III

square.⁠—O, I would square myself with the doctors by thrusting a poker down my windpipe: I might be able to breathe better then. I pause to curse my fate.⁠—Curse it, Jahannam-born, curse it!⁠— “I can not sleep, nor on the spring-bed, nor on the floor. It is two hours past midnight now, and I shall try to while away the time by scrawling this to you. My brother, I can not long support this sort of life, being no more fit for rough, ignominious labor. ‘But why,’ you will ask, ‘did you undertake it?’ Yes, why? Strictly speaking, I made a mistake. But it’s a noble mistake, believe me⁠—a mistake which everybody in my condition ought to make, if but once in their lifetime. Is it not something to be able to make an honest resolution and carry it out? I have heard strange voices in prison; I have hearkened to them; but I find that one must have sound lungs, at least, to be able to do the will of the immortal gods. And even if he had, I doubt if he could do much to suit them in America. O, my greatest enemy and benefactor in the whole world is this dumb-hearted mother, this America, in whose iron loins I have been spiritually conceived. Paradoxical, this? But is it not true? Was not the Khalid, now writing to you, born in the cellar? Down there, in the very loins of New York? But alas, our spiritual Mother devours, like a cat, her own children. How then can we live with her in the same house? “I need not tell you now that the ignominious task I set my hands to, was never to my liking. But the ox under the yoke is not asked whether he likes it or not. I have been yoked to my pushcart by the immortal gods; and soon my turn and trial will end. It must end. For our country is just