The great kitchen knife passes busily through the hard, white curd. The usher of Saint-Joseph-de-Tinée holds the knife in both hands and presses on it with all his weight. Beads of perspiration are standing on his besmirched forehead; his goggle eyes dilate; the ruddy skin of his face, downy with sparse golden hairs, is deeply wrinkled. He sweats as only a thoroughly good fellow, a man who puts all his will into his work, can sweat. Bouquet and Pailloux look on indifferently. Durupt, who becomes absorbed in the most trifling matters as if they were affairs of state, gravely counts the slices and arranges them on the right-hand corner of the kitchen table in piles of ten. Dutrex has assumed his service manner. He stands stiffly upright at the left corner; his moustache is brushed away from his lips, his eye is severe, he holds his check-list. “Lambert, cut more equal slices!” “Corporal Dutrex, I am doing my best, as you see; it is very difficult.” “I know it. Durupt, you will give an extra piece to the rooms whose share is obviously too small.” Seated at my table, I contemplate this Rembrandtesque scene. The melancholy lamp, its chimney broken, is smoking among the pale faces and the piled up slices. The cheese is being contaminated by the foul air of the dark casemate, in which all the stoves have gone out. The light of the dying day still pierces the window bars, its tender blues and reds fading slowly away. Through the closed door comes the impatient, angry, and menacing sound of shuffling feet. The men waiting there know that it is “cheese evening.” They detest this meal. It is cold and hard to digest, less filling than a ladleful of hot semolina or vermicelli, and makes extravagant demands upon their bread. The distribution does not take long. When there is soup and meat, our four hundred and eighty men come individually to receive their rations, passing in a continuous stream, first in front of the cauldron to get the soup, and then in front of the vice for the portion of meat. The procession lasts an hour, as at a great funeral. “The holy water!” say the jokers, stretching out their basins. “The handful of earth!” extending their hands for the three ounces of cow-flesh. But on cheese nights there is no procession. The twenty-three headmen of the rooms supplied from No. 22 bring bowls, and when these are charged the headmen go off to distribute the contents in their respective casemates. At six everything is finished. Heaving a sigh of relief, the cooks clear the table and draw up the two benches and the three stools. All of them, cooks and ministers, are about to swallow their allotted rations. These look very small, especially to Lambert, who has been sweating blood and water.