Even from the tribune of the Duma it was declared that the Black Cabinet was a fiction. Yet I happened to know that it existed, for later that evening I accompanied Rasputin and the Director to the General Post Office, where in three rooms on the second floor of the building the mysterious department, where correspondence was opened and read, was situated. Here was the most secret establishment of the Imperial Police. For over a hundred years had this mysterious department been at work examining the letters of all classes of people whose thoughts or doings could be of interest to the Tsar, his Minister of the Interior, or the Okhrana. Indeed, I learned from the general's conversation with the monk--I first having taken an oath never to divulge anything of what I saw or heard--that even the correspondence of the Tsar, his relatives, or friends was not immune from examination. Then I instantly realised the reason that the Tsaritza and Rasputin, in communicating with their friends in Germany, sent their letters by hand. On the night in question I stood watching with interest how letters for secret examination were taken from a lift which passed up and down from the sorting-rooms above to the distributing room below. The basket was taken off the lift during its slow descent, and another basket substituted containing letters already examined, so quickly that the man in charge of the lift below noticed nothing. We saw several processes of opening letters by steaming them, first taking an impression in plaster of any seal, and also by cutting off the end of the envelope by means of a small guillotine. The letters were dexterously opened, photographed, replaced in their respective envelopes, refastened and new seals made, or in other cases the ends of the cut envelopes were resealed by means of paper pulp to match the colour of the envelope, and placed under pressure in a hot press, thus actually remaking the paper! The watchman of this secret chamber was an illiterate, deaf and dumb peasant. "Each functionary on being first admitted here," said Rogogin, "is compelled to take a solemn oath never to divulge its existence to a living soul--not to his wife, father, sister, brother, or dearest friend." All was remarkable, a spying system of which I had never dreamed. When we entered the Director's well-furnished private room and the door was closed, Rogogin took from a locker drawer a letter which he handed to the monk, saying: "Here is the letter of which I spoke; if I hold it back it may arouse suspicion." Rasputin, who could only read with difficulty, looked at the letter, and then, handing it to me with that lofty air he assumed in the belief that he could conceal his ignorance, said: "Feodor, read it to me." It was on grey paper, and was as follows: