creeping time, I did not like much in my serious mood, but I
also accepted it. Even more unpleasant were the pleasures of
longing of a young count, who, with many sighs of regret for
the time when one of his distinguished relatives in Normandy
to pass the time had shot a rooftop worker from the castle tower.
Another gentleman who seemed to be of the same mind as him
praised the glory of the days when a member of his family had
been invited by Louis the thirteenth to a feast, and when, after
the hunt, his feet were frozen the bodies of two peasants were
cut open on the spot so that he could warm his cold feet in
them.
With such speeches, I did not know what I should marvel
at more: the blindness of people who even thought of such
conditions of existence, or the unspeakable patience of the
people, who had remained subject to such extremes, the taking
away of the last piece of bread. Despite my disgust against the
beasts of the street it became obvious to me once again that in
this country under horrible convulsions and according to laws,
which only God knew, a necessity was taking place, which was
nothing other than the consequences of the causes for which
these two thoughtless ones still mourned. The tender women in
this dungeon, the old men, among whom was the Count
Merigno, who was known for his charity, I felt sorry for most
of them with all my heart. But among them were also those
people who had nothing but a conceited disdain and insolent
contempt for those who were not noble born, who had no
knowledge of neither the sciences nor the arts and didn’t think
of anything at all, unless in the service of their indulgent and
gallant needs; their fate could not be called unjust. And I felt
strangely solemn and peculiar, when I discovered on the wall,
written in red chalk, the words: “Counted, weighed and found
too light.
In the late afternoon hours, when the room became more
and more relaxed, the outlines of all things blurred and only a
small candle stump burned in one corner, laughter and speech
gradually lowered. Several who seemed to be familiar with
each other, whispered all sorts of things that were not meant for
the general public. The wretched food in the unclean bowls,
which two turnkeys carried in on a board was, as far as it was
noticed, quickly gulped down, and the empty vessels were
taken away as they had come. After this many stretched out
with sighs on the plank beds or on the brick floor to escape into
the freedom of dreams and others, whispering prayers, moved
their lips and let the beads of the rosaries they had brought with
them slide through their fingers.
I had sat down, tired and with my head still aching, and
by stroking with my finger tips, tried to reduce the lump that
had been left by the blow, the force of which had caused me to
fall. Then, out of the groups, unrecognizable in the twilight, a
man emerged, carrying a stool in his hand and sat down on it
with me.

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Anarchist Knight Apprentice: Chapter 20 A Christmas Gift

