The roast meat on the dish had a very appetizing odor; for half a year I had not tasted a drop of wine; and what was more, I did not feel towards the surly turnkey the aversion that I felt towards the gently-speaking, courteous superintendent; but I was resolved to accept no favors from my jailor. "I owe this to the kindness of the Herr Superintendent?" I asked, taking my seat at the table. "This and more," said the old man. "For instance?" "For instance, that one has our best cell, with a look-out into the garden, and not one looking into the prison-yard, where neither sunlight nor moonlight ever comes." "Thanks," said I, "anything else?" "That one can wear his handsome town-clothes, instead of unbleached drilling; which is not such a bad rig, though, after all." "Thanks," said I; "anything else?" "And that one has Sergeant Süssmilch for warden." "With whom I have the honor?" "With whom one has the honor." "Much obliged." "Well you may be." I looked up to get a better view of the man whose relation to me was so fraught with honor and advantage. He appeared to be above fifty years of age, of short, compact build, who seemed to stand remarkably firmly for his age upon his short bowed legs. From his broad shoulders hung a pair of quite disproportionately long arms, with great brown hairy hands, which evidently had not lost their strength of grasp. From his furrowed and wrinkled face, which might once have been good-looking, twinkled under gray bushy eyebrows a pair of clear, good-humored eyes, which in vain tried to look fierce and cruel. His smooth, close-cropped gray hair lay thick above his bronzed forehead; and beneath his great hooked nose, like an eagle's beak, a heavy moustache drooped on either side far below his firm chin. Sergeant Süssmilch was, in later years, long my true friend; in hours of trial he rendered me priceless services; he taught my eldest boys to ride; and when, five years ago, we carried him to his last resting-place, we all heartily sorrowed over him; but at this moment I was considering what amount of resistance he would be likely to offer in a contingency which I deemed very probable, and thought that I should be sorry to have to take the life of the old fellow who was so delightfully surly. "If one has looked at Sergeant Süssmilch long enough, one will do well to fall to the supper, which is getting no better by standing," he said. "It may stand there for me," I answered. "I have no appetite for the Herr Superintendent's roast meat and wine." "Might as well have said so at once," growled Herr Süssmilch, commencing to replace the things on the waiter. "Who the deuce was to know what your custom here is," I said in a sulky tone. "The custom here is that one has to work when he wants to eat." "That is not true," I said. "I am not condemned to labor: I was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, and should by rights have been sent to the fortress, where decent people go."