g the cell with iridescent stars.

[Illustration: "CHAINED AND THROWN FACE DOWNWARD."]

With all this light there is the perfume-laden air blowing in at the
window, and bringing the odours of the country in summer. Such is the
quiet reigning that I can hear the sound of a distant church bell, can
count the steps taken by the sentry in the court-yard below, and can
hear the rustle of leaves of an open book on the floor, turned over by
the gentle breeze.

But this silence is only intermittent. In one of the cells during the
struggle preceding the putting on of chains the soldiers threw a
prisoner on the ground, and, in order to keep him still, one of them
knelt upon his chest. Fainting, and with broken ribs, the unfortunate is
rapidly losing his life's blood. His brother, a youth, who has been
thrown into his cell as Nadine was into mine, grows frantic at the sight
of the blood pouring from the victim's mouth, and screams for help. In
another cell a prisoner who for a long time past has suffered from
melancholia, suddenly goes mad, and sings the "Marseillaise" at the top
of his voice, laughs wildly, and then shouts orders to imaginary
soldiers. Elsewhere, of two sisters who for a long time past have shared
the same cell, the eldest, chained to the wall, is shrieking to her
sister, who, owing to the rupture of a blood-vessel, has suddenly died.
At intervals she screams--"Comrades! Helena is dying--I think she is
dead." Below, beneath our feet, a prisoner, too tightly manacled, his
hands and feet pressed back and chained behind and thrown face downward,
after making desperate efforts to turn over or keep his head up, at last
gives up the struggle, and with his mouth against the cold stones and a
choking rattle in his throat, he at intervals moans, "Oh! oh!"

Each of these cries, accompanied by the strident clank of chains,
produces upon me the effect of a galvanic battery, and I am obliged to
put forth all that remains to me of moral strength to prevent myself
from screaming and moaning like the others. With my feet in blood and my
eyes burning with weeping, and the effect of the strong light, I try to
maintain my upright position by leaning against the wall. Then from the
depths of my heart something arises which causes it to throb as though
it would burst.

I have never hated! My participation in the revolutionary movement was
the outcome of my desire to soothe suffering and misery, and to see
realised the dream of a