First Grain of Sand — Page 163
STRENGTHENING MY RESOLVE 147 with snow. Considering me very weak and sick, the prison officials sent me to the prison hospital. In the hospital, every prisoner would be removed of their clothes and given a hospital garment to wear instead, and they were given a new garment to change into twice a week, which was made of a simple fabric but was clean. There was an arrangement to bathe twice a week in a tub as well. Each patient remained sep- arately in individual small rooms that were kept heated. This is where I spent these cold and heavily snowy winter days and felt very relieved. Many times throughout the day, Russian doctors and nurses visited the patients and shook their hands. But when the nurses extended their hands to shake my hand, I abstained. They took patients to the bathroom where the patient would strip naked and bathe individually while in the presence of nurses. They also instructed me to go for such baths and once even forcefully demanded that I strip naked in order to take a bath, but since they would pass by while bathing, I flatly refused. One time I even returned back to my room without taking a bath. When the nurse in charge of bathing saw how insistent I was to keep myself cov- ered while bathing, she gave me permission to bathe while cover myself with a cloth. One day, the hospital especially gave me nice white bread, butter, sweets, and some other nice items to eat. At that time, I had two rooms on my right and three rooms on my left that were each occupied by a single Russian patient. I kept some of this food for myself, then divided the rest into five parts and tried to give it to each of these neighbouring patients. At first they refused, but when they saw my insistence at this humble request, they took the