The arrival of the Teufel is a great event. What joy to catch sight of the paper snugly reposing between the legs of the cell table! Tenderly I pick it up, fondling the little visitor with quickened pulse. It is an animate, living thing, a ray of warmth in the dreary evenings. What cheering message does Reitzel bring me now? What beauties of his rich mind are hidden to-day in the quaint German type? Reverently I unfold the roll. The uncut sheet opens on the fourth page, and the stirring paean of Hope's prophecy greets my eye,—
Gruss an Alexander Berkman!
For days the music of the Dawn rings in my ears. Again and again recurs the refrain of faith and proud courage,
Schon rüstet sich der freiheit Schaar
Zur heiligen Entscheidungschlacht;
Es enden "zweiundzwanzig" Jahr'
Vielleicht in e i n e r Sturmesnacht!
But in the evening, when I return to the cell, reality lays its heavy hand upon my heart. The flickering of the candle accentuates the gloom, and I sit brooding over the interminable succession of miserable days and evenings and nights.... The darkness gathers around the candle, as I motionlessly watch its desperate struggle to be. Its dying agony, ineffectual and vain, presages my own doom, approaching, inevitable. Weaker and fainter grows the light, feebler, feebler—a last spasm, and all is utter blackness.
Three bells. "Lights out!"
Alas, mine did not last its permitted hour....
The sun streaming into the many-windowed shop routs the night, and dispels the haze of the fire-spitting city. Perhaps my little candle with its bold defiance has shortened the reign of darkness,—who knows? Perhaps the brave, uneven struggle coaxed the sun out of his slumbers, and hastened the coming of Day. The fancy lures me with its warming embrace, when suddenly the assistant startles me:
"Say, pard, slept bad last night? You look boozy, me lad."