lended with screams and imprecations, the jingle of
spurs, the clatter of sword-scabbards crossing and recrossing each
other, excite and intoxicate me. Wild at my lack of energy and strength,
I seize with both hands my stool. It is old and worm-eaten, and after I
have several times flung it on the floor, the joints give way, and it
falls to pieces. As I turn to find some other object for destruction, a
flushed and agitated face appears at the wicket, and a moment later the
door is partly opened, and a warder pushes with violence a woman into my
cell. So great is the force employed, and so rapid the movement, that I
have difficulty in seizing her in my arms to prevent her falling upon
the floor amongst the broken glass and _debris_ of furniture.

This unexpected visitor is one of my friends and fellow-captives, Nadine
B----. Surprised at this unexpected meeting, and the conditions under
which it takes place, we are for some instants speechless, but during
those few moments I again see all our past, and also note the changes
which ten months' imprisonment have wrought in my friend; then, very
pale, and trembling with nervous excitement, Nadine explains that her
door having been forced during a struggle in the corridor, an officer
ordered her to be removed and locked up with another female prisoner.
Her cell was in the same corridor as that of Ivanoff, and of the death
of the latter there is no doubt. Several comrades, her neighbours, have
seen the body taken away. As to the grounds for his assassination, she
heard a group of officers, before her door, conversing, and one said
that the Commandant, not satisfied with the manner in which the warders
in the corridors discharged their duties in watching the prisoners, gave
orders to the sentries to watch from the court-yard and to shoot any
prisoner who appeared at his window.

This, then, is the reason for this assassination, in open day, of a
defenceless prisoner! The penalty of death for disobedience to one of
the prison regulations. Is this, then, a caprice, or an access of
ill-temper, on the part of an officer who has no authority in this
matter, since prisoners awaiting trial are only responsible to the
representatives of our so-called justice? Like a thunderclap this
explanation drives away my hesitation and sadness, which are now
replaced by indignation and a limitless horror; and while Nadine, sick
and worn, throws herself upon my bed, I mount to my window in order to