But we thieves, all of us who have been in prison, have a mad
passion for freedom. Therefore we despise our gaolers with all the
hatred that a human heart can feel. I will speak for myself. I have
been tortured three times by police detectives till I was half dead.
My lungs and liver have been shattered. In the mornings I spit blood
until I can breathe no more. But if I were told that I will be spared
a fourth flogging only by shaking hands with a chief of the detective
police, I would refuse to do it!
"And then the newspapers say that we took from these hands
Judas-money, dripping with human blood. No, gentlemen, it is a slander
which stabs our very soul, and inflicts insufferable pain. Not money,
nor threats, nor promises will suffice to make us mercenary murderers
of our brethren, nor accomplices with them."
"Never ... No ... No ... ," his comrades standing behind him began to
murmur.
"I will say more," the thief continued. "Many of us protected the
victims during this pogrom. Our friend, called Sesoi the Great--you
have just seen him, gentlemen--was then lodging with a Jewish
braid-maker on the Moldavanka.
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