I cannot express what I felt; I was at once pained and gratified. The idiom of crime, a language at once sanguinary and grotesque, united to the voice of a young girl, that graceful transition from the voice of childhood to the voice of woman,--all these deformities of words delightfully sung, cadenced, rounded! Ah, how infamous is a prison! It contains a venom which assails all within its pestilential reach. Everything withers there, even the song of a girl of fifteen! If you find a bird within its courts, it has mud on its wing. If you gather a beauteous flower there, it exhales poison! SEVENTEENTH PAPER. Whilst I was writing, my lamp faded, daylight appeared, and the clock of the chapel struck six. * * * * * What can be the meaning of what has since happened? The turnkey on duty came into my cell; he took off his cap, bowed to me, apologized for disturbing me, and making an effort to soften his rough voice, inquired what I wished to have for my breakfast-- A shudder has come over me. _Is it to take place to-day?_ EIGHTEENTH PAPER. I feel that it _is_ for to-day! The Governor of the prison himself came to visit me. He asked me how he could serve or accommodate me; he expressed a hope that I had no complaint to make respecting him or his subordinates; and he inquired with interest regarding my health, and how I had passed the night. On leaving me, he called me “Sir!” Oh, it surely is for to-day! NINETEENTH PAPER. The Governor of the prison thinks I have no cause of complaint against him or his jailors. He is right, and it would be wrong of me to complain; they have done their duty, they have kept me safe; and then they have been complaisant at my arrival and departure. Ought I not to be satisfied? This Governor, with his benign smile, his soft words, his eye which flatters and spies, his coarse heavy hands,--he is the incarnation of a prison! Ah, hapless creature! what will become of me? What will they do with me? * * * * * TWENTIETH PAPER. Now I am calm. All is finished--quite finished! I am relieved from the dreadful anxiety into which I was thrown by the Governor’s visit; for I confess I still felt hope. Now, thank Heaven! hope is gone. Let me record what has happened. At half-past six the door of my cell was opened; an old man with white hair entered, dressed in a brown great-coat. He unfastened it, and beneath I saw the black cassock and bands of a priest. He was not the usual Chaplain to the prison, and I thought this appeared ominous. He seated himself opposite to me, with a quiet smile; then shook his head, and raised his eyes to heaven. I understood him. “My son!” said he, “are you prepared?” I answered, in a low tone, “I am not prepared--but I am ready.” Then my sight became troubled; a chill damp pervaded my frame. I felt the veins on my temples swelling, and a confused murmur in my ears.