After breakfast I was watching from my cell some sparrows that had
nested inside the prison walls, high up on top of the large windows
facing the tiers. I dropped some bread crumbs on the floor of the
gallery, and some on my cell floor, to induce the little birds to come
in.
At first they were afraid to trust themselves inside the bars of my
cell; but they kept fluttering about nervously outside, keeping up an
incessant twitter and chatter that sounded quite musical to my ears.
Finally they grew bolder, and recklessly they flew into my cell, first
peeping at me, with bended heads as if they would ask: "Are we really
safe here from capture or treachery of any kind?" And hastily picking up
the crumbs, they flew out to inform their companions of the god-send of
fat bread crumbs in a large, barred room, instead of the poor hunting in
the prison courtyard.
Then they came back fearlessly, and thanked me with quick little nods of
their pretty heads, and sidelong trusting looks from their black beads
of eyes; with low, graceful courtesies and a cheerful piping song.
And then one morning a keeper who had been attracted by the noise,
shooed the birds away and swore in a gruff voice, warning me that it was
against the rules to throw crumbs on the floor, as well as to keep
bread in my pockets or in my cell.
Once a week the prisoners are privileged to wait in line to see the
warden, to protest against any injustice, to recount a grievance, or to
ask a favor.
Like a dozen or more I stood waiting for the quick-lunch justice of the
Czar of the penitentiary. After a while he appeared, accompanied by a
tall young secretary who jotted down our names and the details of the
business on hand. Walking slowly, with bent shoulders, hands behind his
back, the warden seemed to be about seventy-five years old. His face was
furrowed with irregular, meaningless wrinkles, and he had small shifty
eyes, with white hair and a white beard. He had a habit of staring at
the convict who was speaking to him, and suddenly bending one ear toward
the speaker as if he were partially deaf.
The warden's answers came quickly, in the jerky, high pitched voice of
the Sistine Chapel cantors, and often breaking under the strain of
anger. A convict suffering from locomotor ataxia, leaning on a walking
stick, hanging on to a companion, begged for permission to get a pair of
crutches ... his mother would get them for him.
"What for?" queried the warden, innocently.
"Because I can't walk with this stick," answered the convict.
"Then why don't you get a cab!" said the warden. And he snickered and
then coarsely guffawed.
Again he furiously upbraided another petitioner.
"Where do you think you are? At the Waldorf-Astoria? Next thing they'll
be asking me to get them flowers, candy and theatre tickets. I am here
to see that you are punished. See?"
After having thus vented his spleen he uttered some alleged witticism at
the expense of the helpless convict, and showed a great appreciation of
his own humor, uncovering a row of yellow, brown, half-decayed teeth in
a sneering grin most unpleasant to behold.
My turn came, and I asked for an extra blanket, as the cold was intense
and the metal springs of the bed offered no protection against it. This
it seemed was also against the rules. When I suggested that as he was
the warden he could make and unmake the rules, he did not answer, but
asked irrelevantly how I liked his hotel?
I answered that it was preferable to the castle of San Juan de Ulloa in
Vera Cruz.
He looked puzzled, then he smiled as if he saw the point.
"We'll take care of you," he repeated twice, waving a thin, wrinkled,
old hand.