he old cathedral. It is built against the old _presidial_,
or ancient court of appeal, and people still call it the _maison de
justice_. It boasts the conventional prison gateway, the solid-looking,
nail-studded door, the low, worn archway which the better deserves the
qualification "cyclopean," because the jailer's peephole or _judas_
looks out like a single eye from the front of the building. As you enter
you find yourself in a corridor which runs across the entire width of
the building, with a row of doors of cells that give upon the prison
yard and are lighted by high windows covered with a square iron grating.
The jailer's house is separated from these cells by an archway in the
middle, through which you catch a glimpse of the iron gate of the prison
yard. The jailer installed David in a cell next to the archway, thinking
that he would like to have a man of David's stamp as a near neighbor for
the sake of company.

"This is the best room," he said. David was struck dumb with amazement
at the sight of it.

The stone walls were tolerably damp. The windows, set high in the wall,
were heavily barred; the stone-paved floor was cold as ice, and from
the corridor outside came the sound of the measured tramp of the warder,
monotonous as waves on the beach. "You are a prisoner! you are watched
and guarded!" said the footsteps at every moment of every hour. All
these small things together produce a prodigious effect upon the minds
of honest folk. David saw that the bed was execrable, but the first
night in a prison is full of violent agitation, and only on the second
night does the prisoner notice that his couch is hard. The jailer was
graciously disposed; he naturally suggested that his prisoner should
walk in the yard until nightfall.

David's hour of anguish only began when he was locked into his cell for
the night. Lights are not allowed in the cells. A prisoner detained on
arrest used to be subjected to rules devised for malefactors, unless he
brought a special exemption signed by the public prosecutor. The jailer
certainly might allow David to sit by his fire, but the prisoner must go
back to his cell at locking-up time. Poor David learned the horrors
of prison life by experience, the rough coarseness of the treatment
revolted him. Yet a revulsion, familiar to those who live by thought,
passed over him. He detached himself from his loneliness, and found a
way of escape in a poet's waking dream.

At last the unhappy