That was our life. We were awoken at five and brought out for lavatory4 parade. Soon after six breakfast was served out to us. This consisted of a tin mug of tea, a square lump of white bread, and a small piece of margarine. Inasmuch as the mug served for soup as well as for tea, and presumably the tea was decocted in the same vessel5 as the soup, there was a strong similarity of taste between the two. Nor was the fluid that reached us always very hot. We were not permitted either knife, fork or spoon. While we took our breakfast the staff retired6 to theirs, and the curiously deathly prison silence descended7 on the place. At a quarter to eight the staff returned with the jangling of many keys, and soon the shouts of commands rent the air. For we were now to scrub out our cells. On the ground floor each man had, in addition to his cell, to scrub a portion of the hall opposite his door. When this was accomplished8, if the staff-sergeant9 had any general instructions to announce, or could by any means devise an occasion for instructions, we were put on parade in the hall to hear him discourse10. The staff-sergeant had a Biblical [76]gift of iteration without the Biblical music of phrase. Nor had he the faculty11 of disguising his repetitions. He had, however, a certain ornateness of expression which, though it was not exactly Biblical, succeeded in relieving the monotony of his discourse. If he had two simple announcements to make he occupied himself for half an hour with them, and with variations on them, striding up and down the line of us, shouting at the top of his voice, while his staff of non-commissioned officers stood amongst us to see that we gave due heed12 to what he said. He was an excellent man, however; and meant kindly13.
Back then to our cells, where we sat till dinner. This was brought round (by orderlies appointed from among ourselves) at twelve. Dinner consisted of soup and a lump of white bread. The soup was contained in the same mug as the morning tea, and was, until one became accustomed to it, a strange looking spectacle. In the midst of it floated a lump of something that varied14 according to one’s varying luck. If one were fortunate it was, mainly, meat; if one’s luck were only fair, it consisted of fat, with streaks15 of lean bravely running through it; if one’s luck were completely out, it was gristle, with [77]bits of meat set in it like amethysts16 in quartz17 (and indeed the meat was illuminated18 by strange colours astonishingly like amethysts). Either the animals slain19 for our eating were curious beasts or my luck was badly out, for the succession of gristle that came to my turn was noteworthy. Afterwards I managed to smuggle20 out one of the islands that floated in my soup, and sent it entire to a member of the English Parliament, thinking the effect might be remarkable21 if it were thrown dramatically across the floor of the House, as Burke once threw a dagger22. Two or three potatoes in their skins were served with the soup; and the whole meal had to be manipulated with one’s fingers. I became quite expert with the course of time in discovering where pieces of meat crouched23 in their layers of gristle and bringing them to the light of day with my forefinger24. Yet often I decided25 that the meal was not worth the fatigue26 involved, and left it where it stood.
The afternoons served our scanty27 pleasure, for then we were taken out for exercise, which usually lasted twenty minutes to half an hour, and on some occasions longer, according to the pleasure of the sergeant in control. For the staff worked through the prisoners in batches28 [78]through the day. How one looked forward to that glimpse of sky overhead, to that beat of the summer’s sun on one’s body. The yard was of great size as befitted the size of the prison, and was laid with ground clinkers, or some black earth of the nature of ashes, surrounded by a concrete path. There was no colour to be seen anywhere, save the red bricks of the gaol29 and the black floor of the yard. Yet the sky was blue overhead, and the sun was golden; and though these things were plaintive30 in what they told of a summer passing in pomp elsewhere, yet their immediate31 gift made that half hour of the day the moment for which we lived during the 23? hours’ existence in a cell. Moreover, after a time I tried an experiment. I quietly stepped out of the file into the yard and began running easily within the circle that the others made about me. I saw the sergeant look at me, not quite knowing what to make of the innovation. Then another stepped out, and ran behind me; and another, and yet another, till there was a string of half a dozen of us. Nothing was said the first day; and the innovation once begun it was continued. Thus we had another event to which to look forward during the long hours.
