The Public Prosecutor, who knew perfectly well everything about him, having himself arranged every detail of the arrest, said something incomprehensible and was going away. "May I have a light of some sort?" asked Axel, "and writing materials? I absolutely must be able to----" "You cannot expect the luxuries of a _Schloss_ here," said the Public Prosecutor with a scowl, turning on his heel and signing to the warder to lock the door again. And he continued his rounds, congratulating himself on having demonstrated that in his independent eye the bearer of the most ancient name and the offscourings of the street, tried or untried, were equal--sinners, that is, all of them--and would receive exactly the same treatment at his hands. Indeed, he was so anxious to impress this laudable impartiality on the members of the little prison-world, which was the only world he knew, that he overshot the mark, refusing Axel small conveniences that he would have unhesitatingly granted a suppliant called Schmidt, Schultz, or Meyer. It was now quite dark, except for the faint light from the lamps in the street below. Weary to death, Axel flung himself down on the little bed. He had brought a few necessaries, hastily thrown into a bag by his servant, necessaries that had first been carefully handled and inspected with every symptom of distrust by the Junior Public Prosecutor Meyer; but he did not unpack them. Judging from the shortness of the bed, he concluded that criminals must be a stunted race. Sleeping was not made easy by this bed, and he lay awake staring at the shadows cast by the iron bars outside his window on to the ceiling. These shadows affected him oddly. He shut his eyes, but still he saw them; he turned his head to the wall and tried not to think of them, but still he saw them. They expressed the whole misery of his situation. He had dozed off, worn out, when a bright light on his face woke him. He started up in bed, confused, hardly remembering where he was. A feeling very nearly resembling horror came over him. A bull's-eye lantern was being held close to his face. He could see nothing but the bright light. The man holding it did not speak, and presently backed out again, bolting the door behind him. Axel lay down, reflecting that such surprises, added to anxiety and bad food, must wear out a suspected culprit's nerves with extraordinary rapidity and thoroughness. There could not, he thought, be much left of a man in the way of brains and calmness by the time he was taken before the judge to clear himself. The incident completely banished all tendency to sleep. He remained wide awake after that, tormented by anxious thoughts.