Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/382

guard at the back, for he kept on changing step and stamped to correct my pace.

The street of tigers is a quiet little street in the 8th circuit. For the greater part it consists of old, low-roofed little houses above which rises here and there a high and more modern tenement building People were hurrying to and fro on the pavements, they looked at us, and from the open windows we were met by inquisitive glances of conjecture; I also looked at them, but really I saw, I felt nothing whatever. It was as if my soul had fallen asleep. I was indifferent to everything that had been, that was, and that would be, I had no interest in anything, least of all for my own fate. I was not even inquisitive now to know what they had against me. The day had brought too many impressions, it was not possible to take them in and my senses were blunted. Only the fragment of some Viennese tune sounded obstinately in my ears, and I could not get rid of it. In front of a high tenement building,—on it was a tablet with an eagle and the number eleven. The man in front of me, he of the defence-corps, stopped. He read the inscription, compared the number of the house with what was written on his official paper, made a sign to us that this was the place, and entered.

The first story, the second, the third,—on the door a tablet marked Oberleutnant Auditor Dr. Frank, this was it. The defence-corps man went in to announce my arrival, the second kept guard over me meanwhile in the little ante-room.

The fragment of that wretched tune kept ringing in my ears.

The defence-corps man came back and beckoned to me to go in. A small room with two windows, by the left window a writing table with the clerk belonging to it; further, two tables at one of which was an officer of no great height, giving somehow an impression of cleanness; he was clean-shaven, his hair carefully brushed, he had cold blue eyes,—Dr. Felix Frank, in civil life on the staff of the Viennese magistracy, now lieutenant-superintendent and searcher out of guilty Czech hearts and souls.

Let me say at once that it was certainly a relief to us all that the military persecution did not employ our own people, Czech people as its instruments. I am absolutely incapable of imagining them in this capacity, as an author I have a feeling for unity of style, and this would certainly have been impaired to a considerable extent. Dr. Frank had taken over Czech affairs and Czech people from Dr. Preminger of Bukovina.

He asked me to sit down, and his voice was agreeable and clear with a metallic note in it.

From a drawer he took out a file—my file—and I noticed also that his hands were clean and well-cared for.

And he asked me whether I wished to appeal against my imprisonment.

Of course I did.

He drew my attention to the fact that this was a formality, that my appeal would change nothing, but might protract the course of my proceedings by several weeks. And he advised me not to appeal.

Good, I will not appeal then, but the jail was not to my liking, and of this I informed him.

He smiled, disclosing two rows of clean teeth stopped with gold, and dictated the report to the youth at the writing table. That I did not enter an appeal. The machine clattered, the yellowish official paper kept emerging from its teeth covered with symmetrical rows of writing.

Then from a drawer he drew out a book. Heavens, my own books, my verses entitled “Drops.”

Did I guess why I had been arrested?

No.

For four poems from this book.

I saw marked with blue pencil:
“In memory of November 5th 1908.”
“Hospital Humanitarianism.”
“To Dr. Frant. Měšany.”
“Twenty Years.”

My listless weariness fell from me at a blow. What, really for this? And in all my literary activity you found nothing else besides these four trifles? Tell me, is it possible?

Yes, for these four poems.

Joy, inexpressible joy, set me astir. I will fight for my liberty. How could this be a menace to Austrian power and order? I was prepared for all kinds of things, but that I should be imprisoned and cross-examined on account of such trifling verses, no, that I had not expected.

Like lightning there flashed through my mind the memory of Count Jáchym Ondřej Šlik. Slavata in his “Memoirs” quotes as if in mockery the letter written by him on March 2nd 1621 to Prince Liechtenstein. He said that he was not the instigator of that unfortunate deed wich flung the Emperor’s representatives from the window, that he had only heard of it about an hour and a half previously, that he could not even give them any warning, that he had opposel Mates von Thurn “almost to bodily violence”, that Mates von Thurn was a “false and notorious man”, who had shamefully misled and deceived the gentleman of rank, that šlik had not laid hands on the Emperor’s representatives,—poor rebel, this explanation availed him nothing; on March 18th he was seized by the Kurfürst of Saxony, handed over to the Emperor’s justices, and on June 21st he was executed in the square of the Od Town. Every revolution, whether active or passive, produces people such as Šlik; they undertake and carry them out in the conviction that their cause is just, but then when their cause comes to grief, they desert it, disguise it, deny it and conceal it,—as if defence of this kind had ever helped those who were defeated, and could ward off the vengeance of those who had conquered.

My case was clear and free from guile,—thank God. All these poems were written long before the war, printed several times,—I did not need to