Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/136

 of the skylark, when we were chatting after supper, our heads so close together that the smoke of our cigars merged into a single column; sometimes in the passage I met Dr. Kramář, Rašín, Choc, Buřival, Vojna, Manager Pilát,—I was returning from exercise with our batch, they were going out,—I always looked closely into the eyes of our people, to see whether the jail had laid waste their souls, and besides, I observed the dramas and farces which were being woven by life, that careless and sometimes thoroughly vulgar author, amid the vicisitudes of the people vegetating around me.

A whim on the part of Papritz suddenly forbade the Jewish philanthropic society to supply the rabbinate candidates with ritually prepared food. The candidates were very upset: they sent a deputation to the superintendent, the superintendent shrugged his shoulders. The candidates announced that they would do without food altogether, that they would rather die of hunger, and that the responsibility would fall upon the prison authorities. And they began a hunger strike. That is to say, they refused the prison food, which was refused also by us who were not on hunger strike; evening after evening they sang their proud religious chants, and where there was an opportunity, they slipped into other rooms, pleaded for bread, exchanged cigars and cigarettes for sardines and butter, begged for cheese and eggs,—and continually threatened the worthy authorities that they would perish of hunger. The superintendent laughed, the warders related about the banquets that the dear candidates arranged before they began singing, and their singing was regularly interrupted by Krantz with his circus music.

We had a new arrival. An elderly man with scanty white hair, with blue and devout eyes, clean-shaven, subdued in manner. Hedrich had a look at him, and assured me that he was some Catholic priest. The newcomer took a glance round, stepped joyfully up to Messrs.