“I have read your deposition, and was much pleased with its frankness. I hope you will speak out in the same way before the court.”
I replied that, as I have already said, it was my object to state the exact historical truth.
He went, but came back again, and put one or two unimportant questions to me, looking, however, as though there were something else he would have liked to say. He bent forward a little in speaking, and held his hand to his ear. His whole bearing was simple and unaffected.
Kotliarèvsky was among the suite. He remained behind a moment, and told me he wanted to speak to me when the minister had gone. Some time after I was taken to him in a room that served as the prison schoolroom.
“I am not here on business,” said he, “but I should like to have a chat with you about old times.”
So we sat down on a school-form and talked. Following a remark of mine, Kotliarèvsky touched on the question I had raised before as to the reason for my confinement in the Fortress of Peter and Paul.
“Why, you see, there were very important interests of State to consider,” he said. “It was like this: if you were brought before an ordinary tribunal and only prosecuted on the Gorinòvitch count, you might be merely condemned to seven or eight years in Siberia; and that would not be agreeable in high quarters.” He accented the last words.
“But they cannot try me otherwise,” I cried. “Germany only extradited me on that stipulation.”
“Well, that remains to be seen,” said he. “We are at present on very good terms with Bismarck, and he would not mind at all giving us this little proof of his friendship. Or, if necessary, it could easily be made out that you had committed some offence after your extradition. Which reminds me—the Germans have sent us on all the notes that you made in Freiburg gaol.”
I was utterly astonished. I remembered that from sheer ennui I had now and then written down odds and ends of notes, plans, etc., while I was at Freiburg, but I could not conceive how those scraps could have come into the hands of the Russian Government, for I had destroyed all my manuscripts before leaving. I could only suppose that when I was out of my cell for exercise some single sheets might have been abstracted. Even then it seemed impossible that they could afford any foundation for a fresh accusation sufficient to set aside the extradition treaty with Germany. But Kotliarèvsky reassured me on that head.