The Man at the Crib

One morning in the spring of 1867—whether April or May I cannot now say for certain, but I believe it was May—I sat at my breakfast table, leisurely reading the morning paper and enjoying my last cup of coffee, when my eye chanced upon the following advertisement:

“WANTED—A reliable man to take charge of the Crib. An unmarried German preferred. One who can come well recommended, and give bond for faithful performance of duty, will receive a liberal salary. Apply immediately to the Board of Public Works, Pumping Department, Nos. 15 and 17 South Wells Street.”

My attention was caught by the thought of such a strange occupation. Would anyone be willing to accept a position that meant living alone in that isolated structure two miles from the shore? There all human companionship would be cut off. I wondered what effect the utter solitude and confinement in that small round building, rising out of the water with little to relieve the eye and nothing to rest the ear from the constant dashing of waves against its wooden sides, would have upon the occupant.

It happened that I had been lecturing before a class of medical students on the relationship between mind and body, and it occurred to me that this crib-tender might provide an illustration of my theory. His mind, left to prey upon itself, might become perverted. Under certain circumstances, the mental exerts an influence over the physical system independent of the will, and frequently what is mere illusion in the spiritual nature appears as reality to the material, so closely are the two linked.

My interest awakened, I secretly resolved to discover who accepted the situation and to observe, if possible, what effect it would have upon the keeper. Some time later I learned that the advertisement had been answered the very same day (the exact date I cannot remember) by a German, one Gustav Stahlmann, who presented himself at the address and applied for the position. After a brief examination he proved satisfactory in every respect. His recommendations were of the highest kind and bore testimony to his strict integrity and upright character.

The position was accordingly offered to him, provided he would comply with certain conditions. First, that in accepting it he would bind himself to remain at least two years; and secondly, that during that period he would on no occasion or pretense whatever leave the Crib. He showed little hesitation in agreeing, as the salary was good and the job offered rest from the severe labor to which he was accustomed.

All necessary arrangements were completed, and the next day, with his dog as sole companion of his future home, he was taken out and instructed in his duties. These were few and light, consisting mainly of tending the water gates of the tunnel, opening and closing them as needed, and clearing any obstructions that might clog their action. At night he was to trim and light the lamp on the roof as a warning to passing vessels. That was all; the rest of his time was his own. A boy could easily have done the work, and he congratulated himself on securing such an easy berth, one that yielded a good income.

The first time I saw Stahlmann myself was soon after he accepted the position. If I remember rightly, he told me he had been on the Crib for a month. I had rowed out from the foot of Twelfth Street in a small boat.

At that early period the Crib was not so well finished and comfortable as it is now, but was bare and barn-like, being merely a round unplastered house rising out of the lake. The wooden floor, some fifteen feet above the water, had in its center a well about six feet in diameter, around which rose the iron rods of the water gates. A small room, the only apartment, had been partitioned off by three plank walls from the southeastern part of the circular interior, and furnished as the keeper’s dwelling. If it was rough, it had everything he could reasonably desire for comfort. A sufficient supply of provisions was delivered monthly by a tugboat from the city.

I found Stahlmann a man rather above middle height, with a broad muscular frame, but no sluggishness in his movements; his elasticity and grace suggested great endurance and indicated activity of both body and mind. He was about thirty-five, with a frank, open countenance and regular features of somewhat intellectual cast. Honesty and principle were plainly visible in his face, and a ready command of language betrayed considerable education. He impressed me as superior to most men in his station, a conclusion strengthened by his coarse and soiled clothing. I engaged him in conversation, into which he was easily drawn, and was surprised by the genuine love of beauty he evidently possessed. He seemed to take great pleasure in pointing out the beauties of the scene before us.

The sun was scarcely an hour high, and we could hardly turn our eyes eastward for the splendor of his rays reflected on the water. To the north, the sea-like horizon was flecked with the white sails of retreating vessels, some hull-down in the distance, others uncertain specks vanishing from our range of vision. Along the shore to the west, Chicago shot a hundred spires, glistening and glorified in the morning sunlight, while directly opposite stood the grim lighthouse, a motionless sentinel keeping watch over the harbor.

I admitted the attraction of the scene and attempted to steer the conversation to his private life. He was easily led to talk about himself, but in a natural and unaffected way. I gathered that he was born in Bavaria, and that when he reached sixteen, some difficulty had driven his parents to this country. They were well educated, but misfortune forced them to put their son to labor on arrival. The instruction he had received in the Fatherland had evidently sharpened his powers of observation and quickened his understanding.

