The Chaplain is anxious to know how I am getting along, and cheers me by saying that all the men are greatly interested and pleased. “They understand what you are trying to do for them, and appreciate it,” he says. Then he tells of one prisoner he has just left in his cell on one of the upper tiers, whom he found reading Schopenhauer. “He said he did not know you, has nothing at all to ask of you, and will probably never see you to speak to; but your action in coming here has somehow made him feel that the pessimistic view he has had of the world must be wrong.”
After some further talk, the Chaplain says “Good night,” and goes away. I sincerely hope that he is right in his belief; that the men do care; that, besides gaining the information I came here for, my visit may be of some interest and comfort to these poor fellows. Murphy said to me to-day, “Say, you’ve got the boys all right.” If he and the Chaplain are correct, I may get from my experience much more than I expected.
I have already told how, not very long after the Chaplain leaves me and as I sit writing, the lovely sound of a violin floats into the cell. Then come the sounds of many other instruments, and the noise of the train at the railway station, over the wall and across the street. I have also described the ensuing pandemonium. After twenty minutes of these evidences of the human life existing all around, the noise ceases as suddenly as it began, and there comes a silence more profound than that which preceded the musical explosion. Only an occasional cough, the sound of a stealthy footfall, the jar of some iron door or the clank of distant bolt or bar. Yet I am conscious of one curious sound which I am unable to place or explain. It is like a very delicate clicking upon iron and is almost continuous. I wonder whether it is the tapping of prisoners’ messages from cell to cell, of which I have heard. It would be convenient to know the telegraphic code, so as to take part in any such conversation. I listen with interest to the clicking, but it seems not to change its direction and to have but little regularity. I wonder what it is.
The night officer has just stopped for a moment at the grating of my cell. I ask him the time. Seven-twenty. Good Lord! I thought it must be nearly nine. I am usually very good at guessing time, but in this place I am utterly unable to make any accurate calculation. Just for the experience, I’m going to stop writing and lock up my writing materials, to see how it feels to have nothing to do.
I take down my paper and pencil again to record a most thrilling discovery. I have found—a pocket in my prison coat! All day I have worried at the absence of one; now I find it—left, on the inside. Imagine the state of mind when such a thing really produces almost a feeling of nervous excitement.
I simply must keep on writing out of sheer desperation. I have tried to use up some minutes by rearranging my clothes, pulling up my socks, and tightening my belt; I have not yet investigated the workings of my bed, as I wish to leave that for a later excitement.
From the distance I catch the single stroke of the City Hall bell, which marks eight o’clock. Another hour yet before the lights go out; and then ten hours more before I can leave this cell!
How in the world do they bear it—the men who look forward to long years of imprisonment? My working partner, Murphy, has a life term. For what, I wonder? He seems like such a good fellow; and the Chaplain has just spoken of him most highly.
What a mystery it all is! And what a commentary on our civilization that we can do nothing better with such men than to throw away their lives and ruin them, body and soul. The old ones arouse one’s pity; but the young men—many of those in chapel yesterday were mere boys.
God! What a miserable, shameful waste of human life—of human energy! Must we not find some way in which the good there is in these broken lives can be repaired and made useful to society?