I extended my wrist, and the chain pulled up the hand, sad as a captured animal, of the fellow to whom it was attached. The guard fumbled at the lock of the handcuffs; when he found it and inserted the key, I heard the slight click of the delicate trap that was freeing me. And that deliverance to enter captivity was to us a first affliction. The heat was stifling, but no one thought it would be so hot in the dormitories. The door of the office opened into a corridor that was lit up with cruel precision. The door was unlocked. A convict on the maintenance staff, probably a sweeper, pushed it slightly, put his smiling face in, and whispered:

“Say, boys, if any of you have butts, better let me have ‘em, because . . .”

He broke off and disappeared. Probably a guard was coming. Someone shut the door from the outside.

I listened to hear whether the voice would cry out, but I heard nothing. Nobody was being tortured. I looked at one of the fellows who were with me. We smiled. We had both recognized the whisper which would be for a long time the only tone in which we could speak. We sensed all around us, behind the walls, a stealthy, silent but zealous activity. Why in the dead of night? In winter, darkness came on quickly, and it was only five in the afternoon.

Some moments later, likewise muffled, but remote, a voice, which sounded to me like that of the inmate, cried out:

“Regards to your fanny from my dick!”

The guards in the office heard it too but didn’t bat an eyelash. Thus, as soon as I arrived I realized that no convict’s voice would be clear. It is either a murmur low enough for the guards not to hear, or else a cry muffled by a thickness of walls and anguish.

As soon as each of us gave his name, age, occupation, and distinguishing marks and signed with the print of his forefinger, he was taken by a guard to the wardrobe. It was my turn:

“Name?”

“Genet.”

“Plantagenet?”

“I said Genet.”

“What if I feel like saying Plantagenet? Do you mind?”

“. . .”

“Christian name?”

“Jean.”

“Age?”

“Thirty.”

“Occupation?”

“No occupation.”

The guard gave me a dirty look. Perhaps he despised me for not knowing that the Plantagenets were buried in Fontevrault, that their coat of arms—leopards and the Maltese Cross—is still on the stained-glass windows of the chapel.