A Modern Purgatory

by Carlo de Fornaro

I

I am locked in the old prison for the night—my first night in the penitentiary.

A bed made of an iron frame with coarse canvas stretched across it, two cheap cotton blankets, a straw pillow, a large covered pail and a drinking cup, complete the total of my furniture. It is the simple life with a vengeance. The bed takes up the whole length of the cell; there is no room for walking except sideways from the bucket to the cell door. Sitting in a lateral position on the couch, with my back touching the wall, I can place my legs on the opposite wall only in a bended posture.

A tier man comes to the cell shouting "Water." While pouring it into my cup from a large can I peer at his face through the bars. His pale features, beaked nose, cruel mouth and yellow eyes make him seem like some tropical carrion-eating bird. I am so fascinated by his depraved and satanic look that I allow water from the cup to drop onto the floor.

He utters curses, "not loud, but deep," and returns to mop the floor.

I try to interest myself in an old magazine, but my mind seems unable to concentrate in a continued effort; I read, but my imagination wanders away in an interminable circle without beginning or end.

The cold is intense; the blankets, thin and gray, afford no protection. My whole body is shivering and shaking uncontrollably as if in high fever, my teeth rattle like castanets accompanying a Spanish fandango. I light a cigar and watch the smoke curl slowly, lazily across the cell until it appears like a veil between the ceiling and the floor and finally settles over my couch like a pale, transparent shroud.

Evidently there is no ventilation, but I continue to puff away, hoping to fumigate and kill the fetid odor in the cell.

Everything is still except for the occasional moaning of a sick man. Finally the electric light at the foot of the bed is extinguished, and I am left in the dark.

I turn into bed with all my clothes, including cap and shoes, trusting in this manner to warm myself and in the hope of forgetting my troubles in blissful sleep.

But there seems to be no rest for me.

As soon as a little heat radiates from my body, scores of bedbugs are attracted and start a vicious, incessant campaign. When I am deceived into sleep by a lessening of their attacks, I am awakened by the cold air under the canvas, which freezes my back and forces me to shift my position.

Horrible nightmares shake me with a start as soon as I am lulled into slumber. My throat is parched as if sand had been my last meal, and I pick up the tin cup to get a drink; to my intense despair the rusty, filthy cup has a leak, and all the water has trickled to the floor.

I dream that the cell, with its massive walls reeking with stench and humidity, is growing smaller, closing upon me like an accordeon, until the cell door is as small as a keyhole from which I get the last gasp of air; then instead of air, an endless cool, refreshing flow of water runs down my throat. But, unluckily, my intense thirst awakens me and I start toward the cell door calling for water in a faint, hoarse whisper.

A keeper silences me with a gruff, impatient voice: "Where in hell do you think I can get it?"

And I can hear the water dripping lustily from a faucet into a full barrel on the ground floor!

I try philosophically to force my thoughts into past and pleasant memories, but the present distress is so tyrannical and overpowering that all the physical, moral and intellectual suffering of the world seems to be centered within the few square feet of this dungeon. My via crucis has begun. I reflect with terror that my mind may not withstand the strain of uninterrupted agony, and suicide appears as an easy solution.

The absurdity of the impulse is evident, for my death in this filthy cell, like a rat in a hole, would delight those responsible for my presence here; and furthermore it would shock and sadden those dearest to me.

What is all my fortitude and philosophy worth if it cannot steady and concentrate my will at the most crucial, heart racking and desperate moment of my life?

Why should my trained mind crumble like a match box and be destroyed under physical torture, mental distress and moral humiliation?

Is not suffering the greatest of all tests, necessary, purifying and regenerating? Why not wait patiently and courageously for the day of reckoning, worthy of the gods on Olympus?

I count my heart-beats to get an idea of the passing of time. The minutes seem to have frozen on the fountain of time; they drip laboriously as if each and every one of them represented eons of memories and experiences; as if each was attempting to demonstrate that in the accounting of eternity they were as significant as centuries. In a supreme physical effort of my will I grip the bars and grit my teeth to stop the impending and foolish disintegration of my mind. The waves of despair, the racking pain, the insane delirium are slowly beaten back into submission, like a defeated army. The imagination is disciplined, the will has thrown the switch and illuminated the real inward self, as I stand watching, through the steel bars, the windows on the opposite wall. I feel calm, serene and strong.

Of a sudden, as if to illustrate my state of mind, out of the gray, blue mist, a large, luminous, rose disk slowly arises beyond the opening.

The sun, the glorious sun! Silently it looms up, magnificent through the haze, like a mirage announcing the advent of better things and more hopeful days.

The same sun I had seen arise in India, Egypt, Italy, Mexico, in many frames of classical and tropical beauty; but never has it seemed to me so divine, so perfect, so precious as on that awful morning.