Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/255

Rh hell, real hell! It is already six years since I entered that terrible den. Here in your cell I feel something different, another air, another appearance of the walls, something else which does not exist there. Now I shall sleep in the corridor and I beg that you allow me to remain in your cell, when you work. I shall be your servant for two weeks and I want to rest from those surroundings up there, to breathe freely and gain some more strength to continue to live."

During the whole night I talked with Mironoff and heard from him how he had formerly been a sailor on a merchant vessel, how he had committed several terrible and awful crimes, how he had escaped more than once from his prisons, how he had been caught and flogged and how he had finally been condemned as a habitual criminal to prison for life, which in the language of the prison is referred to as "forever." With it all he had been a very unfortunate man, for no little part of his difficulties had been due to unhappy combinations of circumstances.

After this first visit it became the regular custom each evening for Mironoff to come to my cell and sit quietly on my box, mending clothes or boots and pondering over matters which brought alternating smiles and frowns to his hardened prison face. Though I always continued with my reading or writing, I regarded it as my duty to have a little talk each day with my guest. If Mironoff learned something from me, I also profited from my acquaintance with him.

First of all he taught me the prison "wireless telegraphy," which enabled the men to send words or whole sentences by knocking on the walls or on the pipes of the heating system, using a telegraphic alphabet which is changed in each prison to safeguard the secrecy of the