The Diary of Caspar Kruse III, Executioner: 4 April 1638 – Hans Christoph

 


Today we lost our son.
Anna carried him with great hardship, for nine long months. It was a pregnancy filled with feverish days and broken nights. Her appetite failed her often; many times she lay exhausted on the resting bed beneath the window, her hand upon her belly, her breath heavy. The midwife came more often than usual, bringing her tea of fennel and chamomile, but nothing could relieve my wife’s body of the torment it bore.


We had given him his name even before birth: Hans Christoph. Hans, after an uncle, and Christoph, after my brother-in-law. A strong name. A name to build upon. Even the children – Hans Caspar, Wilhelm, and little Anna Maria – spoke already of their new brother. They laid linen in the chest, traced shapes on the cloth with their fingers, sang songs by the hearth of cradles and lullabies. There was hope in the house, and expectation.
But when the day of birth came, there was only pain.


In the early morning of 4 April, Anna began to cry out. Not a quiet voice this time, no calm breath. It was a raw cry, like that of an animal. I leapt up. The midwife was sent for, but she was long in coming. Meanwhile Anna writhed upon the bed as if fighting against her own flesh. Her face was pale, her hair clung with sweat, and when the midwife finally came, the work had barely begun. The child lay wrong, she said. There would be blood, and much of it. And there was. More than I had ever seen from a sick man or a condemned one. My hands could do nothing. My knowledge saves lives upon the scaffold – but here I was powerless. God held the rope in His hand, and He shook it.
It was late in the afternoon when he came into the world. Our Hans Christoph. A small body, pale, but alive. He breathed. He opened his mouth and cried – a thin sound, like the squeak of a young mouse. We held our breath. I lifted him up, showed him to Anna, who could scarcely keep her eyes open. She whispered his name and stroked his cheek with her bloodless hand. For that single moment all was still. Time itself stood still. We were a family.


But within the hour he grew colder. His breathing faltered. His lips turned blue. I brought him to the fire, rubbed his tiny chest, prayed louder than I had ever prayed before. “Lord, spare him. Spare us.” But the heavens remained silent. And then he stopped breathing.
He lived perhaps an hour.


Anna sank back into her pillow. She already knew. The midwife lowered her eyes. I went outside, into the cold, my head lifted toward the heavens. Why, Lord? Why do You let mothers suffer, fathers despair, brothers and sisters rejoice only to be robbed of their joy? My tears froze upon my cheeks.
Later that evening, Hans Caspar asked, “Papa, where is he now?” I knelt down, placed my hands upon his shoulders, and said, “With God, my boy. Our Hans Christoph is with God now.” And Anna Maria wept. Wilhelm said nothing, but crept silently close to me.


Tomorrow we shall bury him, in a corner of the churchyard of Sankt Stephani. A small cross shall bear his name, and nothing more. He shall rest in peace, far from the strife of this world.
Today I lost no head. No arm. No soul that deserved it.

Today I lost my son.




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