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Emmie!” he exclaimed, “I implore you—and I shall not desist—tell me, when shall I die?”
    Gnawing on a finger, she went over to the table, where the books towered in a pile. She flung one open, leafed through the pages, making them snap and almost ripping them out, banged it shut, picked up another. A rippling something kept running across her face: first she wouldwrinkle her freckled nose, then her tongue would distend her cheek from within.
    The door clanged. Rodion, probably having looked through the peephole, came in, rather angry.
    “Shoo, young lady! I’m the one who will catch it for this.”
    She broke into shrill laughter, dodged his crablike hand and rushed to the open door. There, on the threshold, she abruptly stopped with a dancer’s magic precision and—perhaps blowing a kiss, or perhaps concluding a pact of silence—looked over her shoulder at Cincinnatus; whereupon, with the same rhythmic suddenness, she was off, running with long, high, springy steps, already preparing for flight.
    Rodion, grumbling, jingling, trudged off after her.
    “Wait a minute!” cried Cincinnatus. “I have finished all the books. Bring me again the catalogue.”
    “Books …” Rodion scoffed huffily and locked the door behind him with pronounced resonance.
    What anguish! Cincinnatus, what anguish! What stone anguish, Cincinnatus—the merciless bong of the clock, and the obese spider, and the yellow walls, and the roughness of the black wool blanket. The skim on the chocolate. Pluck it with two fingers at the very center and snatch it whole from the surface, no longer a flat covering, but a wrinkled brown little skirt. The liquid is tepid underneath, sweetish and stagnant. Three slices of toast with tortoise shell burns. A round pat of butter embossed with the monogram of the director. What anguish, Cincinnatus, how many crumbs in the bed!
    He lamented for a while, groaned, cracked all his joints, then he got up from the cot, put on the abhorred dressinggown, and began to wander around. Once again he examined all the inscriptions on the walls in the hope of somewhere discovering a new one. Like a fledgling crow on a stump, he stood for a long while on the chair, motionlessly gazing up at the beggarly ration of sky. He walked some more. Once more he read the eight rules for inmates, which he already knew by heart:
    1. Leaving the prison building is positively forbidden.
    2. A prisoner’s meekness is a prison’s pride.
    3. You are firmly requested to maintain quiet between one and three P.M . daily.
    4. You are not allowed to entertain females.
    5. Singing, dancing and joking with the guards is permitted only by mutual consent and on certain days.
    6. It is desirable that the inmate should not have at all, or if he does, should immediately himself suppress nocturnal dreams whose content might be incompatible with the condition and status of the prisoner, such as: resplendent landscapes, outings with friends, family dinners, as well as sexual intercourse with persons who in real life and in the waking state would not suffer said individual to come near, which individual will therefore be considered by the law to be guilty of rape.
    7. Inasmuch as he enjoys the hospitality of the prison, the prisoner should in his turn not shirk participation in cleaning and other work of prison personnel in such measure as said participation is offered him.
    8. The management shall in no case be responsible for the loss of property or of the inmate himself.
    Anguish, anguish, Cincinnatus. Pace some more, Cincinnatus, brushing with your robe first the walls, then thechair. Anguish! The books heaped on the table have all been read. And, even though he knew that they had all been read, Cincinnatus searched, rummaged, peeked into a thick volume … Without sitting down, he leafed through the already familiar pages.
    It was a bound magazine, published once upon a time, in a barely remembered age. The prison library, considered the second