Soon they were marched back to the prison. Except for the work in the quarries, life at Egdon was almost the same as at Blackstone.
'Slops outside, chapel, privacy.
After a week, however, Paul became conscious of an alien influence at work. His first intimation of this came from the Chaplain.
'Your library books, he said one day, popping cheerfully in Paul's cell and handing him two new novels, still in their wrappers, and bearing inside them the label of a Piccadilly bookseller. 'If you don't like them I have several for you to choose from. He showed him rather coyly the pile of gaily‑bound volumes he carried under his arm. 'I thought you'd like the new Virginia Woolf. It's only been out two days.
'Thank you, sir, said Paul politely. Clearly the library of his new prison was run on a much more enterprising and extravagant plan than at Blackstone.
'Or there's this book on Theatrical Design, said the Chaplain, showing him a large illustrated volume that could hardly have cost less than three guineas. 'Perhaps we might stretch a point and give you that as well as your "education work".
'Thank you, sir, said Paul.
'Let me know if you want a change, said the Chaplain. 'And, by the way, you're allowed to write a letter now, you know. If, by any chance, you're writing to Mrs Beste-Chetwynde, do mention that you think the library good. She's presenting a new pulpit to the chapel in carved alabaster, he added irrelevantly, and popped out again to give Grimes a copy of Smiles's Self‑Help, out of which some unreceptive reader in the remote past had torn the last hundred and eight pages.
'People may think as they like about well‑thumbed favourites, thought Paul, 'but there is something incomparably thrilling in first opening a brand‑new book. Why should the Chaplain want me to mention the library to Margot? he wondered.
That evening at supper Paul noticed without surprise that there were several small pieces of coal in his dripping: that kind of thing did happen now and then; but he was somewhat disconcerted, when he attempted to scrape them out, to find that they were quite soft. Prison food was often rather odd; it was a mistake to complain; but still… He examined his dripping more closely. It had a pinkish tinge that should not have been there and was unusually firm and sticky under his knife. He tasted it dubiously. It was pâté de foie gras.