Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/332

 fortress—his crime was that he had listened to Socialists—he was already broken down. Soon I began to notice, to my terror, that from time to time his mind wandered. Gradually his thoughts grew more and more confused, and we two perceived, step by step, day by day, evidences that his reason was failing, until his talk became at last that of a lunatic. Frightful noises and wild cries came next from the lower story; our neighbor was mad, but was still kept for several months in the casemate before he was removed to an asylum, from which he never emerged. To witness the destruction of a man's mind, under such conditions, was terrible. I am sure it must have contributed to increase the nervous irritability of my good and true friend Serdukóff. When, after four years' imprisonment, he was acquitted by the court and released, he shot himself.

Batuschka

(New England poet and journalist, 1836-1907)

From yonder gilded minaret Beside the steel-blue Neva set, I faintly catch, from time to time, The sweet, aerial midnight chime— "God save the Tsar!"

Above the ravelins and the moats Of the white citadel it floats; And men in dungeons far beneath Listen, and pray, and gnash their teeth— "God save the Tsar!"