“I noticed that the young man was very handsome, even in his degrading prison dress. His frame was lithe and sinewy, his hands and feet small and delicately shaped.
“His face was smooth and beardless as a woman’s, his features regular, and singularly handsome, and the contour of his closely cropped head was noble and dignified; yet, with all these redeeming characteristics, there was the inevitable stamp of the born criminal over all.
“His physiognomy was one of those strange, rarely encountered specimens, where, through the mask of good nature, shines forth the glimmering of a depravity so natural to the possessor as to render even him totally unconscious of its existence. But I liked the intensity of feeling with which he grasped my hand.
“‘Take a chair,’ said he, pushing up the single chair, and seating himself on the side of the iron bedstead. ‘I hope you will pardon my vehemence, sir, when I say that yours is the only human face I have seen for, I judge, eight months.’
“‘Are you in earnest?’ I exclaimed in amazement—for, much as I condemned the system of solitary confinement, I was not aware that it was carried to this extent in America.
“‘Certainly, sir,’ replied the prisoner, Dick Malden. ‘You will perceive, by the peculiar construction of that door, that I cannot even see the face of my gaoler when he brings me food. Even in the chapel, on the Sabbath, our seats are so arranged that we can neither see each other nor the face of the chaplain who preaches to us. We used to have some relief by being able to speak to each other through the water-pipes of the necessary here,’ said he, pointing to the apparatus, just below the small grating; ‘but they found it out, and now even that avenue of communication is obstructed. They have got us solitary enough now!’
“As the young man said this, a wan smile crossed his lips.
“‘What is the term of your sentence?’
“‘A lifetime.’
“‘And your crime?’