'But not necessarily these,' Henri said. 'And you aren't going to compare the lot of an unemployed man with that of a forced labourer.'

'At least their daily needs are assured. I'm convinced their lot is less awful than anti-Comunist propaganda would have it. And we tend to forget that a Soviet man's way of thinking is different from ours; he finds it natural, for example, to be relocated according to the needs of production.'

'Whatever his way of thinking, no man finds it natural to be exploited, undernourished, deprived of all his rights, imprisoned, brutalized by work, condemned to die of cold, scurvy, or exhaustion,' Henri said. He thought, 'Politics are really incredible!' Lenoir literally couldn't have stood seeing a fly suffer, and yet he gladly accepted the horrors of the camps.

'No one wants evil for the sake of evil,' Lenoir said. 'And the Soviet Union less than any other government. If they take those measures, it's because they're necessary.' Lenoir became even redder. 'How dare you condemn the institutions of a country whose needs, whose difficulties, you know nothing about. It's an intolerable presumption.'