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APOCRYPHAS

THE MERCY OF THE EXECUTIONER

MONG THE MANY portraits of Jan van Olden Barneveldt I like most the one painted by an unknown master. The Great Pensionary is shown as an old man. Even the paint's substance carries the marks of disintegration, of mold, dust, lid cobweb. Though not a beautiful face, it is full of expression and noble strength: a very high forehead, a large, meaty, not very shapely nose, a patriarchal beard, and under bushy eyebrows intelligent eyes where the desperate energy of someone trapped is glowing.

No historian denies that Barneveldt was one of the most meritorious founders of the new Republic. He was called Holland's defender. This first great politician, who came from the middle classes and represented their interests, knew how to defend the rights of the young state better than anyone else. He negotiated with the powerful monarchs of Spain, France, and England, prepared advantageous armistices, peace treaties, and alliances, and during the forty years of his life worked faithfully and untiringly for his country, But with the approach of old age his political sense began to fail. Barneveldt made crucial mistakes, and the culmination of these was a “sharp resolution" allowing towns to recruit mercenaries not subject to orders from the Prince of Orange, the true commander of the Republic's army. The country was on the threshold of civil war.

Barneveldt not only lost all sense of judgment in the situation, but his instinct of self-preservation abandoned him as well. He did not understand, or did not want to understand that his handful of supporters was melting away and everyone was against him-the governor, the Estates General and the towns. Returning home from his office, he stepped with indifference over leaflets written against him. He did not listen to the friends, who insisted that he resign and go abroad. He was like a turtle dying on the sand, sinking deeper and deeper.

The finale was easy to guess, and surprising only to Barneveldt himself. Arrested after a months-long investigation, he stood before a tribunal composed mostly of his enemies. Deprived of a lawyer, furiously defended his honor rather than his life. The time of the action: May 13, 1619. Place: The Hague, Binnenhof  - a brick Gothic and Renaissance decoration of the drama. In the courtyard a wooden scaffold was hastily erected and sand strewn about. It was late afternoon. The fiery carriage of Helios -as rhetorical poets write – rolled westward. When they brought in the condemned man, the crowd fell silent. Barneveldt was hurrying toward death: "What you must do, do it fast," he urged the executors of the verdict. Then something happened that went far beyond the ritual of the execution, beyond the procedure of any known execution. The executioner led the condemned man to a spot where sunlight was falling and said, Your Honor, you will have sun on your face." One might ask the question whether the executioner who cut off the head of the Great Pensionary was a good executioner. The goodness of the executioner depends on his ability to carry out his task quickly, efficiently, and in an impersonal way. Who more than he deserves to be called executor of fate, or the soundless lightning of destiny? His virtues should be silence and cool restraint. He should administer the blow without compassion, without any kind of emotion. Barneveldt's executioner broke the rules of the game, left his role, and, what is more, violated the principles of professional ethics. Why did he do it? Certainly it was an impulse of the heart. But didn't the condemned man, who was stripped of all earthly glory, perceive derision in it? After all, it is indifferent to those who are leaving forever whether they die in the sun, in shadow, or the darkness of night. The executioner, artisan of death, became an ambiguous figure filled with potential meaning when to the condemned man-in his last moment-he threw a crumb of goodness.

Zbigniew Herbert, Collected Prose 1948 -1998