Chapter XXVIII: For Safety

DEAR K.:

I know you must have been worried about me. Give no credence to
the reports you hear. I did not try to suicide. I was very
nervous and excited over the things that happened while I was in
the dungeon. I saw the papers after I came up--you know what
they said. I couldn't sleep; I kept pacing the floor. The screws
were hanging about my cell, but I paid no attention to them.
They spoke to me, but I wouldn't answer: I was in no mood for
talking. They must have thought something wrong with me. The
doctor came, and felt my pulse, and they took me to the
hospital. The Warden rushed in and ordered me into a
strait-jacket. "For safety," he said.

You know Officer Erwin; he put the jacket on me. He's a pretty
decent chap; I saw he hated to do it. But the evening screw is a
rat. He called three times during the night, and every time he'd
tighten the straps. I thought he'd cut my hands off; but I
wouldn't cry for mercy, and that made him wild. They put me in
the "full size" jacket that winds all around you, the arms
folded. They laid me, tied in the canvas, on the bed, bound me
to it feet and chest, with straps provided with padlocks. I was
suffocating in the hot ward; could hardly breathe. In the
morning they unbound me. My legs were paralyzed, and I could not
stand up. The doctor ordered some medicine for me. The head
nurse (he's in for murder, and he's rotten) taunted me with the
"black bottle." Every time he passed my bed, he'd say: "You
still alive? Wait till I fix something up for you." I refused
the medicine, and then they took me down to the dispensary,
lashed me to a chair, and used the pump on me. You can imagine
how I felt. That went on for a week; every night in the
strait-jacket, every morning the pump. Now I am back in the
block, in 6 A. A peculiar coincidence,--it's the same cell I
occupied when I first came here.

Don't trust Bill Say. The Warden told me he knew about the note
I sent you just before I smashed up. If you got it, Bill must
have read it and told Sandy. Only dear old Horsethief can be
relied upon.

How near the boundary of joy is misery! I shall never forget the
first morning in the jacket. I passed a restless night, but just
as it began to dawn I must have lost consciousness. Suddenly I
awoke with the most exquisite music in my ears. It seemed to me
as if the heavens had opened in a burst of ecstasy.... It was
only a little sparrow, but never before in my life did I hear
such sweet melody. I felt murder in my heart when the convict
nurse drove the poor birdie from the window ledge.

A.