was not suffered to stay any longer, he
answered, that it was a victory for the
officers of the prison. The prisoners
became lean and weak, and there was a hunger
in the house like that in a beleaguered fortress
on the eve of surrender.

By the Prussian physician, who was for
a time in the house when my regular medical
adviser chanced to be ill, I was allowed daily
two chopins of milk, and, instead of the pound
and a half of black bread, six ounces of white
bread. This had been for a long time almost
my only food, besides the two ounces of meat
every other day, given us in morsels on a
skewer, like the London cat's meat. But after
the new order even this help failed me. The
bread was as bad as possible, and the milk
—more water than milk—stunk so intolerably
that I turned sick, only at the smell.
The doctor said this was mere richness
of butter. The milk was, in truth, kept in
a tub that could not be well cleaned. There
was nobody in the kitchen who understood
anything; all kitchen work, under the
economic rule, was done by prisoners, for no
woman was again suffered to enter the house
as a servant.

Often I was so hungry that I could not
sleep, and was driven to appease the craving
of my stomach by water, which produced
diarrhoea. The worst time was directly after
winter, when the hot air which had lessened
my appetite was at an end, and the body out
of which it had sucked the juices, cried for
food. Then I often begged a bit of bread of
my overseer, who gave it me with tears in
his eyes; but it is right also to say that if I
asked the doctor for a little augmentation of
my diet, a piece of brown bread was never
denied me.

I must needs talk about eating: meals are
even greater events in the life of a lonely and
a hungry man than in the life of a man cheerful
and well-fed. At the bottom of my prison
life lay hunger, and from this bodily
condition came, as will be seen, peculiarities in
the condition of my mind.

Once when I was occupied in calculating
the amount of nutriment in our food, and
comparing it with that of the food I used to
have in one day out of prison, I was
surprised by our government inspector. I
laughingly told him of my speculation. "O,"
he answered, "great physiologists have said
to me, that man can live on four ounces of
bread a day."

The results of such a life were soon apparent.
I became depressed in mind more than
I ever was before. Sometimes I was weak
enough to hope, when I went to bed, that I
might not awake again; and when at half-past
four, that dreary bell marked the beginning
of a new day, I sat wretched upon my
miserable couch, and silent tears rolled down my
pale and hollow cheeks.

It is a hard thing to see before one a long
day, which offers nothing but sorrow and
vexation: not even the shadow of a joy: not
even such as the most unhappy, the poorest
of free men may enjoy. They can go into
the field or the wood, and there are given by
God to all under His sky a great many
sources of enjoyment, of which the least one
would have tinged even my dismal cell with
a rosy hue.

Sometimes—not caring much for the Prussian
muskets that were fired at those who
peeped abroad—I looked through the window,
to see, when in its bloom, a large cherry-tree
which was beyond the prison wall; or to see
upon the road men, women, and children,
and to hear their voices.

The only liberty I had in this hive was
during the night, when I was sleeping; for
by the emaciation of the body, the more
subtle faculties of the soul, fettered by it
when it is strong enough, appeared to be set
free. From my earliest youth I had had a great
propensity to vivid dreams. These dreams
were now my greatest pleasure, and it was
almost as good to me as if I had been every
night at a play of a great many acts. The
most lucid dreams one has, always occur
towards the morning, and then, say the old
women, they assume the character of
visions. In the prison I had very often
dreams of this kind, and sometimes they
were of a kind that might almost have
passed for revelations.

I received no newspapers, and it was
severely forbidden to any one of the officers of
the prison to give us political intelligence.
This had been, since the new order of the
things in the house, so strictly adhered to,
that I heard not earlier than in the year
eighteen hundred and fifty-five something
about a war with Russia. Of a Napoleon the
Third I received the first news by an almanac,
in which I came upon such a name with great
wonder in the list of sovereigns. Nevertheless
I had seen something of political
occurrences in my dreams; and I will give a
few examples, assuring my readers that I tell
them strictly as they were.

Once, I saw a great palace, in which
preparations were made for a festivity. I heard in
the kitchen the head-cook command his
myrmidons, and everything was in a great
bustle. I had never been in Vienna, but in
the dream I knew that I was in that city.
What have I to do with festivities in Vienna,
I thought, the next morning? At that time
the emperor married, and, by an act of so-
called grace, pardoned more than two
hundred of the political prisoners.

I was, another night, in St. Petersburg.
I saw many troops marching, and, upon a
large square, recruits were being exercised:
everywhere active preparations for war were
going on. This was at about the beginning of
the Russian war.

Another night I was led to an eastern
country. I was in a low wooden building
enclosed by board hedges. From the window I