impetuosity of his all-penetrating look, he cast a wide glance
somewhere into the depth of the life he was to forsake.

And life appeared to him in a new light. He did not strive, as before,
to clothe in words that which he had seen; nor were there such words
in the still poor, meager human language. That small, cynical and evil
feeling which had called forth in him a contempt for mankind and at
times even an aversion for the sight of a human face, had disappeared
completely. Thus, for a man who goes up in an airship, the filth and
litter of the narrow streets disappear and that which was ugly becomes
beautiful.

Unconsciously Werner stepped over to the table and leaned his right
hand on it. Proud and commanding by nature, he had never before
assumed such a proud, free, commanding pose, had never turned his head
and never looked as he did now,-for he had never yet been as free and
dominant as he was here in the prison, with but a few hours from
execution and death.

Now men seemed new to him,-they appeared amiable and charming to his
clarified vision. Soaring over time, he saw clearly how young mankind
was, that but yesterday it had been howling like a beast in the
forests; and that which had seemed to him terrible in human beings,
unpardonable and repulsive, suddenly became very dear to him,-like the
inability of a child to walk as grown people do, like a child's
unconnected lisping, flashing with sparks of genius; like a child's
comical blunders, errors and painful bruises.

"My dear people!" Werner suddenly smiled and at once lost all that was
imposing in his pose; he again became a prisoner who finds his cell