I asked if he did not find life on the Crib very tiresome and how he passed the time. I remarked that I believed I would be smitten with the blues if I were in his place. He laughed good-humoredly and said he had never been troubled that way, that many curiosity-seekers came out daily, as the Crib was novel and just completed. Then he said he had his dog for companionship and they lived very pleasantly together. He was clearly attached to the animal, whom he called Caspar, for he frequently interrupted our talk to stroke its head. I was surprised to find him well acquainted with current news, but he explained that visitors often brought newspapers, which they willingly gave him, and having nothing else to occupy his time, he read them much more carefully than we who live in the city’s turmoil.

Toward midday I left, almost envying his peaceful life and happy contentment, yet doubting it would last. Once the novelty wore off, I thought he might find his solitary existence less pleasing. I had become deeply interested in this man and resolved to visit him again when I could spare a half-day for pleasure.

It was not until the following September that I could find time for another trip. This visit, as I said, was prompted by curiosity to observe the effects of solitary life on Stahlmann. Although four months had passed, I found him in much the same situation as when I left, and judging by appearances, I might have thought I had seen him only yesterday. When I remarked on this, I noticed a strange smile cross his face, and it struck me that his expression lacked the happy quality that had so pleased me before. He carried himself listlessly, unlike his former erect bearing. He was still readily drawn into conversation, but some of his old enthusiasm was gone, and he showed an obvious reluctance to speak of himself; when I tried to bring up the subject, he displayed considerable skill in evading it.

This happened repeatedly until I realized he would not be forced, but I saw clearly from his actions that he had grown tired of his monotonous life. All my jokes about solitude, which he had laughed at before, were now met with silence and furtive glances. Clearly it had become a serious matter, and I dropped the subject.

He inquired eagerly for any news and said he had not seen a paper for nearly a week, as wet weather had kept visitors away. When I left, he repeatedly invited me to come again, and I promised to do so, as our brief acquaintance had blossomed into mutual friendship. My interest had also grown, as I plainly saw his life had become distasteful, and I was curious to see whether he would keep his promise to stay the full two years. At any rate, I resolved not to lose sight of him.

Shortly after this visit, business called me away from home and kept me in New York City without interruption until last May. During that period I had, of course, no way of learning anything about Gustav Stahlmann.

On my return, the first glimpse of the familiar lake recalled him to my memory and revived my interest. I determined to renew our acquaintance, but found, to my great disappointment, that the authorities had prohibited all visitors to the Crib soon after I left. Yet I did not give up trying to find out if he still held the position. After many fruitless inquiries, I finally learned that he was dead. That was all I could discover, and saddened by the news, I put the matter from my mind.

A week ago I made the startling discovery that the Crib at the eastern end of the lake tunnel, within a year of its completion, had been the scene of a tragedy, the particulars of which, when I learned them, filled me with horror and roused my deepest sympathy for the poor victim. The whole affair had been kept so carefully secret by the authorities’ enforced reticence that no one in Chicago, beyond two or three individuals, had the slightest suspicion of the sickening drama enacted just two miles from her shores.

I was walking through the Court House, inspecting the newly built wing, and while in the Water Board’s rooms, I accidentally stumbled upon an old memorandum book that had evidently been misplaced during their recent move from their old quarters on Wells Street to the first floor of the west wing. On examination it proved to be a kind of diary, written in pencil in German script. On the inside of the front cover, near the upper right corner, was inscribed the name Gustav Stahlmann and a date: 1865. The first part of the book was filled with accounts, some of expenditures, others records of day work under various foremen in different parts of the city. But my attention was particularly drawn to the body of the book. This was in journal form, recording successive events and the attendant thoughts. The entries were made at irregular intervals, with no discernible system.

Sometimes it was written daily for a time, then dropped, then resumed at the owner’s whim. In places there was no connection between parts separated by even a short gap; elsewhere the sense was obscure and could only be inferred. The earliest entries in the second part were from June 1867, and I found dates regularly inserted until the following November. In December they ceased entirely; afterward, the diary—if it could be called that—was kept daily or weekly, or with no direct indication of when the events had occurred. In fact, throughout the concluding portion there was nothing to suggest it had not been written on a single occasion, except the variations in handwriting that any person exhibits under different degrees of nervous excitement.

From this black morocco memorandum book, from the handwriting of Gustav Stahlmann himself, I learned the incidents of his career after our parting. They constitute the history of a fate so horrible in every respect that I shudder to think any human being was doomed to experience it.

The main facts of this narrative I have translated, sometimes literally, at other times in my own words where the original thoughts were so carelessly or obscurely expressed as to render any other course impossible.

It seems, as I had supposed, that when Stahlmann first settled on the Crib, he was greatly pleased with his situation. The weather was mild and beautiful; the fresh air blowing across the water was a welcome change from the close, dusty atmosphere of Chicago. Many of his old friends came out to see his new quarters, almost envying him as they listened to his account of an easy, untroubled life. At dusk, after he had lighted his lamp and its rays streamed out, he would watch how, in the distance, as if to keep it company, the great white beacon in the lighthouse would flash out, bright and clear. Then along the western shore the city lights would kindle one by one, multiplying into a thousand twinkling stars that threw a halo against the sky. The soughing of the waves as they washed against his abode fell pleasantly on his ear and lulled him to sleep with Caspar lying at his feet.

