Explore "The Last Days of a Condemned" by Victor Hugo on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I have lately witnessed a hideous sight. As soon as it was day, the prison was full of noise, I heard heavy doors open and shut; the grating of locks and bolts; the clanking of bunches of keys; the stairs creaking from top to bottom with quick steps; and voices calling and answering from the opposite extremes of the long corridors. My neighbours in the dungeons, the felons at hard labour, were more gay than usual. All in the prison seemed laughing, singing, running, or dancing; I -- alone silent in this uproar, alone motionless in this tumult -- listened in astonishment.
A jailor passed; I ventured to call and ask him "if there were a Fête in the Prison."