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sergeant threw in, “tell us: Don’t you like it? What? Do you like it or don’t you?”
    “A party member,” said the man in plain clothes, spreading his hands. “A former partisan, an officer, and—well? Just to look at you, Kowalski, one would say you’re decent, quiet, probably a good comrade. But when we probe deeper, we find an enemy. You’ve unmasked yourself, Kowalski …” Hegave the pile of papers a push. “That’s the way it looks,” he said. “You’ve unmasked yourself, and that’s that.”
    “Me?” Franciszek stammered. “Unmasked myself? What
is
this all about?”
    “Maybe you don’t like it here,” the sergeant said. “Tell us: Don’t you like the regime? Or maybe the police?”
    The man in plain clothes rose from his seat. His legs wide apart, he looked straight into Franciszek’s eyes. “You have insulted the party,” he said calmly. “You have insulted the uniform of the People’s police. You have insulted the People’s Poland. You abused the party and the People’s government in such language that I’m ashamed to repeat it. All this was taken down verbatim. Do you remember that? You, a party member, as your papers show, you have insulted our government, our People’s regime. By this token you have shown what you really are,
Mister
Kowalski. Be good enough to read this, and sign it,
Mister
Kowalski. Then you’ll pay the fine and you’ll go home. We’ll inform the secretary of the party organization. We’ll send him a copy of the record. And now—please.” He handed Franciszek a sheet of paper and a pen.
    “My God,” Franciszek stammered, “is it possible?” His knees were trembling, and his heart was pounding somewhere in his throat.
    “Pretend that it is,” the lieutenant said. He cast a glance at Franciszek, who was as pale as a sheet, and grinned crookedly. “Stop play-acting,” he said sharply. “You think one thing and you say another. We’re not here to be taken in by such tricks. One day you shout obscenities in the streets; the next day you’ll be a spy. Read this, please, and sign.”
    “But I couldn’t possibly have shouted like that!” Franciszek cried. “There’s some mistake. I refuse to believe that I said such things.”
    “I heard you,” the sergeant said. “And if you don’t like it, just say so.”
    “I don’t think that way.”
    “You shouted that way,” said the man in plain clothes. “These are your words. I am ashamed to repeat them, party comrade.”
    “What a sober man thinks in his heart a drunk says with his tongue,” the lieutenant said. “Surely no one knows that better than you.”
    “A mistake,” Franciszek said hoarsely. He raised his hand to his forehead as though he were going blind. “A mistake.”
    “That’s right,” said the man in plain clothes. “You made a mistake. You made a mistake if you thought the enemy can never be unmasked.”
    Franciszek glanced at the paper he had been handed. He tried to read it, but the letters blurred before his eyes into a single formless mass. Suddenly he had the feeling that everything around him was unreal, make-believe. He closed his eyes; on opening them after a moment, he saw the lieutenant bending over him. A little farther off stood the man in plain clothes, and next to him, the sergeant. Their faces showed nothing but contempt.
    “Here,” the lieutenant said, pointing to the place where he had to sign.
    “I—” Franciszek began. He stopped suddenly. He realized that he was at the end of his rope, and that he would not be able to say a word to justify himself before these men. In the corridor someone was banging his fists on the door, roaring, “Let me out! Let me out!” Franciszek thought: “I’ve got to get out of here, get out at any cost.” He picked up the pen, and signed. The lieutenant took the paper from his hands and threw it on the desk.
    Later, as they returned his things, he could see the policemen talking to him, but their words were no