“Where are you going, girl?” he asked brusquely, eyeing me with suspicion.
“To Barnaul,” I replied, with a sinking heart.
“Have you a passport?” he demanded.
“Yes,” I said, drawing it out of my bag.
“What’s your name?” was the next question.
“Maria Botchkareva.”
In my confusion I had forgotten that the passport was my mother’s, and that it bore the name of Olga Frolkova. When the officer unfolded it and glanced at the name, he turned on me fiercely:
“Botchkareva, ah, so that is your name?”
It dawned upon me then that I had committed a fatal mistake. Visions of prison, torture and eventual return to Afanasi flashed before me. “I am lost,” I thought, falling upon my knees before the officer to beg for mercy, as he ordered me to follow him to headquarters. In an outburst of tears and sobs, I told him that I had escaped from a brutal husband, and since I could not possibly obtain a passport of my own, I was forced to make use of my mother’s. I implored him not to send me back to Afanasi, for he would certainly kill me.
My simple peasant speech convinced the officer that I was not a dangerous political, but he would not let me go. He decided that I should go with him. “Come along, you will stay with me, and to-morrow I will send you to Barnaul. If you don’t, I’ll have you arrested and sent by étape[2] back to Tomsk.”