January 17, 2026 by anarchistbanjo

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 230- 234

January 17, 2026 by anarchistbanjo

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

Despite the smallness of his body, there lay in his whole
posture something respectful and compelling, which was
difficult to escape from. Thus, his appearance captivated me in
the highest degree. He wore a very simple uniform unknown to
me, and had his arms crossed over his chest.
“You’re a stranger?” he addressed me, smiling barely
perceptibly.
“I am a German,” I answered him.
“Ah, a German!”
He nodded his head.
“A fine people, clever, warlike and obedient at the same
time. Excellent soldiers. You witnessed these executions, mein
Herr?”
In spite of the danger that such frankness could bring me,
I did not hide my disgust from him.
“Yes, yes,” he smiled gloomily, “By the actions of these
beasts you must have formed an excellent opinion of the
French nation. But that doesn’t do anything. These people are
good. Only they have a fever at this moment. They will cure it;
let it bleed a little -“
I hesitated to answer him, even though there were no
listeners nearby. For I was well aware of the fact that the so-
called Well-being Committee maintained numerous agents,
whose task it was to listen to the speeches of the people and to
induce the discontented to make statements, the reproduction
of which provided the means to render them harmless. But
immediately afterwards I was ashamed of a suspicion over
which this man was certainly above. As far as my knowledge
of man, I read in this face ruthlessness, indomitable will, and
the power to remove unpleasant obstacles by force. Perhaps the
little man with the hard mouth was capable of a gigantic
despicability when his certainly unusual plans required it, but
hardly of a petty action against someone whose path did not
cross his. All this I read in the dark abyss of his eyes, from
which shone the spark of a genius.
“I deplore it,” I said to him, “that bloodlust and
vindictiveness sully the garb of the goddess of liberty, and that
it is precisely the ugliest drives that are the shoots that appear
most conspicuously in the disintegration of a fixed order. Thus
it happens to me that what seems great and sublime to me from
a distance, appears frightening and devoid of all greatness up
close. The freedom of a people –“
“Oh, freedom!” he interrupted me. “Those are silly
phrases. The people do not need Freedom, but the firm hand of
a leader. Centuries will pass before the people will be ready for
the ideals for which the unfounded enthusiasts believe the time
has already come. It does not do much harm, however. The
heads that are now falling are not worth much, except for a few
whose loss is deplorable, and the riffraff are in their own way
for the time being. Nevertheless, mein Herr German, I say to
you that with this very valuable, fiery and easily treated
material the world can be conquered, if it comes into the right
hands. Out of these lousy, jeering, broken lads an army of
heroes can be created like no other that has ever stomped the
ground. The monstrous body, unconscious of its strength lacks
only the head to make it insurmountable.”
“Surely this head also sits on mortal shoulders,” I replied.
“And it is, as you know, a bad time for heads.”
Again the man’s lips twisted into an almost perceptible
smile.
“I have good reason to hope that the head I mean will not
fall into Samson’s basket,” he said.
Slowly we walked in the direction of a side alley. Wild,
long-drawn out screaming and the wailing of a woman’s voice,
coming from an old house, made me stop. As we came closer,
we saw in the dark hallway a young woman in the labor of
childbirth lying on the brick pavement. Under her pain, new
life pressed towards the light. Neighboring women took care of
the woman in labor, and an old woman told us to unwillingly
go on.
“Fat Margot is having another baby! Every year she gives
birth to a piglet!” shouted an alley boy and danced on one foot,
delighted to be present at this event.
The officer grabbed the boy by the arm, turned him
towards him, looked him in the face with a terrible look and
said:
“Why are you pleased, cretin? Is it because your
replacement is born? He will take your place in the regiment
when you are buried in the clay after the battle!”
I saw the lad turn pale under the icy gaze of my
companion, as if he had seen the Medusa’s head. Shrieking and
flailing his arms, he ran down the alley.
I watched him go. When I turned around, the officer had
disappeared.
After that day, I did not go out much on the street.
Several times at night I heard the pounding of rifle butts at the
front doors, the wild weeping of women and the horrified
objections of those suddenly arrested who had been dragged
