passed a vast armoury in which were stored some two hundred and fifty barrels of powder. Pikes and axes hung on the walls and the prison reeked of dankness and disease. Each step we took through the gloomy building made me realise how impossible it must be to escape, and how crazed the prisoners must be.
My cell was octagonal in structure, perhaps twenty feetwide, and rose to a vaulted and plastered ceiling. A high triple-barrelled window was the single source of light. The only furniture was a folding table, three cane chairs held together by a few remaining strings, and two aged mattresses.
‘How long will we be here?’ I asked.
‘No one ever knows the answer to that question,’ Lossinote replied mysteriously.
My bed was crawling with mites, my shirt itched with lice, and the gruel they provided for my evening repast was inedible. Pedro lay exhausted on the cold floor, and we fell into further despair.
It was several months before I discovered that each prisoner was entitled to a weekly allowance and could make certain requests. After placing Pedro’s needs first, acquiring a blanket, grooming comb, and dog bowl, I asked for a decent supply of clothes: twelve shirts, ten handkerchiefs, two coats, a double-breasted waistcoat, tight satin breeches, silk stockings, shoes, and even, at last, a peruke, which I hoped might make me seem more French.
Unfortunately, this was not a success and I decided it would be better to keep my hair long and dark in the Spanish style to which I was accustomed. But I was determined that I would no longer look like a clown, and shaved off my beard, taking pains with my appearance (there was so little else to do), and keeping myself and my dog as clean and as well groomed as we could possibly be.
It then occurred to me that the linen that had been supplied could be put to good use, and I began to unpick sections of my shirts, sheets and blankets, thread by thread, in order to construct a home-made ladder with which wemight plan our escape. I thanked God that I had spent so much time on ropes, ratlines, lanyards and dead-eyes during my first sea voyage, and I remembered, with fondness and regret, my friends and colleagues from those times: Cortés and Doña Marina, Montezuma and, of course, my beloved Ignacia. It seemed so long ago, but I knew that without memory I could have no real existence. These events had defined my life, and I must not forget them if I was to retain my sanity.
And yet, as I threaded and wove my way towards what I hoped would be my freedom, it was impossible not to feel inexpressibly lonely. I was cut off from my past, and uncertain of my future. My days were enlivened only by the perambulations in which I was allowed to exercise Pedro and by the opportunity to share meals, once a week, with any fellow inmate whom, it was felt, would benefit by my company.
It soon became apparent that none of the prisoners had actually committed any serious crime. There was a man who had been arrested for forging lottery tickets, and another who had been taken for a madman after he had tried to bottle clouds; there was a third with a feverish voice who claimed that he knew the location of a secret treasure but had refused to tell where it was; and there was a priest who had done nothing more than impregnate the daughter of a count. The only man I spoke to frequently was the oldest person I had ever seen, a Major Whyte. Nobody knew how long he had been in the prison. He could not remember himself and was even more detached from his past than I was myself, believing that he was Julius Caesar. The whiteness of his hair and the length of his beard amazed me. If this indeed was extreme old age, a mixture of infirmity,delusion and amnesia, then perhaps I was fortunate in delaying its arrival for so long.
Yet there was also another person in the Bastille, a gentleman, who kept himself both solitary and aloof. I would see him between the hours of noon and one, a mysterious figure with
My cell was octagonal in structure, perhaps twenty feetwide, and rose to a vaulted and plastered ceiling. A high triple-barrelled window was the single source of light. The only furniture was a folding table, three cane chairs held together by a few remaining strings, and two aged mattresses.
‘How long will we be here?’ I asked.
‘No one ever knows the answer to that question,’ Lossinote replied mysteriously.
My bed was crawling with mites, my shirt itched with lice, and the gruel they provided for my evening repast was inedible. Pedro lay exhausted on the cold floor, and we fell into further despair.
It was several months before I discovered that each prisoner was entitled to a weekly allowance and could make certain requests. After placing Pedro’s needs first, acquiring a blanket, grooming comb, and dog bowl, I asked for a decent supply of clothes: twelve shirts, ten handkerchiefs, two coats, a double-breasted waistcoat, tight satin breeches, silk stockings, shoes, and even, at last, a peruke, which I hoped might make me seem more French.
Unfortunately, this was not a success and I decided it would be better to keep my hair long and dark in the Spanish style to which I was accustomed. But I was determined that I would no longer look like a clown, and shaved off my beard, taking pains with my appearance (there was so little else to do), and keeping myself and my dog as clean and as well groomed as we could possibly be.
It then occurred to me that the linen that had been supplied could be put to good use, and I began to unpick sections of my shirts, sheets and blankets, thread by thread, in order to construct a home-made ladder with which wemight plan our escape. I thanked God that I had spent so much time on ropes, ratlines, lanyards and dead-eyes during my first sea voyage, and I remembered, with fondness and regret, my friends and colleagues from those times: Cortés and Doña Marina, Montezuma and, of course, my beloved Ignacia. It seemed so long ago, but I knew that without memory I could have no real existence. These events had defined my life, and I must not forget them if I was to retain my sanity.
And yet, as I threaded and wove my way towards what I hoped would be my freedom, it was impossible not to feel inexpressibly lonely. I was cut off from my past, and uncertain of my future. My days were enlivened only by the perambulations in which I was allowed to exercise Pedro and by the opportunity to share meals, once a week, with any fellow inmate whom, it was felt, would benefit by my company.
It soon became apparent that none of the prisoners had actually committed any serious crime. There was a man who had been arrested for forging lottery tickets, and another who had been taken for a madman after he had tried to bottle clouds; there was a third with a feverish voice who claimed that he knew the location of a secret treasure but had refused to tell where it was; and there was a priest who had done nothing more than impregnate the daughter of a count. The only man I spoke to frequently was the oldest person I had ever seen, a Major Whyte. Nobody knew how long he had been in the prison. He could not remember himself and was even more detached from his past than I was myself, believing that he was Julius Caesar. The whiteness of his hair and the length of his beard amazed me. If this indeed was extreme old age, a mixture of infirmity,delusion and amnesia, then perhaps I was fortunate in delaying its arrival for so long.
Yet there was also another person in the Bastille, a gentleman, who kept himself both solitary and aloof. I would see him between the hours of noon and one, a mysterious figure with
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