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 water."

His sulkiness was breaking down and he was showing some agitation. She

lifted her large dark eyes on him and said in a soft voice: "Poor Bruno! No wonder they have made you say things."




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