corners, pushed into a small room. He had barely stumbled in when the door, which was made of logs formed into a grating, shut close upon his heels. The other three sides of the room consisted of solid walls.
On looking about closely, he perceived two others in one corner of the room. Although Ah Q's heart was thumping more or less, he did not feel especially depressed, because his own bedroom in T'uku Temple was not so grand as this one. The other two men seemed to be villagers, with whom he gradually picked up a conversation. One of them explained that Chü-jen Lao-yeh was determined to collect the rent, which his grandfather had owed; the other did not know just why he had been imprisoned.
When they asked why he had been put in jail, Ah Q quickly replied, "Because I wanted to be a Revolutionist!"
Late in the day, he was dragged from behind the barred door to the great hall. Above him sat an old man, whose head had been shaved perfectly clean. Ah Q thought that he might be a monk; but when he saw a line of soldiers below and lines of men wearing long coats, standing to either side of him, some shaved perfectly clean like the old man, others with a foot of hair hanging loose over the back of their shoulders like the
