The Jail/Chapter V

by Josef Svatopluk Machar

V.

 

Days elapsed, weeks elapsed.

And in one of those weeks it happened that the post became silent as far as I was concerned. No papers arrived, letters did not come, nothing. Then again a day came and the precious post put in an appearance with a bundle of all the overdue papers and a heap of letters. The address-slips on the newspapers had been torn through the envelopes of the letters had been cut open on one side and gummed down again. Aha, even an Empire can contrive to be inquisitive, and at such a serious time about the private affairs of a respectable rate-payer. Family letters, those dealing with literary affairs, from friends, picture postcards, bills, cards from the front, parcels of provisions,—all this was of interest to the State, all this it opened and examined.

Good, the signs are increasing, I thought to myself.

I have already mentioned the confiscations of my books. They began on St. Václav's day, when newspapers published a report that my volume of verses entitled "Drops" had been confiscated. This collection had appeared at the beginning of the year, and had been received by the critics, as far as I had seen their comments, either with benevolent praise or with a profound lack of comprehension,—as the majority of my books. I had long reflected and conjectured what the state officials could have found compromising in it, I reflected and conjectured in vain,—finally I said to myself: This is not the first instance, it will not be the last.

And it was not, as I have already said.

For December 5th I received a summons to attend the military divisional Court. I was to appear as a witness in the case of Dr. Kramář and associates, charged with infringing such and such paragraphs. In the morning at 9 o'clock at the Hernalser Gürtel: Signed Mottl, Colonel.

In the meanwhile a whole series of persons, well-known in our public life, changed their residences. They moved to the Hradchin, then to Vienna, and romantic rumours were woven about the reasons for their journeys. Nearly the whole editing staff of the suspended "Čas" was already residing in Vienna, and with them Dr. Soukup as well.

He, however, was soon set at liberty, as nothing incriminating could be associated with him.

I have a keen recollection of December 5th. Such days as these engrave ineradicable traces upon the memory.

It was not an agreeable day. Dull, overcast, chilly and dismal. Before 9 o'clock, as I had been summoned, I entered the building of the Military Court. I had been there six months previously to see Dr. Preminger. A porter was there who saluted.–curious; today I took his salute as a matter of course, as an insignificant phenomenon,—in another six months it will emerge as something particularly remarkable to me, for I shall see that this building has yet other entrances which are without porters who salute.

In the witnesses room there were already a few gentlemen. Others arrived,—some I knew, with others I became acquainted. We were all assembled on behalf of Dr. Kramář and associates. Chief director Dr. Mattuš, Dean Burian, Švehla, Prokůpek, Mayor Groš, Dr. Soukup,—we were all waiting.

A sergeant-major arrived, read out our names and conducted us into the hall. On a platform in a semi-circle were the judges,—uniform beside uniform, medals on their chests, crosses,—twenty or thirty persons, I do not know exactly,—several silver-braided collars,—and the whole thing a blurred picture of combed heads, moustaches, eyes, ears, noses,—and nothing by which the glance was forcibly arrested. We received our admonition as witnesses and returned to the room.

From the windows there was a view below of small courtyards and a large one. Above them arose several stories with barred windows,—the jail. Everything was faded and drab,—the courtyards, the colour of the walls, the dusty windows, the air in the courtyard and the sky above it all. Drab, the most aristocratic of colours, can sometimes be very repulsive.

Dr. Mattuš was the first of us to be called. A quarter of an hour, half an hour, a whole hour,—still he did not return.

"They do it thoroughly" observed Švehla who kept walking to and fro in the room.

Mayor Groš was talking to Prokůpek about food questions in Prague. Dean Burian was reviving memories with Dr. Soukup of an encounter in connection with some school,—the Dean was once Minister for Education in the Central Committee of the Kingdom of Bohemia. In the little courtyard three Russian officers were walking about,—an old man with the badges of a staff officer, the two others being young subalterns. Two men of the defence-corps were guarding them with fixed bayonets. The area of the yard was about two hundred square metres, but it seemed that this trifle was no hindrance to the Russians. They moved along slowly, stopped, gesticulated,—perhaps their conversation had removed them to some distant district of their native land,—perhaps they were criticising the conditions in their jail,—perhaps they were telling each other anecdotes,—who knows?

