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 556 he turned me inside out, and outside in again; and, if I had faltered for a moment; if I had equivocated in the slightest degree; if I had made a single statement that was untrue; he would have detected me. But he could not discover a single flaw in my statement: and, when he had finally released me from my painful position, I left him with a higher opinion of his character than I had previously entertained, and a more intense detestation of the system which required a man of such superior attainments to inflict petty tortures, and, to make unworthy inquiries into the purposes and intentions of a stranger who conducted himself fairly and openly.

But, long before I had done with Count Orlov, and, therefore, long before I had obtained my passport, I had become thoroughly sick and tired of the spies, who, I felt, were upon my track wherever I went. I could not walk into the streets without some one dogging my steps; I could not sit down to a meal without some curious eyes watching my movements; I could not retire to my bed-room without some one standing as sentinel outside the door,—it was horrible! The very air seemed to be oppressive and stifling. In those few days of police surveillance, I learnt to sympathise with the feelings which drove poor Tasso to madness. At last, I could endure it no longer; I could not resist the desire to give them the slip for one day; just for one sweet day of liberty. I consulted a friend; and he told me that I could easily do it by spending the day at Cronstadt. It was true I could not legally go there without a passport; but it was customary for the English residents, instead of showing their passports to lay down a piece of money, at the ticket office. This practical mode of thwarting the obnoxious spies of the Secret Police by a bribe had become so universal and so successful that it was quite possible to escape detection, so I resolved to take my friend’s advice.

Early the following morning I went to the quay, put down the honorarium instead of the passport, together with the fare, at the ticket office, and took my place, undetected as I thought, on board the steamer which plies between St. Petersburg and Cronstadt. It was a glorious morning in June, and I was in the highest spirits. The sense of relief, the consciousness of liberty, was exquisitely sweet, clouded though it was by a fancy, for one moment, that a pair of eyes, belonging to a somewhat official-looking gentleman in plain clothes, were fixed upon me rather suspiciously; but I resolved to shake off this gloomy impression, and, in spite of all the police in Russia, to enjoy myself for the day. And I did. I spent the day in examining the famous fortifications of Cronstadt, which Sir Charles Napier was to have taken in a week, but which, I believe (though not a military man), the united forces of England and France could not have captured in a year. In the afternoon, I was at the pier in good time for the last steamer to St. Petersburg. I put down the small bribe again instead of the passport, but, to my dismay, the clerk would not receive it.

“You must show me your passport,” he growled.

“But is it not usual for gentlemen to lay down a coin instead of the passport?”

“I have nothing to do with that; I cannot let you pass without a passport.”

“I have not one with me.”

“Where is it?”

“At the Foreign Office at St. Petersburg.”

“Then you can’t pass.”

“What am I to do? Can I write for it?”

“Certainly not; you must apply for it personally; otherwise, you’ll never get it.”

“Then I will go and apply for it in person.”

“You will not be allowed to return to St. Petersburg without a passport.”

“What am I to do, then?”

“I don’t know.”

Now, as I saw other gentlemen admitted without passports, I came to the conclusion that I was a marked man. I was regularly caught in a trap. But how to get out of it? It was evident I could not get back to St. Petersburg, so I resolved to take it coolly, to sleep comfortably at an inn that night, and in the morning, perhaps, some mouse might be found that would kindly nibble through the cords of the net in which I was caught. I went to the English hotel and ordered a dinner and a bed. As I was sitting at dinner, sipping my wine with that feeling of independence which, as an Englishman, I naturally felt at “mine inn,” a waiter approached me with—

“Did you order a bed here, sir?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Would you be so good as to give me your passport, sir?”

“What do you want with my passport?”

“We must show it at the Police Office.”

“What! can I not sleep at an inn without showing my passport?”

“Certainly not, sir; it is against the law.”

“I have no passport with me.”

“Oh, then, you cannot sleep here, sir.”

After repeating the experiment at another inn, with precisely the same result, I was obliged, as a last resource, to walk out into the streets. It was so light and bright, under that northern sky, that it looked all night as if the sun had just set; and I felt jolly enough, and could scarcely regret that I had been obliged to turn out. But, about two o’clock, I met a policeman, who asked me what I was doing in the streets at that time of night, when honest folks were in bed. This courteous question I answered in the Quaker fashion, by asking him what was his opinion of his own honesty, as he was in the same predicament with myself.

“Show me your passport,” was the only reply he condescended to give.

“Confound the passport!” thought I. “These infernal spies will imprison me at last.”

“Well, where is your passport?”

“I have none with me.”

“Then you cannot walk the streets at this time of night without a passport.”

“What am I to do? I cannot go to an inn, because they won’t let me in without a passport; I cannot go home, because they won’t let me out without a passport; and now you say I must not