my hand: 'Take the pencil, take the
pencil.'"

At that moment, as my eyes wandered distractedly over his cell, I
suddenly noticed that some of the artist's clothes hanging on the wall
were unnaturally stretched, and one end was skilfully fastened by the
back of the cot. Assuming an air that I was tired and that I wanted to
walk about in the cell, I staggered as from a quiver of senility in my
legs, and pushed the clothes aside. The entire wall was covered with
drawings!

The artist had already leaped from his cot, and thus we stood facing
each other in silence. I said in a tone of gentle reproach:

"How did you allow yourself to do this, my friend? You know the rules of
the prison, according to which no inscriptions or drawing on the walls
are permissible?"

"I know no rules," said K. morosely.

"And then," I continued, sternly this time, "you lied to me, my friend.
You said that you did not take the pencil into your hands for a whole
week."

"Of course I didn't," said the artist, with a strange smile, and even a
challenge. Even when caught red-handed, he did not betray any signs of
repentance, and looked rather sarcastic than guilty. Having examined
more closely the drawings on the wall, which represented human figures
in various positions, I became interested in the strange reddish-yellow
colour of an unknown pencil.

"Is this iodine? You told me that you had a pain and that you secured
iodine."

"No. It is blood."

"Blood?"

"Yes."

I must say frankly that I even liked him at that moment.

"How did you get it?"

"From my hand."

"From your hand? But how did you manage to hide yourself from the eye
that is watching you?"

He smiled cunningly, and even winked.

"Don't you know that you can always deceive if only you want to do it?"

My sympathies for him were immediately dispersed. I saw before me a man
who was not particularly clever, but in all probability terribly spoiled
already, who did not even admit the thought that there are people who
simply cannot lie. Recalling, however, the promise I had made to the
Warden, I assumed a calm air of dignity and said to him tenderly, as
only a mother could speak to her child:

"Don't be surprised and don't condemn me for being so strict, my friend.
I am an old man. I have passed half of my life in this prison; I have
formed certain habits, like all old people, and submitting to all rules
myself, I am perhaps overdoing it somewhat in demanding the sam