Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/37

  open the veins not only of Messrs. Gross, Wolf, Teufel and all the rest of the Germanic Austrians, but even of any of its masters, if there were an opportunity.

"Au revoir," he said to me as we parted.

"I'd rather not", I replied.

At the same time as the search was taking place in my house, a police agent was searching the table in my office. He took away a few letters, an artistically decorated seal, several envelopes filled with postage stamps which in the course of my official work I was in the habit of cutting out and saving for the children of my acquaintances, an old table, calendar, unused picture postcards,—all "" (for further official action).

 

Just as Columbus when his wandering voyage was approaching the goal which he foreboded, began to see things announcing the proximity of land,—birds above the water, trees floating in the water and a certain kind of sea-weed under the water,—so I too began to perceive signs that my unrestricted voyage through this world was drawing to a close, and that I should soon find myself in some harbour which was certainly unknown to me but of which I already had an inkling.

Mr. Smutný, the district Governor of Králové Hradec (Königgrätz), instructed the municipal authorities of suburban Prague that the street which had been named after me should be called differently, and this was done. They began to confiscate my books, and they confiscated them so thoroughly that of all my literary works only a small fragment remained. What there was of it in readers and primers for schools had to be left out, and from what was allow-