out of their beds.
My reclusive behavior noticeably increased the distrust
of the house inhabitants. Nevertheless, it was the hardest thing
for me to overcome, to enter the streets, where one could see
almost only drunken rabble and meddlesome women. One was
begged for, harassed in every way, insulted and suspected for
no reason.
But on this early autumn day there was such an
oppressive sultriness that the stay in my upper level room
became quite unpleasant. I chose my most inconspicuous
garment, the brown, already damaged travel suit, a simple rain-
soaked hat and a crude stick, to distinguish myself as little as
possible from those who spoke the big words in the streets. I no
longer wore my hair coiffed and powdered, but, according to
the new fashion, falling on the shoulders.
Today, too, the streets were full of shouting and partly
armed mobs. Recruits, adorned with bows and ribbons, were
marching off to the threatened frontiers, and the excitement of
the first days of September had increased still further.
Especially near the prison of La Force, all the scum of
Saint Antoine and other suburbs seemed to have gathered. The
closer I came to the small gate of the prison, the wilder the
raving, singing and shouting swelled. Ragged sansculottes-
radicals stood here, armed with pikes and rusty sabers, in dense
mobs and apparently waiting for something special. A
disgustingly overgrown man, who had a cockscomb like violet
growth hanging down over his left eye, as I could clearly
observe, sneaked around from one group of people to another
and everywhere spoke a few words, which were taken up with
ear-tearing howls. I deliberately placed myself in the vicinity of
such a confluence, in the midst of which a fury with flying
strands of hair wielded a butcher’s axe, and struggled to hear
what the people were so excited about. As soon as I arrived the
crooked monster started on the group and whispered:
“Citizens, do you want to see the aristocrat who will soon
come out of this prison door, escape to England once more?
She will help the fat Capet and the Austrian woman escape
from under your noses. Down therefore with the Intendant of
the Austrian whore! Down with Lamballe!” Unanimous
shouting announced that they were of one mind with him and
not one was willing to let the princess Lamballe go, who was
the subject of much talk at the time.
“Enough of this gossip, you with your violet growth on
your eye!” shouted a person thin as a skeleton. “We want to
make cocards out of her guts if she gets into our hands.”
“Let me, me!” hoarsely cried a wolf face with enormous
jaws and low forehead. “You are all worthless, overcome with
pity, when she puts on her little mask -“
“Hey, is your heart made of stone and do you have iron
veins, Ruder-Mathieu?” a sloppy woman laughed and pushed
the man to the side.
“Do you want to see Louis Capet’s souvenir, you
pavement kicker?” barked the guy, stretching out a hand
surrounded by blue-red rings of scars. “I wore his bracelet for
six years, here and on the back of my foot -do you think that
makes sugar daddies out of people?”
The smell of liquor, old clothes, and the smoke of bad
tobacco wafted around me along with the roar of laughter that
rose.
“Murderers of women. By the grace of the king,” a voice
said softly at my ear. “Look at the cattle, the forehead, the thick
eyebrows, the bit -“
“What are you whispering about, old fish-head?”
The galley convict shook his fist at the human beside me.
A small, stooped man quickly ducked into the crowd.
“Out with Lamballe! We want the intendant! Break down
the door! We want to have a close look at her, back and front,
just like her lovers!”
“The judges in there are asleep,” crowed the abomination
with the facial outgrowth. “We will wake them up!”
“Out with her! Make it snappy, you donkey heads in
there! Give her to us!”
In the roaring and pushing of the supremely heated
masses, in the midst of brandished sabers, knives, and lances, I
stood and gazed at the door as if paralyzed. I was afraid; a
devouring fear seized me, literally crushed me. It was an
indescribably horrible feeling, a feeling in which dark
knowledge was hidden. I knew what had to come unstoppably,
as if I had already experienced it all. A beardless, cheeky face
emerged inside me, a receding forehead sown with ulcers,
beneath sand-colored stubble hair. I looked around and
immediately looked into the middle of the face, which already
existed in my imagination. But I resisted, again and again and I
succeeded in pushing back the certainty coming from within
my inner being, without this effort of the will, I could have said
at any moment, blow by blow, what was going to happen now.
All this was like a dream within a dream yet of shuddering
physicality.

