Mozart looked at me with intolerable mockery.

“How pathetic you always are. But you will learn humour yet, Harry. Humour is always gallows-humour, and it is on the gallows you are now constrained to learn it. You are ready? Good. Then off with you to the public prosecutor and let the law take its course with you till your head is coolly hacked off at break of dawn in the prison-yard. You are ready for it?”

Instantly a notice flashed before my eyes:

Harry’s Execution

and I consented with a nod. I stood in a bare yard enclosed by four walls with barred windows, and shivered in the air of a grey dawn. There were a dozen gentlemen there in morning coats and gowns, and a newly erected guillotine. My heart was contracted with misery and dread, but I was ready and acquiescent. At the word of command I stepped forward and at the word of command I knelt down. The public prosecutor removed his cap and cleared his throat and all the other gentlemen cleared their throats. He unfolded an official document and held it before him and read out:

“Gentlemen, there stands before you Harry Haller, accused and found guilty of the wilful misuse of our magic theatre. Haller has not alone insulted the majesty of art in that he confounded our beautiful picture gallery with so-called reality and stabbed to death the reflection of a girl with the reflection of a knife; he has in addition displayed the intention of using our theatre as a mechanism of suicide and shown himself devoid of humour. Wherefore we condemn Haller to eternal life and we suspend for twelve hours his permit to enter our theatre. The penalty also of being laughed out of court may not be remitted. Gentlemen, all together, one-two-three!”