"From Italy we traveled on to Berlin, thence to Petersburg, and back to
dreary Helsingfors, journeying as quickly as we could, yet never
allowing me opportunity of being with strangers. Both my ears and tongue
were very painful, but I said nothing. He was surely a fiend in a black
coat, and my only thought now was how to escape him. From the moment
when that so-called dentist had ruined my hearing and deprived me of
power of speech, he kept me aloof from everyone. The fear that I should
reveal everything had apparently grown to haunt him, and he had
conceived that terrible mode of silencing my lips. But the true depth of
his villainy was not yet apparent until I was back in Finland.
"On the night of our arrival he called in his son, who had traveled with
us from Petersburg, and in writing again demanded that I should marry
him. I wrote my reply--a firm refusal. He struck the table angrily with
his fist and wrote saying that I should either marry his son or die.
Then next day, while walking alone out beyond the town of Helsingfors,
as I often used to do, I was arrested upon the false charge of an
attempt upon the life of Madame Vakuroff and transported, without trial,
to the terrible fortress of Kajana, some of the horrors of which you
have yourself experienced.
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