Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/298

286 oldest prisoner in the cell, one Boitsoff, mail-coach robber, came stumping along to me on his wooden leg. The man was seventy years old and carried on his face the marks of cursed Sakhalin—slit nostrils, which were almost hidden by his thick, bristling moustache and a beard that grew far up his cheeks. His height was immense, and he possessed colossal strength, in spite of his age.

"Sit down," he muttered, "I want to talk to you."

After I sat down, Boitsoff was silent for a long time. Finally he pointed to the prisoners who were crowding near the window to talk with the women by means of ropes, which are called "telephones" in the language of the prison.

"Do you understand this, Starosta?" he asked in a whisper. When I remained silent, he continued in a still lower voice:

"They are grown up, some of them even old men, and yet they act like boys." He stopped and began filling his pipe, then went on:

"It is the prison that does this. Deprived of all of the joy of life, they seek it as a fish struggles back to the water, as a bird seeks the open sky and as a flower turns to the sun. Where is justice? Will such a form of punishment cleanse and heal the soul? Humanity is committing a great crime, an inexplicable one. We prisoners are human dust. Humanity, in its pursuit of personal happiness and riches, hurries along the great highway of life, rushing upon, trampling and grinding to dust those whom chance or a temporary weakness may have sent to their knees. Humanity, in this mad rush of life, has made us what we are, and man never understands that the time has come to stop hurrying and trampling upon the bodies of others, making new clouds of human dust. When this dust begins to reach the eyes and throats of