I could not help laughing. I laughed long, without restraint. It was so amusing. I was almost tempted to disclose to him how I had duped him. He still has no idea that Alexandra Smirnova, whose fictitious address at Kislovodsk he, in all probability, cherishes yet, was Maria Botchkareva!
For three days I travelled with my escort from Nikitino to Moscow. I was treated with consideration, but always as a prisoner. The guards would get food for me and themselves at the stations on the way. Upon our arrival at Moscow I was taken in a motor-car to the Soldiers’ Section of the Soviet, established in what was formerly the Governor’s mansion. My guards delivered me to a civilian, with all the documents of the case, and left.
“What, coming from Kornilov?” the official asked me gruffly.
“No, I was on my way to take the cure at Kislovodsk,” I replied.
“Ah, yes, we know those cures! What about the epaulets? Why did you take them off?”
“Because I am a plain peasant woman. I have defended my country bravely for three years. I am not guilty.”
“Well, we will see about that later,” he interrupted and ordered me to be led away to prison.
I was locked up in a small cell, in which there were already about twenty prisoners, officers and civilians, all arrested by agents who had overheard them talk against the Bolshevik régime! A fine reincarnation of the worst methods of Tsarism.
The cell was in a frightful condition. There was no lavatory in it, and the inmates were not permitted to leave the room! The stench was indescribable. The men smoked incessantly. The prisoners were not even allowed to take the short, daily promenade outside, which was granted by the old régime.
Apparently in order to make me confess, I was subjected to a new form of torture, never practised by the Tsar’s jailers. I was denied food! For three days I did not receive even the niggardly ration given to the other prisoners. My companions were all kind to me, but the portions that they received were barely enough to sustain life in their own bodies. So for three days and three nights, I lay on the bunk, in a heap under a cover, on the point of suffocation, starved, feverish, and thirsty, as no water was allowed me.