This task Professor Thun fulfilled to the letter; and during my imprisonment in Freiburg he did me many kind offices, running serious risk of thereby compromising his own position. He arranged secret meetings in Freiburg Cathedral with my friends, who had come in haste on the chance of being useful to me. He was also the medium of both verbal and written communication between me and my comrades.
Having the right of free access to me, as the authorities placed full confidence in an illustrious professor, he often had me called into the translator’s office, where we could chat undisturbed. In these conversations I saw how much he had taken my affairs to heart. He went so far as to offer his house as a refuge if I were obliged to attempt an escape. Sometimes he joked about the part he was playing:—“Look at me, now,” he would say, laughing; “I, a German professor of dignity and position, have become a Russian conspirator; and this peaceful town of Freiburg is the scene of a plot!” Through his relations with the magistrate he knew how my case was going on, and of course he kept me posted up.
At the first hearing of my case I made the following statement:—I was a Russian student, and had come abroad in pursuit of my studies. I had married here, and had one child. Hitherto I had lived in Switzerland, but now I wished to remain in Freiburg, whither my wife, now in Zurich, was to follow me. I lived partly by literary work, partly on private means. In Switzerland I had attended the University as “hospitant” (an occasional student at lectures).[[12]] As for my political opinions, when I left Russia they were still somewhat undecided; but the influence of German literature had led me to join the Social Democrats, and I had determined to assist, as far as I could, in the propagating of their views in my own country.[[13]] When, for various reasons, I had determined to live in Germany, I had brought with me the publications found in my possession, meaning to sell them eventually to the country people. They were not prohibited in Germany, and their possession was in no possible sense an infringement of German law. “And now,” I concluded, “in a free German town, in Frei-Burg, I have been arrested with no legal justification, without any of the prescribed formalities, I am subjected to all manner of indignities, and clapped into gaol like a common malefactor. As if that were not enough, the police, with no shadow of excuse, seized upon and arrested a lady of this town as if she were a pickpocket or disturber of the peace. I may well ask, What difference is there between this constitutional state of the German Empire and the absolute despotism of Russia? No one could have been worse treated, even in Russia!”
These words seemed to make some impression on the magistrate. He walked up and down excitedly, while he dictated my statement to the clerk, assured me repeatedly of his sympathy, and asserted his keen disapproval of the way in which the police had behaved towards me and the young lady. At one point he muttered, “Still, as Othello says, ‘The handkerchief, the handkerchief!’” Herr Leiblen appeared to be quite on my side, and Professor Thun told me later that he had declared the matter seemed to him harmless enough; in his opinion here was a perfectly innocent person being kept shut up in prison, and he hoped I should soon be set free. I had therefore a well-grounded hope of obtaining my release in due course; nevertheless doubts continued to arise, and thoughts of escape still haunted me. With some slight help from outside it would probably have been by no means difficult during these first days of my imprisonment.
One day, while I was still in this state of suspense betwixt hope and fear, I was called into the visitors' room. I expected to find Professor Thun there, and was surprised at being confronted by a man perfectly unknown to me. He introduced himself by name (I cannot recollect it now), and informed me that he was a lawyer, who had been engaged by my friends to undertake my defence. He announced himself as a comrade, a member of the Social-Democratic party, and invited me to be quite open with him, as my friends had already told him everything concerning my past career. “You think of attempting to escape?” he asked in a whisper; and when I assented he continued quickly, “That would be a most fatal mistake. I have just seen the minutes of your case; the affair is going splendidly for you. I have no doubt you will soon be set at liberty. Why should you risk the dangers of a flight? If the attempt were to fail you would be in an infinitely worse position than now. I have been talking to the magistrate; he is convinced there is nothing of any significance against you. As soon as inquiries in Switzerland have elicited a satisfactory reply regarding your identity you will be released.”
“But,” I interposed, “supposing a simultaneous inquiry is set on foot in Russia?”
“There is no ground whatever for such a proceeding,” replied the lawyer, “and if it were contemplated we should get to know it somehow. Germany is not Russia. With us legal proceedings are not secret. On the contrary, the law provides that your trial shall be held in public, and all documents relative to the case are without delay submitted to me as your counsel. In such documents mention would be made if an understanding with the Russian authorities were suggested. In our conduct of such cases it is absolutely out of the question that such a weighty complication should be kept private.”
“Yes,” I interrupted, “but how can you be sure that the police executive will not put the political and administrative authorities in communication with Russia?”
“The Government and the police would never combine in an affair of law without some announcement. You were arrested because there were grounds for supposing you in relation with persons who had made themselves liable to prosecution by German law. If you are set free—as neither I nor the magistrate have the slightest doubt that you will be—you will be discharged unconditionally. There is nothing now to wait for but the establishment of your identity in Switzerland. You may rely on this. As a German lawyer I know all our legal methods; you, on the other hand, judge from Russian conditions, which are altogether different.”
An inner voice said to me that the consistency of German law was not so entirely to be trusted; but I had no rational ground for demur, as German affairs of the kind were perfectly strange to me. And an attempt to escape, although it might have been easily managed in the first instance, became more risky as time went on. Though not quite abandoning the idea, these considerations led me to set it aside for the moment, till we had some proof of collaboration between the Russian and German Governments. Apparently such a step could not be hidden from me; and I had the well-known and influential Professor Thun on my side, who was on the best of terms with the authorities both of town and state. News must reach me through him if anything fresh were planned.