the preceding chapter, were, with one or two exceptions, inhabiting at
the time of my arrival. Now the thing which above all things made death
worth living and life worth dying at La Ferte Mace was the kinetic aspect
of that institution; the arrivals, singly or in groups, of _nouveaux_ of
sundry nationalities whereby our otherwise more or less simple existence
was happily complicated, our putrescent placidity shaken by a fortunate
violence. Before, however, undertaking this aspect I shall attempt to
represent for my own benefit as well as the reader's certain more obvious
elements of that stasis which greeted the candidates for disintegration
upon their admittance to our select, not to say distinguished, circle.
Or: I shall describe, briefly, Apollyon and the instruments of his power,
which instruments are three in number: Fear, Women and Sunday.

By Apollyon I mean a very definite fiend. A fiend who, secluded in the
sumptuous and luxurious privacy of his own personal _bureau_ (which as a
rule no one of lesser rank than the Surveillant was allowed, so far as I
might observe--and I observed--to enter) compelled to the unimaginable
meanness of his will by means of the three potent instruments in question
all within the sweating walls of La Ferte--that was once upon a time
human. I mean a very complete Apollyon, a Satan whose word is dreadful
not because it is painstakingly unjust, but because it is
incomprehensibly omnipotent. I mean, in short, Monsieur le Directeur.

I shall discuss first of all Monsieur le Directeur's most obvious weapon.

Fear was instilled by three means into the erstwhile human entities whose
presence at La Ferte gave Apollyon his job. The three means were: through
his subordinates, who being one and all fearful of his power directed
their energies to but one end--the production in ourselves of a similar
emotion; through two forms of punishment, which supplied said