VI
After breakfast I was watching from my cell some sparrows that had nested inside the prison walls, high up on top of the large windows facing the tiers. I dropped some bread crumbs on the floor of the gallery, and some on my cell floor, to induce the little birds to come in.
At first they were afraid to trust themselves inside the bars of my cell; but they kept fluttering about nervously outside, keeping up an incessant twitter and chatter that sounded quite musical to my ears.
Finally they grew bolder, and recklessly they flew into my cell, first peeping at me, with bended heads as if they would ask: "Are we really safe here from capture or treachery of any kind?" And hastily picking up the crumbs, they flew out to inform their companions of the god-send of fat bread crumbs in a large, barred room, instead of the poor hunting in the prison courtyard.
Then they came back fearlessly, and thanked me with quick little nods of their pretty heads, and sidelong trusting looks from their black beads of eyes; with low, graceful courtesies and a cheerful piping song.
And then one morning a keeper who had been attracted by the noise, shooed the birds away and swore in a gruff voice, warning me that it was against the rules to throw crumbs on the floor, as well as to keep bread in my pockets or in my cell.
Once a week the prisoners are privileged to wait in line to see the warden, to protest against any injustice, to recount a grievance, or to ask a favor.
Like a dozen or more I stood waiting for the quick-lunch justice of the Czar of the penitentiary. After a while he appeared, accompanied by a tall young secretary who jotted down our names and the details of the business on hand. Walking slowly, with bent shoulders, hands behind his back, the warden seemed to be about seventy-five years old. His face was furrowed with irregular, meaningless wrinkles, and he had small shifty eyes, with white hair and a white beard. He had a habit of staring at the convict who was speaking to him, and suddenly bending one ear toward the speaker as if he were partially deaf.
The warden's answers came quickly, in the jerky, high pitched voice of the Sistine Chapel cantors, and often breaking under the strain of anger. A convict suffering from locomotor ataxia, leaning on a walking stick, hanging on to a companion, begged for permission to get a pair of crutches ... his mother would get them for him.
"What for?" queried the warden, innocently.
"Because I can't walk with this stick," answered the convict.
"Then why don't you get a cab!" said the warden. And he snickered and then coarsely guffawed.
Again he furiously upbraided another petitioner.
"Where do you think you are? At the Waldorf-Astoria? Next thing they'll be asking me to get them flowers, candy and theatre tickets. I am here to see that you are punished. See?"
After having thus vented his spleen he uttered some alleged witticism at the expense of the helpless convict, and showed a great appreciation of his own humor, uncovering a row of yellow, brown, half-decayed teeth in a sneering grin most unpleasant to behold.
My turn came, and I asked for an extra blanket, as the cold was intense and the metal springs of the bed offered no protection against it. This it seemed was also against the rules. When I suggested that as he was the warden he could make and unmake the rules, he did not answer, but asked irrelevantly how I liked his hotel?
I answered that it was preferable to the castle of San Juan de Ulloa in Vera Cruz.
He looked puzzled, then he smiled as if he saw the point.
"We'll take care of you," he repeated twice, waving a thin, wrinkled, old hand.