IN PRISON
Elizabeth Bishop
I
CAN
scarcely wait for the day of my imprisonment. It is then that
my life, my real life, will begin. As Nathaniel Hawthorne says in
The Intelligence-Office,
"I want my place, my own place, my true
place in the world, my proper sphere, my thing which Nature in-
tendedme to perform . . . and which I have vainly sought all my
life-time."But I am not that nostalgic about it, nor have I searched
in vain "all my life-time." I have known for many years in what
directionlie my talents and my "proper sphere," and I have always
eagerlydesired to enter it. Once that day has arrived and the fonn-
alitiesare over, I shall know exactly how to set about those duties
"Nature intended me to perform."
The reader, or my friends, particularly those who happen to be
familiar with my way of life, may protest that for me ~ny actual
imprisonment is unnecessary, since I already live, in relationship to
society,very much as if I were in a prison. This I cannot deny, but
I must simply point out the philosophic difference that exists between
Choice and Necessity. I may live now as if I were in prison, or I
might even go and take lodgings near, or in, a prison and follow the
prison routine faithfully in every detail-and still I should be a
"minister without portfolio." The hotel-existence I now lead might
be compared in many respects to prison-life, I believe: there are the
corridors,the cellular rooms, the large, unrelated group of people with
the different purposes in being there that animate everyone of them;
but it still displays great differences. And of course in any hotel, even
the barest, it is impossible to overlook the facts of "decoration," the
turkey carpets, brass fire-extinguishers, transom-hooks, etc.,-it
is
ridiculous to try to imagine oneself in prison in such surroundings!
For example: the room I now occupy is papered with a not unat-
tractivewall-paper, the pattern of which consists of silver stripes about
an inch and a half wide running up and down, the same distance
from each other. They are placed over, that is they appear to be in-
sideof, a free design of flowering vines which runs allover the wall
against a faded brown background. Now at night, when the lamp
3
