No tongue or pen can tell the other three.
But they, God bless them, knew it in their souls,
And so do I—for, would you think it,
I’m that happy man. Is there another
Half so blessed—“Once in a Hundred Years?”
CHAPTER XVIII
Impressions—The Last Night and the Next Morning—The Last Night
There are unwritten laws and canons for all important occurrences in the Death-Chamber. I do not mean the prison rules; but the way “we” have of doing things. For instance, the new arrival, after he has passed through all formalities at the officials’ hands, and they are many, is initiated by “us” on the first night passed in our society.
This is an ancient and honorable custom, and like all initiations, a secret. These fixed ceremonies occur all through his long and brutal life in the Death-Chamber.[[1]] Long, for even a short stay in it makes him old; brutal, because his punishment is—death. Is that not enough? And to add thereto years of solitary confinement is to kill him not once, but over and over again. The system is all wrong. Oh, the years in the Death-Chamber! The loneliness, the quiet. Hell must be a quiet place.