[79]
At five came tea, which was a repetition of breakfast; and then set in the hours we most dreaded32. The staff went home at five, and silence settled down over the prison—a silence that was not broken till five the next morning. Now and then as the night watchman passed in his padded shoes I would hear the spy-hole slot being moved aside and would know that an eye was looking in upon me. Then the slot fell back again. The eye had passed on to the next cell. But all the time the silence was profound.
The lengthening33 day, with the altered hour, gave light till ten at night. That is to say, the customary twilight34 of the cell did not change to profound gloom and then to darkness till after that hour. That made the case worse, for one would not take refuge in sleep. It would be hard to say how many times I counted the number of bolts that studded the door, how many times I counted the number of bricks in each wall, how many times I measured the number of feet from end to end of the cell, from side to side, and from corner to corner. This was one’s occupation for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four, save for the time given to sleep, until one fell back on bitter blank staring ahead.
[80]
Sometimes, as though to make the silence still more oppressive, I heard one of the other prisoners somewhere down the prison break into a song. Then a harsh voice would loudly call on him to be quiet; and silence would be supreme35 again. Already on my first day I had established friendly relations with my corporal. He was, I discovered, a London Irishman, and he happened to be more easily quickened to interest on that account. I asked him once what the other men did with their time, when he spied in upon them, thinking to find comfort for my hours in a more intelligent knowledge of the life that was silently proceeding36 around me.
“Most of them just sit on their stools and stare at the wall. It’s horrible to see them. Lots of them are crying—some that you wouldn’t think of. And a lot of them are praying, always praying. And that’s worse, for things are not as bad as that. It makes me feel bad to see them.”
I thought of Dame37 Quickly with her, “Now I, to comfort him, bid him a’ should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet,” and smiled. But I wished I had not asked him my question.
[81]
Yet, strangely enough, the thing that I had feared with such horror in its coming at Castlebar did not quicken in me such fear now that it had settled upon me. The process had, as most processes do, brought its own rather ghastly relief. In Castlebar I had been keen and sensitive; my mind had been quick to speed ahead and anticipate the approaching evil; and that, if painful, was a preferable estate to this dead inertia38, when the mind seemed hardly to have any existence in the body.
and I cannot wonder at it; for often one would spring to one’s feet and march up and down the cell in a mental excitement that was almost unendurable. Such times, when they came, came intolerably, for they came with diminishing frequency; but the usual state was inertia. There was something of learned patience about it; something of a reserve that waited its day; but deeper set than these things was the blankness of being that it was the first duty of the whole system to achieve.
I tried, for instance, to bring before me the faces of those whom I knew, and to imagine what they might be doing as I thought of them. I sought, thus, to give myself a life in the life [82]that others were living; but could I think of those lives, could I bring their faces before me? It was not that they fled me. The mind simply would not rise to the effort. I tried to surrender myself to problems of thought that had fascinated me in the past, and to problems of being into which all life’s meaning had been crowded. But at most the wheel only spun39 round, never gripping the metal; and more often the wheel refused to move. The life within the cell was significantly told by the card outside: the name was turned to the wall, and only a number was turned to view. Prison cells are not dwellings40, they are sepulchres.
So the days passed, one by one, while the summer rolled by outside. Even the will to fight seemed lost.
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1
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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2
herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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3
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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4
lavatory
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| n.盥洗室，厕所 | |
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5
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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6
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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7
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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8
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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9
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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10
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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11
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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12
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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13
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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14
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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15
streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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16
amethysts
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| n.紫蓝色宝石( amethyst的名词复数 )；紫晶；紫水晶；紫色 | |
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17
quartz
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| n.石英 | |
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18
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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19
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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smuggle
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| vt.私运；vi.走私 | |
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21
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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22
dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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23
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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25
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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26
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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27
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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28
batches
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| 一批( batch的名词复数 )； 一炉； （食物、药物等的）一批生产的量； 成批作业 | |
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29
gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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30
plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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31
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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32
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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33
lengthening
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的现在分词 )； 加长 | |
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34
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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35
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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36
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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37
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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38
inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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39
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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40
dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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