No more parades, or inspections, but broken heads, fury everywhere; no safety anywhere in stepping out of doors, and above all the bitter certainty that once we, the inferior force, are made to hand over our secret we shall be neglibile, kicked aside, treated with contempt and worse, despised and also enslaved…

And as an accompaniment the mountain is rumbling to life, twice a week it is heard grumbling in the clouds and it belches out horrid little puffs of flame and smoke…

My back no longer hurts me, nevertheless I think I shall carry those scars to my death. They are very deep.

Smahil would not hold the mirrors to show me my back, but one day while I was alone I managed to arrange it for myself. My back must have been in ribbons … The scars are now clean and silver, raised weals which will presently fade and fine down… And when I am old, if I ever do live till then, they will shrink and draw my skin with them in crumpling wrinkles.

The brand I love to feel on Smahil's back will be nothing to that. “How did you get it?” I asked him once. He was quite surprised. “I never knew it was a brand. Are you sure you’re not making a mistake?” “Yes, it’s very tiny but it’s a brand mark, a rusty black oval—” “I don’t know, no one has ever branded me, I must have had it always …”

That is absurd, but I don’t think it matters . ..

I don’t think anything really matters…

The whispers have found my new dwelling-place.

That, too, is another of the things from which I feel secure only in Smahil’s arms. This place is so lonely all day, so dank, and dreary that sometimes I have to get up and stride from corner to corner, back and forth, biting my lip to prevent myself screaming; or I fall upon the bed in a passion of weeping for which I can find no real reason. I play endless games with myself. I redecorated the room as I would if I had unlimited riches and resources, but how futile it is, if I had them I should not keep this room. But if I had to—But no. It is too pointless.

Smahil has forbidden me to go out, even to the river bank in the country, and I confess I have no inclination to go out either—not with the city in such a state of ferocious turmoil. He has forbidden me even to visit Lei. He forbids a damn sight too much, but as I pointed out I intend to obey him from my own sense.