El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-05-15
Behind the Wall
BY Chalom Ache

| is silent, you can hear the waves Vi
| the river splash their crests against
the foot of the walls
Inside. all the floors are filled with
! prisoners During the day the fortress
| is like a house of death, a catacomD
whose holes are filled with human
! beings. The prisoners are asleep on
| their straw mattresses. or they sit
/ bordering when the end will come,
| staring into the stove or into empty
space.
But at night, the great prison awak-
| ems to life. Everywhere there are
knocks on the walls, and by secret
| alphabet, long conversations are car
ried on. Sometimes heavy steps along
the endless stone corridors again
plunge the house into silence, but when
the warden leaves life begins again
The prisoners grow used to their sill
ent existence; they no longer know
how to talk but with their fingers.
Sometimes, however, they are seized
with mad desire to cry aloud, Just
to see If they still possess a voice
One evening, when the whole prison
was in the midst of its usual CONVEX
sation. the clear strong silvery laugh
ter of young girl was suddenly
| heard. The prisoners were scared
Surely something unusual must have
walls stopped. the whole prison grew
| silent. and a second time the silvery
laughter rang through the building
as strange as if corpse had suddenly
begun to speak
She who had laughed was still a
mere child When they had come to
arrest her at her mothers house. she
had not understood how serious was
her case. She had stood up. proudly
and had. followedI the officers with
the dignity of Queen. She felt in
deed like the heroine OF a great rom
ance. But here inside the four mar
row walls of her cell she felt how
lonesome she was For "a long time
she cried in silence. But suddenly she
realized that she was alone and began
to sob bitterly like a child
The sentry came running up and
looked angrily through the peephole
in the door The sudden appearance
of his eye made the girl burst out
laughing, and when he saw her (she
was the only female prisoner the
soldier was moved and smiled too, but
the feeling Of his duty overcame him
and he found again his coarse voice
and angry expression
Thus it happened that discipline was
broken for the first TIME inside the
gloomy prison. The news quickly
spread throughout the whole building
that a young girl had arrived. The
secret alphabet told the story through
the walls
She was a musician, and to deafen
her longings for her piano she sat
down quietly in a corner and tapped
her 4favoritee tunes with her feet The
prisoners in their dark holes heard
and recognized them above their heads
c;r he divine music
and tbs whole prison was transformed
by the presence of a woman
In the next cell, a.zyoung man was
sitting. Prison walls had already rob-
bed him of eight years of his life, but
they had not been able to rob his
heart of its feryor. In the morning
after rising. he again lay down on
his mattress and lived over again in
his mind the life of his boyhood.
On the other side the wall he heard
the light footstep of the young girl
and when in the twilight hour she
played a nocturne by Chopin. he was
lost in delightful dreams
He had tried to talk TO her through
the wall His fingers told her Of his
love-
who are you? fell you are young
and beautiful and l love you. am
as trong as a lion. When the night
comes I will tear down the wall and
come to YOU 1 will hide you at my
bosom Ike a bird and will flee rar,
far away with YOU
She heard the sound of his fingers.
but did not understand him. for she
did not know the secret alphabet, but
she felt, nevertheless, that beyond the
wall was a heart that belonged to her,
a voice that called her. often she
pressed her ear against the wall to
listen, trying to make out the myster-
ious language, and sometimes she
knocked too, as if her fingers knew
how to speak When night fell she
had laid herself down near the wall
and knocked to see If her was there
on the other side Thus they remained
long, sshe' singing her songs to him
with her fingers and he telling her of
his love. She felt this without under
standing, and the soft finger taps went
straight to her heart
One day something happened which
made the whole building tremble with
sounds. A prisoner, had discovered
that they were erecting a scaffold in
the yard All night the knocks tap
ped on the walls ike raindfops on
roof and the very walls seemed to sigh
in the dreadful silence The knocks
ran through the house, passing first
from wall to wall, then from floor to
ceiling. The prisoners gave each 9TH
er advice, comforted each other, asked
questions and said farewell. At last
the sounds died out. In every cell the
prisoner was again living over his
past life.
That night the knocks of the young
girls neighbors had strange sound
His fingers trembled as If with fever.
Surely he must have something grave
and important to tell her, for his
knocks begged, imp1ored and besought.
Then they grew silent. But she did
not know the secret he wanted to tell
her
The wind was bowling outside,
whistling through the bars of the
grating, shrieking through the CHM
ney pipes. Never had the girl thought
her cell so full of horrors. Several
times she had knocked 10 call her
neighbor. but now he remained silent
as if he were angry. She gave up the
attempt and stretched herself out on