But the rest——they went down
In that terrible storm
That night in the old Gulf Stream.
But these pleasures would soon leave me, and I would grow very restless. My only resource was another piece of opium. Sometimes I awoke much excited, paced my cell rapidly and felt like tearing down the door. Sometimes a book would quiet me. The best soother I had was the most beautiful poem in the English language—Walt Whitman's Ode To Death. When I read this poem, I often imagined I was at the North Pole, and that strange shapes in the clouds beckoned me to come to them. I used to forget myself, and read aloud and was entirely oblivious to my surroundings, until I was brought to myself by the night guard shouting, "What in —— is the matter with you?"
After getting excited in this way I usually needed another dose of hop. I have noticed that the difference between opium and alcohol is that the latter is a disintegrator and tears apart, while the opium is a subtle underminer. Opium, for a long time anyway, stimulates the intelligence; while the reverse is true of alcohol. It was under the influence of opium that I began to read philosophy. I read Hume and Locke, and partly understood them, I think, though I did not know that Locke is pronounced in only one syllable till many years after I had read and re-read parts of The Human Understanding. It was not only the opium, but my experience on the outside, that made me eager for philosophy and the deeper poetry; for a grafters wits, if they don't get away from him altogether, become keen through his business, since he lives by them. It was philosophy, and the spectacle of men going suddenly and violently insane all about me, that led me first to think of self-control, though I did not muster enough to throw off the opium habit till many years afterwards. I began to think of will-power about this time, and I knew it was an acquired virtue, like truth and honesty. I think, from a moral standpoint, that I lived as good a life in prison as anybody on the outside, for at least I tried to overcome myself. It was life or death, or, a thousand times worse, an insane asylum. Opium led me to books besides those on philosophy, which eventually helped to cure me. At this time I was reading Balzac, Shakespeare, Huxley, Tyndall and Lavater. One poem of Shakespeare's touched me more than any other poem I ever read—The Rape of Lucrece. It was reading such as this that gave me a broader view, and I began to think that this was a terrible life I was leading. But, as the reader will see, I did not know what hell was until several years later.
I had been in stir about four years on my first bit when I began to appreciate how terrible a master I had come under. Of course, to a certain extent, the habit had been forced upon me. After a man has had for several years bad food, little air and exercise, no natural companionship, particularly with the other sex, from whom he is entirely cut off, he really needs a stimulant. Many men fall into the vilest of habits. I found, for my part, that only opium would calm me. It takes only a certain length of time for almost all convicts to become broken in health, addicted to one form or another of stimulant which in the long run pulls them down completely. Diseases of various kinds, insanity and death, are the result. But before the criminal is thus released, he grows desperate in the extreme; particularly if he resorts to opium, for that drug makes one reckless. The hop fiend never takes consequences into consideration. Under its influence I became very irritable and unruly, and would take no back talk from the keepers. They and the stool-pigeons began to be afraid of me. I would not let them pound me in any way, and I often got into a violent fight.
As long as I had my regular allowance of opium, which in the fourth year of my term was about twenty grains a day, I was peaceable enough. It was when I began to lessen the amount, with the desire to give it up, that I became so irritable and violent. The strain of reform, even in this early and unsuccessful attempt, was terrible. At times I used to go without the full amount for several days; but then I would relapse and go on a debauch until I was almost unconscious. After recovery, I would make another resolution, only to fall again.
But my life in stir was not all that of the solitary; there were means, even when I was in the shop, of communicating with my fellow convicts; generally by notes, as talking was forbidden. Notes, too, were contraband, but we found means of sending them through cons working in the hall. Sometimes good-natured or avaricious keepers would carry them; but as a rule a convict did not like to trust a note to a keeper. He was afraid that the screw would read it, whereas it was a point of honor with a convict to deliver the note unread. The contents of these notes were usually news about our girls or pals, which we had received through visitors—rare, indeed!—or letters. By the same means there was much betting done on the races, baseball games and prize fights. We could send money, too, or opium, in the same way, to a friend in need; and we never required an I. O. U.
We were allowed to receive visitors from the outside once every two months; also a box could be delivered to us at the same intervals of time. My friends, especially my mother and Ethel, sent me things regularly, and came to see me. They used to send me soap, tooth brushes and many other delicacies, for even a tooth brush is a delicacy in prison. Ethel stuck to me for three years and visited me regularly during that period. Then her visits ceased, and I heard that she had married. I couldn't blame her, but I felt bad about it all the same.
But my mother came as often as the two months rolled by; not only during this first term, but during all my bits in stir. Certainly she has stuck to me through thick and thin. She has been my only true friend. If she had fallen away from me, I couldn't have blamed her; she would only have gone with the rest of the world; but she didn't. She was good not only to me, but to my friends, and she had pity for everybody in stir. I remember how she used to talk about the rut worn in the stone pavement at Sing Sing, where the men paced up and down. "Talk about the Bridge of Sighs!" she used to say.