alone was he interested, in that and a subtle combat which was going on between himself and the whole prison.
He had become—he saw this plainly—the butt of a series of petty persecutions which he ascribed to Jennings. This painting was one of them. The turpentine made him deathly sick, yet he was kept at it for a straight three weeks. He was often given the more loathsome prison work. At meals, if a convict within ten places from him broke the rule by talking, it was he, 9009, who was accused and punished by being deprived of his next meal. At the jute-mill Jennings tormented him subtly. He would plant himself behind 9009, boring into his back with his hard eyes, while the convict fought, under these conditions, to keep his attention rigid upon the machine, with its ceaseless exactions.
What had happened was this. From the first Jennings had decided that 9009 was a “bad one.” He had sowed this belief into the mind of the captain of the yard. The captain had passed it on to the other guards. And the
