He clears his throat. "I am going to read to you from the depositions we have gathered, Magistrate," he says, "so that you will have an idea of the gravity of the charges against you." He motions and the guard leaves the room.

"From one: 'His conduct in office left much to be desired. His decisions were characterized by arbitrariness, petitioners had on occasion to wait months for a hearing, and he maintained no regular system of accounting for moneys.' " He lays down the paper. "I may mention that an inspection of your accounts has confirmed that there have been irregularities. 'Despite being principal adminstrative officer for the district, he contracted a liaison with a streetwoman which occupied most of his energies, to the detriment of his official duties. The liaison had a demoralizing effect on the prestige of imperial administration because the woman in question had been patronized by the common soldiers and figured in numerous obscene stories.' I will not repeat the stories.

"Let me read to you from another. 'On the first of March, two weeks before the arrival of the expeditionary force, he gave orders for myself and two other men (named) to prepare at once for a long journey. He did not at that time say where we were going. We were surprised when we found that the barbarian girl would be travelling with us, but we did not ask questions. We were also surprised by the hastiness of the preparations. We did not see why we could not wait for the spring thaw. It was only after our return that we understood that his purpose had been to warn the barbarians of the coming campaign… We made contact with the barbarians on approximately the eighteenth of March. He had long consultations with them from which we were excluded. An exchange of gifts also took place. At this time we discussed among ourselves what we would do if he ordered us to go over to the barbarians. We decided that we would refuse and find our own way home… The girl returned to her people. He was besotted with her, but she did not care for him.'

"So." He lays the papers down carefully and squares the corners. I keep my silence. "I read only extracts. So that you could see the shape of things. It looks bad when we have to come in and clean up local administration. It isn't even our job."

"I will defend myself in a court of law."

"Will you?"

I am not surprised by what they are doing. I know very well the weight that insinuations and nuances can be made to bear or how a question can be asked in such a way as to dictate its answer. They will use the law against me as far as it serves them, then they will turn to other methods. That is the Bureau's way. To people who do not operate under statute, legal process is simply one instrument among many.

I speak. "No one would dare to say those things to my face. Who is responsible for the first deposition?"

He waves a hand and settles back. "Never mind. You will have your chance to reply."

So we contemplate each other in the stillness of the morning, till it is time for him to clap his hands for the guard to remove me.

I think about him a great deal in the solitude of my cell, trying to understand his animosity, trying to see myself as he sees me. I think of the care he has spent on my office. He does not simply hurl my papers in a corner and prop his boots on my desk, but instead takes the trouble to display to me his notion of good taste. Why? A man with the waist of a boy and the muscular arms of a streetfighter crammed into the lilac-blue uniform that the Bureau has created for itself. Vain, hungry for praise, I am sure. A devourer of women, unsatisfied, unsatisfying. Who has been told that one can reach the top only by climbing a pyramid of bodies. Who dreams that one of these days he will put his foot on my throat and press. And I? I find it hard to hate him in return. The road to the top must be hard for young men without money, without patronage, with the barest of schooling, men who might as easily go into lives of crime as into the service of the Empire (but what better branch of service could they choose than the Bureau!).

Nevertheless, I am not taking easily to the humiliations of imprisonment. Sometimes, sitting on my mat staring at three specks on the wall and feeling myself drift for the thousandth time towards the questions, Why are they in a row? Who put them there? Do they stand for anything?, or finding as I pace the room that I am counting one-two-three-four-five-six-one-two-three …, or brushing my hand mindlessly over my face, I realize how tiny I have allowed them to make my world, how I daily become more like a beast or a simple machine, a child's spinning-wheel, for example, with eight little figures presenting themselves on the rim: father, lover, horseman, thief… Then I respond with movements of vertiginous terror in which I rush around the cell jerking my arms about, pulling my beard, stamping my feet, doing anything to surprise myself, to remind myself of a world beyond that is various and rich.

There are other humiliations too. My requests for clean clothes are ignored. I have nothing to wear but what I brought with me. Each exercise day, under the eye of the guard, I wash one item, a shirt or a pair of drawers, with ash and cold water, and take it back to my cell to dry (the shirt I left to dry in the yard was gone two days later). In my nostrils there is always the mouldy smell of clothing that does not see the sun.

And worse. Under the monotonous regimen of soup and porridge and tea, it has become an agony for me to move my bowels. I hesitate for days feeling stiff and bloated before I can bring myself to squat over the pail and endure the stabs of pain, the tearing of tissues that accompany these evacuations.

No one beats me, no one starves me, no one spits on me. How can I regard myself as a victim of persecution when my sufferings are so petty? Yet they are all the more degrading for their pettiness. I remember smiling when the door first closed behind me and the key turned in the lock. It seemed no great infliction to move from the solitariness of everyday existence to the solitude of a cell when I could bring with me a world of thoughts and memories. But now I begin to comprehend how rudimentary freedom is. What freedom has been left to me? The freedom to eat or go hungry; to keep my silence or gabble to myself or beat on the door or scream. If I was the object of an injustice, a minor injustice, when they locked me in here, I am now no more than a pile of blood, bone and meat that is unhappy.

My evening meal is brought by the cook's little grandson. I am sure it puzzles him that the old Magistrate has been shut up all alone in a dark room, but he asks no questions. He enters very erect and proud, bearing the tray, while the guard holds the door open. "Thank you," I say, "I'm so glad you have come, I was getting so hungry…" I rest my hand on his shoulder, filling the space between us with human words, while he waits gravely for me to taste and approve. "And how is your granny today?"

"She is well, sir."

"And the dog? Has the dog come back yet?" (From across the yard comes his grandmother's call.)

"No, sir."

"It is spring, you know, it is the mating season: dogs go visiting, they stay away for days, then they come back without telling you where they have been. You mustn't be worried, he will come back."

"Yes, sir."

I taste the soup, as he wants me to do, and smack my lips. "Say to your grandmother, thank you for the supper, it is delicious."

"Yes, sir." Again the call: he picks up this morning's mug and plate and prepares to go.

"And tell me: have the soldiers come back yet?" I ask quickly.

"No, sir."

I hold the door open and stand for a moment in the doorway listening to the last twitterings of the birds in the trees under the great violet sky while the child crosses the yard with his tray. I have nothing to give him, not even a button; I have not even time to show him how to make his knuckles go click or how to catch his nose in his fist.