I feigned an air of utter dejection. "You miss her, don't you?" "Yes." I answered in a particularly faint and faraway voice. "That's human nature, I guess." His manner had become increasingly self-important. "Where was it you first took up with this woman?" The question was weighted with an authority almost indistinguishable from that of a judge. My jailor, despising me as a mere child who wouldn't know the difference, acted exactly as if he were charged with the investigation. No doubt he was secretly hoping to while away the long autumn evening by extracting from me a confession in the nature of a pornographic story. I guessed his intent at once, and it was all I could do to restrain the impulse to burst out laughing in his face. I knew that I had the right to refuse to answer any queries put me by the policeman in an "informal interrogation" of this sort, but in order to lend some interest to the long night ahead, I cloaked myself in a kind of simple sincerity, as if I firmly, unquestioningly believed that this policeman was responsible for investigating me, and that the degree of severity of my punishment depended solely on his decision. I made up a confession absurd enough to satisfy—more or less—his prurient curiosity. "Hmmm. I've got a pretty good idea now. We always take it into consideration when a prisoner answers everything honestly." "Thank you very much. I hope you will do what you can to help me." My performance was all but inspired—a great performance which brought me no benefit whatsoever. In the morning I was called before the police chief. This time it was the real examination.
