Summary

At the beginning of Chapter 19 the narrator is face to face with the commandant who questions the dramatic nature of the narrator's confession. The narrator comments that since he is a prisoner and the commandant is the one holding him, it may be difficult for them to sympathize with one another. The commandant insists the narrator is not a prisoner like those he was brought in with. Instead, he's a guest of the commissar and guests can leave. He then revises his statement and calls the narrator a patient who is being cured of the dangerous ideas he's picked up.

The commandant and the narrator have been meeting weekly and the commandant says the commissar believes that the narrator is finally ready to be cured. The narrator still has not met the commissar. The commandant tells the narrator that his confession was the...