size and spaciousness after so long in my moldy burrow, and then stopped as I suddenly confronted the most hideous creature I had ever encountered.
It was a man. It had to be a man, but God in heaven, what manner of man was this? He was tall and emaciated, his head crowned by a dirty, unkempt thatch of hair that spilled to his waist, his face hidden by a filthy, matted beard that fell to his belly. Spittle drooled from the slash that was his mouth, and his eyes were wildly glowing coals in their sunken sockets. He was naked and his flesh was coated with filth, sores and scabs, lending it a leprous appearance. The nails of his fingers and toes were grown out, elongated and curved like the talons of a vulture. Indeed, he looked like a vulture. I shuddered as I regarded the apparition. I shuddered again as recognition loomed.
I was facing myself in a mirror.
I was still horrified at my appearance when the guard returned, clothing draped over his arm and a pair of shoes in his hand.
I recognized the apparel as mine, the clothes I was wearing when I was received in the prison. "Put these on," said the guard brusquely, handing me the garments and dropping the shoes on the floor. "Can't I shower and shave first, please?" I asked.
"No, put on the clothes," he said, giving me a malevolent look. I hurriedly garbed my filthy frame in the clothes, which were now several sizes too large for me. My belt was missing. I clutched the trousers around my wasted stomach and looked at the guard. He stepped into the next room and returned with a length of cotton rope. I cinched the waist of my trousers with that.
Almost immediately two gendarmes appeared, one of them carrying an array of restraints. One of them cinched a thick leather belt with a ringbolt in the front around my waist while the other fastened heavy shackles around my ankles. I was then handcuffed and a long, slender steel chain was looped around my neck and the handcuff chain, threaded through the ringbolt and fastened with a lock to the chain connecting my leg irons. Neither officer said a word as they trussed me. One then pointed toward the door and gave me a light shove as his partner led the way through the exit.
I shuffled after him, unable to walk because of the leg irons and fearful of my destination. I had never been chained like this before. I considered such restraints only for violent, dangerous criminals.
"Where are we going, where are you taking me?" I asked, squinting in the late afternoon sunlight. It was even more brilliant than the lights inside. Neither of them bothered to answer me.
Silently, they placed me in the back seat of an unmarked sedan and one climbed behind the wheel as the other seated himself beside me.
They drove me to the railroad station. The afternoon light, even sheltered as I was in the car, made me dizzy and nauseous. The nausea was not all due to my sudden exposure to daylight after all these months, I knew. I'd been ill-feverish, vomiting, diarrhea and racked at times by chills-for the past month or so. I had not complained to the guards in Perpignan. They would have ignored me, as they had ignored all my other pleas and protests.
At the railroad station I was taken from the car and one of the gendarmes snapped one end of a light chain onto my belt. He wrapped the other end around his one hand, and, leashed like a dog, I was led and dragged through the people assembled at the depot and shoved onto the train. The conductor showed us to a glassed-in compartment containing two benches, the door of which was adorned with a sign stating the booth was reserved for the Ministry of Justice. The other passengers looked at me in horror, shock or revulsion as we passed among them, some falling back in disgust as they detected my odor. I had long since lost all olfactory sensitivity to my own feculence, but I could sympathize with them. I had to smell like a convention of outraged skunks.
The compartment was large enough to accommodate eight persons and as the train filled and all the seats were occupied, several sturdy peasants, at various times, appeared and sought permission to ride in the compartment with us. They seemed oblivious to my malodorous condition. Each