I saw my critical situation, and felt the ground slipping from under my feet. My fear of communications with the Russian Government was justified, and it was now a fight for life. I had so often dreaded this eventuality, that my plan of defence was prepared.
“Listen!” I cried. “I declare to you that I am Bulìgin; but I confess that I do not come from Moscow, and that the other particulars I gave you about myself were false. This amount of deception was forced upon me, foreseeing as I did the course that might be taken by the authorities here, and knowing too well what Russian methods are. You do not know those methods, and I must explain. It often happens that people are denounced to the gendarmerie for having a prohibited book in their possession. Not only are they themselves arrested, but everyone who has consorted with them is liable to arrest, and anyone whose address is found in their rooms. Their houses are watched, and everyone who visits them is seized. Whole families are persecuted in this way, and think themselves lucky if they get off at last after untold annoyance. Quite innocent people are often in prison for months. When I came from democratic Switzerland to constitutional Germany, with no intention of contravening German law, little did I expect to meet with an experience which shows me that, at any rate as regards foreigners, there is not much to choose between Germany and Russia in some of their dealings. I find to my cost that without any legal formalities the police may arrest and imprison whom they choose; that they can make a domiciliary search without a warrant, and may treat a harmless traveller as if he were a criminal. I was kept in gaol for two days without being brought before a magistrate; I saw a young lady seized in the street and brought to the prison, just as if in Russia. What ground had I for trusting the magistrate’s assurance that there would only be an ordinary judicial inquiry? I took it for granted that the police, as with us in Russia, could override the administrators of the law, and that the police would be in correspondence with the Russian authorities. This document proves that I was right.
“Well, then, if I had given the true facts about myself, the police, as is evident, would have handed them on to their Russian confrères, who, of course, when they heard I had been arrested here because I had two boxes of books forbidden in Russia, (though not in Germany,) would have started their usual game in the town whence I really come. My people would have been subjected to annoyance; my brothers and sisters, who share my views, would perhaps have been found possessed of forbidden literature, and clapped into gaol along with many others. Russia is not a constitutional country, and therefore I was obliged to guard myself by suppressing particulars here that might have been used against my friends there.”
“You assert, then,” said the Public Prosecutor scornfully, “that you are Bulìgin, but that you do not come from Moscow; and you refuse to give the name of your native place?”
“Yes, I refuse for the reasons I have stated.”
“Read the next report,” said Herr von Berg, and the clerk read aloud:—
“The prisoner now in the State prison of Freiburg, calling himself Bulìgin, is in reality Leo Deutsch, who in May, 1876, attempted—in conjunction with Jakob Stefanòvitch—to murder Nicholas Gorinòvitch. Therefore the Government of His Majesty the Emperor of Russia, through their representative in the dominions of His Highness the Grand Duke of Baden, demand the extradition of both the aforesaid persons. And at the same time His Majesty’s Government consider themselves bound to draw the attention of the German authorities to the fact that the aforesaid Leo Deutsch has several times already broken out of prison, and should therefore be most jealously watched, both during his incarceration and while being transported to Russia.”
I have transcribed this document almost literally, for though nearly two decades have passed since that moment, it seems present to me this day. “It’s all up with me,“ I thought, and torturing visions rose before me.
“What reply have you to make?” I heard the dry question of the Public Prosecutor, and saw his malicious smile of triumph.
With a tremendous effort I collected myself.