charge who walks up and down; the compartment on the prison side is
divided into many narrow boxes each occupied by a prisoner, and the
compartment on the world side is similarly divided into sections each
occupied by a visitor.

When Roma entered this room she was deafened by a roar of voices. Thirty
prisoners and as many of their friends were trying to talk at the same
time across the compartment in the middle, in which the warder was
walking. Each batch of friends and prisoners had fifteen minutes for
their interview, and everybody was shouting so as to be heard above the
rest.

A feeling of moral and physical nausea took possession of Roma when she
was shown into this place. After some minutes of the hellish tumult she
had asked to see the Director. The message was taken upstairs, and the
Director came down to speak to her.

"Do you expect me to speak to my friend in this place and under these
conditions?" she asked.

"It is the usual place, and these are the usual conditions," he
answered.

"If you are unable to allow me to speak to him in some other place under
some other conditions, I must go to the Minister of the Interior."

The Director bowed. "That will be unnecessary," he said. "There is a
room reserved for special circumstances," and, calling a warder, he gave
the necessary instructions. He was a good man in the toils of a vicious
system.

A few minutes afterwards Roma was alone in a small bare room with Bruno,
except for two warders who stood in the door. She was shocked at the
change in him. His cheeks, which used to be full and almost florid,
were shrunken and pale; a short grizzly beard had grown over his chin,
and his eyes, which had been frank and humorous, were fierce and
evasive. Six weeks in prison had made a different man of him, and, like
a dog which has been changed by sickness and neglect, he knew it and
growled.

"What do you want with me?" he said angrily, as Roma looked at him
without speaking.

She flushed and begged his pardon, and at that his jaw trembled and he
turned his head away.

"I trust you received the note I sent in to you, Bruno?"

"When? What note?"

"On the day after your arrest, saying your dear ones should be cared for
and comforted."

"And were they?"

"Yes. Then you didn't receive it?"

"I was under punishment from the first."

"I also paid for a separate cell with food and light. Did you get that?"

"No, I was nearly all the time on bread and wate