Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis

After "dueling" with his interrogator for four days, Solzhenitsyn is taken to Cell 67. Solzhenitsyn thinks of prison not as an abyss, but as an important turning point in his life. Sixteen-hour days in the cell contain no events worthy of note but pass too quickly nonetheless. The first two hours are the hardest when investigators are still asleep but the turnkeys are making sure prisoners jump off their cots, make them, and sit down to think about their ruined lives. Prisoners may also write applications and petitions twice a month. Returning from walks is like being arrested again. It and watching a prisoner gobble up food parcels from outside—or reading about food in Gogol—require self-control. Lunch, consisting of soup and gruel, arrives with "cheery clatter."

It takes time before new inmates' stomachs shrink and they...