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“If he had been a just man, he would have set us free,” said one of the prisoners.

“Or else he would have imprisoned all the criminals who are at large.”

“Then he himself would have had to be Governor of the Prison, for the whole nation are criminals.”

It is the way of prisoners to regard all men as criminals, and to maintain that they themselves were only caught because they were unlucky.

But it was a hot summer’s day, and the stone man walked along the shore, listening to the tolling of the bells for Oscar the king. He raised the stones and looked for tadpoles and sticklebacks, but could find none; not a fish was visible in the water, and consequently there was not a sign of a sea-gull or a tern. Then he felt that a curse rested on the mountain, a curse so strong that it kept even the fishes and the birds away. He fell to considering the life he was leading. He had lost his name, both Christian and surname, and was no more now than No. 65, a name written in figures, instead of in letters. He was no longer obliged to pay taxes. He had forgotten his age. He had ceased to be a man, ceased to be a living being, but neither was he dead. He was nothing but something grey moving on the mountain and being terribly scorched by the sun. It burned on his prison garb and on his head with the close-cropped hair, which in days long passed had been curly, and was combed with a tooth-comb every Saturday by his mother’s gentle hand. He was not allowed to wear a cap to-day, because it would have facilitated an attempt at escape. And as the sun scorched his head, he remembered the story of the prophet Jonah, to whom the Lord gave a gourd so that he might sit in its shade.

“A nice gift, that!” he sneered, for he did not believe in anything good; in fact, he did not believe in anything at all.

All at once he saw a huge birch branch tossed about in the surf. It was quite green and fresh and had a white stem; possibly it had fallen off a pleasure-boat. He dragged it ashore, shook the water off and carried it to a gully where he put it up, wedged firmly between three stones. Then he sat down and listened to the wind rustling through its leaves, which smelt of the finest resin.

When he had sat for a little while in the shade of the birch he fell asleep.

And he dreamed a dream.

The whole mountain was a green wood with lovely trees and odorous flowers. Birds were singing, bees and humble-bees buzzing, and butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. But all by itself and a little aside stood a tree which he did not know; it was more beautiful than all the rest; it had several stems, like a shrub, and the branches looked like lacework. And on one of its branches, half hidden by its foliage, sat a little black-and-white bird which looked like a swallow, but wasn’t one.

In his dream he could interpret the language of the birds, and therefore he understood to some extent what the bird was singing. And it sang:

Mud, mud, mud, mud here! We’ll throw, throw, throw here! In mud, mud, mud you died, From mud, mud, mud you’ll rise.

It sang of mud, death, and resurrection; that much he could make out.

But that was not all. He was standing alone on the cliff in the scorching heat of the sun. All his fellows-in-misfortune had forsaken him and threatened his life, because he had refused to be a party to their setting the prison on fire. They followed him in a crowd, threw stones at him and chased him up the mountain as far as he could go.

And finally he was stopped by a stone wall.