Bulkaen’s gaze turned away from the scene that pained me and it settled on Rasseneur, the friend who had introduced us—but his head had to make a quarter-turn and his gaze met mine on its way to Rasseneur. I thought for a moment that he had recognized me as the fellow of the day before. My face remained impassive, indifferent, and his, now that I recall it, was, I think, somewhat arch. He started a conversation. When the ten-minute recreation period was over, I shook hands with him without wanting to seem as if I were bothering to look at him, and I made a point of this calculated indifference by pretending to be overjoyed to see a friend who was going by, but I carried Bulkaen off in the depths of my heart. I went back to my cell, and the abandoned habit of my abandoned childhood took hold of me: the rest of the day and all night long I built an imaginary life of which Bulkaen was the centre, and I always gave that life, which was begun over and over and was transformed a dozen times, a violent end: murder, hanging or beheading.

We saw each other again. At each of our meetings he appeared before me in a bloody glory of which he was unaware. I was drawn to him by the force of love, which was opposed by the force of supernatural but brawny creatures who kept me from going to him by fettering my wrists, waist and ankles with chains that would have kept a cruiser anchored on a stormy night. He was always smiling. Thus, it was through him that the habits of my childhood took hold of me again.

My childhood was dead and with it died the poetic powers that had dwelt in me. I no longer hoped that prison would remain the fabulous world it had long been. One day, I suddenly realized from certain signs that it was losing its charms, which meant perhaps that I was being transformed, that my eyes were opening to the usual view of the world. I saw prison as any ordinary roughneck sees it. It is a dungeon where I rage at being locked up, but today, in the hole, instead of reading “Tattooed Jean” on the wall of the cell, I read, because of a malformation of the letters carved in the plaster, “Tortured Jean.” (It’s because of Harcamone that I’ve been in the hole for a month, and not because of Bulkaen.) I walked by the murderer’s cell too often, and one day I was caught. Here are a few details: The carpentry shop and the shops where camouflage nets and iron beds are made are in a court in the north part of the former abbey. They are one-storey buildings. The dormitories are on the first and second floors of the left wing, which is supported by the wall of the former chapterhouse. The infirmary is on the ground floor. In order to get there, I had to go by way of the sixth or seventh division, where the death-cells were located, and I always went by way of the seventh. Harcamone’s cell was at the right. A guard, who sat on a stool, would look inside and talk to him or read a newspaper or eat a cold meal. I would look straight ahead and keep going.