Being now in my rightful place, I could sleep again.
But after some weeks of this, fresh fears arose. An accident was possible. For all Bela's precautions, some one might gain access to this room. This would mean the discovery of my secret. Some new method must be devised for securing me absolutely against intrusion. Entrance into my simple, almost unguarded cottage must be made impossible. A close fence should replace the pickets now surrounding it—a fence with a gate having its own lock.
And this fence was built.
This should have been enough. But guilt has terrors unknown to innocence. One day I caught a small boy peering through an infinitesimal crack in the fence, and, remembering the window grilled with iron with which Bela had replaced the cheerful casement in my den of punishment, I realised how easily an opening might be made between the boards for the convenience of a curious eye anxious to penetrate the mystery of my seclusion.
And so it came about that the inner fence was put up.
This settled my position in the town. No more visits. All social life was over.
It was meet. I was satisfied at last. I could now give my whole mind to my one remaining duty. I lived only while on the Bench.
March Fifth, 1898.
There is a dream which comes to me often: a vision which I often see.
It is that of two broken and irregular walls standing apart against a background of roseate sky. Between these walls the figures of a woman and child, turning about to go.