His excited fancy pictured more and more vividly how the prisoner must live, year after year, exposed to the most terrible ennui, with only the sight of his four bare walls and his gnawing thoughts; how the only signs of human life that could reach him were a dull roar and the sound of the bells, and the only change in his slowly dragging days the transition from light to darkness. "I can open this door when I choose,--can go out when I please; only the necessity of gratifying an idle whim detains me; and yet the thought of being compelled to spend twenty-four hours here chills my breast, to say nothing of three hundred and sixty-five days and nights, and _five_ times,--_ten_ times as many!" He drew a long breath, and, merely to employ his thoughts, began to calculate with nervous eagerness how many hours this would be. How often Albert must already have reckoned it! What does such a man _think_ during the long years? The soul needs nourishment as well as the body. Albert would doubtless have become imbecile had it not been for the Prison Fairy. She is the one thought that keeps his soul awake. The clock struck eleven. "I have been waiting three hours already. Suppose she should not come? What must it be to the prisoner, when she remains away all day, and he has waited through the twenty-four hours in vain!" Worn out by involuntary idleness, he sinks upon his couch at night, looks up to the little window, and watches for the thousandth time the motions of the clouds and the gathering darkness; perhaps even greets a twinkling star as a joyful event, compares it to the eyes of the Prison Fairy, and wonders why she did not come to-day, and whether she will come to-morrow, until he falls into his feverish slumber. He wakes early in the morning longing for her, would gladly hasten the hours with his panting breath, urge on the strokes of the clocks by the pulsations of his heart, and yet he has no resource but patience,--continual patience. His soul rises and falls between fear and hope, his head burns, his limbs ache under the pressure of his chains. The sun sends its wandering rays into the cell and shines upon the door; suddenly it springs open, and, as if allured by the rays, bathed in the splendor, the beautiful figure stands in the entrance in all the brightness of her living, loving presence, greeted by a cry of joy as piercing as I heard yesterday from Albert's lips. "Prison Fairy!" She approaches him; she touches the fetters with her flower-white hands, and they become light; her breath cools his feverish brow; she speaks to him a tone thrilling with the melody of enthusiastic feeling; she looks at him with her mysterious eyes, and on her brow is throned that dignity which no bold desire, no injustice, dare approach. Oh, how longingly he must await such consolation! how he must----