Every day he had a one-hour recreation period in a special yard. He was in chains. The yard was not very far from the punishment cell where I am writing. And what I often took for the sound of my pen against the inkwell was the very faint, indeed one might say, as of any mournful sound, the very delicate sound of the condemned man’s chains. An attentive or predisposed or pious ear was required to perceive it. The sound was intermittent, for I sensed that Harcamone dared not walk too much lest he make known his presence in the yard. He would take a step in the wintry sun and then stop. He hid his hands in the sleeves of his homespun jacket.

There is no need to invent stories of which he is the hero. His own suffices, and, what is quite exceptional in prison, his truth is more becoming than any lie. For convicts lie. Prisons are full of lying mouths. Everyone relates fake adventures in which he plays the role of hero, but these stories never continue in splendour to the very end. The hero sometimes gives himself away, for he needs sincerity when he talks to himself, and we know that when the imagination is vivid it may cause the inmate to lose sight of the dangers of his real life. It masks the reality of his situation, and I don’t know whether he is afraid of falling into the depths of the imagination until he himself becomes an imaginary being or whether he fears a collision with the real. But when he feels imagination overcoming him, invading him, he reviews the real risks he runs, and, to reassure himself, he states them aloud. Bulkaen used to lie, that is, of the thousand adventures he invented, which composed a light and fantastic lacework skeleton and organism for him, loose ends stuck out of his mouth and eyes. Bulkaen did not lie to advantage. He was not calculating, and, when he tried to be, he made errors in calculation.

Though my love for Divers and my adoration of Harcamone still excite me, Bulkaen, despite the levity I discovered in him, was the thing of the moment. He was he who is. I did not imagine him, I saw him. I touched him, and, thanks to him, I could live on earth, with my body, with my muscles. Shortly after seeing him with the queer, I met him on the stairs. The stairway, which goes from the floors on which the workshops and refectories are installed, to the ground floor, where the offices, prison court, medical room and visitors’ room are located, is the main meeting-place. It is cut into the stone of the wall and unwinds in shadow. That was where I almost always saw Bulkaen. It was the lovers’ trysting-place, particularly ours, and it still vibrates with the sound of the kisses exchanged there. Bulkaen ran down the stairs two at a time. His shirt was dirty, bloodstained, open in the back as the result of a stab. At the bend, he stopped short. He turned around. Had he seen me or sensed my presence? He was shirtless; his torso was naked beneath the jacket. It was another inmate—a new one—who had passed me, had, in silent flight on his slippers, passed Bulkaen, had, in the twinkling of an eye, come between the kid and me and, in so brief a time, had once again sparked the thrill of seeing Bulkaen in the theatrical conclusion that I wished for him. He turned around and smiled.