LEEP laid siege to us instantly we entered the warm room of the station-house. I noticed two girls asleep in a bed in one corner of the room, and a young man, rolled in an overcoat, on the bare floor, snoring loudly in the opposite corner. More than twenty hours had passed since we had slept and our painful night ride had wearied me excessively. Furthermore, I was faint with hunger and eager for a glass of hot tea. I dropped into a chair by the table and lolled back in it, nodding miserably, while the old woman of the station polished her samovar.
When I opened my eyes a rural policeman stood before me, and with him was the chief of the local police. We submitted gracefully to his long and searching examination. Who were we? What were we? What were we doing in that place? Where had we come from? Why did we go there? By whose authority were we traveling through the country? These, and many other questions, were rapidly put to us, and as promptly answered. We produced our American passports, our Russian credentials, our photographic permit. Still this officer persisted in trying to discover a flaw in one of our papers. Suddenly he pointed to the Saratoff stamp on the back of our passports. It is customary for travelers in Russia to send their passports to the police to be examined and stamped immediately upon arrival in every town of any size. This is almost invariably done through the hotel office. A few days before, when we had arrived in Saratoff, we had followed the custom and surrendered our passports to the hotel. In due course they had come back to us, properly stamped, as we had reason to believe. This chief of police put his finger on these Saratoff stamps and declared that they had not been put on by the police. We asked him how he accounted for them, and he replied: “You probably put them on yourselves!”
The tea and eggs had now been set on the table, and I called for two extra glasses and chairs, and begged the police-master and the strajnik to join us at our modest breakfast, adding that we would all feel more like continuing conversation after we had drunk hot tea. The police-master wavered, but we pressed him until he and the strajnik both fell to upon the eggs and the tea with as much apparent relish as my companion and I, who had been on the road since midnight.
“I have been pacing that road all night,” remarked the strajnik.
“What for?” I asked politely.
“You!” he rejoined.
We changed the topic for a few minutes and talked pleasantly of the weather, the spring ploughing, and other safe topics, hoping to bring out the friendly side of the men in order that we might find out what we were “in” for.
“The other day at Alexanderburg you photographed the priest,” at last said the chief of police.
We looked at him and laughed.
“What of it?” we asked.