Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/148

 passed by and forgotten only because she led a somewhat free life. "Auch das geht vorüber."

Yes. But an hour later I felt the old hunger. The chill emptiness in the stomach as on the day before, the day before that, a week previously. And I called to mind a very experienced woman, the mother of four marriageable daughters, who often used to explain to young men that restaurant fare is not and never can be the same thing as meals at home, in the family: even though you eat better and more in a restaurant, an hour later you will be hungry. A wise woman—she had observed with accuracy.

I reflected how the body might be helped. What about a nap? After all, sleep is strengthening. I would try to sleep a few hours in the course of the day, for instance between three and four in the afternoon.

If a man is well fed, his humour is warm; with this chill emptiness in the stomach, the soul is also cold. A strict ruler, the stomach. But in certain respects one's comprehension becomes keener. I comprehended, for example, how a fly probably feels when it is caught in a spider's web. And the spider comes and ties and enmeshes it still closer.

 

One Sunday we suddenly took leave of Dušek. For a number of weeks he had been employed in the superintendent's room; he used to come to us for his evening meal and to spend the night, he now arrived with the sad news that he would be shifted into the Rossau barracks. In these barracks there was a branch establishment of our jail; whenever it had received so many supplies that it was full up, matters were looked into, and so and so many