The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Well? Well?” we asked him, with sinking hearts. (If he had not in fact just gotten up from the electric chair, he must at the very least have been given a death sentence.) And in the voice of one reporting the end of the universe, the bookkeeper managed to blurt out: “Five . . . years!” And once more the door crashed. That was how quickly they returned, as if they were only being taken to the toilet to urinate. The second man returned, all aglow. Evidently he was being released. “Well, well, come on?” We swarmed around him, our hopes rising again. He waved his hand, choking with laughter. “Fifteen years!” It was just too absurd to be believed.