Bester (interrupting): The calendar has been secretly altered! Hang him for it! We shall try him, oh, we shall try him indeed, but we shall try him for altering the calendar! (He was at this point too vexed to continue speaking and began to sound as if he were chewing upon a piece of cloth, and he left off trying to speak and instead turned away and faced the back of the courtroom in a fume.)
Hale: Have you (meaning me) anything to say for your defense?
Self: With what, Sir, am I charged?
Hale: With having altered the calendar.
Self: I have not been properly indicted for that crime, Sir. I have been indicted only for the crime of heresy, to which I have not confessed, and therefore I do not believe I can be tried for the crime of altering the calendar.
This threw the three justices into a deep uproar, and the numerous observers and gentry attending the scene broke into loud laughter and guffaws. For it was now clear to all that the justices had tangled themselves in the cords and folds of their own procedure and that all their combined anger could not disentangle them. It was also clear that they would, in spite of themselves, try me this day, for one crime if not for another, and probably for no better reason than that they were being driven to it by their anger.
Hale: If your name is on the calendar, then we shall indeed try you, Sir! And the crime for which we shall try you is that of having altered the court calendar! As for the crime of heresy, for which you have already been duly indicted and to which you have confessed, it is recorded that you were, by virtue of your recorded confession, condemned in absentia, that is to say, without public trial, and thus you shall still remain ineligible for the pardon occasioned by the solstice, which applies only to those duly convicted at a public trial and now standing at prison. This new trial and the conviction that will doubtless follow shall bring with it the death penalty. And from that there shall be no pardon also! You, Sir, and all your followers, shall learn that the procedures of law exist to protect the rights of the law-abiding. They shall not be abused by those who, like yourself, wish to subvert and destroy justice! (Here he fell into a confused and angry tirade against tax evaders and other petty criminals, wandering in his words, it seemed to me, until at last he tailed off among mumbled phrases and uncompleted sentences.)
Then my brother, my jailor, came forward, and by his intelligence and courage and his love for me, made me crack with shame, for he had discerned what, in my pleasure at having discomfited the several justices, I had not discerned. He had seen that if I were to be tried for having altered the calendar, I would be swiftly convicted, for the justices, even the saintly Hale, were in such a temper as to find no one now before them innocent, and he had seen that they were ready to condemn a man to hard labor for life, if given the chance, for no greater crime than that of misspelling the name of the month. My brother had also seen what I had deliberately allowed myself to be blinded to: he had seen that they would hang me for the crime of altering the calendar. And therefore, he had determined, by virtue of his old life’s values, that I would be far better off languishing for numberless years in a cold damp prison cell than hanging from yonder gallows tree. This meant that while he had been sufficiently converted to my teachings and example so as to be able to face death courageously himself, he was not sufficiently freed of his old life’s courtship of itself to realize that I would be shamed and heartbroken by his taking my place at the gallows.
For these reasons, he came forward to the justices and declared that it had been he, John Bethel, who had altered the calendar so as to include my name upon it, and that if any man were to be tried and convicted for the said crime, it must be he. Let this interview and this assertion stand as an indictment and confession, said John Bethel, and let the clerk of the court properly add my name and blot out the name of the coffinmaker, and let the trial proceed as ordered by the statutes of procedure.
I cried out in vain that he must not sacrifice himself for the living, that he must only sacrifice himself for the dead, as we have long been taught (II Carol., iv, 34, 35), but it was too late. Judge Hale ordered the sergeant-at-arms to clap the jailor in irons and to present him in the docket, from which I myself was roughly removed. I saw the jailor’s peaceful eyes as I was wrenched past him and he took my place, and I uttered these words: My brother, you shall have my own coffin. Though you are in error, you have earned the right to it, and I have not.
This was the most public event in the twelve years of my imprisonment that have so far transpired, and thus it was the most misunderstood and the most slandered. By this brief private account I have tried to make understanding possible and slander libelous. Also by this account have I tried to tender mercy to the beloved dead man, John Bethel, who in life was my jailor and who in death awaits me as a brother.
~ ~ ~
MY JAILOR WENT forward unto the dead in my stead, and though there sometimes passed through my heart a swift blade of grief, and though I was often, on the occasion of dark and cold afternoons that first autumn of my imprisonment, lashed by regret and shame, I was able to obtain a measure of release from my guilt and comfort for my pain from my having been able to provide him with my own personal coffin for his journey unto the dead, and I was further released and comforted by the sure knowledge that, though he had taken my place among the dead, I was now taking his place among the living. I remembered the old teachings on death, how it must fall to every one of us, and whether it come sooner or later matters not, for time is valueless to the dead. Only the living can be tempted by time; the dead, by their nature, treasure it not at all.
It was during this early period of my imprisonment, when I had not yet obtained a coffin to replace the one I had transferred to my jailor, that I determined to atone for my rashness and stupidity in the matter concerning the alteration of the court calendar. I decided to atone for my life by resisting death. This meant that henceforth I would be compelled to avoid any confrontation that would risk my life. It also meant that I would no longer be able to deny myself any sustenance, any food, rest or medication or other physical comfort that in whatsoever way contributed to the further resistance of death.
I did this, said I to my wife and several friends, all of whom were at first astonished by this change in my behavior, to honor the dead John Bethel and the manner of his dying. My beloved frail wife, who had not yet wholly absorbed the principles and the celestial hugeness of the design that undergirds and guides our faith, was at first inclined to give outward evidence of great pleasure at my determination to avoid all activities and practices that could lead me into a fatal encounter with death. She clasped me to her tender bosom when she first heard of my decision and amid much weeping and wild high laughter exclaimed that now our children would be saved, for, as she saw it, now their father would be saved. And to my surprise and disappointment, she let it out that she now expected me to recant and forswear, as I had been so many times encouraged as well by the justices to do, my life long practice of the making of coffins and the teaching of this skill and the meanings of the skill to others.
No, dear wife, I admonished her. That I will not permit myself to do. For I am now uniquely situated in life, by virtue of my imprisonment, so as to be able to sustain my life and in that way scourge myself for having sinned in the matter of altering the court calendar without, at the same time and by that means, having also to deny the worth and significance of my worship of the dead and my desire to join them. This my life of imprisonment is come to me now as a great opportunity to bless and show mercy to one among them, the man who was my jailor, John Bethel. I cannot, indeed, I must not, let that opportunity slide away. To do so would be to render a meaningful existence meaningless, would be to sow confusion among the brethren, would be to desert my children altogether, and in the end would be to place myself beyond deserving your wifely love, which even now, by my failure to have given you deep enough understanding of my acts, seems to be withdrawing itself from me so as to attach itself back to its source, there to stagnate, a foul perversion of love and not at all the pure spring-like bubbling forth of love that you have carried to me up to now. Sit yourself down here by me in my cell, I said to her, so that I may begin to teach you from the ancient texts the meanings of our movements between life and death, and free me thereby to atone for my prideful oversight and the earlier inadequacy of my teaching, which, even as you exclaim and clasp me to you, reveals itself to us both in the painful form of your thrilled weeping at my new determination not to resist life.