is plastic. At the same time this stuff never forgets.
Mould it as you will, the old memories persist. All manner of horses,
from ton Shires to dwarf Shetlands, have been bred up and down from those
first wild ponies domesticated by primitive man. Yet to this day man has
not bred out the kick of the horse. And I, who am composed of those
first horse-tamers, have not had their red anger bred out of me.

I am man born of woman. My days are few, but the stuff of me is
indestructible. I have been woman born of woman. I have been a woman
and borne my children. And I shall be born again. Oh, incalculable
times again shall I be born; and yet the stupid dolts about me think that
by stretching my neck with a rope they will make me cease.

Yes, I shall be hanged . . . soon. This is the end of June. In a little
while they will try to befool me. They will take me from this cell to
the bath, according to the prison custom of the weekly bath. But I shall
not be brought back to this cell. I shall be dressed outright in fresh
clothes and be taken to the death-cell. There they will place the death-
watch on me. Night or day, waking or sleeping, I shall be watched. I
shall not be permitted to put my head under the blankets for fear I may
anticipate the State by choking myself.

Always bright light will blaze upon me. And then, when they have well
wearied me, they will lead me out one morning in a shirt without a collar
and drop me through the trap. Oh, I know. The rope they will do it with
is well-stretched. For many a month now the hangman of Folsom has been
stretching it with heavy weights so as to take the spring out of it.

Yes, I shall drop far. They have cunning tables of calculations, like
interest tables, that show the distance of the drop in relation to the
victim's weight. I am so emaciated that they will have to drop me far in
order to break my neck. And then the onlookers will take their hats off,
and as I swing the doctors will press their ears to my chest to count my
fading heart-beats, and at last they will say that I am dead.

It is grotesque. It is the ridiculous effrontery of men-maggots who
think they can kill me. I cannot die. I am immortal, as they are
immortal; the difference is that I know it and they do not know it.

Pah! I was once a hangman, or an executioner, rather. Well I remember
it! I used the sword, not the rope. The sword is the braver way,
although all ways are equally