I went on to clinch the nail by telling them, that it was useless to frighten me by threats of imprisonment; because I was well known to some of the leading English residents (in Saint Petersburg), who were expecting my arrival, and would be sure to make inquiries. This settled the matter; and they transferred me at once to the Chief of the Secret Police at Saint Petersburg.
I was out of danger, but by no means out of the way of annoyance. I was put under police surveillance; and my passport was withheld for many days. Day after day I had to dance attendance on the Foreign Office, and the Secret Police Office; I was driven backward and forward, like a shuttlecock, from the one to the other.
At the Foreign Office, I was examined by a gentleman who was an adept at the task. It would be useless to record all the questions and answers which passed between us; but the conclusion of my interview with him is worthy of detailed recital.
“Were you ever in Russia before?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“It is seven years since I left Russia.’
At a sign from my examiner, an attendant left the room: and, while I was answering some other questions, he returned with a paper in his hand.
“Here is your old passport.”
I was perfectly amazed. Not more than a minute or two could have elapsed since I said that I had left Russia seven years before. During these seven years, hundreds of thousands of travellers must have come and gone, and hundreds of thousands of passports been deposited at the Foreign Office; and, yet, at a minute’s notice, the officials could lay their hand on the passport that was wanted. The whole thing seemed done by magic. Such is the perfection to which the passport system has been carried in Russia. With the exception of a few criminals, or reputed criminals, who have eluded justice, the Russian Government could say where every individual Russian is at this moment. It is the triumph of oriental despotism.
“How is this?” said my examiner, after turning over the leaves of my old passport. “You now call yourself ‘John Knox ’ but, in your old passport, you are called ‘John Edward :’ an alias? Eh?”
For the moment, I was dumfounded; I could not imagine how such a mistake could have crept in: and, from a sinister smile, which played on my tormentor’s countenance, I concluded that he took my silence to be a confession of guilt. But, happily, a bright idea suddenly flashed across my mind. A Russian frequently signs his father’s baptismal name (after his own), with the affix “ov,” which means “son of;” thus, in applying for a passport seven years before, I might have subscribed myself “John Edwardov,” (John, son of Edward); and the Russian copyist might easily make a mistake, and set my name down as “John Edward” in the body of the passport. This I suggested to the examiner.
“Never fear,” said the imperturbable functionary. “The truth will come out: you must have signed your name yourself at the end of the passport. Here it is—‘John Edwardov.’”
“Thank God, it is all right,” thought I, breathing more freely; for, in the suspicious circumstances in which I stood, the most insignificant atom of evidence for or against me acquired a fictitious importance.
“Ah! but here is a more material discrepancy,” continued the relentless functionary: “the description given of you in your old passport does not at all correspond with your present appearance.”
“Seven years necessarily make a great change in a man’s appearance.”
“Yes, but not such a change as this: I cannot recognise your portrait in this description, Listen. ‘Face round’—I call your face decidedly long: ‘Hair, red’—your hair is nearly black. ‘Complexion, fair’—your complexion is what I should call dark. ‘Chin, smooth and round’—it is true your whiskers may have begun to flourish since, but your chin could scarcely have lengthened so much in so short a space of time.”
I was utterly dismayed. I do not know that I had ever read that striking description of my person before.
“I met with a severe accident a few years ago,” I gasped out. “It injured my health, and I dare say I do not look quite the same as I did before the accident.”
“And has that accident dyed your hair as well?”
“It must have been a mistake of the person who filled up the passport.”
“Ordinarily I do not notice such discrepancies,” said the stern and merciless official: “but, when there are other suspicious circumstances, they become important elements in the decision; and, as yours is too serious a case to be left to my discretion, I must transfer you to the Chief of the Secret Police.”
The Chief of the Secret Police was then no less a man than the celebrated Count Orlov; the favourite of the late Emperor Nicholas, and the Chief Plenipotentiary of Russia at the Paris Conferences which terminated the Crimean war. He was the man, to whom Nicholas is reported to have said, in one of his saddened moods, “There is only one honest man in Russia:” and, while the favourite was bowing his acknowledgment of the supposed compliment, never for a moment doubting, that he, the immaculate Orlov, was the “one honest man,” whose presence the clear-sighted autocrat recognised and rejoiced in, Nicholas dispelled the illusion by quietly adding—“and that is myself.” Yet I knew very well that no one had greater influence over Nicholas; and that, next to the Czar himself, no one had so much power in Russia. This was the formidable personage, with whom I was about to be brought into such close contact; and, under the awkward-looking circumstances which surrounded me, I confess that I shrank from the ordeal. I resolved to be perfectly frank with him; and I believe it was my frankness that saved me.
My interview with the Chief of the Secret Police was of the most exciting character. At first my worst suspicions seemed about to be realised. Count Orlov gazed at me, and sounded me in the most searching and inquisitive manner. He questioned and cross-questioned me severely: