There is not entertainment for more than a day in Pirot, and the hotel accommodation is lean. I said good-bye that evening. At the station I met the gendarme who had originally blocked my passage. Now he regretted my departure. He seemed a childlike and simple personage, not at all intended by nature for a policeman. He carried my bag in for me, and beamed with joy when he felt its weight. "May I open it?" he asked. When he found the weight was entirely caused by three dictionaries and an old pair of shoes, he was disappointed. "I thought it was all English gold!" he said.
As the time for the departure of the train drew near the gendarme grew anxious. Something weighed heavily on his mind, and that was that he had to write the name of each departing passenger in the police-book and did not know how to manage mine. He wrote down everyone else, and then shook his head despairingly. He restored me my passport and explained that he could not read the name on it, for it was printed in "Latinski." I boldly offered to write it myself in the sacred volume. He was incredulous of my powers. It must not be written in Latinski, he said. I promised, took the pencil and wrote my name very large in Cyrillic; he was delighted, and everyone came to see. "It was a great wonder," they said, and they all wanted to know where I had learnt it.
"In London," said I.
"Of a Serb?"
"No, of a Pole."
"Of a Pole! That is impossible."
"But it is true."
Then a superior person explained to me, "It is impossible that you should have learned these letters of a Pole, because Poles are Roman Catholic, and these letters are Orthodox." I stuck to my statement. Then the superior person, who even spoke a little German, had a bright idea. "This Pole," he said, "was Catholic, but has now become converted." And this explanation amply satisfied everyone, for it is obviously easier to change one's religion than to learn the alphabet belonging to an opposition one—if you are a South Slav.
My leaving Pirot was very different from my arriving. Now they said it was a pity I was going. The stationmaster thanked me for trusting a Balkan state, and I promised to look in next time I was in the neighbourhood.