er a room or a chimney. Each wall of the room
was about a metre and a half wide and about ten metres high. The walls
were straight, white, smooth, with no openings, except one through which
food was brought to Max. An electric lamp was burning brightly on the
ceiling. It was burning all the time, so that Max did not know now what
darkness was. There was no furniture in the room, and Max had to lie on
the stone floor. He lay curled together, as the narrowness of the room
did not permit him to stretch himself.

His sense of hearing reported to him that until the day of his death
he would not leave this room.... Having reported this, his hearing sank
into inactivity, for not the slightest sound came from without, except
the sounds which Max himself produced, tossing about, or shouting until
he was hoarse, until he lost his voice.

Max looked into himself. In contrast to the outward light which never
went out he saw within himself impenetrable, heavy, and motionless
darkness. In that darkness his love and faith were buried.

Max did not know whether time was moving or whether it stood motionless.
The same even, white light poured down on him--the same silence and
quiet. Only by the beating of his heart Max could judge that Chronos had
not left his chariot. His body was aching ever more from the unnatural
position in which it lay, and the constant light and silence were
growing ever more tormenting. How happy are they for whom night exists,
near whom people are shouting, making noise, beating drums; who may
sit on a chair, with their feet hanging down, or lie with their feet
outstretched, placing the head in a corner and covering it with the
hands in order to create the illusion of darkness.

Max made an effort to recall and to picture to himself what there is
in life; human faces, voices, the stars.... He knew that his eyes would
never in life see that again. He knew it, and yet he lived. He could
have destroyed himself, for there is no position in which a man can
not do that, but instead Max worried about his health, trying to eat,
although he had no appetite, solving mathematical problems to occupy his
mind so as not to lose his reason. He struggled against death as if it
were not his deliverer, but his enemy; and as if life were to him not
the worst of infernal tortures--but love, faith, and happiness. Gloom
in the Past, the grave in the Future, and infernal tortures in the
Present--and yet he lived. Tell me, John N.,