“You,” said the Direttore bruskly, turning around, but not rising, “are condemned to three years of simple detention for forgery; and you may write only once a month.”
His voice was rather weary, but the tone was pure Tuscan.
“I know it,” replied Cassio, “but I have not asked to be allowed to write to my own home, but on my own account, in my own cell.”
“It is not possible. Why do you not ask to be placed in the office of the clerks?”
“Is there chance of being allowed to do so?”
“Yes, there is every chance.”
That very day Cassio proffered his request, and on the next was placed in the office, where a great quantity of work was badly executed by three other prisoners. The room, which was next to that of the Direttore, was even more desolate and gloomy, and the three clerks, the first, fat and bald, with small, bleared eyes; the second, fair, pale, and with a transparent look, and the third a tall muscular young man, with black curly hair, and the face of a Roman emperor, made a bad impression on the new arrival.
They appeared resigned to, and even contented with, their melancholy fate. Cassio, on the other hand, experienced a profound disgust, which was but accentuated by the stupid resignation of his companions in misfortune—a very anguish of impotent desperation, and regretted his request. Better to have remained alone in his cell, with his hands clasping the bars of the little window, and before him the distant Apennines, that brought to him memories of his own native mountains, resounding with the neighing of his black charger, dashing in pursuit of the straying sheep—alone with his sentence and his sorrow!
He of the curly head, bolder than the other two, who contented themselves with casting stealthy glances at him, sought promptly, though respectfully, to make his acquaintance. (They knew that he had the same name as the Direttore, and so it was told among the other prisoners.)
“Are you a Sardinian?”