Faldoni, parts 3044 - 3047

 3044. The Jailer said all that just because he had been leading Faldoni along and pretending to teach him to read, when actually he was just playing a game to kill the time. Faldoni did not figure out the truth, but seeing how hard the task was, and how unlikely it would be to write his letter to the judges he hit upon a simple solution.

 3045. He wanted to simply dictate the letter, and his teacher, if he would be so kind, could  write it all down for him on a piece of parchment, and then he would send it off to the court.

 

3046. The Jailer offered to do as he was requested, but stressed that the letter needed to be as short as possible, because those judges with so many cases to try, were always very busy. What he was hoping was that he could commit the letter to memory, and then repeat it so that the condemned man would never realize that the paper was just a series of unrelated letters making up nonexistent words.

 

3047. But the Jailer did not have to pretend to write the letter for Faldoni. An entire day and a night went by, and during that time the prisoner started the letter in his mind a hundred times, and no matter how hard he tried he could not complete the first sentence. It is not hard to understand his problem; he felt he had to accomplish something with his letter. But what was there to accomplish? He could see very clearly that nothing he might say would alter his fate.