Having the right of free access to me, as the authorities placed full confidence in an illustrious professor, he often had me called into the translator’s office, where we could chat undisturbed. In these conversations I saw how much he had taken my affairs to heart. He went so far as to offer his house as a refuge if I were obliged to attempt an escape. Sometimes he joked about the part he was playing:—“Look at me, now,” he would say, laughing; “I, a German professor of dignity and position, have become a Russian conspirator; and this peaceful town of Freiburg is the scene of a plot!” Through his relations with the magistrate he knew how my case was going on, and of course he kept me posted up. At the first hearing of my case I made the following statement:—I was a Russian student, and had come abroad in pursuit of my studies. I had married here, and had one child. Hitherto I had lived in Switzerland, but now I wished to remain in Freiburg, whither my wife, now in Zurich, was to follow me. I lived partly by literary work, partly on private means. In Switzerland I had attended the University as “hospitant” (an occasional student at lectures).[12] As for my political opinions, when I left Russia they were still somewhat undecided; but the influence of German literature had led me to join the Social Democrats, and I had determined to assist, as far as I could, in the propagating of their views in my own country.[13] When, for various reasons, I had determined to live in Germany, I had brought with me the publications found in my possession, meaning to sell them eventually to the country people. They were not prohibited in Germany, and their possession was in no possible sense an infringement of German law. “And now,” I concluded, “in a free German town, in Frei-Burg, I have been arrested with no legal justification, without any of the prescribed formalities, I am subjected to all manner of indignities, and clapped into gaol like a common malefactor. As if that were not enough, the police, with no shadow of excuse, seized upon and arrested a lady of this town as if she were a pickpocket or disturber of the peace. I may well ask, What difference is there between this constitutional state of the German Empire and the absolute despotism of Russia? No one could have been worse treated, even in Russia!” Footnote 12: These particulars were necessary, because they applied to Bulìgin, the friend from whom I had borrowed a passport for this journey, and whose name I always used when travelling. He really did live at Zurich with his wife and child, and attended the University there. Footnote 13: