This dictum of the prison doctor upset me cruelly; I felt so desperate that I could scarcely control myself, but was ready to weep and to curse.
“I beg you to consider again,” I cried. “You are quite mistaken; I really cannot read without glasses. Think what you are doing; you are condemning me to a hideous torture, in robbing me of the only distraction allowed here.”
Nothing was of any avail; the man remained immovable, repeating obstinately, “You do not need glasses,” and therewith took his departure. I clenched my fists, a prey to impotent wrath, and nearly broke down altogether. But what was I to do? I had to bear it; and it is hard to say what a man cannot put up with. But to this moment I cannot think of that doctor without my blood boiling. The only consolation left me was my cigarette, and it became a friend and comforter in my loneliness. To a captive smoking not merely gives pleasure, but takes from him the sense of utter desolation.
The days passed on in miserable inactivity. Then one morning a sound fell upon my ears, someone was knocking again, and in my immediate neighbourhood, as it seemed. Was it for me? I replied at once with the familiar signal. It was for me; what joy! Now I should know what comrades lay here, and should be able to exchange thoughts with a human being.
“Who are you?” “In what case are you concerned?” were the questions I deciphered. I seized my comb, the only hard movable object to be found in my prison cell, and tapped the answer. My interlocutor expressed his surprise and asked, “How did you come here?” To my question, “Who are you?” the answer was “Kobiliànsky.” I was no less surprised to “meet” him here (if so one may express it). We had not previously known one another personally, but I knew that in 1880 he had been condemned to penal servitude for life, on account of his participation in various terrorist affairs, and had long ago been deported to the Siberian mines on the Kara. How came he, then, to be in the Fortress of Peter and Paul? I burned with impatience to learn his adventures, but he was just as anxious to hear mine, and I had to give way to him. Scarcely, however, had I told him as shortly as possible how I had been arrested in Germany and given up to Russia, when I was interrupted by a voice, “So you are knocking?”
I sprang up and looked round. Before me stood Colonel Lesnik, accompanied by some gendarmes. The door had been noiselessly opened; I had been observed, and caught in the act; there was no getting out of it.
“I give you fair warning, if you attempt such a thing again, you will be put back on the ground-floor, and deprived of tobacco and of exercise.” Thereupon he departed, and I felt like a naughty schoolboy, found out and disgraced. Moreover, I had to give up hope of learning why Kobiliànsky had been brought back from Siberia.[[27]]
Shortly after this event, one day my clothes were brought to me at an unusual hour. I supposed there was going to be another hearing of my case; but no, apparently I was to be taken right away. My luggage was brought, and the captain of the gendarmerie appeared, the same who had escorted me hither from the station.
“Where are we going—to Odessa?” The officer gave me no answer.
“Evidently we are going to the station,” I thought, when the captain and I were seated in a droschky. It was just the transition hour on a “bright night,” when one hardly knows whether it is evening twilight or dawn. The weather was perfect, and I felt my spirits rise at the prospect of the journey to Odessa. But alas! the carriage took another turning, it was not going to the station, and we were soon in the courtyard of a huge stone prison. It was the House of Detention for prisoners under examination.