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Anarchist Knight Apprentice: Chapter 28 Becca’s Initiation

January 16, 2026 by anarchistbanjo

Chapter 28 Becca’s Initiation

He had left her in the darkness to meditate. Now he was coming back with her torch and her black clothing. Gruffly he told her to put the 2nd degree clothing on. She turned her back and stripped. He was watching her naked body. The bruises were healing, and he wanted her. Slowly she turned around and faced him. Her long red hair framed her breasts. She looked beautiful to him. He reached toward her, and they clung together, kissing as her body pressed against his. His lips sought hers desperately as hers sought his. His hands felt her body, and her scent was wonderful. They stopped and looked at each other.

“This isn’t in the script!” Tobal quipped.

She smiled and began putting on her 2nd degree clothing. They steadied themselves, stepping into the ritual’s next phase. Then they went together toward the main circle for the initiation. Things went well until Becca found herself surrounded by the six menacing, darkly hooded figures she was told she needed to fight. Tobal thought he went crazy at times during battle, but Becca was scary. With a scream of rage that shook him to his core, he watched as she mowed the six figures down like so much grass. She was obviously an advanced martial artist with an axe to grind, and she wasn’t holding anything back.

The first two got broken ribs before they knew what hit them. The first fell from a savage front kick that broke through his guard. In a smooth, fluid motion, a spinning sidekick disabled the second. The third was reaching for her and got a dislocated shoulder as he was thrown into a fourth that wisely stayed on the ground. A spinning backfist was already on its way to number five, and number six had his jaw broken with a deadly kick square to the face. It was all over in less than two minutes, and the only sounds in the cavern were the moans of the injured. For a moment, the cavern held its breath, her rage echoing.

Slowly, sanity came back, and Becca dropped on her knees to the floor, sobbing hysterically. Tobal dropped down beside her and put his arms around her, trying to comfort her. Then he gently helped her up and led her out of the circle and into a quiet corner where they just sat together in silence. He squeezed her hand as the medics took five of the six out of the cave to get medical attention. She started crying again, and he didn’t know what else to do except hold her tightly against his chest. Gradually she relaxed and fell asleep in his arms.

The circle had been disrupted, and several members milled around arguing with each other. Several red-cloaked figures appeared, and one approached them in the darkened corner. As the figure drew closer, Tobal saw that it was Rafe. He put his finger to his lips for silence and indicated that Becca was sleeping. Rafe looked at her thoughtfully, nodded, and turned back to the clustered group of medics. There was some kind of heated discussion in which Rafe was obviously taking part. Then several black-hooded Journeymen were called into the group, and preparations were made to recast the circle and begin Fiona’s initiation.

Becca slept through most of Fiona’s initiation but roused herself as six black-hooded figures surrounded Fiona in the center of the circle. Tobal felt her stiffen, and he gripped her in support. Glancing at him, she relaxed a bit but was still focused intently on what was happening to Fiona. She watched as each figure stood impassively until Fiona tried attacking them. Fiona was fast and dodged several attacks and landed a few of her own but did no real damage. She was also taking a slow beating as one of the hooded figures landed a blow that knocked her to the ground.

Gradually Fiona realized that no one attacked her unless she attacked first. She also realized that only one figure would fight at a time. When she realized this, she stopped fighting and just stood silently in the ring with her arms folded and her eyes glaring defiance.

As one, the circle began to move, and the drums sounded within the cavern, and Fiona’s initiation was completed to the sound of cheers and welcome. Then the High Priest raised his hands for silence.

“There is unfinished business in this circle tonight,” he said. “There are two initiates, and the second initiation must also be completed, and the new initiate welcomed into our group.”

He motioned for Tobal and Becca to come forward.

Becca was hesitant and resisted but continued at Tobal’s reassurance. He took her hand and gently led her into the circle and stopped in front of the High Priest.

The High Priest continued, “Becca, you were charged with the duty of defeating in combat six other Journeymen before you would be able to advance to the Master degree. The six that you fought tonight were supposed to be symbolic in nature, meant to test her spirit, not break her body, but your victories have been real. You have completed the Journeyman degree, but you cannot advance into the Master degree until one year and a day has passed. This is the minimum time requirement. All that remains is to give you the blessings of the God and Goddess of this degree.”

Then raising his hands, he turned to the circle and asked loudly, “Does anyone here dispute the claim that Becca has won her six victories and completed the work of this degree?”

There was stunned silence around the circle, and then some members started moving widdershins, dragging others with them, and soon the entire circle was spinning. The drums were beating, and people were leaping and laughing, yelling and clapping in approval as the initiation concluded, and the wildest party in Tobal’s memory began.

Later he moved over to where Becca and Fiona were talking together. Becca was smiling, and he hoped she felt like she was among friends. He gave her a hug and a smile, and she hugged him back and kissed him lightly on the lips.

“Thanks for helping me through the initiation,” she said.

His eyes twinkled, “Any time, it’s my duty.”

When Tobal woke the next morning, both Fiona and Becca were gone. He had no idea where they had run off to and was slightly disappointed. If they wanted to go off by themselves, it was completely up to them. Mumbling a bit to himself, he left to go find Jake for some sparring practice. After watching Becca take out those six guys last night, he felt he really had a few things to learn.

The End of Book One of the Anarchist Knight Trilogy.

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