Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/42

 I shall not be able to tell you anything else even later on. If I had written and signed that, I would not deny it."

"But there isn't a single compromising word in it. Nothing about the State, the dynasty, the army,—in fact no reference to Austria at all; why should not you, as a Czech, have written a few lines about your great compatriot on such an occasion as the 500th anniversary of his death?" he observed in a friendly tone.

"Nothing compromising, it's true, but it is nonsense, nonsense both in the wording and the contents. And if I had written it, there would certainly be something compromising in it."

"Wait", he interrupted me, "I myself had doubts about your authorship,—I have read various things from your pen, and this certainly bears no resemblance to you. But perhaps you authorised somebody?"

"Ah, you really want to know whether I'm in touch with my fellow-countrymen in Switzerland?"

"And you are not?"

"No."

"Then how do you explain your signature?"

"The carelessness of somebody who signed my name and did not think of the consequences. The curse of popularity possessed by an author's name."

"In America they print heaps of your poems,—and those are poems which are rather more compromising."

"They obviously select them from my former books which are now prohibited in Austria."

"Without your permission?"

"Nobody has asked me."

"Are you in written communication with America?"

"I was. Before the war. Not now."