The first year and the second year of his imprisonment passed: the days dawning, darkening, and melting away, as like to one another as beads upon a string, each one counted into the past at night as meaning one day less of imprisonment. But toward the end of the second year the hours began to drag interminably, and Anton's interest in his work flagged. He became restless, the marble dust irritated his lungs, and a cough, at first unnoticed, increased until it constantly annoyed him. Then his rest at night was broken by pain in his side, and at last the doctor ordered him to be removed from the marble-shop. It was a frail body at best, and the confinement, the unremitting work, the total lack of air and exercise had done their worst; and all resisting physical power was undermined.
No longer able to work, Anton was relegated to the "idle room." Under the wise rule of recent wardens the idle room has happily become a thing of the past, but for years it was a feature of the institution, owing partly to limited hospital accommodations. By the prisoners generally this idle room, called by them the "dreary room," was looked upon as the half-way station between the shops and the grave. Most cheerless and melancholy was this place where men too far gone in disease to work, men worn out in body and broken in spirit, waited together day after day until their maladies developed sufficiently for them to be considered fit subjects for hospital care. Usually no reading-matter was allowed, and free social intercourse was of course forbidden, although the inmates occasionally indulged in the luxury of comparing diseases. Under the strain of that deadening monotony courage failed, and to many a man indifferent to his own fate the sight of the hopelessness of others was heart-breaking. The influence of the idle room was not quite so depressing when Anton came within its circle, for a light industry had just been introduced there, and some of the inmates were employed.
And at this time Anton was beginning to live in a day-dream. His cell-mate, a young man serving a twenty years' sentence, was confidently expecting a pardon; pardons became the constant theme of talk between the two when the day was over, and Anton's faith in his own possible release kindled and glowed with the brightening prospects of his friend. Hope, that strange characteristic of tuberculosis, flamed the higher as disease progressed; with the hectic flush there came into his eyes a more brilliant light, and a stronger power to look beyond the prison to dear liberty and home. Even the shadow of the idle room could not dim the light of his imagination. No longer able to carve his fancies on stone, he wove them into beautiful patterns for life in freedom. The hope of a pardon is in the air in every prison. Anton wrote to his family and talked with his sister about it, and though he made no definite beginning every day his faith grew stronger.
It was at this time that I met Anton. I was visiting at the penitentiary, and during a conversation with a young English convict, a semi-protégé of Mary Anderson, the actress, this young man said to me: "I wish you knew my cell-mate." I replied that I already knew too many men in that prison. "But if you would only see little Anton I know you would be mashed in a minute," the Englishman confidently asserted. As to that probability I was sceptical, but I was impressed by the earnestness of the young man as he sketched the outline of Anton's story and urged me to see him. I remember that he made a point of this: "The boy is so happy thinking that he will get a pardon sometime, but he will die here if somebody doesn't help him soon." To gratify the Englishman I consented to see the happy boy who was in danger of dying.
An attractive or interesting face is rare among the inmates of our prisons. The striped convict suit, which our so-called Christian civilization so long inflicted upon fellow men, in itself gave an air of degradation,[9] and the repression of all animation tends to produce an expression of almost uniform dulness. Notwithstanding his cell-mate's enthusiasm I was thrilled with surprise, and something deeper than surprise, when I saw Anton Zabrinski. The beauty of that young Polish prisoner shone like a star above the degrading convict suit. It was the face of a Raphael, with the broad brow and the large, luminous, far-apart eyes of darkest blue, suggesting in their depths all the beautiful repressed possibilities—eyes radiant with hope and with childlike innocence and trust. My heart was instantly vibrant with sympathy, and we were friends with the first hand-clasp. The artistic temperament was as evident in the slender, highly developed hands as in his face.
At a glance I saw that his fate was sealed; but his spirit of hope was irresistible and carried me on in its own current for the hour. Anton was like a happy child, frankly and joyfully opening his heart to a friend whom he seemed always to have known. That bright hour was unclouded by any dark forebodings in regard to illness or an obdurate governor. We talked of pardon and freedom and home and happiness. I did not speak to him of repentance or preparation for death. I felt that when the summons came to that guileless spirit it could only be a summons to a fuller life.
During our interview the son of the new warden came in, and I called his attention to Anton. It was charming to see the cordial, friendly fashion in which this young man[10] talked to the prisoner, asking where he could be found and promising to do what he could for him, while Anton felt that at last he was touching the hand of Providence. The new authorities had not been there long enough to know many of the convicts individually, but at dinner that day the warden's son interested his father in Anton by recounting their conversation that morning. The warden's always ready sympathy was touched. "Take the boy out of that idle room," he said, "take him around the yard with you to see the dogs and horses." This may not have been discipline, but it was delightfully human—and humanizing.
When I left the prison I was assured that I could depend upon the warden's influence in furthering my purpose of realizing Anton's dream, his faith and hope of pardon. The following Sunday in Chicago I found the Zabrinski family, father, mother, and the young sister, in their third-story back rooms. On the wall hung a framed photograph of Anton as a little child. The mother did not speak very clear English, but she managed to repeat, over and over again: "Anton was so good; always he was such a good boy." The young sister, a tailoress, very trim in her dark-blue Sunday gown, discussed intelligently ways and means of obtaining her brother's release.
Our plans worked smoothly, and a few weeks later, when all Chicago was given over to the World's Fair, the desire of Anton's heart came true and he was restored to home and freedom. Or, as the newspapers would have put it: "Our anarchist governor let loose another murderer to prey upon society." Poor little murderer! In all that great city there was no child more helpless or harmless than he.
The image of little Anton Zabrinski, as of the prison itself, grew faint in my heart for the time, under the spell of the long enchanting summer days and magical evenings at the White City.