The Jail. Experiences in 1916. Josef Svatopluk Machar

      "How so, up to the present day?" he went for me.

      "I see Dr. Kramář in the dock, when I might assume that I should see him decorated with all Austrian orders. This politician—"

      I did not finish.

      Swords rattled, the whole of the court was astir, Dr. Peutelschmidt reddened and shouted: "I did not ask you about that."

      "You did ask."

      "It is not your business to decide about that" he said, looking daggers at me, "answer only what I ask you."

      And he asked why we had fallen out. I explained the story of the attack on the Czech evangelicals, but it did not seem to interest him very much.

      "Were you a friend of Masaryk?"

      "Yes and a contributor to his papers Čas and Naše Doba."

      He showed me the copy of "L'indépendance" with Brožík's picture of Hus, and remarked "So you didn't write that."

      Immediately afterwards he drew from an extensive file, my file, a letter dated October 17th, 1899, and introduced it with these preliminary remarks: "We now come to an interesting document which has to be read, and I call upon the Court to decide whether the public is to be excluded during this reading."

      I wanted to protest against the reading,—in vain.

      ​"Surely you wrote that?" asked the leading counsel sharply.

      "Yes I did, but these matters are now out of date, the letter was written in exasperation at the suspended language ordinances."

      "The letter will be read."

      Swords rattled, the court rose and proceeded to deliberate.

      They called for the public to leave the court.

      Dr. Peutelschmidt read the letter. The presiding judge blinked his eyes, the other members of the court cast withering glances at me.

      It was the letter which I wrote to Dr. Kramář in the Crimea after the suspension of the language ordinances. A letter in which there are about seventy cases of lèse majesté. A letter about Franz Joseph.

      "How do you reconcile it with your finer feelings, Dr. Kramář, that you selected the writer of such a letter to be a witness at your wedding?" he said swooping down on the defendant.

      Dr. Kramář explained. The witness, he said, is a hot-headed poet, a pugnacious character, who has no consideration for any authority in the world, not for the nation either as a whole or individually, not for Bishops, Cardinals, not for the Pope, not for Kings and Emperors; not even his closest friends are safe from his pen, he himself could tell how he had been irritated not only fifteen years ago, but even before he fell out with the witness; he quoted an epigram which aroused suppressed mirth,—but the leading counsel swooped down on him afresh: "And you preserved such a letter Dr. Kramář?"

      "It is the manuscript of a poet" replied the defendant simply.

      There followed a few questions and answers about the "Volná Myšlenka" and the tendencies of this movement,—even now I do not know why and how it was that this "Volná Myšlenka" was mix​ed up in all my cross-examinations, and in the evidence I gave at this trial; perhaps for economic reasons so as to have certain supplies prepared for all eventualities.

      Thereupon we took our leave of the court very coldly,—-they did not even thank me for my evidence.

      *

      *⁠*

      A few weeks ago, long after this affair and after the affair which I shall yet describe in this book, at a time when the Imperial Amnesty severed all my connections with the military courts, I went to Dr. Preminger to demand back the trunk which I had lent him when he searched my house in June 1915.

      "Do you know that on December 7th, when you were giving evidence before the court and made a remark about the Austrian orders, all the officers were in favour of your immediate arrest?" Preminger informed me.

      "I do not know. And who prevented it?"

      "I did."

      "You? Only so that you could lock me up afterwards?"

      "I did not lock you up. As long as your case was in my hands, you remained at liberty. Altogether I take very careful counsel before arresting anyone. It was the same in the case of Dr. Kramář. A domiciliary search—I am in favour of that immediately. But to arrest a man,—no, then I reflect for a long time. I repeat, that as long as you were in my hands, you were free. When it was taken over by somebody else—"

      "Doctor, for heaven's sake don't let it get known in Bohemia that you have any opinion of me or I shall be badly off."

      "How is that?"

      ​"Did you not say that Dr. Tobolka was a good politician?"

"Yes, I praised him. Und was ist denn mit dem dr. Tobolka?"^[1]

      "Ein toter Hund ist er. Haben Sie übrigens auch den Dr. Schmeral gelobt?"

      "Dr. Schmeral ist ein hervorragender Politiker. Was ist mit ihm?"

      "Ein toter Hund ist er."

      I should add that Toter Hund (dead dog) is a Viennese expression, in which the word Toter (dead) has the full accent, and Hund (dog) is by the way. So the expression is neither a term of abuse nor of criticism.

      1 ↑ "And what about Dr. Tobolka?"He's a dead dog. By the way, did you praise Dr. Schmeral too?""Dr. Schmeral is a prominent politician. What about him?""He's a dead dog."