“At my first arrest,” resumed Girardi, “I was transported to a dungeon in the citadel of Turin, so framed as to render communication impossible even with my jailer. My food was conveyed to me by a turning box inserted in the wall; and during a whole month not the slightest sound interrupted the stillness of my solitude. It needs to have undergone all I then experienced, fully to comprehend the fallacy of that savage philosophy which denied society to be the natural condition of the human species. The wretch condemned to isolation from his kind is a wretch indeed! To hear no human voice—to meet no human eye—to be denied the pressure of a human hand—to find only cold and inanimate objects on which to rest one’s brow—one’s breast—one’s heart, is a privation to which the strongest might fall a victim! The month I thus endured weighed like years upon my nature; and when, every second day, I discerned the footsteps of my jailer in the corridor, coming to renew my provisions, the mere sound caused my heart to leap within me. While the box was turning round, I used to strain my eyes in hopes to catch, at the crevice, the slightest glimpse of his face, his hand, his very dress; and my disappointment drove me to despair. Could I have discerned a human face, even bearing the characters of cruelty or wickedness, I should have thought it full of beauty; and had the man extended his arms towards me in kindness, have blessed him for the concession! But the sight of a human face was denied me till the day of my translation to Fenestrella; and my only resource consisted in feeding the reptiles which shared my captivity, and in meditating upon my absent child!” [Illustration] Charney started at the allusion; but his venerable companion was himself too much distressed to notice the emotion of his young friend. “At length,” said he, after a long pause, which served to restore him to his usual serenity, “a favourable change befel me even in my dungeon. I discovered, by means of a straggling ray of light, a crevice produced by the insertion of an iron cross by way of support into the walls of my dungeon: which, though it enabled me to obtain only an oblique glimpse of the opposite wall, became a source of exquisite enjoyment. My cell happened to be situated under the keep of the citadel; and one blessed day, I noticed for the first time the shadow of a man distinctly reflected upon the wall. A sentinel had doubtless been posted on the platform over my head; for the shadow went and came, and I could distinguish the form of the man’s uniform, the epaulet, the knapsack, the point of his bayonet—the very vacillation of his feather!