Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/26

 Kramář? Certainly not,—for with the person of Dr. Kramář the whole nation would be affected. And if there were nothing? They would be still less able to remain. At any rate, that was how the people judged it, but the Ministers themselves found a different solution,—they remained. They did this, it was said, to avert still worse matters which were preparing, and some of which might prove fatal. And these too, they averted, so it was said. It will be the task of history to decide which would have been better and more honourable. Today we can assert with the determinists that what happened had to happen, and we can add that it is a good thing it happened as it did, otherwise things would not be as they are today.

That was a beautiful spring. Day by day the sky was a clear blue, the air was fresh, the birds sang, the armies of the Central Powers advanced victorioust further and further through Russian-Poland, fortress upon fortress fell, every report announced swarms of prisoners, captured cannon, machine-guns, motor-cars, provision stores, clothes, boots,—there was joy on all sides, for the newspaper strategists announced that the war would soon come to a victorious end and peace was upon the horizon;—only above the lands of the Bohemian crown hung a black cloud, and the atmosphere beneath it was sultry, we breathed heavily, very heavily.

 

It was the morning of June 17th. I left my office, collected my letters and proceeded home. The landlady of the neighbouring house, Mrs. Helena Krásná, was leaning out of the window, she beckoned to me and called out: "There are officers in your house, they want to take you away to Prague", and, as a matter of fact, a motor-car