On the whole, thanks to my agreeable companions, the time has passed so quickly that I am rather surprised when I hear the farther door unlocked and opened and steps coming along the passage. This must be Grant arriving to set me free. Now I must settle in my mind a question which has been troubling me for the last hour or so. Shall I go back to my cell or shall I spend the night down here?
On the one hand, is my rising anger and horror of the place, the evil influence of which I begin to feel both in body and in mind; on the other hand is the sense that I am nearer the heart of this Prison Problem than I have yet been; nearer, I believe, than any outsider has ever come. I am in the midst of an experience I can never have again, and it is what I came to prison to get. Moreover, if I go now, will there not arise a feeling among the men that at the last moment I failed to make good, that my courage gave out just at the end?
The steps reach the inner door. Which shall it be?
The key grates in the lock, I hear the inner door swing open, the electric light is turned on. Amid complete silence from the other cells my door is unlocked; and there appears before my astonished eyes no less a person than the P. K. himself, attended by another officer.
In an instant my mind is made up about one thing—I will not go with the P. K. anywhere. At the sight of his uniform a fierce anger suddenly blazes up within me and then I turn cold. All my gorge rises. Not at the man, for I certainly have no personal grievance against Captain Patterson, but at the official representative of this hideous, imbecile, soul-destroying System. I am seized by a mild fit of that lunatic obstinacy which I have once or twice seen glaring out of the eyes of men interviewed by the Warden down here; the obstinacy that has often in the course of history caused men to die of hunger and thirst in their cages of stone or iron, rather than gain freedom by submission to injustice or tyranny.
It is all very well to talk of breaking a man’s spirit. It can be done; it has been done many times, I fear, in this and similar places of torture. But after you have thoroughly mastered his manhood by brutality—after you have violated the inner sanctuary of the divine spirit which abides in every man, however degraded—what then? What has become of the man? The poor, crushed and broken wrecks of humanity, shattered by stupid and brutal methods of punishment, which lie stranded in this and other prisons, give the answer.
I fear that in consequence of my somewhat disordered feelings I am lacking in proper respect for lawful authority. Instead of rising to greet the P. K. I remain seated on the floor in my old soiled and ragged garments, looking up at him without making a motion to shift my position. He is evidently surprised at my attitude, or my lack of attitude. Bending forward into my cell he whispers, “It’s seven o’clock.”
“Yes; thank you, sir.” I am glad to find that I can still utter polite words, although I am seething within and remain doggedly obstinate in my seat on the floor. “But I think I will wait until Mr. Grant comes.”
The P. K. seems surprised. With considerable difficulty he bends farther forward and whispers still more forcibly, “But it’s seven o’clock, and you were to be let out at seven—it was all arranged.”
“Yes, P. K.,” I say, “and it’s very kind of you to take all this trouble, but I don’t quite know yet whether I want to go out. You see there are a lot of other fellows here, and——” I come to a stop, for I despair of being able to make the P. K. understand. And when one comes to think of it, I don’t know of any reason why he should be expected to understand. I suppose it’s the first time in his experience that a man in his senses has ever deliberately refused to be released from this accursed hole.