“‘Go to your cell and put those on,’ and I went into my cell shaking.  That’s the way they give you a new pair of boots in prison, Frank; that’s the way they are kind to you.”

“The first period was the worst?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, infinitely the worst!  One gets accustomed to everything in time, to the food and the bed and the silence:  one learns the rules, and knows what to expect and what to fear....”

“How did you win through the first period?” I asked.

“I died,” he said quietly, “and came to life again, as a patient.”  I stared at him.  “Quite true, Frank.  What with the purgings and the semi-starvation and sleeplessness and, worst of all, the regret gnawing at my soul and the incessant torturing self-reproaches, I got weaker and weaker; my clothes hung on me; I could scarcely move.  One Sunday morning after a very bad night I could not get out of bed.  The warder came in and I told him I was ill.”

“‘You had better get up,’ he said; but I couldn’t take the good advice.

“‘I can’t,’ I replied, ‘you must do what you like with me.’

“Half an hour later the doctor came and looked in at the door.  He never came near me; he simply called out: 

“’Get up; no malingering; you’re all right.  You’ll be punished if you don’t get up,’ and he went away.

“I had to get up.  I was very weak; I fell off my bed while dressing, and bruised myself; but I got dressed somehow or other, and then I had to go with the rest to chapel, where they sing hymns, dreadful hymns all out of tune in praise of their pitiless God.

“I could hardly stand up; everything kept disappearing and coming back faintly:  and suddenly I must have fallen....”  He put his hand to his head.  “I woke up feeling a pain in this ear.  I was in the infirmary with a warder by me.  My hand rested on a clean white sheet; it was like heaven.  I could not help pushing my toes against the sheet to feel it, it was so smooth and cool and clean.  The nurse with kind eyes said to me: 

“‘Do eat something,’ and gave me some thin white bread and butter.  Frank, I shall never forget it.  The water came into my mouth in streams; I was so desperately hungry, and it was so delicious; I was so weak I cried,” and he put his hands before his eyes and gulped down his tears.

“I shall never forget it:  the warder was so kind.  I did not like to tell him I was famished; but when he went away I picked the crumbs off the sheet and ate them, and when I could find no more I pulled myself to the edge of the bed, and picked up the crumbs from the floor and ate those as well; the white bread was so good and I was so hungry.”

“And now?” I asked, not able to stand more.

“Oh, now,” he said, with an attempt to be cheerful, “of course it would be all right if they did not take my books away from me.  If they would let me write.  If only they would let me write as I wish, I should be quite content, but they punish me on every pretext.  Why do they do it, Frank?  Why do they want to make my life here one long misery?”