ried to twist herself up in the
window curtains. Marie and I grew hysterical at her modesty, looking at
her big, knobby feet and her fiery face, with her top-knot of disheveled
red hair. We were given our clothes again, and went back to our
apartment.

The rooms were in confusion. All our trunks and bags were emptied, one
end of the carpet rolled back, the mattresses torn from the beds. The
secret-service men were down on their knees before piles of clothes,
going over the seams, emptying the pockets, unfolding handkerchiefs,
tapping the heels of shoes; every scrap of paper was passed over to the
chief, who tucked it into his portfolio. I watched him, hating his
square, stolid body that filled out his uniform smoothly. His eyes were
long and watchful like a cat's, and his fair mustache was turned up at
the ends, German fashion; in fact, there was something very German
about his thick thighs and shaved head and official importance. As I
have learned since, he _is_ a German and the most hated man in Kiev for
his pitiless persecution of all political offenders. They say he has
sent more people to Siberia than any six of his predecessors. They also
say every hand is against him, even to the spies' in his own force.

I trembled to spring at him and claw him and ruffle his composure some
way. Instead, I sat quietly, my hands folded, and watched the spies
ransacking our clothes. I began to feel a sharp anxiety as to what they
would find. It was all so mysterious. What were they looking for? At one
moment it was ridiculous, and I felt like laughing at the whole affair;
and then the next, the silence in which the search was conducted, the
apparent dead-seriousness of the spies' faces, the deliberation with
which the chief turned the bits of paper over in his hands and
scrutinized them and put them carefully away, struck me with a cold,
sharp apprehension. I had the sensation of being on the very edge of a
precipice. I felt as though the world were upside down and the most
innocent thing could be turned against us. Every card and photograph I
tried to catch a glimpse of before it went into the black portfolio. And
suddenly I saw the letter about the Jewish detention camp, which I had
forgotten all about. I saw the close lines of my writing, and it seemed
as though the edge of the precipice crumbled and I went shooting down. A
cold sweat broke out over me.

"But why are we arrested?" I heard Marie ask in German.

"Espionage,"