ared to live alone, and
because I did not ask them for a place in the "common cell for rogues."
How difficult it is to be truthful in this world!

True, my perseverance and firmness finally defeated them. With the
naivete of savages, who honour all they do not understand, they
commenced, in the second year, to bow to me, and they are making ever
lower bows to me, because their amazement is growing ever greater, their
fear of the inexplicable is growing ever deeper. And the fact that I
never respond to their greetings fills them with delight, and the fact
that I never smile in response to their flattering smiles, fills them
with a firm assurance that they are guilty before me for some grave
wrong, and that I know their guilt. Having lost confidence in their own
and other people's words, they revere my silence, even as people revere
every silence and every mystery. If I were to start to speak suddenly, I
would again become human to them and would disillusion them bitterly, no
matter what I would say; in my silence I am to them like their eternally
silent God. For these strange people would cease believing their God
as soon as their God would commence to speak. Their women are already
regarding me as a saint. And the kneeling women and sick children that
I often find at the threshold of my dwelling undoubtedly expect of me
a trifle--to heal them, to perform a miracle. Well, another year or two
will pass, and I shall commence to perform miracles as well as those of
whom they speak with such enthusiasm. Strange people, at times I feel
sorry for them, and I begin to feel really angry at the devil who so
skilfully mixed the cards in their game that only the cheat knows the
truth, his little cheating truth about the marked queens and the marked
kings. They bow too low, however, and this hinders me from developing a
sense of mercy, otherwise--smile at my jest, indulgent reader--I would
not restrain myself from the temptation of performing two or three
small, but effective miracles.

I must go back to the description of my prison.

Having constructed my cell completely, I offered my jailer the following
alternative: He must observe with regard to me the rules of the prison
regime in all its rigidness, and in that case he would inherit all my
fortune according to my will, or he would receive nothing if he failed
to do his duty. It seemed that in putting the matter before him so
clearly I would meet with no difficulties. Yet at t