Dr. Mattuš came in, and Mayor Groš was called. The aged leader of the Old Czechs testified that they "do it very thoroughly" indeed, they want to know everything, they inquire about everything from several quarters.

A door rattled below, a military jailer opened the entry to the large yard, and a crowd of people scrambled out. They looked up at us,—some greeted, obviously our fellow-countrymen. Men old and young, in clothing which varied from the workmen's dress to a lounge suit, healthy and sick, as shown by their gait and the colour of their faces, swarmed in fours like a large dark reptile along the ellipse of the yard.

"The thick-set man in the cap is Markov,—condemned to death" explained Dr. Soukup to me, "the old man beside him is Kurylewicz, also condemned to death, the one who is just greeting us is Giunio."

All were talking, a muffled buzzing penetrated to the room where we were.

"They walk for half an hour like that in the morning, half an hour in the afternoon", remarked Dr. Soukup. We all stood at the windows and looked out. "The jail was built for two hundred people, now there are more than seven hundred in it. They are let out for exercise by floors, and when they are relieved, it is the turn of those who are locked up in the tower."

"Kramář and Rašín are in the tower?" asked somebody.

"Yes, here on the left."

We looked out. In a semi-circle squeezed into the yard, arose a grey building with small barred windows. Angel's Castle,—l was reminded of Rome.

The prisoners were guarded by defence-corps men with bayonets. The half hour was up; there was a word of command, the door opened, the black reptile crawled into the dark entrance of the building and was lost within it. The yard was empty.

Mayor Groš returned. Flushed, in high spirits, he was obviously glad that his period of torture was over.

Dean Burian went to relate what he knew and what he had seen.

It began to be tiresome. Udržal who was present at the proceedings in the body of the court, looked in for a moment and gave us an account of his impressions.

There was a buzzing in the ears, as always when a man listens to time as it elapses.

Dean Burian returned after a while. Finished? No. It's the interval. "The presiding judge is certainly on the side of Kramář; whenever I said anything favourable to Kramář, his eyes twinkled at me."

The interval was over, the Dean was again called into the court-room. We walked about the room, passing the time away.

It was after 3 o'clock when my turn came.

I entered the court-room, looked round for the defendant and greeted him. Dr. Rašín was indifferent, as if he had been a bored spectator of the trial. Dr. Kramář,—pangs of sorrow clutched at my heart,—was sunken, his face was an ashen colour,—it was years since I had seen him and now like this. Editor Červinka seemed to be in a whimsical mood, and Zamazal, by means of whom the military tribunal, with remarkable sagacity, had increased the group of traitors to a quartette, was as mournful as the overcast day outside.

Dr. Peutelschmidt, the leading counsel for the prosecution, had seemingly acquired military smartness to perfection, although his head with its almost white hair, recalled the poet Robert Hamerling. In civil life he was, l understood, a police magistrate, also very smart and stern,—here his manners, yes, they reminded me of the army; that is how an old gaunt sergeant-major browbeats a poor raw recruit for bad marching and faulty movements. Or, if you like, another comparison. He watched the defendants in the dock like a hawk, which has somewhere come upon four captured doves, and woe betide them if they advance a single word to defend themselves. These men were condemned in advance, ruined in advance. Why these ceremonies, cross-examinations, and all this martyrdom?

The members of the court were obviously tired, the presiding judge blinked his eyes and his face twitched involuntarily like that of a rabbit,—this is what Dean Burian took to be the circumstance in favour of Dr. Kramář!—Dr. Preminger in full-dress uniform was sitting on the left-hand, alert, lithe, ready to leap.

Name,—when born,—where,—relations with the defendant.

A witness at his wedding,—a personal friend.

"Then were you his political opponent for a number of years?"

"Yes, for fifteen years. Up to the present day."

"How so, up to the present day?" he went for me.

"I see Dr. Kramář in the dock, when I might assume that I should see him decorated with all Austrian orders. This politician—"

I did not finish.

Swords rattled, the whole of the court was astir, Dr. Peutelschmidt reddened and shouted: "I did not ask you about that."

"You did ask."

