The utter orderliness of this composition, "jointed as by a master carpenter," is perhaps its cruelest aspect. Amidst "senseless pain" and cruelty for its own sake, Beckmann presents a scene of overwhelming self-accusation where victims and aggressors are equally "cornered," with "no exit." The meticulous arrangement includes a woman in the right foreground wearing a blue corset, potentially mirroring the blue tongue of the strangled man in the upper left. A torturer's tie is yellow, corresponding to the yellow wax of the candles, demonstrating "well spaced and thoughtfully distributed" colors that establish a "perverted 'law and order'." A young woman is shown in an involuntary split, menaced by a candle, while another on the right is swept off her feet. A monkey-like sadist in the center executes torture with "scientific coolness." This oil-on-canvas work, created between 1918 and 1919, captures a moment in an attic in Germany at the end of World War I. While a phonograph blares to blot out cries of anguish, a pair of candles in the foreground, one fallen, one "bravely on," suggests a flickering light against the encompassing darkness.