The Love-Girl and the Innocent: A Play

131 pp. "The action of this four-act play is set in a Stalinist labour camp similar to the one where Solzhenitsyn himself served an eight-year term. The "Innocent" of the title is a new prisoner who doesn't know what's what or how to survive. He falls in the with a girl ("love-girl is camp slang for a girl who sells her favours for privileges or extra rations) who warns him that in the labour camp integrity is the passport to death. He tries desperately to keep his honour and self-respect; she tries to convince him that to survive one must be ready to sin a little. Finally he realises that the only way he can have her is by sharing her with one of the high-ups in the camp. He will then have extra food, a comfortable job, and the woman he loves. All he has to do is to make that one compromise."