he,
"scratch out books, paper, pens, looking-glass and razors, for all that
is forbidden fruit here, and then give me some money to get your dinner."
I had three sequins so I gave him one, and he went off. He spent an hour
in the passages engaged, as I learnt afterwards, in attending on seven
other prisoners who were imprisoned in cells placed far apart from each
other to prevent all communication.

About noon the gaoler reappeared followed by five guards, whose duty it
was to serve the state prisoners. He opened: the cell door to bring in my
dinner and the furniture I had asked for. The bed was placed in the
recess; my dinner was laid out on a small table, and I had to eat with an
ivory spoon he had procured out of the money I had given him; all forks,
knives, and edged tools being forbidden.

"Tell me what you would like for to-morrow," said he, "for I can only
come here once a day at sunrise. The Lord High Secretary has told me to
inform you that he will send you some suitable books, but those you wish
for are forbidden."

"Thank him for his kindness in putting me by myself."

"I will do so, but you make a mistake in jesting thus."

"I don't jest at all, for I think truly that it is much better to be
alone than to mingle with the scoundrels who are doubtless here."

"What, sir! scoundrels? Not at all, not at all. They are only respectable
people here, who, for reasons known to their excellencies alone, have to
be sequestered from society. You have been put by yourself as an
additional punishment, and you want me to thank the secretary on that
account?"

"I was not aware of that."

The fool was right, and I soon found it out. I discovered that a man
imprisoned by himself can have no occupations. Alone in a gloomy cell
where he only sees the fellow who brings his food once a day, where he
cannot walk upright, he is the most wretched of men. He would like to be
in hell, if he believes in it, for the sake of the company. So strong a
feeling is this that I got to desire the company of a murderer, of one
stricken with the plague, or of a bear. The loneliness behind the prison
bars is terrible, but it must be learnt by experience to be understood,
and such an experience I would not wish even to my enemies. To a man of
letters in my situation, paper and ink would take away nine-tenths of the
torture, but the wretches who persecuted me did not dream of granting me
such an alleviation of my misery.

After the gaoler