His family told Haas he had gone too far this time. But the incorrigible doctor stated his view thus: “Theft is a serious vice; but I know the police, and how they flog people; it is a much worse vice to deliver up your neighbour to their tender mercies. And besides, who knows? My treatment may soften his heart.”
His family shook their heads and protested: and the charitable ladies said, “An excellent man but not quite all right there,” pointing to their foreheads; but Haas only rubbed his hands and went his own way.
§11
Sokolovski had hardly got to an end of his narrative before others began to tell their story, several speaking at the same time. It was as if we had returned from a long journey—there was a running fire of questions and friendly chaff.
Satin had suffered more in body that the rest of us: he looked thin and had lost some of his hair. He was on his mother’s estate in the Government of Tambóv when he heard of our arrest, and started at once for Moscow, that his mother might not be terrified by a visit from the police. But he caught cold on the journey and was seriously ill when he reached Moscow. The police found him there in his bed. It being impossible to remove him, he was put under arrest in his own house: a sentry was posted inside his bedroom, and a male sister of mercy, in the shape of a policeman, sat by his pillow; hence, when he recovered from delirium, his eyes rested on the scrutinising looks of one attendant or the sodden face of the other.
When winter began he was transferred to a hospital. It turned out that there was no unoccupied room suitable for a prisoner; but that was a trifle which caused no difficulty. A secluded corner without a stove was discovered in the building, and here he was placed with a sentry to guard him. Nothing like a balcony on the Riviera for an invalid! What the temperature in that stone box was like in winter, may be guessed: the sentry suffered so much that he used at night to go into the passage and warm himself at the stove, begging his prisoner not to tell the officer of the day.
But even the authorities of the hospital could not continue this open-air treatment in such close proximity to the North Pole, and they moved Satin to a room next to that in which people who were brought in frozen were rubbed till they regained consciousness.
§12
Before we had nearly done telling our own experiences and listening to those of our friends, the adjutants began to bustle about, the garrison officers stood up straight, and the policemen came to attention; then the door opened solemnly, and little Prince Golitsyn entered en grande tenue with his ribbon across his shoulder; Tsinski was in Household uniform; and even Oranski had put on something special for the joyful occasion—a light green costume, between uniform and mufti. Staal, of course, was not there.
The officers now divided us into three groups. Sokolovski, an artist called Ootkin, and Ibayev formed the first group; I and my friends came next, and then a miscellaneous assortment.