Despite the warder's announcement that nobody ever came there for less than three or four months, I was suddenly taken away again after five days, and Black Maria drove me back once more to the Polizeigefängnis of the Alexanderplatz. I was too miserable by now to care where I was sent or what they did to me. I was beginning to lose the power of appreciating anything--whatever its nature. I found some new arrivals at Alexanderplatz. The place was full as usual with neutrals who were under suspicion: Dutch, Swedes and Danes. One Dutchman had been there for seven weeks in solitary. I was just reaching the final depths of despair when, one night, just as I had got my first foot into bed, the door was flung open, and into the gloom a voice shouted "'raus."[6] I "raused" timidly and in my nightshirt, and was told to dress quickly. I did so, surmising I was to go to another prison. I began to feel quite numb, and I no longer hoped for anything. Downstairs in the bureau a very pleasant policeman took charge of me, and after having signed the receipts for the acceptance of my carcase, he made the usual remark, "Kommen Sie mit," and off we went. I thought it odd that we should go alone: they usually fetch the criminals in batches. "Where are we going to?" I asked. "Ruhleben," he said. VI--ON THE ROAD TO RUHLEBEN PRISON For a moment I could hardly feel. I hardly dared feel. I just breathed quietly to myself, and thought how nice the air tasted. I was going to see human beings again. For a time the words were rather meaningless, and then I gradually began to revive under their warmth. We went out into the street to the Alexanderplatz station. I had a fine opportunity to run away here, though I should have been a fool to have done so, and to have invited prison again. In any case, I had no glasses with me, and I was very short-sighted. We had gone up on to the platform, and I was chuckling and giggling like a schoolgirl at seeing life once again, when the policeman discovered it was the wrong one. "Run," he said, "there's our train over there." I ran like a leopard. In ten bounds I had slipped through the crowd and had lost him. I ran on down the stairs, and into the street. How glorious it all seemed, and I roared aloud with laughter, at which a sallow-faced woman in black seemed offended and turned round to stare. I rushed on, up the other set of stairs and in time my captor appeared. The idea of bolting had just entered my head and flown, but "no," I said, "wait till we get to Ruhleben, and have got tired of that, then we'll see what can be done."