40
PARTISAN REVIEW
the inviolable reward and the fruit of all labor. So that, even when
the guards came and dismissed the comrades, pushing them back into
their enclosures, the anthem, which had been interrupted, went on,
slowly and nobly concluding itself in the imagination. The leave-tak–
ing was the reunion.
Satya was left sitting on the stones. Several other gates were
opened. With difficulty Satya recognized the prisoners: they, too, had
come up
in
the van. They were in good health, not gaunt and slow
on their feet like the others; some even had a high color, as
if
they
had been eating meat. But all were wild and unkempt, almost savage
in appearance; their faces were bloated and coarsened, as if they had
received blows, although no scars or discolorations could be seen. Or,
rather, the faces of the comrades seemed, somehow, to have_ been
transformed from within.
When the prisoners recognized Satya they rushed at him and
began to kick him and beat him. One of the prison guards inter–
vened and placed a whip in Satya's hands, indicating that he was to
defend himself. Satya rejected the whip, rose to his feet and spoke
to the comrades, trying to recall them to their senses. Refusing to
listen, they knocked him down again.
The guards drove back the prisoners .and formed a ring around
them, each grasping the end of the other's whip. The comrades, some
seven men in all, were crushed together. This was done, evidently, to
inflame their brutality. Meanwhile a barber, carrying a wad of cotton
and a sponge, came up to Satya to see
if
he had sustained any cuts;
the barber examined him, wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth,
passed the sponge over his forehead and retreated. For the first time
Satya noticed a number of the jail officials sitting under striped um–
brellas. They were looking on in great interest, as
if
following an ex–
periment. Several were taking notes.
The guards allowed the prisoners to break out, and they rushed
at Satya again and once more began to beat him. His pain and his
pity were identical: "pity them and save them!" The unexpressed
thought remained in his consciousness as he lay under their blows.
But now suffering alone constituted his hold on life.
