One day

Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote the masterly "One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich". In this brief narrative of a 100 plus pages he narrates the account of what happens to Ivan in the course of 24 hours interred in a Stalinist camp.
It is fascinating,complex and convoluted. There is a brutality about it which almost seems unrealistic. At the end of of these few pages you are left wondering how so much can have happened in just 24 hours.
Then Solzhenitsyn adds his final paragraph which reveals that there are three extra days in Ivan Shukov's sentence caused by the existence of leap years! They seem unbelievable,he says

"There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days like that in his stretch. From the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail. Three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days. The three extra days were for leap years."

Those three days.They are eternity.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn died today.