But it seemed as if the same day came again and again, for still the waters broke around him, and still night after night the same lights flashed and burned. Then time seemed to stretch, and he watched more eagerly for visitors; but if his watching was in vain, he went wearily to sleep with disappointment, only to wake and repeat the same cheerless routine. Sometimes for a whole week he would not see a single human being or hear a human voice except his own when he spoke to the dog, who seemed, by some wise instinct, to sympathize with his master’s loneliness and would caper about until he caught his attention and was rewarded with an approving word and a pat on the head.

Visitors had grown less and less frequent until the end of September, when they stopped altogether. Stahlmann, trying to explain this to himself, correctly concluded that the authorities must have prohibited them, as he had heard some time before they intended such a measure, though he had been reluctant to believe it and still hoped it might not be true. But time only confirmed the suspicion, and although within two miles of a crowded city, he found himself completely isolated, cut off from the human race.

Then he searched for something to amuse himself and pass the interminable days, but found nothing. He would have been glad even for old newspapers to re-read, but they had been destroyed, and he owned no books. His former hard labor, performed with fellow men, now seemed far preferable to this total solitude, with nothing to occupy his hands or mind. He watched the vessels pass until they seemed like companions in his loneliness; he had watched them all summer, but the winds grew chill and rough, sweeping from sullen clouds and driving the ships boisterously home.

Stahlmann found himself utterly alone on the wide lake, with fierce blasts howling around his frame house, covering it with spray from lashed billows that seemed ready to engulf it. Crusts of ice formed and snapped, rattling down to the waves. Heavy snow fell, but did not whiten the unchanging scene, for it was drowned in the waste of waters. Night after night he lit the beacon and looked yearningly westward to the starred city. Then the solitude became intolerable. It was like the vision of heaven to lost spirits shut out in darkness forever. He was alone, all alone, craving even the sound of a kindred voice, and he cried out in his anguish. The flickering lights he watched threw their rays over thousands of human beings, yet there was not one to answer his despairing call.

Sleep no longer allowed him to forget his banishment from human society, for he lost consciousness of his lonely position only to find himself struggling in some nightmare ocean where no eye saw his distress.

Then he would be awakened by the dog rubbing its nose against his face, knowing he had groaned aloud in his troubled slumber, and Caspar had crept closer, as if to comfort his unhappy master. Sometimes the tempter whispered escape—escape from this Crib, which had been so rightly named, for it had indeed become a dismal cage. He felt strong enough to battle the waves and flee the horrible solitude; he could swim twice the distance in his eagerness to be among his fellow beings again. But his high principles shrank in horror from violating a promise. He had solemnly given his word to remain, and it bound him stronger than iron chains. He cast the thought from him with shame that it had been entertained even for a moment.

Early one bitterly cold night, when his house was thick-ribbed with ice, Stahlmann noticed a great light that grew until it illuminated the whole western sky. He saw the city spires as plainly as if bathed in the setting sun’s rays, and the lurid glare lit up the waters, making the blackness along the shore seem more terrible. The fire brightened and waned, brightened and waned again. He watched it far into the night, thinking of the thousands of anxious faces turned toward that same light, until he fell into a troubled sleep, yearning for the sight of a single countenance. This fire must have been the great conflagration on Lake Street that occurred in February 1868.

One dull, cloudy afternoon, as he sat looking out over the dreary waves, his attention was caught by Caspar’s strange behavior. The dog was greatly excited; it would jump about him, whining and howling, then run to the partly open door and look down into the water, giving short, quick yelps. This happened so often that Stahlmann was roused from his gloomy reverie. He followed the dog to the threshold and saw, for an instant, a black object that the waves threw up against the Crib. It rose a second time, and Stahlmann plunged into the water, driven by the quick instinct that prompts a brave man to risk his life to save another from drowning.

A moment later he had grasped the body and fastened it to the rope ladder hanging down the western side. Then he climbed up himself, pulling the body after him onto the floor.

It was the form of a young man, and Stahlmann eagerly knelt over it, hoping to find a faint spark of vitality. A glance told him the body had been in the water for several hours, as it was already somewhat bloated; but even then, in his desperate desire to restore life, he rubbed the stiffened limbs, but the rigid muscles would not yield. He wrung the water from the black hair, which was short and crisp in places, looking as if it might have been singed by fire. The features were regular, but the open eyes had a stony death-glaze, and the broad forehead was cut with gashes, evidently from the waves beating it against the Crib’s walls. The hands were clenched and slightly blistered.

