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- Теодор Драйзер
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- Американская трагедия
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- Стр. 562/598
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He
sank
to
his
couch
and
covered
his
ears
with
his
hands
.
The
"
death
house
"
in
this
particular
prison
was
one
of
those
crass
erections
and
maintenances
of
human
insensitiveness
and
stupidity
principally
for
which
no
one
primarily
was
really
responsible
.
Indeed
,
its
total
plan
and
procedure
were
the
results
of
a
series
of
primary
legislative
enactments
,
followed
by
decisions
and
compulsions
as
devised
by
the
temperaments
and
seeming
necessities
of
various
wardens
,
until
at
last
--
by
degrees
and
without
anything
worthy
of
the
name
of
thinking
on
any
one
's
part
--
there
had
been
gathered
and
was
now
being
enforced
all
that
could
possibly
be
imagined
in
the
way
of
unnecessary
and
really
unauthorized
cruelty
or
stupid
and
destructive
torture
.
And
to
the
end
that
a
man
,
once
condemned
by
a
jury
,
would
be
compelled
to
suffer
not
alone
the
death
for
which
his
sentence
called
,
but
a
thousand
others
before
that
.
For
the
very
room
by
its
arrangement
,
as
well
as
the
rules
governing
the
lives
and
actions
of
the
inmates
,
was
sufficient
to
bring
about
this
torture
,
willy-nilly
.
It
was
a
room
thirty
by
fifty
feet
,
of
stone
and
concrete
and
steel
,
and
surmounted
some
thirty
feet
from
the
floor
by
a
skylight
.
Presumably
an
improvement
over
an
older
and
worse
death
house
,
with
which
it
was
still
connected
by
a
door
,
it
was
divided
lengthwise
by
a
broad
passage
,
along
which
,
on
the
ground
floor
,
were
twelve
cells
,
six
on
a
side
and
eight
by
ten
each
and
facing
each
other
.
And
above
again
a
second
tier
of
what
were
known
as
balcony
cells
--
five
on
a
side
.
There
was
,
however
,
at
the
center
of
this
main
passage
--
and
dividing
these
lower
cells
equally
as
to
number
--
a
second
and
narrower
passage
,
which
at
one
end
gave
into
what
was
now
known
as
the
Old
Death
House
(
where
at
present
only
visitors
to
the
inmates
of
the
new
Death
House
were
received
)
,
and
at
the
other
into
the
execution
room
in
which
stood
the
electric
chair
.
Two
of
the
cells
on
the
lower
passage
--
those
at
the
junction
of
the
narrower
passage
--
faced
the
execution-room
door
.
The
two
opposite
these
,
on
the
corresponding
corners
,
faced
the
passage
that
gave
into
the
Old
Death
House
or
what
now
by
a
large
stretch
of
the
imagination
,
could
be
called
the
condemned
men
's
reception
room
,
where
twice
weekly
an
immediate
relative
or
a
lawyer
might
be
met
.
But
no
others
.
In
the
Old
Death
House
(
or
present
reception
room
)
,
the
cells
still
there
,
and
an
integral
part
of
this
reception
plan
,
were
all
in
a
row
and
on
one
side
only
of
a
corridor
,
thus
preventing
prying
inspection
by
one
inmate
of
another
,
and
with
a
wire
screen
in
front
as
well
as
green
shades
which
might
be
drawn
in
front
of
each
cell
.
For
,
in
an
older
day
,
whenever
a
new
convict
arrived
or
departed
,
or
took
his
daily
walk
,
or
went
for
his
bath
,
or
was
led
eventually
through
the
little
iron
door
to
the
west
where
formerly
was
the
execution
chamber
,
these
shades
were
drawn
.
He
was
not
supposed
to
be
seen
by
his
associates
.
Yet
the
old
death
house
,
because
of
this
very
courtesy
and
privacy
,
although
intense
solitude
,
was
later
deemed
inhuman
and
hence
this
newer
and
better
death
house
,
as
the
thoughtful
and
condescending
authorities
saw
it
,
was
devised
.
In
this
,
to
be
sure
,
were
no
such
small
and
gloomy
cells
as
those
which
characterized
the
old
,
for
there
the
ceiling
was
low
and
the
sanitary
arrangements
wretched
,
whereas
in
the
new
one
the
ceiling
was
high
,
the
rooms
and
corridors
brightly
lighted
and
in
every
instance
no
less
than
eight
by
ten
feet
in
size
.
But
by
contrast
with
the
older
room
,
they
had
the
enormous
disadvantage
of
the
unscreened
if
not
uncurtained
cell
doors
.
Besides
,
by
housing
all
together
in
two
such
tiers
as
were
here
,
it
placed
upon
each
convict
the
compulsion
of
enduring
all
the
horrors
of
all
the
vicious
,
morbid
or
completely
collapsed
and
despairing
temperaments
about
him
.
No
true
privacy
of
any
kind
.
By
day
--
a
blaze
of
light
pouring
through
an
over-arching
skylight
high
above
the
walls
.
By
night
--
glistening
incandescents
of
large
size
and
power
which
flooded
each
nook
and
cranny
of
the
various
cells
.
No
privacy
,
no
games
other
than
cards
and
checkers
--
the
only
ones
playable
without
releasing
the
prisoners
from
their
cells
.
Books
,
newspapers
,
to
be
sure
,
for
all
who
could
read
or
enjoy
them
under
the
circumstances
.
And
visits
--
mornings
and
afternoons
,
as
a
rule
,
from
a
priest
,
and
less
regularly
from
a
rabbi
and
a
Protestant
minister
,
each
offering
his
sympathies
or
services
to
such
as
would
accept
them
.
But
the
curse
of
the
place
was
not
because
of
these
advantages
,
such
as
they
were
,
but
in
spite
of
them
--
this
unremitted
contact
,
as
any
one
could
see
,
with
minds
now
terrorized
and
discolored
by
the
thought
of
an
approaching
death
that
was
so
near
for
many
that
it
was
as
an
icy
hand
upon
the
brow
or
shoulder
.
And
none
--
whatever
the
bravado
--
capable
of
enduring
it
without
mental
or
physical
deterioration
in
some
form
.
The
glooms
--
the
strains
--
the
indefinable
terrors
and
despairs
that
blew
like
winds
or
breaths
about
this
place
and
depressed
or
terrorized
all
by
turns
!
They
were
manifest
at
the
most
unexpected
moments
,
by
curses
,
sighs
,
tears
even
,
calls
for
a
song
--
for
God
's
sake
!
--
or
the
most
unintended
and
unexpected
yells
or
groans
.
Worse
yet
,
and
productive
of
perhaps
the
most
grinding
and
destroying
of
all
the
miseries
here
--
the
transverse
passage
leading
between
the
old
death
house
on
the
one
hand
and
the
execution-chamber
on
the
other
.
For
this
from
time
to
time
--
alas
,
how
frequently
--
was
the
scene
or
stage
for
at
least
a
part
of
the
tragedy
that
was
here
so
regularly
enacted
--
the
final
business
of
execution
.
For
through
this
passage
,
on
his
last
day
,
a
man
was
transferred
from
his
BETTER
cell
in
the
new
building
,
where
he
might
have
been
incarcerated
for
so
much
as
a
year
or
two
,
to
one
of
the
older
ones
in
the
old
death
house
,
in
order
that
he
might
spend
his
last
hours
in
solitude
,
although
compelled
at
the
final
moment
,
none-the-less
(
the
death
march
)
,
to
retrace
his
steps
along
this
narrower
cross
passage
--
and
where
all
might
see
--
into
the
execution
chamber
at
the
other
end
of
it
.
