heart stopped; he threw down a pair of boots beside me, and said:
"'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.
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