But then came the thought that had often visited me in the past months, as I sat in the dingy courtroom, and listened perfunctorily to the legal wrangle, the abuse and defense, the long-drawn testimony of witnesses, the comment of the precise and genial judge, and contemplated idly the jaded, uncomfortable jury, the covert whispering of Assistant District Attorneys and postoffice inspectors, the dangling maps and the piles of documents—when I had asked myself, "Is all this real, or are they transient symbols importing a concealed significance?" Then, to my imagination, the empty walls would seem to melt away, and I saw a great, benign face and figure above the bench of the judge, holding a trial of those who labored so busily—a trial not entered in the books, and alien from that which occupied us; and recording judgments, unheard here, but eternal.
Was that the reality? Then let come what might on this plane of foolish contention, where we strive to cover the Immutable with the petty mask of our mutabilities. We sweat and toil for ends which we know not, and our paltry and blind decisions, our triumphs and failures, determine nothing but the degree of our own ignorance and impotence. The Lord's aims and issues are not ours, and ours do but measure our spiritual stature, and direct our immortal destiny, in His sight.
Yes, but this palpable world has its place and function nevertheless, to be accepted and used while time lasts. If those who tried me were on trial, I had no personal concern in the matter. My business, now, was to keep pace with my companion, who obligingly allowed his arm to swing with mine, so that passers-by, even if they could afford to divert their attention from their own footing on the muddy pavements, and from the management of their umbrellas, would not have noticed the bond uniting him and me. For this courtesy—the only possible one in the circumstances—I took occasion to express my recognition, to which he responded with easy friendliness. "We don't never make no trouble for them as don't go to hunt none," was his remark.
We were now in Centre Street, and the Tombs was close at hand; and I drew into my lungs full draughts of the open air, murky though it was, reflecting that my opportunities of doing so in future would be limited.
Here were the steps supporting the tall steel gate, through which, in former days, I had seen many a poor devil pass; it was now others' turn to commiserate, or to jeer, the poor devil that was myself. There was no delay—we seemed to be awaited; and in the next minute I had felt what it is to be locked into a prison. I was behind bars, and could not get out at my own will—nor at any one else's, for that matter; only at the impersonal fiat of the machine.
My marshal chatted and laughed a moment with the keeper, then gave me his buxom paw in farewell. I was led through stone passages, past rows of barred cells from which peered visages of fellow prisoners, incurious and preoccupied, or truculent and reckless—men under indictment and without bail, convicts making appeal, and culprits jailed for minor offenses. Such men were to be my comrades for the future. Some were out in the corridors, pacing up and down or chatting with friends; for the laws of the Tombs are unsearchable.
It is a unique place, a Devil's Antechamber, where almost anything except what is decent and orderly may happen. It is not so much a prison or penitentiary as a human pound, where every variety of waif and stray turns up and sojourns for a while; murderers, pickpockets, political scapegoats, confidence men, old professionals, first-time offenders, even suspects afterwards to be proved innocent. There is nothing that I know of to prevent thorough-going convicts from getting in here permanently; the Tombs is of catholic hospitality. But they do not properly belong here; it is but their halfway house—the antechamber.
And discrimination must be observed in classifying the inmates; no one here likes to be regarded as beyond hope of bettering or escaping from his restricted condition. He wears his own clothes, for one thing—and no small thing; he is not known by a number; it is not, I believe, en regle to club him into insensibility at will and with impunity, or to starve him to death, or so much as to hang him up by the wrists in a dark cell. The guards or keepers do not go about visibly armed with revolvers or rifles; talking and smoking are not prohibited; the grotesque assemblage is let out into the corridors occasionally, where they shamble up and down and exchange observations and confidences; and they have an hour outdoors in the stone paved, high-walled yard.
Moreover, extraordinary liberties can be obtained, if you know how to go about it, and possess the means of bandaging inconvenient eyes. Not only are we permitted to stampede our quotas of bedbugs, but leave may be had to decorate our cells with souvenirs of art and domesticity, to soften our sitting-down appliances with cushions, to drape the curtain of modesty before the grating of restriction, to carpet our stone flooring, to supply our leisure hours with literary nourishment, to secrete stealthy cakes and apples for bodily solace, to enjoy surreptitious and not over-hazardous corridor outings when others are locked up, to write and receive any sort of letters at any times, without having them first read and stamped by licensed letter-ghouls.
More, there was at least one man among my companions there who contrived, by devices which I never sought to fathom, to pass the immitigable outer gates themselves every day, attend to his business in the outer world for as many hours as might serve, returning quietly in time for last roll-call. He took a keeper with him, of course, but only in order to assuage possible anxiety on the part of those responsible for his security; and one cannot help suspecting that as soon as the two found themselves under the free sky, the keeper betook himself to some friendly saloon, moving-picture palace, or other inviting retreat, and only saw the other again when they met by appointment in their trysting place.