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Show page 54 Bassler once worked on the high side of the cell house, cleaning windows. He saw over the walls to the fresh plowed land; to the eastward he saw a field of color - a field of peach trees in bloom. The color remained with him right up to release, and beyond. Yesterday morning Bassler lay in his bunk until the metallic sounds of the get-up bugle filled the prison, then yaxtfned and pushed his hands through his thinning hair. "Pink peach blossoms," he said. "Ruth loved pink." He has the common prison habit of talking to himself. He seizes upon some dreamdust and assures himself of its reality. Dreams change a prison cell to a beautiful oak study and add carpet to concrete floors. This behavior was noticeable more than usual yesterday; Bassler intended to take his dreams out with him, perhaps to free them as well as himself, and forget things unpleasant. There was still enough reality for him to catch at the thread of release. He knew that in three hours more or less he x\rould xralk the streets a free man. But a mixture of reality and unreality crowded him. Bassler really had no concrete picture of freedom. The approach had been too gradual, the world of reality too long dimmed. It was hard for him not to believe that the day was not another echo in his corridor of echoes. But freedom was at hand, right at his elbow. Or was it? Freedom just might be a cruel intruder. No, freedom was his, in a matter of hours, He twisted himself to a sitting position on the edge of |