Under the Leads | Page 7

inspired me with the darkest fancies. I saw that I
was in a place where, if the false appeared true, the truth might appear
false, where understanding was bereaved of half its prerogatives, where
the imagination becoming affected would either make the reason a
victim to empty hopes or to dark despair. I resolved to be on my guard;
and for the first time in my life, at the age of thirty, I called philosophy
to my assistance. I had within me all the seeds of philosophy, but so far

I had had no need for it.
I am convinced that most men die without ever having thought, in the
proper sense of the word, not so much for want of wit or of good sense,
but rather because the shock necessary to the reasoning faculty in its
inception has never occurred to them to lift them out of their daily
habits.
After what I had experienced, I could think of sleep no more, and to get
up would have been useless as I could not stand upright, so I took the
only sensible course and remained seated. I sat thus till four o'clock in
the morning, the sun would rise at five, and I longed to see the day, for
a presentiment which I held infallible told me that it would set me
again at liberty. I was consumed with a desire for revenge, nor did I
conceal it from myself. I saw myself at the head of the people, about to
exterminate the Government which had oppressed me; I massacred all
the aristocrats without pity; all must be shattered and brought to the
dust. I was delirious; I knew the authors of my misfortune, and in my
fancy I destroyed them. I restored the natural right common to all men
of being obedient only to the law, and of being tried only by their peers
and by laws to which they have agreed-in short, I built castles in Spain.
Such is man when he has become the prey of a devouring passion. He
does not suspect that the principle which moves him is not reason but
wrath, its greatest enemy.
I waited for a less time than I had expected, and thus I became a little
more quiet. At half-past four the deadly silence of the place--this hell of
the living--was broken by the shriek of bolts being shot back in the
passages leading to my cell.
"Have you had time yet to think about what you will take to eat?" said
the harsh voice of my gaoler from the wicket.
One is lucky when the insolence of a wretch like this only shews itself
in the guise of jesting. I answered that I should like some rice soup, a
piece of boiled beef, a roast, bread, wine, and water. I saw that the lout
was astonished not to hear the lamentations he expected. He went away
and came back again in a quarter of an hour to say that he was

astonished I did not require a bed and the necessary pieces of furniture,
"for" said he, "if you flatter yourself that you are only here for a night,
you are very much mistaken."
"Then bring me whatever you think necessary."
"Where shall I go for it? Here is a pencil and paper; write it down."
I skewed him by writing where to go for my shirts, stockings, and
clothes of all sorts, a bed, table, chair, the books which Messer- Grande
had confiscated, paper, pens, and so forth. On my reading out the list to
him (the lout did not know how to read) he cried, "Scratch out," said 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