Besides Frau Axelrod a Basel Socialist was with me at the station. He had advised me how to carry out my perilous mission, for he was experienced in such business, having managed many transports of forbidden literature. Only a few days before, accompanied by a Polish acquaintance of mine, Yablonski, he had been to Freiburg, whence they had despatched some Polish literature. He now recommended to me a cheap hotel in Freiburg, close to the station; and in good spirits I climbed into a third-class carriage. It was a Sunday, and the carriage was filled with people in gay holiday mood. Songs were sung, and unrestrained chatter filled the air. The guard was pompous and overbearing, as often happened then on German lines; I do not know if it is so still. When he saw that I was smoking, he told me very rudely, with a great show of official zeal, that this was not a smoking carriage. I answered politely that I had not been aware of it, and at once threw away my cigarette. He insisted peremptorily, however, that I must change carriages. “A bad omen,” thought I, and still recall the sensation. I was out of temper, and felt irritated and uncomfortable. The weather, too, grew overcast, and a cold drizzle set in, which worked on my nerves.
The train moved off, and before I had got over my grumbling humour we were at Freiburg. It was between seven and eight in the evening. Landed on the platform, I looked out the porter of the Freiburger Hof, and gave him my luggage-check. He noticed at once that it showed the unusual weight of my boxes, and expressed his surprise thereat. To quiet any suspicion I told him at once unconcernedly that I was a student, and intended to study at Freiburg University, and that it was my books which made the trunks so heavy. The hotel was soon reached, and a room engaged, after which I betook myself to the restaurant for supper. As I passed by the buffet I saw the porter whispering earnestly with another man, apparently the landlord. Directly I had finished my meal the waiter brought me the visitors’ book; and as I had a Russian passport, lent me by a friend at the time of my flight from Russia, I at once signed myself in my friend’s name, “Alexander Bulìgin, of Moscow.” I then ordered writing materials and went to my room, but had barely shut the door behind me when there came a knock. At my “Come in!” there appeared, instead of a servant with writing things, as I had expected, a policeman, accompanied by a gentleman in civil dress. “I am an officer of the secret police,” said the latter; “allow me to examine your trunks.” Instantly I thought, “As Freiburg is so near the Swiss frontier, the police (to whom the porter must have announced the arrival of a young man with unusually heavy luggage), may think I have contraband goods; or they may take me for an anarchist, and suspect me of conveying dynamite.” I tried, therefore, to look as harmless as possible, although I felt that things were awkward. Busied with the unlocking of my boxes, I let fall the remark that one of them contained the belongings of my wife, whom I expected shortly. No sooner, however, had the men begun to turn over my things, than I saw that my guess as to their search for contraband was incorrect; the detective was on the look-out for neither contraband nor dynamite, but for books, and he immediately began to examine mine. I then concluded he was looking for German Social-Democratic literature; and I was astonished when, at sight of a little book bound in red, my gentleman cried triumphantly, “Ah, here we are!”
It was the Calendar of the Naròdnaia Vòlya,[[2]] a book that had come out about a year before this, and was openly sold by German booksellers.
“I must now have you searched,” said the police agent.
Besides a notebook, a letter, and a pocket-book containing several hundred-mark notes, there were in my pockets a dozen numbers of the Zurich Sozialdemokrat, which I had brought with me to send to a Russian friend in Germany.
“Here at least is something that we can read!” said the detective in a satisfied tone; “now, I arrest you!”
“Why? What for?” asked I, much astonished.
“That you will soon find out; come along!” was the answer.
The procedure of the police agent was extraordinary in every way: no attempt was made to fulfil the legal enactments for the protection of personal safety; the domiciliary search was instituted without legal warrant; there were no witnesses. I insisted on the officer’s counting over in my presence the money in my pocket-book, which they had confiscated, though of course that was not much guarantee for the security of my property.
As I was descending the steps of the hotel, a prisoner between my two guardian angels, a young lady carrying a small travelling-bag met us. The detective asked me if this were my wife, and, notwithstanding my reply in the negative, tried to seize hold of her. She evidently thought she had to do with some Don Juan, and fled screaming into the street; whereupon the detective ordered the policeman to lead me on, and himself followed the unknown lady.