Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/71

 the week. Such a paltry matter. After all, we are in the twentieth century. Within a week I shall certainly be among my books—such were my thoughts, and I felt like a cockchafer which is preparing to fly; it raises the covering of its wings, stretches the delicate membranes of its netlike wings, and moves them as if testing them; and its whole body moves as if it were taking breath for a magnificent flight.

Dušek, a sceptical person, damped my ardour: "Don't believe them; you will find that your case won’t be heard on Friday, or Saturday either. They will keep you here on ice like me and all of us."

 

"Military justice,—that is a polypus with a multitude of arms and tentacles, and once it has seized anyone, he never escapes its clutches again. Even if you wriggled away from one tentacle, two others will grip you close, and three more will be brandished above your head. It has strength, but scarcely anything else. Together with Rašín and Kramář, the unfortunate Zamazal happened to slip into its grasp—good, it squeezed Zamazal with them. But here there can certainly be no question of a malicious joke,—anything but a joke" remarked Dušek.

We sat on the bed. Number 60 was pervaded by the mood of an ending day. lts occupants were smoking. A sergeant of the Uhlans was whistling a sentimental Viennese street song. On everything the melancholy of evening had settled. The highest windows of the building opposite were gleamingredly, the light of day was fading into dusk.

"We will have supper. Let me introduce you to our domestic