Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/328

316 prison life, and I often wondered why these good and harmless fools were kept within its walls. It was even a matter of record that one of these librarians, when caught by the police after an escape, was taken to their office, watched the record being written up and was then told:

"You see, you have been caught again. Please go to the prison and present this document. Yes, it is hard, but such is the law."

The story runs that the librarian took the order for his imprisonment in his hand, smiled timidly, bowed and went away. After he had looked in all the shop windows on his way across the whole town, he turned up at the prison, presented his documents entitling him to a place and went off to the library, from where one fair day he again fled, only to meet the inevitable fate of recapture and reincarceration among the books.

The librarians are always attracted by religious people and religious matters, to all of which Shutkoff was no exception. His two intimate friends were Grushko and Nikoloff. They always walked together, discussing in low, earnest voices the most serious questions of faith and doctrine; and, though it afterwards came out that they were men of different views, they never quarrelled but seemed always most tolerant of one another's opinion. Evidently their discussions dealt with principles from an academic standpoint in a manner that is not frequently found even among highly educated people without the prison walls; and their talks seemed always polite and full of mutual respect.

One day, when those of us in the political wing of the prison sat drinking tea and enjoying a few strawberries we had gathered from our own bed, the Commandant