THE JAIL
"Ein Spion",[1] observed one.
"Oder ein Hochverräter"[2] replied the other. For a moment their eyes blazed with patriotic indignation, then they burst out laughing.
The defence-corps men marched along in military style, one two, one two, each pace 75 centimetres, 110 paces to the minute. I walked with little civilian steps, and this must have confused my guard at the back, for he kept on changing step and stamped to correct my pace.
The street of tigers is a quiet little street in the 8th circuit. For the greater part it consists of old, low-roofed little houses above which rises here and there a high and more modern tenement building. People were hurrying to and fro on the pavements, they looked at us, and from the open windows we were met by inquisitive glances of conjecture; I also looked at them, but really I saw, I felt nothing whatever. It was as if my soul had fallen asleep. I was indifferent to everything that had been, that was, and that would be, I had no interest in anything, least of all for my own fate. l was not even inquisitive now to know what they had against me. The day had brought too many impressions, it was not possible to take them in, and my senses were blunted. Only the fragment of some Viennese tune sounded obstinately in my ears, and I could not get rid of it. In front of a high tenement building,—on it was a tablet with an eagle and the number eleven, the man in front of me, he of the defence-corps, stopped. He read the inscription, compared the number of the house with what was written on his official paper, made a sign to us that this was the place, and entered.
The first story, the second, the third,—on the door a tablet marked Oberleutnant Auditor Dr. Frank,—this was it. The de-
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