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with the bald head who had slept standing up.
    The door creaked again, and all glanced toward it. In the doorway stood the lieutenant and a man in civilian clothes. The latter was small; he had a surprisingly round face, a thin nose, and dark eyes set very close together.
    “Kowalski,” the lieutenant said. “Will you come here, please.”
    Franciszek walked to the door and stood facing the man in plain clothes. The other looked him over. Franciszek caught only a glimpse of his eyes, but it seemed to him that his innermost thoughts were being read.
    The man in plain clothes turned to the lieutenant. “Is this the one?” he asked.
    “Yes,” said the lieutenant.
    “Citizen Lieutenant,” Franciszek said quickly, “please hurry up, I’d like to—”
    “Let’s go,” said the man in plain clothes.
    They banged the door right in his face, and once again he barely had time to jump back. The stranger with whom Franciszek had talked during the night let out a soft whistle. “So that’s what it is,” he said.
    Franciszek turned to him. “What do you mean—‘that’s what it is’?”
    His neighbor looked at him with gentle irony. “You must have made a fine mess for them to come after you like that,” he said. He smacked his tongue in a particularly repulsiveway, then went on: “If you don’t remember what happened, you’re surely in for it. Someone must have informed on you. Don’t you remember?”
    Franciszek looked at him sharply. “What are you talking about?”
    The stranger smiled. “Someone must have informed on you,” he repeated. “Maybe you listen to Free Europe. You’d be in a bad way if it turned out that you listen to those broadcasts and then tell other people what you’ve heard. We’ve got one of those in here; he can tell you.” He called over his shoulder: “Mr. Kwiatuszynski, would you kindly come here for a minute?”
    The bald-headed giant came up to them. “I’m listening,” he said in a splendid bass.
    Franciszek’s neighbor turned to him. “You’re here because of Free Europe, aren’t you?”
    “Nothing of the kind,” the giant said with great dignity. “I never listened to Free Europe. I was locked up for listening to Radio Madrid. My wife turned it on full blast, and the woman next door informed on us. It goes to show, you can never trust a woman.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Franciszek’s neighbor said, smiling triumphantly. “What matters is the fact itself, not the details. And Madrid is probably worse in this respect …”
    “That’s not true,” said someone in the rear of the cell. “The worst is New York.
They
really hate us.”
    “The Vatican is just as bad,” someone else threw in, coming closer. He was a small gray-haired man who looked like a retired teacher. “You’d think they’d apply different standards to a purely religious program, but nothing of the kind. The trouble my stepson got into for repeating a Vatican announcement—well, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. Thename of a broadcasting station doesn’t prove anything. In such cases, my friends, everything is an illusion—”
    Franciszek’s neighbor interrupted the argument with an impatient wave of his hand. “There’s no need to go into all that,” he said. “The main thing is that this gentleman here”—he pointed to Franciszek—“has been informed on, and he has absolutely no idea who it can be.” He leaned close to Franciszek’s ear. “Somebody in your family? You think the family is so wonderful? Well, we have somebody here because his mother-in-law reported he had a gun. She did it out of spite, because he didn’t ask her to his birthday party.”
    “He isn’t here any longer,” the giant said in his splendid bass. “He was released yesterday.”
    Franciszek cast a sharp glance at his neighbor. “Stop bothering me,” he said. “You offend me as a man and as a party member. I am honest, and the fact that I am here with you is just an unfortunate