I arrived in the morning from a punishment cell in order to enjoy by means of words the memory of Bulkaen, who had remained above, in order to caress him by caressing the words which are meant to recall him to himself by recalling him to me, I had begun the writing of this book on the white sheets with which I was supposed to make paper bags. My eyes were startled by the light of day and smarting from the night’s dream, a dream in which someone opened a door for Harcamone. I was in the dream, behind the door, and I motioned to Harcamone to cross the threshhold, but he hesitated, and his hesitation surprised me. Awakened by the guard during this episode in order to go from the hole to the big cell, I was still under the influence—which was painful, I don’t know why—of the dream when, at about eight o’clock, I went to take my place in the circle.

After punishment in the disciplinary cell there is the severer one of being put in irons. This can be imposed only by the Minister of the Interior, at the warden’s request. It consists of the following: The ankles are held by a ring which is attached to a very heavy chain; the ring is snapped shut by a guard. The wrists are bound by a lighter, slightly longer chain. This is the stiffest punishment of all. It precedes the death penalty and is, in fact, its forerunner, since, from the day sentence is pronounced until the day of execution, the feet of men condemned to death are in irons day and night, and their wrists and feet are chained at night and whenever they leave the cell.

Before speaking more fully about Bulkaen and Divers, who were the pretext for my book, I want to introduce Harcamone, who, when all is said and done, remains its sublime and final cause. I felt, as he did, the shock and dismal sound of the formula “preliminary hearing to confirm the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.”1 When a man is convicted of theft for the fourth time, with mandatory penalties, that is, more than three months in prison, he is sentenced to “transportation.” Now that the penal colony has been abolished, he will have to spend the rest of his life in prison. Harcamone was sentenced to “transportation.” And I am going to speak of his death sentence. I shall explain later the miracle whereby I witnessed, at certain times, his entire inner, secret and spectacular life, but here and now I offer my thanks for this to the God we serve, who rewards us by the attentions that God reserves for his saints. It is saintliness too that I am returning to seek in the unfolding of this adventure. I really must go in quest of a God who is mine, for as I looked at pictures of the penal colony my heart suddenly clouded with nostalgia for a land which I knew elsewhere than in Guiana, elsewhere than on maps and in books, and which I discovered within myself. And the picture showing the execution of a convict in Cayenne made me say: “He stole my death.” I still remember my tone of voice: it was tragic, that is, the exclamation was directed to the friends I was with—I wanted them to believe me—but the tone was also slightly muted because I was voicing a deep sigh, a sigh which came from afar, which showed that my regret came from afar.