Full Text Archive

Full Text Archive
https://www.fulltextarchive.com
to undress and go to bed. There were punishments, no doubt, for infractions of these
rules--reduced rations, the strait-jacket, perhaps stripes--he scarcely knew what. He felt
disconsolate, grim, weary. He had put up such a long, unsatisfactory fight. After washing his
heavy stone cup and tin plate at the hydrant, he took off the sickening uniform and shoes and
even the drawers of the scratching underwear, and stretched himself wearily on the bed. The
place was not any too warm, and he tried to make himself comfortable between the
blankets--but it was of little use. His soul was cold.
"This will never do," he said to himself. "This will never do. I'm not sure whether I can stand
much of this or not." Still he turned his face to the wall, and after several hours sleep eventually
came.
Chapter LIV
Those who by any pleasing courtesy of fortune, accident of birth, inheritance, or the wisdom of
parents or friends, have succeeded in avoiding making that anathema of the prosperous and
comfortable, "a mess of their lives," will scarcely understand the mood of Cowperwood, sitting
rather gloomily in his cell these first days, wondering what, in spite of his great ingenuity, was to
become of him. The strongest have their hours of depression. There are times when life to
those endowed with the greatest intelligence-- perhaps mostly to those--takes on a somber hue.
They see so many phases of its dreary subtleties. It is only when the soul of man has been built
up into some strange self-confidence, some curious faith in its own powers, based, no doubt, on
the actual presence of these same powers subtly involved in the body, that it fronts life
unflinchingly. It would be too much to say that Cowperwood's mind was of the first order. It was
subtle enough in all conscience-- and involved, as is common with the executively great, with a
strong sense of personal advancement. It was a powerful mind, turning, like a vast searchlight,
a glittering ray into many a dark corner; but it was not sufficiently disinterested to search the
ultimate dark. He realized, in a way, what the great astronomers, sociologists, philosophers,
chemists, physicists, and physiologists were meditating; but he could not be sure in his own
mind that, whatever it was, it was important for him. No doubt life held many strange secrets.
Perhaps it was essential that somebody should investigate them. However that might be, the
call of his own soul was in another direction. His business was to make money-- to organize
something which would make him much money, or, better yet, save the organization he had
begun.
But this, as he now looked upon it, was almost impossible. It had been too disarranged and
complicated by unfortunate circumstances. He might, as Steger pointed out to him, string out
these bankruptcy proceedings for years, tiring out one creditor and another, but in the meantime
the properties involved were being seriously damaged. Interest charges on his unsatisfied loans
were making heavy inroads; court costs were mounting up; and, to cap it all, he had discovered
with Steger that there were a number of creditors--those who had sold out to Butler, and
incidentally to Mollenhauer--who would never accept anything except the full value of their
claims. His one hope now was to save what he could by compromise a little later, and to build
up some sort of profitable business through Stephen Wingate. The latter was coming in a day or
two, as soon as Steger had made some working arrangement for him with Warden Michael
Desmas who came the second day to have a look at the new prisoner.
Desmas was a large man physically--Irish by birth, a politician by training--who had been one
thing and another in Philadelphia from a policeman in his early days and a corporal in the Civil
277 / 312

---