Mr. Y. Yes, but even the unintentional killing of a man is punished with a two-year term at hard labour—­which is exactly what one gets for—­writing names.

Mr. X. Oh, you may be sure I have thought of it.  And more than one night I have dreamt myself in prison.  Tell me now—­is it really as bad as they say to find oneself behind bolt and bar?

Mr. Y. You bet it is!—­First of all they disfigure you by cutting off your hair, and if you don’t look like a criminal before, you are sure to do so afterward.  And when you catch sight of yourself in a mirror you feel quite sure that you are a regular bandit.

Mr. X. Isn’t it a mask that is being torn off, perhaps?  Which wouldn’t be a bad idea, I should say.

Mr. Y. Yes, you can have your little jest about it!—­And then they cut down your food, so that every day and every hour you become conscious of the border line between life and death.  Every vital function is more or less checked.  You can feel yourself shrinking.  And your soul, which was to be cured and improved, is instead put on a starvation diet—­pushed back a thousand years into outlived ages.  You are not permitted to read anything but what was written for the savages who took part in the migration of the peoples.  You hear of nothing but what will never happen in heaven; and what actually does happen on the earth is kept hidden from you.  You are torn out of your surroundings, reduced from your own class, put beneath those who are really beneath yourself.  Then you get a sense of living in the bronze age.  You come to feel as if you were dressed in skins, as if you were living in a cave and eating out of a trough—­ugh!

Mr. X. But there is reason back of all that.  One who acts as if he belonged to the bronze age might surely be expected to don the proper costume.

Mr. Y. [Irately] Yes, you sneer!  You who have behaved like a man from the stone age—­and who are permitted to live in the golden age.

Mr. X. [Sharply, watching him closely] What do you mean with that last expression—­the golden age?

Mr. Y. [With a poorly suppressed snarl] Nothing at all.

Mr. X. Now you lie—­because you are too much of a coward to say all you think.

Mr. Y. Am I a coward?  You think so?  But I was no coward when I dared to show myself around here, where I had had to suffer as I did.—­But can you tell what makes one suffer most while in there?- -It is that the others are not in there too!

Mr. X. What others?

Mr. Y. Those that go unpunished.

Mr. X. Are you thinking of me?

Mr. Y. I am.

Mr. X. But I have committed no crime.

Mr. Y. Oh, haven’t you?

Mr. X. No, a misfortune is no crime.

Mr. Y. So, it’s a misfortune to commit murder?