Free The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti: A New England Legend by Howard Fast Page B

dwindle, to fold in upon themselves with particularized intensity and exceedingly slow horror, when the wiring system of the prison was tested.
    As Nicola Sacco sat upon the edge of his cot and watched this happen, he heard a violent cry, sharp and piercing and loaded with sudden, unbearable pain, as an animal’s cry might be; and it came from the cell next door, Madeiros’ cell. This cry died away and was then followed by a series of moans; and in all his life, Sacco felt, he had never heard anything so pitiful, so utterly wretched and bereft as these moans of the poor, damned and frightened thief. Then, with ears acutely accustomed to every change of sound, he heard Madeiros fall prone upon his cot and begin to weep. This was more than Sacco could bear. He leaped up, ran to the door of his cell, and shouted through the opening,
    â€œMadeiros, Madeiros, do you hear me?”
    â€œI hear you. What do you want?” Madeiros asked through his tears.
    â€œI want to comfort you a little. I want you to take heart.”
    Even as he said this, Sacco wondered what on earth there was to comfort any one of the three of them, and from where indeed they could take heart or hope? As an echo of his own thoughts, Madeiros answered,
    â€œWhat’s there to take heart in?”
    â€œThere’s still hope.”
    â€œFor you, maybe, Mr. Sacco. Maybe there is still hope for you, but there is no hope for me. I am going to die. Nothing in the whole world can change that. In just a little while, I am going to die.”
    â€œNow isn’t that nonsense!” Sacco cried, feeling better now that he had to struggle with the fears of another. “That’s real nonsense, Madeiros. They can’t take your life until they take ours. So long as they keep us alive, they must keep you alive too, for you are the most important material witness to the whole affair of Sacco and Vanzetti. Now look—just you look at it this way. Why do you think the three of us are here together? We are here together because our fortunes are linked. There is nothing to cry about yet.”
    â€œIsn’t death something to cry about?” Madeiros asked woefully, as a child might ask a totally pathetic and obvious question—the answer to which was equally pathetic and obvious.
    â€œYou keep saying death. Now is no time to think of death and talk about death, just because they want to play with their lights. Well, who cares about that? Who cares what they do with their lights? Let them turn the lights on and off all day long if that’s the way they feel about it!”
    â€œThey are testing the electric chair in which we are going to die.”
    â€œOh, there you go again!” cried Sacco. “Nothing but death! The trouble is, you have given up.”
    â€œThat’s right. I have given up. It’s all wasted.”
    â€œWhat is wasted?”
    â€œMy whole life is wasted. Nothing ever came of it. It was wrong. From the first day I was born, it was wrong and wasted. But I never made it that way. Do you understand, Mr. Sacco? I never made it that way. Something else made it that way. I spoke to Mr. Vanzetti about it once, and he tried to explain to me some of the things that made it that way. I listened very carefully while he explained it. I would begin to understand something he says and then I don’t understand it any more. You know what I am talking about, Mr. Sacco?”
    â€œI know,” Sacco said. “Poor boy—of course I know.”
    â€œBut it was all wasted.”
    Sacco said, “Life is never wasted. Madeiros, I swear to you that I am telling you a most profound truth. Life is never wasted. It is wrong for you now to think that your whole life was wasted just because you did some things that might have been bad. How was it with my own sweet little boy? If he did bad things, did I lock him up in a dark room? No. I tried to explain to him. I tried to show him that there are good