angle in the air vaguely, and will probably let me down in the
night if they do not rest firmly on the floor to begin with. After
manipulating the bed successfully, I let down the mattress on top of it
and arrange the blankets as well as possible.

About a quarter of an hour more before lights out. It is all very well to
look forward to that landmark, but what after that? What of the ten-hour
night ahead of me? And this is only the first night of six. Suppose it
were the first night of six thousand.

I hastily take a sheet of paper, mark off a space for each day and each
night I expect to be here, and scratch off Monday. One-twelfth of my
penance gone at any rate. I don't count Sunday, because that will be only
half a day; or I will write in Sunday at the bottom, as a sort of separate
affair. I hang this rough calendar upon the wall; and then it suddenly
occurs to me that it is exactly what I have always read of prisoners
doing.

Oh! Will these lights never go out!

I shall put away this writing, and just wait.

Merciful God! How do they ever stand it?

Tuesday morning: after breakfast.

The first night is over. They all say it is the worst. It could hardly be
called a success--considered as a period of rest and refreshment; at least
it did not "knit up the raveled sleeve of care" to any very great extent.
At nine o'clock the lights at last went out. I was already in bed and
waiting, but I was not at all prepared for the shock I received. While
there is light in the cell, the bars of the door look gray against the
darkness outside--and that is bad enough; but when the lights go out,
there is just enough brightness from the corridor below to change the door
into a grating of most terrible, unearthly blackness. The bars are so
black that they seem to close in upon you--to come nearer and nearer,
until they press upon your very forehead. It is of no use to shut your
eyes for you know they are still there; you can feel the blackness of
those iron bars across your closed eyelids; they seem to sear themselves
into your very soul. It is the most terrible sensation I ever experienced.
I understand now the prison pallor; I understand the sensitiveness of this
prison audience; I understand the high nervous tension which makes
anything possible. How does any man remain sane, I wonder, caged in this
stone grave day after day, night after night?

And always there come the sound of keys turning and the grating of iron
hing