Book 1, The Short Stories : Chapter 8, The Peasant Marey & The Heavenly Christmas Tree Summary

This story begins with a narrative first-person point-of-view. The main character is a prisoner. There are holidays in prison. This shows in that they are not forced to work and that their intoxication is tolerated. In fact, the officials go out of their way to ignore it, specifically because it would probably make matters even worse if they came down hard on the prisoners for doing so. He writes that he was sent to prison 15 years ago, and that he has hardly shared with anyone about this. He further describes that he had written a book, a novel in fact, about a fictional character who had been sentenced to prison time for murdering his wife. He writes that although that is...