Another patient was sent up by the doctor. He seemed so sick and weak it appeared a wonder that he could still walk. He was a poor Jew, suffering from stomach trouble. Emaciated, yellow, with an expression of intense suffering on his face, which was deeply furrowed by wrinkles, with a beard a week old, and his long, pointed nose, he looked like a sick vulture.
When he begged for special food, the orderly sarcastically offered him the choice between filet mignon with potatoes, or cutlets with French peas. The doctor, however, realized that unless he was put on a special diet, the man would die on his hands.
He had been sentenced to two months in the penitentiary for stealing two packages of cigarettes, and the judge did not realize that it was his death sentence. The tenacity of the man in clinging to life was amazing; it exemplified anew the remarkable vitality of his race.
He was always disobeying the doctor's orders. He tried to get up from his bed one afternoon, but he fell, and the bed pan, with all its contents, emptied over him and all over the floor. I ran to assist him, but—I was never well in prison—the stench was so overpowering that I became sick and hesitated for a moment, and had to turn away. Two convicts who had joined me saw my sickly face and smilingly said: "Never mind, boss; you go to the window to get some fresh air. We'll clean up the mess for you."
Everybody wondered how the poor man had managed to keep a flicker of life in a body which was mere bone and skin.
One night in my sleep I imagined that I had heard him call. As I sat up in my cot I heard his rattling, hoarse whisper calling the night orderly: "Oh, Mr——, please give me some water! A glass of water! I am dying!"
The orderly, who had been sleeping with his feet on the desk, woke up, looked towards the patient, changed the position of his feet, and shouted: "Ah, shut up, you kike!"
I got up and brought him a glass of water. He thanked me, and whispered: "I am dying! I don't want to die in jail!"