One evening Count Oroboni and I were standing at our windows complaining of the low diet to which we were subjected. Animated by the subject, we talked a little too loud, and the sentinels began to upbraid us. The superintendent, indeed, called in a loud voice to Schiller, as he happened to be passing, inquiring in a threatening voice why he did not keep a better watch, and teach us to be silent? Schiller came in a great rage to complain of me, and ordered me never more to think of speaking from the window. He wished me to promise that I would not.

“No!” replied I; “I shall do no such thing.”

“Oh, der Teufel; der Teufel!” [26] exclaimed the old man; “do you say that to me? Have I not had a horrible strapping on your account?”

“I am sorry, dear Schiller, if you have suffered on my account. But I cannot promise what I do not mean to perform.”

“And why not perform it?”

“Because I cannot; because this continual solitude is such a torment to me. No! I will speak as long as I have breath, and invite my neighbour to talk to me. If he refuse I will talk to my window-bars, I will talk to the hills before me, I will talk to the birds as they fly about. I will talk!”

“Der Teufel! you will! You had better promise!”

“No, no, no! never!” I exclaimed.

He threw down his huge bunch of keys, and ran about, crying, “Der Teufel! der Teufel!” Then, all at once, he threw his long bony arms about my neck: “By —, and you shall talk! Am I to cease to be a man because of this vile mob of keys? You are a gentleman, and I like your spirit! I know you will not promise. I would do the same in your place.”

I picked up his keys and presented them to him. “These keys,” said I, “are not so bad after all; they cannot turn an honest soldier, like you, into a villainous sgherro.”

“Why, if I thought they could, I would hand them back to my superiors, and say, ‘If you will give me no bread but the wages of a hangman, I will go and beg alms from door to door.’”

He took out his handkerchief, dried his eyes, and then, raising them, seemed to pray inwardly for some time. I, too, offered up my secret prayers for this good old man. He saw it, and took my hand with a look of grateful respect.

Upon leaving me he said, in a low voice, “When you speak with Count Oroboni, speak as I do now. You will do me a double kindness: I shall hear no more cruel threats of my lord superintendent, and by not allowing any remarks of yours to be repeated in his ear, you will avoid giving fresh irritation to one who knows how to punish.”

I assured him that not a word should come from either of our lips which could possibly give cause of offence. In fact, we required no further instructions to be cautious. Two prisoners desirous of communication are skilful enough to invent a language of their own, without the least danger of its being interpreted by any listener.