CHAPTER XI
AT a sharp trot we sped on through the night. I still hear Hensel's commanding call, “Boom up! Boom up!” as often as on the turnpike we reached a toll gate. Through Oranienburg, Teschendorf, Löwenberg, we flew without stop, but when we approached the little town of Gransee, nearly thirty-five miles from Spandau, it became clear that our two good bays would soon break down unless we gave them rest and some refreshment. So we stopped at a wayside tavern, near Gransee, and fed them—then forward again.
As daylight appeared I could for the first time look at Kinkel with leisure. How he was changed! He whom a little more than a year ago I had known as a youthful man, the very picture of health and vigor! His closely clipped hair was now tinged with gray, the color of the face a dead yellow, the skin like parchment, the cheeks thin and flabby, the nose sharp, and the face deeply furrowed. If I had met him on the street unexpectedly I should scarcely have recognized him.
“They have dealt hard with you,” I said.
“Yes, it was the highest time for me to breathe free air again. A year or two more of that kind of life and I should have been burned to ashes, devastated body and soul. Nobody who has not himself suffered it knows what solitary confinement means and the debasement of being treated like a common criminal. But now,” he added gayly, “now human life begins once more.”
And then he described in his humorous way how at that very moment in the penitentiary in Spandau they would be
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