We read. The general charge against us was “propaganda.” But when we read the specific charges they were all so ridiculous that we sat back in dumb amazement:
1. We had photographed a priest—therefore we “were antichrist.”
2. We had paid one ruble and a half for two meals. The comment to this was to the effect that “no one would throw away money like this who did not have an ulterior motive for winning the goodwill of the people.”
3. One of us (namely, myself) had a small pointed beard and “looked like a Jew.”
4. This man (namely, myself) had false hair.
5. This same man smoked a gold pipe.
The first two clauses were understandable. We had photographed the priest—asked his permission and then given him a ruble. And we had paid seventy-five cents for our meals and were willing to admit that we might properly have paid less, but the woman who had prepared these meals was very old and her abject poverty aroused our pity.
The other “charges” were less clear. I have been mistaken for French, German, Swedish, and Russian at one time or another, but never before has any one suggested I might be Jewish. As for my hair being false—I have worn it since birth. I never saw a gold pipe, that I can recall. I certainly never owned one.
“There must be something back of all this,” said my companion when we had read the paper to the end.
The conclusion drawn from these charges, as penned at the bottom of the page, was that all these strange and unusual things about us made us suspicious persons, and “probably we were propagandists.”