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On Captivity
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On Captivity is the first translation into English of
Del Cautiverio , Manuel Ciges Aparicio’s account of
his imprisonment in the notorious La Cabaña fortress in
Havana during the Cuban War of Independence (1895–98).
Ciges enlisted in the Spanish army in 1893 at the age of twenty.
He served in Africa and then in Cuba, where he opposed Spanish
General Valeriano Weyler’s policies in Cuba as well as the
war itself. Ciges soon found himself imprisoned and facing
execution for treason as punishment for an article critical of
Weyler’s conducting of the war that was intercepted by
Spanish authorities before it could be published in the pro-Cuban
Parisian paper
L’Intransigeant . First published in book form in
1903, Ciges’s account includes detailed observations
concerning prison organization, perceptions of political events
and personalities of the time, as well as graphic descriptions of
the daily life of the men confined in the infamous prison. Ciges
is the only one of the so-called Generation of 1898—writers
considered to have been deeply marked by
el desastre (the loss of the colonies)—who was in
Cuba during the war years. His witness to events there, colored
by his stance as a freethinker and political skeptic, constitutes
a significant historical document. Following his release from
prison, Ciges returned to Spain where he resumed his career as an
activist journalist and also earned acclaim as a translator and
novelist. In time, his political allegiances shifted from
socialism to liberal republicanism. He was acting as provincial
governor of Avila when he was killed by unidentified assassins on
August 4, 1936—eighteen days after the Falangist uprising
against the Second Republic.
eBook
XIV
From that time forward he reserved his mellifluous words, eloquence, and ingenious artfulness for new prisoners. For the old ones he prepared nocturnal thefts and brutal assaults.
At three in the morning, when the cell was Sound asleep, his gang was on watch.
“Are you hungry?” he asked the boy reposing at his side in an indulgent tone of voice.
And then he gave instructions. Except to the brutal guard dog who never moved from his side. A bloodhound with a keen sense of smell examined the bags hanging on the wall in order to take out the bread and
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XX
The lamp was slowly dying, and the first light of dawn was coming through the door. The kitchen workers began to split kindling in preparation for the prisoners’ breakfast, and their blows resounded dully in the empty pavilion of the invalids. The plaza lamp was still lit, and dense wisps of pale fog gathered around its incandescent eye. the bugle saluted the arrival of the new day with a penetrating “reveille,” and the sleeping troops, silent only moments before, woke up with a great clamor of beds being moved, barked orders, and persistent coughing. In the midst of the din
Book Chapter
XII
So long as the Cuban and the drunk were prisoners, life was halfway bearable; but when both men were freed in the same week, annoyance and cursing reigned again for some time in the cell.
To break the monotony of our lives, a sergeant with a disagreeable appearance and bad intentions came to stay, a dangerous drunk who on a binge one day had cornered several officers, saber in hand.
His first act of rebellion and attempt at setting himself up as the boss was to refuse to take part in cleaning.
“Pay me for it and I’ll do it,”
Book Chapter
VIII
How many crimes such as this I observed in that time of pain and death!
The emotions I experienced that night had not yet faded from my consciousness when I witnessed another shattering scene whose recollection still troubles me in these days of relative happiness.
A sergeant and five soldiers had just come into the stinking cell.¹¹ They were Cubans who had been mobilized, almost all no longer young. The reconcentración policy had obliged them to leave the countryside; hunger had forced them to join a guerrillero unit so that their children would not die in misery, as did so
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X
When his period of punishment was over, the vicious wretch returned to number 34. The dwarf was about to regain his freedom, and no one doubted who would take power next. the relative peace that prisoners enjoyed in this cell began to dissipate at the very thought of the unhappy days that would not be long in coming under the terrible tyranny of that monster whose deep gray eyes glowed feverishly with evil thoughts concerning his coming rule.
The handsome plotter of escapes made a pact with him, and together they spent long hours of pleasant conversation in the window
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XVI
At nine the following morning a more humane sentinel appeared at my door who offered to serve me for nothing. He was a simple Galician who stared at me for a long time with an expression on his face that resembled regret before he struck up a conversation.
“Why are you looking at me so insistently?” I asked him.
“Man . . . You see . . . My God . . .”
“Speak up.”
“Well, you see . . . They say around here . . . I don’t want to say it.”
“What do they say?” “Well, they
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