Ah, how infamous is a prison! It contains a venom which assails all within its pestilential reach. Everything withers there, even the song of a girl of fifteen!
If you find a bird within its courts, it has mud on its wing. If you gather a beauteous flower there, it exhales poison!
SEVENTEENTH PAPER.
WHILST I was writing, my lamp faded, daylight appeared, and the clock of the chapel struck six.
What can be the meaning of what has since happened? The turnkey on duty came into my cell; he took off his cap, bowed to me, apologized for disturbing me, and making an effort to soften his rough voice, inquired what I wished to have for my breakfast—
A shudder has come over me. Is it to take place to-day?
EIGHTEENTH PAPER.
I FEEL that it is for to-day!
The Governor of the prison himself came to visit me. He asked me how he could serve or accommodate me; he expressed a hope that I had no complaint to make respecting him or his subordinates; and he inquired with interest regarding my health, and how I had passed the night. On leaving me, he called me “Sir!”