nder
your windows, soldiers pass through the streets, come, go, and drill;
the bugle sounds incessantly and the troops file past. You understand at
once that the arsenal constitutes the real city and that the other is
completely swallowed up by it. Everywhere and in every form reappear
discipline, administration, ruled paper. Factitious symmetry and idiotic
cleanliness are much admired. In the navy hospital for instance, the
floors are so highly polished that a convalescent trying to walk on his
mended leg would probably fall and break the other. But it looks nice.
Between each ward is a yard, but the sun never shines in it, and the
grass is carefully kept out. The kitchens are beautiful, but are
situated so far from the main building that in winter the food must be
cold before it reaches the patients. But who cares about them? Aren't
the saucepans like polished suns? We saw a man who had broken his skull
in falling from a vessel, and who for eighteen hours had received no
medical assistance whatsoever; but his sheets were immaculate, for the
linen department is very well kept.

In the prison ward I was moved like a child by the sight of a litter of
kittens playing on a convict's bed. He made them little paper balls, and
they would chase them all over the bed-spread, and cling to its edges
with their claws. Then he would turn them over, stroke them, kiss them
and cuddle them to his heart. More than once, when he is put back to
work and sits tired and depressed on his bench, he will dream of the
quiet hours he spent alone with the little animals, and of the softness
of their fur on his rough hands and the warmth of their little bodies
against his breast. I believe, though, that the rules forbid this kind
of recreation and that probably he had them through the kindness of the
sister in charge.

But here, as well as elsewhere, rules have their exceptions, for, in the
first place, the distinction of caste does not disappear (equality being
a lie, even in the penitentiary). Delicately scented locks sometimes
show beneath the numbered caps, just as the sleeve of the red blouse
often reveals a cuff surrounding a well-kept hand. Moreover, special
favours are shown toward certain professions, certain men. How have they
been able, in spite of the law and the jealousy of their fellow-prisoners,
to attain this eccentric position which makes them almost amateur
convicts, and keep it without anybody trying to wrest it from them? At