THE FROUSY BESOTTED WRETCHES
who were my companions in misery. But nobody with whom I came into contact gave forth any sign that my appearance was not in consonance with my position. The policemen pulled me here and there with as great disrespect as if I were the veriest bummer. I at length recognized that I was not only a bummer but that I looked like one. When I was asked to stand up I did so, and while I was engaged in wondering what the great gaping crowd of loafers in the court thought about me, a man had testified that I had broken a window, and the magistrate imposed a fine of $1 and costs or twenty days’ imprisonment. I could not quite understand this sentence. I knew I hadn’t a cent in my pockets, but I could not believe that for lack of $4 I would suffer the indignity of imprisonment. Oh, it could not be. It was a wild, improbable dream. But the drama moved on with relentless step, and presently I and a lot of other miserable creatures were driven into the jail van like a lot of dumb brutes. There is no use in dwelling on my feelings. One hopeful feature of my case was that I did not blame anybody but myself. As I thought what and where I might be and what and where I was I kept repeating to myself, “Yes, I am insane.” I said that a score of times, and thought I could offer good evidence in support of the assertion.
The van swept in at the jail gate and landed her vagrant load on the stone steps of the imposing institution. Our names, occupations, religious belief, etc., were entered in a book. Dinner was over before we got there and the new arrivals had to wait till supper-time for food. This was no deprivation to me, as I could not have eaten a Delmonico dinner, let alone the bill of fare prepared by a prison cook. We were searched and sent to our corridors. In the one to which I was assigned there were about a dozen fellows, mostly young, who treated me with more
CORDIALITY AND FAMILIARITY
than was agreeable to me. A turnkey came in, however, soon after and took them all out with the exception of myself and three or four others. I was then left to commune with my thoughts. I had not been in the prison half an hour before I was not only willing but anxious that my friends should know of my whereabouts. I shall go mad if I am left here over night, I thought. Then I reflected that someone who knew me would see my name in the papers and that I would soon be rescued from my horrible position. I felt that if I stayed there twenty-four hours I would lose my self-respect beyond recovery.
One by one the hours of the afternoon wore away. The suspense in which I was held during that time was unbearable. Every step on the stair made me hold my breath and almost stilled the beating of my heart. If any one looked in at the grated corridor door their features assumed the shape of some one of my friends. At length those who had been working outside came in and soon after we were marshalled out and proceeded in Indian file to supper. I fairly loathed the thought of food, and the chunk of bread and pannikin of pasty porridge which were the only articles of the menu, unless you include water and salt, were not calculated to tickle one’s fancy. There were no tables, the benches on which we sat having to be utilized for both table and chair. Interpreting my look of disgust, my right and left hand companions shared between them my supper, much to the disgust of the fellow behind me, who said he had asked me first.
Immediately after supper we were locked up in our cells for the night. That was my night of nights. Up till midnight I did nothing but
LISTEN WITH STRAINING EAR
to every sound of the great building. Through the high dome, off which the corridors run, even a foot-fall echoes with funereal hollowness. In the early part of the night the door-bell rang very frequently, and at every peal my heart rose in my throat. “That must be them,” I kept repeating, but as each time I was doomed to disappointment I began to give way to despair. About midnight I lapsed into a peculiar condition of mind. I was quite awake, but half of the time I thought there was someone in the cell who, although he said no word, yet I knew to be sneering at my mental promises of reform. I had not expressed to him any promise of reform, but I thought he could read what was in my mind, and he thought me a coward. My anger at this would occasionally rouse me out of this hallucination, but again and again I lapsed into it. How I hated this accusing, sneering being whom my distempered fancy had conjured up. Murder was in my heart towards him. I have thought over my experiences of that night until I can go through the whole series of my thoughts as readily as I could through the scenes of some familiar drama.
About an hour after daybreak a bell was rung, which was a signal for us to get up and dress and tidy up our cells. A procession of male chambermaids carrying slop-buckets was then started for the yard. This duty being done, we were marched in to breakfast. I was not hungry, but I was weak and trembling in every limb. I knew that this was the effect of want of food, and I determined to eat something whether I felt like it or not. When I found, however, that