Another patient was sent up by the doctor. He seemed so sick and weak it
appeared a wonder that he could still walk. He was a poor Jew, suffering
from stomach trouble. Emaciated, yellow, with an expression of intense
suffering on his face, which was deeply furrowed by wrinkles, with a
beard a week old, and his long, pointed nose, he looked like a sick
vulture.
When he begged for special food, the orderly sarcastically offered him
the choice between filet mignon with potatoes, or cutlets with French
peas. The doctor, however, realized that unless he was put on a special
diet, the man would die on his hands.
He had been sentenced to two months in the penitentiary for stealing
two packages of cigarettes, and the judge did not realize that it was
his death sentence. The tenacity of the man in clinging to life was
amazing; it exemplified anew the remarkable vitality of his race.
He was always disobeying the doctor's orders. He tried to get up from
his bed one afternoon, but he fell, and the bed pan, with all its
contents, emptied over him and all over the floor. I ran to assist him,
but--I was never well in prison--the stench was so overpowering that I
became sick and hesitated for a moment, and had to turn away. Two
convicts who had joined me saw my sickly face and smilingly said: "Never
mind, boss; you go to the window to get some fresh air. We'll clean up
the mess for you."
Everybody wondered how the poor man had managed to keep a flicker of
life in a body which was mere bone and skin.
One night in my sleep I imagined that I had heard him call. As I sat up
in my cot I heard his rattling, hoarse whisper calling the night
orderly: "Oh, Mr----, please give me some water! A glass of water! I am
dying!"
The orderly, who had been sleeping with his feet on the desk, woke up,
looked towards the patient, changed the position of his feet, and
shouted: "Ah, shut up, you kike!"
I got up and brought him a glass of water. He thanked me, and whispered:
"I am dying! I don't want to die in jail!"
I tried to cheer him up with the thought that he would be released in
two weeks; but he shook his head. Terror was written on his ghastly
features. "Please, I don't want to die in jail," he said.
They were his last words.