“I AM A CAPTIVE!”
It was like the falling of a bolt from the sky. It came with a sound that stunned me, with a flash that lit in one instant the whole horizon of my mind.
“I am a captive! I am The Captive! Fool that I am,—pent here in these prison-walls of tyranny, and beating out my brains against them! Panting—praying—cursing—pining to be free! And I am The Captive!”
The thing struck terror into the last chambers of my soul. I stood stock still; I felt my flesh quiver, I felt my very hair move. I saw a pair of demon eyes glaring into mine—I saw all the wildness and the fearfulness of life in that one instant.
“I wrote a book, I tried to make it true—and, oh, my God, how have I succeeded!”
I do not know what I did, I was half-crazed, as in a nightmare. I fought and struggled; but I was in the grip of a truth, and though it set my brain on fire, I had to face it.
I was The Captive! I was The Captive! And I was crying out against circumstances—I was crying out against my fate—and all the time there it stood and faced me—the truth, the iron truth:
—I was to die!