"I dare say they do, poor unfortunate creatures! It must be horrid to hear them."
"But there is something more terrible than that, the getting gradually used to the disgusting conversations which, in spite of yourself, you are compelled to hear all day long. Yes, I am sorry to say, I now hear with gloomy indifference horrible remarks and speeches that would have excited my utmost indignation when I first came here. So, you see," continued Germain, bitterly, "I begin to be more afraid of myself than I am of them."
"Oh, M. Germain!"
"I am sure of it," pursued the unfortunate young man. "After a residence within a prison in company with such as are always to be found assembled there, the mind becomes accustomed to guilty thoughts, in the same manner as the ear gets inured to the coarse and vulgar expressions continually in use. Oh, God, I can well believe how possible it is to enter these walls innocent of the crimes ascribed to one, and to leave them with principles utterly and irretrievably perverted!"
"But you never could be so changed! Oh, no, not you!"
"Ay, me, and others twenty times better than myself! Alas, alas! those who condemn men to this fearful association little think that they expose their fellow creatures to breathe an air laden with the direst moral contagion, and inevitably fatal to every right or honourable feeling!"
"Pray do not go on so! You know not how you grieve me!"
"Nay, I but wished to explain to you why I am daily more and more melancholy. I wished not to have said so much, but I have only one way of repaying the pity you have evinced for me."
"Pity? Pity? Indeed—"
"Pardon me for interrupting you, but the only way by which I can acquit myself towards you is to speak with perfect candour; and, with shuddering alarm, I confess that I am no longer the same person I was. In vain do I fly these unfortunate wretches, their very presence, their contact seems to take effect on me; in spite of myself, I seem to feel a fatal influence in breathing the same atmosphere, as though the moral pestilence entered at every pore, and rested not till it had mingled with the heart's blood. Should I even be acquitted on my trial, the very sight of, and association with, good and virtuous men would cover me with shame and confusion; for, though I have not yet been able to find pleasure in the society of my companions, I have, at least, learned to dread the day when I shall again mix with persons of respectability, because now I am conscious of my weakness and cowardice; for is not he guilty of both who dares to make a compromise with his duties or his honesty? And have not I done so? When I first came here I did not deceive myself as to the extent of my fault, however excusable the circumstances under which it was committed might have seemed to make it; but now it appears to me an offence of a trifling description when compared with the crimes of which the robbers and murderers by whom I am surrounded make daily boast. And I sometimes surprise myself envying their audacious indifference, and blaming myself with my own weak regrets for so insignificant an action."