J. S. MACHAR
man, from there I came here. If a man is free, he shouldn't soak his senses in alcohol".
It was difficult to judge whether he was speaking the truth or whether he was making it up, but he was able to describe everything so vividly that it was poetical truth. I was fond of listening to him because he took my mind from where I was by making it a witness of his adventures,—and the greatest happiness in that place was to be somewhere else and to forget that we were there.
Papa Declich also used to sit with us and listen,—it was hard to say how much he understood, but one day he came out with the following paradox: Kranz, he said, was one of the best people he knew, and certainly the most honourable man here in the jail.
And new people came and went. They arrived like actors on the stage, said their parts and disappeared in the wings.
Volunteer Rosenstein. A subtle little fellow, a typical specimen of his race. Fidgety, nervous, timid. He displayed his right hand which had been shot through,—by a Russian bullet, he said. Tears trembled in his voice, the horror of war shuddered through his words,—the authorities declared that it was not a Russian bullet, but a bullet from his own rifle with which he had committed the crime of self-mutilation.
Dr. Povich-Rosetti. A tall, powerful Italian from Dalmatia. A sort of super-man. A dramatist, it was said, whose plays had been performed at several theatres. The story was that he had acted as a doctor in military hospital hutments, had been suddenly arrested and brought here. He did not know why,—indeed, his wife was the daughter of an Austrian major-general. He went off in triumph to be cross-examined, and returned extremely abashed. "They know everything there, they know that I invented a new rifle, and offered my invention to the Entente States. And that I have been in touch
174
