\vhich, on the strength of the paragraph I had read, I asked him to let me know the reason for my arrest or to release me.
The local superintendent, in whose presence I wrote the letter, tried to persuade me not to send it.
'It's a mistake, sir, upon my soul, it's a mistake to trouble the general ; he'll say "they arc restless people," it will do you harm and be no use whatever.'
In the evening the policeman appeared and told me that the obcrpolitsmcyster had bidden him tell me verbally that I should kno\v the reason for my arrest in clue time. Then he pulled out of his pocket a greasy Italian grammar, and added, smiling, 'It luckily happem•d that there was a voo.bulary in it so there was no need to buy a lexicon.' Not a word was said about the change.
I should havP liked to write to the oberpolitsme,rstcr aga in, but the role of a miniature Hampden at the Prechistensky police station struck me as too funny.
Ten days after my arrest a little s\varthy, pock-marked police-
M Y P A S T A N D T H O U G H T S
1 38
man appeared some time after nine in the evening with an order for me to dress and set off to the commission of inquiry.
While I was dressing the following ludicrously vexatious incident occurred. My dinner was being sent me from home. A servant gave it to the non-commissioned officer on duty below and he sent it up to me by a soldier. It was permitted to let in for me from home half a bottle to a whole bottle of wine a day.
N. Sazonov took advantage of this permission to send me a bottle of excellent Johannisberg. The soldier and I ingeniously uncorked the bottle with two nails; one could smell the bouquet some distance away. I looked forward to enjoying it for the next three or four days.
One must be in prison to know how much childishness remains in a man and what comfort can be found in trifles, from a bottle of wine to a trick at the expense of one's guard.
The pock-marked policeman sniffed out my bottle and turning to me asked permission to taste a little. I was vexed ; however, I said that I should be delighted. I had no wine-glass. The monster took a tumbler, filled it incredibly full and drank it down without taking breath; this way of pouring down spirits and wine only exists among Russians and Poles; in the whole of Europe I have seen no other people empty a tumbler at a gulp, or who could toss off a wine-glassful. To make the loss of the wine still more bitter, the pock-marked policeman wiped his lips with a snuffy blue handkerchief, adding 'First-class Madeira.' I looked at him with hatred and spitefully rejoiced that he had not been vaccinated and nature had not spared him the smallpox.
This connoisseur of wines conducted me to the oberpolitsmeyster's house in Tverskoy Boulevard, showed me into a sideroom and left me there alone. Half an hour later a stout man with a lazy, good-natured air came into the room from the inner apartments; he threw a portfolio of papers on to a chair and sent the gendarme standing at the door away on some errand.
'I suppose,' he said to me, 'you are concerned with the case of Ogarev and the other young men who have lately been arrested?'
I said I was.
'I happened to hear about it,' he went on ; 'it's an odd business: I don't understand it at all.'
'I've been a fortnight in prison in connection with the affair and I don't understand it at all, and, what's more, I simply know nothing about it.'
'A good thing, too,' he said, looking intently at me; 'and mind you don't know anything about it. You must forgive me if I give
Prison and Exile
1 39
you a bit of advice; you're young, your blood is still hot, you long to speak out: that's the trouble. Don't forget that you know nothing about it: that's the only way to safety.'
I looked at him in surprise: his face expressed nothing evil ; he guessed what I felt and said with a smile,
'I was a Moscow student myself twelve years ago.'
A clerk of some sort came in; the stout man addressed him and, after giving him his orders, went out with a friendly nod to me, putting his finger on his lips. I never met the gentleman afterwards and I do not know who he was, but I found out the genuineness of his advice.
Then a politsmeyster came in, not Miller, but another, called Tsynsky, and summoned me to the commission. In a large, rather handsome room five men were sitting at a table, all in military uniform, with the exception of one decrepit old man.
They were smoking cigars and gaily talking together, lolling in easy chairs, with their uniforms unbuttoned. The oberpolitsmcystcr presided.
When I \vent in, he turned to a figure sitting meekly in a corner, and said,
'If you please, Father.'
Only then I noticed that there was sitting in a corner an old priest with a grey beard and a reddish-blue face. The priest was half-asleep and yawning with his hand over his mouth; his mind was far away and he was longing to get home. In a drawling, somewhat chanting voice he began admonishing me, talking of the sin of concealing the truth before the persons appointed by the Tsar, and of the uselessness of such dissimulation considering the all-hearing ear of God; he did not even forget to refer to the eternal texts, that 'there is no power but of God' and 'to Cresar the things that arc Cresar's.' In conclusion he said that I must put my lips to the Gospel and the honourable Cross in confirmation of the oath (which, however, I had not given, and he did not require ) sincerely and candidly to reveal the whole truth.
When he had finished he began hurriedly wrapping up the Gospel and the Cross. Tsynsky, barely rising from his seat, told him that he could go. After this he turned to me and translated the s-piritual speech into secular language:
'I will add only one thing to the priest's words-it is impossible for you to deny the charge, even if you wanted to.'
He pointed to the heaps of papers, letters, and portraits which were intentionally sca ttered about the table.
'Only a frank admission can mitign�e your lot; to be at liberty, or Bobruysk, or in the Caucasus, depends on yourself.'
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The questions were put to me in writing: the naivete of seme of them was striking: 'Do you not know of the existence of some secret society? Do you not hPlong to any society, literary or other? \Yho arc its members? V\'here do they meet?'
To all this it was extremely easy to answer by the single word: 'No.'
'I see you know nothing,' said Tsynsky after looking through tlw answer·s. 'I have warned you, you are making your position more cou: plicated.'
\\'ith that the first examination ended.
A wet>k or two lat(•r the pock-marked pol icPman came and took me to Tsynsky again. In the lobby several mt>n in fetters were sitting or lying down, SUJToundt>d by soldiers with rifles; i n the an te-room also tht>n• were several men of different classes, not chaint>d but strictly guanled. The polict>men told me that they were all ince>nd iaries. Tsvnsky was out at the fire and we had to await his return. \Vp ha-d ar�iwd hetwePn nine> and ten in the P\'Pninp;: no onP had askPd for me by onP o'clock in tlw morning.