Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/349

Rh I never was quite sure of it, for I could not analyse this feeling which obsessed me. It was perhaps anxiety, or even fear, that I was experiencing at going back into the struggle of ordinary life after an interruption of nearly two years, a period which until this very day hangs over me like a cloud of gloom. I wondered with something approaching to terror how I should ever live once more among men, after I had been down into such abysses of torture and misery. I looked upon everything in another way, in another light, feeling more acutely, understanding phenomena more quickly and more deeply.

The day of September 23, 1907, finally dawned! At eight in the morning the Commandant of the Prison entered my cell and told me that I was free. I made the round of the rooms, taking leave of all my acquaintances. The convicts in silence shook my hand and looked at me with varying expressions of emotion, but in none of their eyes was there any sign of jealousy, positively none.

At the very last I said good-bye to those of my associates in the Revolutionary Government who still remained in prison, and then turned toward the prison door, which already stood open for me to pass. Just before going out, I turned back once more to take a last glance around the yard, and there at all the windows I saw the pallid faces of the convicts looking down at me with unmistakable feeling and good will.

The wicket in the door was closed with a bang behind me, yet it did not drown the sound of the revolutionary song which came from the lips of the political prisoners: You are the victims of our struggle for the right, For the liberty, the glory and the honour of the nation. Weep not then, brothers, who have led us in the fight, In this hour of eternal and most cruel separation.