A Modern Purgatory

by Carlo de Fornaro

The warden is very punctilious and severe towards infractions of the rules relating to visits and visitors. His strict regard for the rules, however, did not deter him from allowing two detectives, sent by agents of the Mexican government, to visit me without my permission; he even placed another detective on the line next to another visitor so that he could overhear our conversation.

I had written to a friend that, as it was not only unwise, but impossible in my situation to put on paper certain matters of importance and of grave concern to me, I would wait for the day of his visit to communicate it orally.

On that day a red-headed detective was placed next in line to my visitor, ostensibly to talk to a convict; but the prisoner told me afterwards that he did not know the alleged visitor and that he had never seen him before.

I had to whisper my message in French so as to prevent the spy from overhearing and understanding it.

This proved to me that my letters were copied by somebody in the Warden's office, and communicated to the American lawyers representing the Mexican government; and also that somebody was powerful enough politically to give orders in the Commissioner's office, which in its turn placed the detective at my visitor's side.

But when two newspaper men asked permission to see me I was informed that I would not be permitted to stay in the hospital if I allowed reporters to visit me.

One day I heard the warden upbraid a girl who had come for the first time to see her brother. Not being used to such ill-mannered treatment she began to weep, and that of course only made matters worse.

Half an hour later the Commissioner of Prisons arrived on a visit of inspection. In the hospital he called the warden to task for something—but the warden was as mute as an oyster. Together they went into the consumptive ward, where the warden began extolling the quality and quantity of the fresh air circulating in the room. The commissioner turned round and snapped impatiently: "And that's about all they ever get!" But the warden never said a word. This man, this mighty czar of the penitentiary, who is so brutal and so insolent to the convicts, so arrogant to the keepers, and so uncouth to the visitors, in the presence of the man who could take his good job away from him, was as meek as a lamb.