But soon his former energy returned and with it the power to lift his
soul in prayer. He regained them during the torture, on the rack.

Weeks, months elapsed. Ulrich still remained in the gloomy cell, loaded
with chains, scantily fed on bread and water, constantly looking death
in the face; but a fresh, beautiful spirit of defiance and firm
determination to live animated the youth, who was now at peace with
himself. On the rack he had regained the right to respect himself,
and striven to win the master's praise, the approval of the living
and his beloved dead.

The wounds on his poor, crushed, mangled hands and feet still burned.
The physician had seen them, and when they healed, shook his head in
amazement.

Ulrich rejoiced in his scars, for on the rack and in the Spanish boot,
on nails, and the pointed bench, in the iron necklace and with the
stifling helmet on his head, he had resolutely refused to betray through
whom and whither the master had escaped.

They might come back, burn and spear him; but through him they should
surely learn nothing, nothing at all. He was scarcely aware that he had
a right to forgiveness; yet he felt he had atoned.

Now he could think of the past again. The Holy Virgin once more wore his
lost mother's features; his father, Ruth, Pellicanus, Moor looked kindly
at him. But the brightest light shone into his soul through the darkness
of the dungeon, when he thought of art and his last work. It stood
before him distinctly in brilliant hues, feature for feature, as on the
canvas; he esteemed himself happy in having painted it, and would