I SUPPOSE there are few civilian prisons in the Near East more humanely conducted and governed than the cosmopolitan Citadel of Salonika. Yet the Citadel is most inhuman. Men rot there: their brains rot, and their bodies become flabby, sickly and inert.
If, as a casual and inquiring visitor, you enter through the archway, you will be told to go to the right and then make a sudden turn to the left into a kind of cage which leads you to a staircase; mounting the stairs, you reach a platform placed high in the true centre of a circle. The circle below you is divided into four roofless segments: in one segment are Greeks; in another, Bulgars; in the third, Turks; in the fourth, Armenians, Montenegrins, Spanish Jews, and men of many other nationalities. The prisoners are separated by high walls; for if they mingled with each other they would fight, and perhaps kill; but well-behaved victims of law, if they choose, may leave for a short time one segment for another.
The Citadel is inhuman because the men living there are not compelled to work. Any work is better than none. Even a treadmill is a boon compared with everlasting indolence. I have been there many times and, fascinated, have watched young men sitting with their backs to the walls, staring with unfocussed eyes at—nothing. Always staring at nothing and, no doubt, thinking of nothing, and hoping nothing and regretting nothing.
Euripitos Cavalcini—half Greek, half Italian—had not yet recovered from the shock of his arrest, trial and sentence. Three months ago he was one of the proudest men in Salonika—nay, one of the most overbearing, one of the most insolent. He owned much land, two breweries, and four streets of houses in the slums; he kept a flaunting large-bosomed courtesan; he was a patron of the arts, and the walls of two of his large rooms sported many of Rops’ indecencies. He commanded respect, admiration. As soon as he entered a bank, lo! the manager was by his side. And before he had time to sit down at a restaurant table, the head waiter was reporting to him the latest additions to his wine-cellar.
But successful and magnificent though Euripitos Cavalcini was, he had his limitations. Life intoxicated him, and his grandiose vanity was an incessant drug. In Salonika there were cleverer men than he, and when he floated the India Bazaar Company with a capital of half-a-million, he felt strong enough to own half the world as enemies. But he was found out. The colossal swindle ruined many families, and even before he was pronounced guilty great crowds of men and women would gather round the court to cast insult upon him as he was taken in and escorted out.
The sentence of two years’ imprisonment broke him. His magnificence fell from him in a single hour, and the insolent, hot spirit of him became abased and cringing.
That is why, when in the Citadel, he was so humble. The lord of life had become life’s slave. He was afraid of the meanest and most wretched of his fellow-prisoners. Life had turned upon him once and brought him to the dust, and some dark fear warned him that even yet life had not had its full revenge.
So he humbled himself and served others. The courtesan whom he had loved used, twice a week, to bring him food—cooked meats, fruit and sometimes a bottle of wine. These he would press into the hands of others—especially those who eyed him with contempt or who were harsh to him. Particularly did he cultivate the friendship of the big and strong, partly because he feared them, and partly because he hoped that in time of need—physical need—they would come to his defence.