It had been at least five hours since Arslan had been brought in, but the colonel continued as he always had, not deigning to give him even a glance. This contemptuous indifference had already become a form of torture. The young man sometimes felt the colonel’s stony eyes on him but, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t catch that moment. A quiet fear, as quiet as the voice of the colonel, grew out of this uncertainty. It gradually took hold of his soul and body. His heart also felt trapped, as it beat in his cage-like chest, painfully, aggrieved: what awaited him here, at the end of the day? What was this tireless colonel writing, sitting behind his enormous dark-brown table in this quiet, dimly lit office? There were no answers to any of these conceivable or inconceivable questions.