"It is not your business to decide about that" he said, looking daggers at me, "answer only what I ask you."

And he asked why we had fallen out. I explained the story of the attack on the Czech evangelicals, but it did not seem to interest him very much.

"Were you a friend of Masaryk?"

"Yes and a contributor to his papers Čas and Naše Doba."

He showed me the copy of "L'indépendance" with Brožík's picture of Hus, and remarked "So you didn't write that."

Immediately afterwards he drew from an extensive file, my file, a letter dated October 17th, 1899, and introduced it with these preliminary remarks: "We now come to an interesting document which has to be read, and I call upon the Court to decide whether the public is to be excluded during this reading."

I wanted to protest against the reading,—in vain.

"Surely you wrote that?" asked the leading counsel sharply.

"Yes I did, but these matters are now out of date, the letter was written in exasperation at the suspended language ordinances."

"The letter will be read."

Swords rattled, the court rose and proceeded to deliberate.

They called for the public to leave the court.

Dr. Peutelschmidt read the letter. The presiding judge blinked his eyes, the other members of the court cast withering glances at me.

It was the letter which I wrote to Dr. Kramář in the Crimea after the suspension of the language ordinances. A letter in which there are about seventy cases of lèse majesté. A letter about Franz Joseph.

"How do you reconcile it with your finer feelings, Dr. Kramář, that you selected the writer of such a letter to be a witness at your wedding?" he said swooping down on the defendant.

Dr. Kramář explained. The witness, he said, is a hot-headed poet, a pugnacious character, who has no consideration for any authority in the world, not for the nation either as a whole or individually, not for Bishops, Cardinals, not for the Pope, not for Kings and Emperors; not even his closest friends are safe from his pen, he himself could tell how he had been irritated not only fifteen years ago, but even before he fell out with the witness; he quoted an epigram which aroused suppressed mirth,—but the leading counsel swooped down on him afresh: "And you preserved such a letter Dr. Kramář?"

"It is the manuscript of a poet" replied the defendant simply.

There followed a few questions and answers about the "Volná Myšlenka" and the tendencies of this movement,—even now I do not know why and how it was that this "Volná Myšlenka" was mixed up in all my cross-examinations, and in the evidence I gave at this trial; perhaps for economic reasons so as to have certain supplies prepared for all eventualities.

Thereupon we took our leave of the court very coldly,—-they did not even thank me for my evidence.

 

*
**

 

A few weeks ago, long after this affair and after the affair which I shall yet describe in this book, at a time when the Imperial Amnesty severed all my connections with the military courts, I went to Dr. Preminger to demand back the trunk which I had lent him when he searched my house in June 1915.

"Do you know that on December 7th, when you were giving evidence before the court and made a remark about the Austrian orders, all the officers were in favour of your immediate arrest?" Preminger informed me.

"I do not know. And who prevented it?"

"I did."

"You? Only so that you could lock me up afterwards?"

"I did not lock you up. As long as your case was in my hands, you remained at liberty. Altogether I take very careful counsel before arresting anyone. It was the same in the case of Dr. Kramář. A domiciliary search—I am in favour of that immediately. But to arrest a man,—no, then I reflect for a long time. I repeat, that as long as you were in my hands, you were free. When it was taken over by somebody else—"

"Doctor, for heaven's sake don't let it get known in Bohemia that you have any opinion of me or I shall be badly off."

"How is that?"

"Did you not say that Dr. Tobolka was a good politician?"

"Yes, I praised him. Und was ist denn mit dem dr. Tobolka?"^[1]

"Ein toter Hund ist er. Haben Sie übrigens auch den Dr. Schmeral gelobt?"

"Dr. Schmeral ist ein hervorragender Politiker. Was ist mit ihm?"

"Ein toter Hund ist er."

I should add that Toter Hund (dead dog) is a Viennese expression, in which the word Toter (dead) has the full accent, and Hund (dog) is by the way. So the expression is neither a term of abuse nor of criticism.

 

1. "And what about Dr. Tobolka?
   "He's a dead dog. By the way, did you praise Dr. Schmeral too?"
   "Dr. Schmeral is a prominent politician. What about him?"
   "He's a dead dog."