§1
THREE days after the Tsar came to Moscow, a police-officer called on me late in the evening—all these things are done in the dark, to spare the nerves of the public—bringing an order for me to pack up and start off with him.
“Where to?” I asked.
“You will see shortly,” he answered with equal wit and politeness. That was enough: I asked no more questions, but packed up my things and started.
We drove on and on for an hour and a half, passed St. Peter’s Monastery, and stopped at a massive stone gateway, before which two constables were pacing, armed with carbines. This building was the Krutitski Monastery, which had been converted into a police-barracks.
I was taken to a smallish office, where everyone was dressed in blue, officers and clerks alike. The orderly officer, wearing full uniform and a helmet, asked me to wait and even proposed that I should light my pipe which I was holding. Having written out an acknowledgement that a fresh prisoner had been received, and handed it to my escort, he left the room and returned with another officer, who told me that my quarters were ready and asked me to go there. A constable carried a light, and we descended a staircase, passed through a small yard, and entered by a low door a long passage lighted by a single lantern. On both sides of the passage there were low doors; and the orderly officer opened one of these, which led into a tiny guard-room and thence into a room of moderate size, damp, cold, and smelling like a cellar. The officer who was escorting me now addressed me in French: he said that he was désolé d’être dans la nécessité of rummaging my pockets, but that discipline and his duty required it. After this noble exordium he turned without more ado to the gaoler and winked in my direction; and the man instantly inserted into my pocket an incredibly large and hairy paw. I pointed out to the polite officer that this was quite unnecessary: I would empty out all my pockets myself, without any forcible measures being used. And I asked what I could possibly have on me after six weeks in prison.
“Oh, we know what they are capable of at police-stations,” said the polite officer, with an inimitable smile of superiority, and the orderly officer also smiled sarcastically; but they told the turnkey merely to look on while I emptied my pockets.
“Shake out any tobacco you have on the table,” said the polite officer.
I had in my tobacco-pouch a pencil and a penknife wrapped up in paper. I remembered about them at once, and, while talking to the officer, I fiddled with the pouch till the knife came out in my hand; then I gripped it behind the pouch, while boldly pouring out the tobacco on the table. The turnkey gathered it together again. I had saved my knife and my pencil, and I had also paid out my polite friend for his contempt of my former gaolers.
This little incident put me in excellent humour, and I began cheerfully to survey my new possessions.