For him, who had relied on "Fortune," and behaved like a fool, they felt no pity, no compassion, they would not lend their aid.
But soon his former energy returned and with it the power to lift his soul in prayer.

He regained them during the torture, on the rack.
Weeks, months elapsed.

Ulrich still remained in the gloomy cell, loaded with chains, scantily fed on bread and water, constantly looking death in the face; but a fresh, beautiful spirit of defiance and firm determination to live animated the youth, who was now at peace with himself.

On the rack he had regained the right to respect himself, and striven to win the master's praise, the approval of the living and his beloved dead.
The wounds on his poor, crushed, mangled hands and feet still burned.
The physician had seen them, and when they healed, shook his head in amazement.
Ulrich rejoiced in his scars, for on the rack and in the Spanish boot, on nails, and the pointed bench, in the iron necklace and with the stifling helmet on his head, he had resolutely refused to betray through whom and whither the master had escaped.
They might come back, burn and spear him; but through him they should surely learn nothing, nothing at all.

He was scarcely aware that he had a right to forgiveness; yet he felt he had atoned.
Now he could think of the past again.