I cannot recall the first day of my confinement without a bitter smile.  A mob of impertinent and ignorant idlers yelled from morning till night at my window, with their heads lifted high (my cell is situated in the second story), and they heaped upon me senseless abuse; there were even efforts—­to the disgrace of my townspeople—­to storm my dwelling, and one heavy stone almost crushed my head.  Only the police, which arrived in time, succeeded in averting the catastrophe.  When, in the evening, I went out for a walk, hundreds of fools, adults and children, followed me, shouting and whistling, heaping abuse upon me, and even hurling mud at me.  Thus, like a persecuted prophet, I wended my way without fear amidst the maddened crowd, answering their blows and curses with proud silence.

What has stirred these fools?  In what way have I offended their empty heads?  When I lied to them, they kissed my hands; now, when I have re-established the sacred truth of my life in all its strictness and purity, they burst into curses, they branded me with contempt, they hurled mud at me.  They were disturbed because I dared 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.