The Jail. Experiences in 1916. Josef Svatopluk Machar

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      The chief commissary asked me about my name.

      "What is this J. S.?"

      "You see, it's a little souvenir of the Roman Catholic Church. It gave me two baptismal names, and I when left it, I returned the names to it and kept only these two letters."

      "Well, all right", he remarked. "Have you written anything recently for a paper in Geneva?"

      "No."

      "Anything for the Hus number?"

      "No."

      "What about this?" And he laid before me a copy of a newspaper of about the same size as Sládek's old "Lumír"; above as the title "L'indépendance Tchéque", beneath this a bad reproduction of Brožík's well-known picture of Hus before the Council of Constance, beneath the picture about ten lines of letter-press and beneath the letter-press,—my full name. It occurred to me that perhaps it was a quotation from something,—I read it through,—no, not a word was mine,—horrible journalistic bombast.

      "Sir" I said, "I can only tell you what you will hear from every criminal at the first moment when he is caught: I didn't do ​it,—only I shall not be able to tell you anything else even later on. If I had written and signed that, I would not deny it."

      "But there isn't a single compromising word in it. Nothing about the State, the dynasty, the army,—in fact no reference to Austria at all; why should not you, as a Czech, have written a few lines about your great compatriot on such an occasion as the 500th anniversary of his death?" he observed in a friendly tone.

      "Nothing compromising, it's true, but it is nonsense, nonsense both in the wording and the contents. And if I had written it, there would certainly be something compromising in it."

      "Wait", he interrupted me, "I myself had doubts about your authorship,—I have read various things from your pen, and this certainly bears no resemblance to you. But perhaps you authorised somebody?"

      "Ah, you really want to know whether I'm in touch with my fellow-countrymen in Switzerland?"

      "And you are not?"

      "No."

      "Then how do you explain your signature?"

      "The carelessness of somebody who signed my name and did not think of the consequences. The curse of popularity possessed by an author's name."

      "In America they print heaps of your poems,—and those are poems which are rather more compromising."

      "They obviously select them from my former books which are now prohibited in Austria."

      "Without your permission?"

      "Nobody has asked me."

      "Are you in written communication with America?"

      "I was. Before the war. Not now."

      ​"And you declare that you did not write these few lines about Hus?"

      "I did not write them."

      "We will draw up a report. But I have already told you my impression,—that is not your prose. By the way, have you written about Hus anywhere else?"

      "I was asked to, but I refused. I am in favour of celebrating Hus at a more peaceful time."

      "Which papers asked you for such a work?"

      I mentioned them, he noted the titles. Then we drew up a report. To the effect that I emphatically denied the authorship of this trifle, that I was not in touch with Switzerland, that I was in favour of postponing the Hus celebration to peaceful times, that I was not in communication with America,—and all this I confirmed with my own signature.

      We had finished. I was just in the doorway.

      Did I know Dr. Herben,—he asked me just as I was going. Of course I did. And I turned back and sat down again. Dr. Herben,—a quiet, peaceful man. In the editorial office he busied himself with literary matters, wrote obituaries, moderate social controversies; recently, however he had been forced by weakness of sight to give up all further work entirely.

      "That tallied", he said. And did I know Bezruč?

      Of course I did, an excellent poet.

      Political?

      More social and personal lyrics. He has pleasant memories of his youth in Silesia.

      And who is he supposed to be?

      There are legends about it. Some say that he is a simple miner, others that he is an engineer in the foundries.

      ​But it is supposed to be certain that he is a postal official at Brno.

      Yes, they say that too.

      And what did I think of the arrest of Dr. Kramář?

      I told him. That his imprisonment was a dreadful mistake. That it was felt by the whole nation. That there is no policy more brainless than the one which manufactures martyrs for a discontented nation. That now we were asked to forget century-old traditions. Traditions,—not our own—but Austrian, purely Austrian. That the lands of the Bohemian crown were the scene of the wars waged by Frederick the Great and of the year 1866. That by a more moderate policy in the Balkans, Austria might have become a rallying point for all the nations and states there, that the Austrian Emperor could then have boldly laid hands upon the old crown of the Eastern Roman Empire,—on Constantinople,—on the route to Asia Minor, to Bagdad—

      It was getting on for 10 o'clock when I parted from the student of my lecture.

      A warm summer night, a sky full of stars.

      So not today. When? When? I had an infallible foreboding that this sword of Damocles must sooner or later descend.

      Chapter V

       Table of Contents

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      V.

      Days elapsed, weeks elapsed.

      And in one of those weeks it happened that the post became silent as far as I was concerned. No papers arrived, letters did not come, nothing. Then again a day came and the precious post put ​in an appearance with a bundle of all the overdue papers and a heap of letters. The address-slips on the newspapers had been torn through the envelopes of the letters had been cut open on one side and gummed down again. Aha, even an Empire can contrive to be inquisitive, and at such a serious time about the private affairs of a respectable rate-payer. Family letters, those dealing with literary affairs, from СКАЧАТЬ