Stahlmann’s frenzied efforts could not call back the departed spirit, and he sat staring wildly at the body in bitter disappointment. Then a startling thought struck him: what, in his desolate, watery home, could he do with the dead? Where could he put the stiffened corpse? But when night came on, he rose to light the beacon, then descended immediately and resumed his former position beside the lifeless form, for it seemed to exert a strange fascination over him. He felt a strange kind of pleasure in the presence of a human form, even though dead. It seemed to provide a companion, and the thought that had startled him faded from memory.

Hour after hour he sat beside the corpse; its influence grew until it gradually filled the aching void in his troubled heart that had so yearned for society. He left it only when duty called, returning with increasing haste each time. Day by day the spell strengthened, and he came to regard the dead body with tenderness, as he would a living brother. He did not shrink from the cold, clammy skin when he raised the head to place it on a stool, but sat and talked to it. He asked why it stared at him with that stony glare, and why its face had turned that dark, ugly color; but when no answer came, he said he realized it was dead and could not speak. Then the terrible truth flashed upon him. With a groan, he saw he could keep the corpse no longer, and the thought that had startled him once before crept back with greater urgency. Where could he bury it? At the bottom of the lake, where nothing would disturb its peace.

He gently lowered it into the water, and as it disappeared, he awoke to wild grief at losing it, and would have plunged in to rescue it a second time, but it was gone from sight forever.

Might this body have been one of the lost from the ill-fated Sea Bird, which burned in early April 1868, a few miles north of the city? Stahlmann must have found it around that time.

His grief for the loss of his dead companion grew daily, making the solitude even more unbearable. Solitude? It was no longer solitude, for the place was peopled by phantom creations of his inflamed imagination. At this point the diary becomes altogether incoherent, showing how utterly confused his intellect had become.

The waves roared at him in anger, and the winds joined in their rage. Fiendish spirits seemed to rise before him, fierce to clutch him and gloat over his terror. The lights in the west danced together and glared at him in mockery, and his own beacon cast its cold white rays over the familiar aperture where the iron rods of the water gates rose; but that opening had suddenly become an undefined horror. The very terror with which he regarded it drew him to its verge. He peered into its depths, down upon the troubled but black and silent water, and glared at the vision that met his strained sight, for the ghostly face of the man who had been murdered in the tunnel peered at him through the uncertain light.

There was only the dog to which he could turn in his agony, but it too had a strange appearance and answered his call with low, plaintive howls that sent a shiver through him. He repeated its name aloud, and Caspar crept closer, still making moans that sounded sorrowful—almost like a human voice pleading in distress—and he thought its eyes held a strange, reproachful gaze. As he spoke, the dog uttered a prolonged wail. Stahlmann shivered, and a cold chill crept through his blood; all his superstition was roused afresh. The wind died down to funeral sobs. The sound of the waves fell into a dirge-like cadence, and that melancholy wail, which had chilled his blood, rang in his ears—with the awful significance of an evil omen—long after it had faded on the air. The dog lay perfectly motionless; he stooped to stroke it, but it did not move.

He stared at it with a bewildered gaze, when suddenly the horrible reality, with its fearful explanation, broke upon his half-crazed brain, and he staggered back with a wild shriek.

In the utter misery of his solitude, in his strange grief for the loss of the drowned corpse, and his terror from the hallucinations of a disordered intellect, he had neglected to feed his faithful dog, and had starved to death the only living creature that existed for him in the world. Caspar was dead.

Stahlmann, in his agony, seemed to hear once more the piteous cry the dog had uttered with its expiring breath, and to him the wail sounded, in its pathetic mournfulness, like the mysterious herald of another death.

The diary is so blurred at this point that it is hardly legible. What can be read is incomprehensible—broken, incoherent sentences, the empty language of a lunatic. Save one remaining passage, I could make out nothing further. This entry must have been written in a lucid interval, when he realized how far he had fallen. Because it is the last record, I translate it literally:

“That cry again—what have I come through? Hell with its host of furies can not be worse than this awful Crib—I kill myself.

G. STAHLMANN.”

What remains is soon told. A few inquiries revealed that on the morning of May 1, 1868, when the tugboat from Chicago made its usual trip to supply provisions, the dog was found dead upon the floor, and near by—just to the right of the entrance, about ten feet from it—hung the dead body of Gustav Stahlmann, suspended by the neck from one of the rafters. It was quickly cut down and the Coroner quietly notified. Among his few effects was found the memorandum book that so curiously came into my possession.

The authorities were in no way to blame for this unfortunate occurrence. That same day they placed several persons in charge of the lonely structure and have rotated them regularly ever since. Because if the circumstances were known, they feared they could get no one to fill the position, either because of the solitude or because many people are afraid to live in a house that has been the scene of a suicide. So they wisely decided to say nothing about the melancholy event, and, as I said before, few people in the city are acquainted with its details.