Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/24

 that the whole of the National Council had been removed in chains to Vienna, that old Dr. Mattuš had protested, but in vain, that Prince Thun had been arrested, that the Czech University had been suspended for some protest or other,—the people were not satisfied with reality and so they invented fables.

The arrest of Dr. Kramář, however, was the only certainty which I took back with me to Vienna.

Now, the nature of man is such that he does not fathom the ways and methods of Fate, he does not know that one of its apparent oversights may in time produce the most desirable results, he ceases to believe in it and wants to correct its mistakes. So it was that immediately upon my return I proceeded to a certain highly placed personage to explain to him what I had explained in the train to Choc, and asked him to intervene. The highly-placed personage was able to do so, that much I knew.

I arrived. His Excellency was engaged, he was not there. His secretary received me. He shook hands, smiled, asked me how I was,—I plunged Such and such a thing had happened. An error, a mistake, a blunder, a misfortune. The secretary at once assumed an appearance of very serious gloom, and his voice changed from that of an amiable friend and assumed a dry official tone. "There you are, as long as Thun was governor, he kept Kramář safe, and Kramář, supposing himself God's equal, thought that nothing could ever happen to him, that nobody would dare to interfere with him. But Thun went, the correspondence of Kramář was seized, and the result is that he is locked up in the military prison."

I pointed out the results that this action would have in Bohemia,—the secretary turned red and remarked: "The nation will calm down and come to reason. Those who led it, have led it astray.