“ But we are going to cite another case involving Chebotaryev because it combined so many methods. They put him in the interrogator’s office for seventy-two hours, and the only thing he was allowed was to be taken to the toilet. For the rest they allowed him neither food nor drink—even though there was water in a carafe right next to him. Nor was he permitted to sleep. Throughout there were three interrogators in the office, working in shifts. One kept writing something—silently, without disturbing the prisoner. The second slept on the sofa, and the third walked around the room, and as soon as Chebotaryev fell asleep, beat him instantly. Then they switched roles. (Maybe they themselves were being punished for failure to deliver.) And then, all of a sudden, they brought Chebotaryev a meal: fat Ukrainian borscht, a chop, fried potatoes, and red wine in a crystal carafe.
—
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, Vol. 1
I swear that when I read this before, the description of the meal also included a loaf of black bread, sliced diagonally (that detail stayed with me). But the edition I have now doesn’t mention it. Maybe that was in a different incident. In any case, I had a similar meal tonight and thought of old Chebotaryev.
