For infinite are the nine feet of a prison cell, and endless is the march of him who walks between the yellow brick wall and the red iron gate, thinking things that cannot be chained and cannot be locked, but that wander far away in the sunlit world, each in a wild pilgrimage after a destined goal. * * * * * Throughout the restless night I hear the footsteps over my head. Who walks? I know not. It is the phantom of the jail, the sleepless brain, a man, the man, the Walker. One--two--three--four: four paces and the wall. One--two--three--four: four paces and the iron gate. He has measured his space, he has measured it accurately, scrupulously, minutely, as the hangman measures the rope and the grave-digger the coffin--so many feet, so many inches, so many fractions of an inch for each of the four paces. One--two--three--four. Each step sounds heavy and hollow over my head, and the echo of each step sounds hollow within my head as I count them in suspense and in dread that once, perhaps, in the endless walk, there may be five steps instead of four between the yellow brick wall and the red iron gate. But he has measured the space so accurately, so scrupulously, so minutely that nothing breaks the grave rhythm of the slow, fantastic march.... * * * * * All the sounds of the living beings and inanimate things, and all the noises of the night I have heard in my wistful vigil. I have heard the moans of him who bewails a thing that is dead and the sighs of him who tries to smother a thing that will not die; I have heard the stifled sobs of the one who weeps with his head under the coarse blanket, and the whisperings of the one who prays with his forehead on the hard, cold stone of the floor; I have heard him who laughs the shrill, sinister laugh of folly at the horror rampant on the yellow wall and at the red eyes of the nightmare glaring through the iron bars; I have heard in the sudden icy silence him who coughs a dry, ringing cough, and wished madly that his throat would not rattle so and that he would not spit on the floor, for no sound was more atrocious than that of his sputum upon the floor; I have heard him who swears fearsome oaths which I listen to in reverence and awe, for they are holier than the virgin's prayer; And I have heard, most terrible of all, the silence of two hundred brains all possessed by one single, relentless, unforgiving, desperate thought. All this I have heard in the watchful night, And the murmur of the wind beyond the walls, And the tolls of a distant bell, And the woeful dirge of the rain, And the remotest echoes of the sorrowful city, And the terrible beatings, wild beatings, mad beatings of the One Heart which is nearest to my heart. All this have I heard in the still night; But nothing is louder, harder, drearier, mightier, more awful than the footsteps I hear over my head all night.... * * * * *