Part I, Chapter 38, Comunista Italiana Summary and Analysis

In Part I, Chapter 38, the prison governor comes to see Ginzburg, and tells her that she needs to eat. She hears screaming out in the hall as the governor leaves, and the youthful, kind prison guard Yaroslavsky opens the cell door window to offer a word of encouragement to Ginzburg. The woman screaming down the corridor is an Italian woman. Ginzburg surmises they are hosing her down with freezing water.

After the fifth day, Gizburg is returned to her cell. But to the day she writes, she can still hear the Italian woman's screams.

While in the punishment cell, Ginzburg hears one of the most sickening sounds she's yet heard: the scream of a torture victim up-close. The woman is a foreigner, being hosed down with freezing water. For what purpose this is...