Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/234

222 induced by the abnormal and aggravating conditions of prison life and by the nerve-wearing necessity of constant and intimate association throughout long months with others not of one's own choosing.

I saw two engineers quarrel and become estranged in bitter hatred over &hellip; kittens! There was an old cat in the prison kitchen with some very attractive, vivacious little kittens. One of the prisoners, an engineer, took the kittens to the common cell, where about twenty men were living together, and constituted himself the guardian of these offspring of the kitchen-domiciled mother. One morning another engineer, who had waked before his companion, put some milk and bread in a basin for the kittens' breakfast. When the first engineer awoke and saw the second on his knees, watching the little ones eat, he began reproaching him and accusing him of usurping the right to take care of the kittens, adding that this was nothing more than the "anarchistic principle" of violating the holy right of private property and that his actions were those of a dishonest companion. A quarrel began during which a third person stepped in and appropriated the kittens and after which the two engineers for ever remained irreconcilable enemies.

Such a demoralizing and degrading influence has the life of the prison in the common cells! Their inmates are often brought to a state of numb indifference to everything, to a brooding, morbid silence which smothers the mental faculties; or they suddenly burst forth in some violent explosion and then are not capable of restraining their anger, completely forgetting their culture and the dignity of man, created in the likeness of God.

I remember one occasion on which the whole prison was poisoned through the serving of spoiled fish. Contrary to what one would naturally suppose, this really