The Jail. Experiences in 1916. Josef Svatopluk Machar

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      "Yes, my wife and daughter are there", and I made as if to open. "No, we won't go there, we have nothing to do with your ladies", announced Preminger.

      "Ready?" asked the Captain.

      "Yes. Just a report that we have completed the search, and we must tie the bundles together a little. Hi, officer."

      I lent them a trunk. The volunteer officer tied up the bundles. Suddenly he said to Preminger: "Lieutenant, this knight has the red and white colours on his shield." On the wall hung Schwaiger's picture "The Long, the Broad and the Sharp-Sighted". The knight who is riding across the foot-bridge has actually got a red and white shield. The volunteer officer fastened his little foxy eyes upon it.

      "Lieutenant", he pointed out afresh, "has it any special significance that the colours there are red and white?" "Keep quiet, and see about getting ready", snarled the Captain. The foxy little eyes were lowered with injured reluctance and the little volunteer officer went on packing and tying up.

      The report was read in a minute. I made it as easy for them as possible. I did not want the letters to be counted, I brought the trunk, the twine, the packing paper,—when a man has had such guests for five whole hours in his house, he has a slight desire for solitude and peace at the end of it.

      "I draw your attention to the fact", I remarked to Preminger, ​"that the search has been very incomplete; here are several thousand books, and there might be a treasonable document in every one of them."

      "You haven't got the Tsar's manifesto?"

      "No."

      "We are ready. Tomorrow you will kindly appear at Hernalser Gürtel, No. 126, room 89. for cross-examination. A few trifles. At 9 o'clock please."

      "I shall certainly come."

      They gave me their hands, clicked their heels, Mr. Kolbe and the little volunteer officer carried out the bundles and the trunk, the car began to make a fuss, they took their seats, saluted once more from their seats and drove off.

      The next day at 9 o'clock in room 89 on the Hernalser Gürtel. An uninviting, bare room, only three writing tables, a few chairs, cupboards, on the wall a map of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, on one of the tables a Remington. The Captain of the day before was sitting there and typing something. I was asked to sit down. Preminger would arrive immediately.

      He arrived. Yesterday he had been jovial and talkative, today he was somehow stern and restrained. He took a file from a drawer, turned over a few leaves, took out a paper, handed it to me to translate. And he followed my impromptu version with a translation which he held in his hands, I went on reading, suddenly I stopped short. Sixteen years ago, on October 19th 1899, on the day when the language regulations were suspended, I had written a furious letter to Dr. Kramář in the Crimea. Bilge-water, fire, sulphur, petroleum, dynamite,—whatever could be said in words I had written, and flung everything at his head, of which I

      — — —

      "but must I read that?" I asked Preminger.

      ​"Continue," he ordered sternly.

      I translated the letter to the end.

      "What do you say now, eh?"

      "This letter is the very thing which proves what I explained to you yesterday about Dr. Kramář. I knew how I was offending his patriotic feelings, and that is why I wrote it to him. You can believe that Dr. Kramář—"

      "Let's leave Dr. Kramář aside now; as you see, you are concerned here. This letter was found among Dr. Kramář's things, you wrote it to him—."

      "But I just want to explain why I wrote it to him and why such expressions—"

      "Do not suppose", continued Preminger, "that military justice is some blind animal, that it scratches where and when it likes,—if it had not been for this letter, your house would not have been searched yesterday."

      "I should like to point out that the letter was written sixteen years ago, that I wrote it in rage and bitterness at the blow which our nation had received when the language ordinances were suspended, that I regret everything that is in it,—but that all of it is long since out of date, both according to the letter of the law and in my own spirit."

      "So much I also know, and I draw no conclusions from it,—let us proceed to our report", and he prepared a sheet of paper and picked up a pen.

      We soon finished the report. My relations with Dr. Kramář, our separation, our political friendship for fifteen years, something about the Volná Myšlenka, about my friendship with Masaryk, about that unfortunate letter—a signature and that was all.

      "We have finished", declared Preminger.

      ​"Just one more word about Dr. Kramář. Tell me what there is against him. What is he guilty of? Why was he arrested?"

      "You will see. I repeat that military justice proceeds in the most cautious manner. Peace will come, parliament will meet, its actions will be discussed, will be investigated,—for today I cannot tell you any more."

      "And I repeat that Dr. Kramář is innocent. And that if there is a trial, not he but the whole nation will be in the dock, and that if he is condemned, the idea of Austria as current in the Kingdom of Bohemia will be justified for ever and ever. Even today, you see—"

      "Yes, the Czech regiments, they are surrendering—"

      "This matter has not been cleared up."

      "The war loans."

      "We give what we can. Blood and property."

      "And at the same time you are thinking of independence."

      "If that is a crime, then have a high wall built around the whole of Bohemia and Moravia, make a single gate in it, put a soldier there with a fixed bayonet, and above it put the inscription: Royal and Imperial Jail."

      "Your hearts are not in the monarchy."

      "That is how the monarchy brought us up."

      In this way we passed the whole of the morning. Preminger looked into my eyes, I into his. We pierced into each other's souls. A razor was the thought I had of him, well made, excellent material, admirably set. An obedient razor which shaves easily and well, but with which throats can be cut if it is used by a careless hand. It has a bluish steely glitter, it is a first-rate implement, you cannot get angry with it even when it wounds you. For with the same precision and neatness it would—under different ​circumstances—cut open the veins not only of Messrs. Gross, Wolf, Teufel and all the rest of the Germanic Austrians, but even of any of its masters, if there were an opportunity.

      "Au revoir," he said to me as we parted.

      "I'd rather not", I replied.

      At the same time as the search was taking place in my house, a police agent was searching the table in my office. He took away a few letters, an artistically decorated seal, several envelopes filled with postage stamps which in the course of my official work I was in the habit of cutting out and saving for the children of my acquaintances, an old table, calendar, unused picture postcards,—all "zur weiteren Amtsbehandlung" (for further official action).

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