I have often read in the newspapers the supposed meal partaken of by the departing guest “furnished from the Warden’s table.” No newspaper reporter seems able to resist a description of the last breakfast, and no two papers ever publish the same one. Did the wretch gorge himself to the extent indicated, indigestion and not electricity would carry him off, and justice be cheated. No, he is not even stimulated to the extent of a cup of coffee, and for a good reason; a full stomach is not a good conductor. You will read that “the man was indifferent.” I tell you he was glad to go. “That he made no trouble.” Why should he? “Our horror,” how we are affected by our companion’s death, is portrayed. As a matter of fact, we envy him. Anything, everything is better than existence in the Death-Chamber.
During the night, if you have lain awake, and one has been known to be so foolish, you may have felt a very slight vibration, perhaps it is imagination; perhaps it is the dynamo. If you have slept, and do not hear the death-watch draw down the curtains in front of all the cells when the night outside turns gray, you will surely be awakened by the noise of many feet. It is the priests who have entered. Their ordinary shoes on the flagging of the corridor sound like thunder, thunder moving away. Now it subsides to the murmuring of Latin prayers. As you lie in your cell (the drawn curtains make it resemble a little box) wide-awake, you know that the last confession is being made, the last sacrament is being administered. This is another reason why no breakfast is given to the traveller. I saw it all one morning; the curtain was not quite down to the floor. I made myself as flat as possible. I saw the priest bless and kiss him; hold up the cross before his eyes; bid him have faith, and then back out of the cell. “He,” who is so soon to be “it,” followed. Then I heard the procession march rapidly into the next room. “Bang!” said the hungry little door as it closed.
What happens in there, and how it felt three minutes later, I cannot tell you; but I came very near finding out. Will you believe me that this day is a long one? You fellows outside can do much to divert the mind from disagreeable thoughts; we have breakfast, and sit down to wonder which one of us will be the next to go. Poor Benjamin, you have the advantage of us now; you have found “Nirvana” while we are worrying; you are reposing in your bed—of quicklime.
CHAPTER XIX
Impressions—Dawn in the Death-Chamber
I listened for the shrieking whistle of the milk train. It has come and gone, and the echoes have died away among the hills of Ossining, those beautiful hills, just—outside. The little family of sparrows who live in the skylight of the dead-house—I know each one by name—awake and angrily pipe their protest at the disturbance. Some of them fly down into the stale, tobacco-laden air and hop on the floor looking for crumbs.
I can hear Shorty, at the other end of the corridor, in the last cell of all, talking to himself, or to God. Others are mumbling while they doze. Larry shrieked twice during the night. And I? I received a visit yesterday and have lain awake thinking over the incident and of what the future means to me.
I am morbid!
I have made the story of the little dead mouse—it is all imaginary, but it is what I have resolved to do myself if----