one on whom they have inflicted an irreparable, an irremediable
wrong. I can claim on my side that if I realise what I have
suffered, society should realise what it has inflicted on me; and
that there should be no bitterness or hate on either side.

Of course I know that from one point of view things will be made
different for me than for others; must indeed, by the very nature
of the case, be made so. The poor thieves and outcasts who are
imprisoned here with me are in many respects more fortunate than I
am. The little way in grey city or green field that saw their sin
is small; to find those who know nothing of what they have done
they need go no further than a bird might fly between the twilight
and the dawn; but for me the world is shrivelled to a handsbreadth,
and everywhere I turn my name is written on the rocks in lead. For
I have come, not from obscurity into the momentary notoriety of
crime, but from a sort of eternity of fame to a sort of eternity of
infamy, and sometimes seem to myself to have shown, if indeed it
required showing, that between the famous and the infamous there is
but one step, if as much as one.

Still, in the very fact that people will recognise me wherever I
go, and know all about my life, as far as its follies go, I can
discern something good for me. It will force on me the necessity
of again asserting myself as an artist, and as soon as I possibly
can. If I can produce only one beautiful work of art I shall be
able to rob malice of its venom, and cowardice of its sneer, and to
pluck out the tongue of scorn by the roots.

And if life be, as it surely is, a problem to me, I am no less a
problem to life. People must adopt some attitude towards me, and