The Imprisonment of the Magistrate

The Magistrate as a Prisoner

            The narrator of Waiting for the Barbarians, the town magistrate, is a prisoner himself of several things. While he does not have physically have his hands bound as the older man and the boy in the first chapter, his hands are figuratively tied to listen to orders given by Colonel Joll because he is sent by the government of the Empire in the capital. The magistrate tells the reader multiple times that he does not agree with almost anything Colonel Joll does. He advises the Colonel against riding into the frontier looking for barbarians, and especially against taking the young, injured boy who has not had time to properly heal from his beatings and imprisonment by Colonel Joll himself. The magistrate, although the Colonel can tell that he does not agree, is forced to send most of the soldiers that are in the town with the Colonel, even remarking that their “first duty is to bring our visitor back safely” (43). When some soldiers come back with the fishermen, again the magistrate adamantly and vehemently disagrees with what the Colonel has just done, but is forced to keep them locked up until Colonel Joll comes back and is able to interrogate them.

            The magistrate is also a prisoner to the barbarian girl that is left behind, and even he himself cannot understand why he almost forces her to stay in his house, gives her a job, and food. After she tries and fails to seduce him, he sets up a cot in another room so they do not sleep together, but she remains in the bed in his room, even though she has a room off of the kitchen where she works with two other girls. His attraction to her is not sexual in any way, and it is not a question of whether he can physically perform or not since he is able to with the girl at the inn. They are not passionate together or have interesting, heated conversation, but for some reason he would rather have her in his room than on the street or in her own room. He hides behind legalities for originally keeping her in his room but he knows that he does not bring her home because vagrancy is illegal.