MAKAR'S CANVASS.
Parmet now gave most of his time to the secret movement, making himself
useful in a variety of ways. His great unrealised ambition, however, was
to work in an underground printing office--an offence which at the
period was punished by a long term of penal servitude in Siberia. He had
a feeling as though nothing one did for the movement could be regarded
as a vital service to the cause of free speech as long as it fell short
of typesetting in a secret printing establishment. He had applied for
work of this kind several times, but his proverbial absent-mindedness
stood in his way. Being in the habit of reading some book or newspaper
as he walked through the streets, he would sometimes catch himself
drinking in the contents of some "underground" publication in this
manner. Once as he stood on a street corner intent upon a revolutionary
leaflet, he heard an infuriated whisper:
"Imbecile! Scoundrel!"
When he raised his eyes he saw the ample back of a compactly built man
dressed in citizen's clothes except for a broad military cap with a red
band. This was "the Janitor," so nicknamed because he made it his
business to go the rounds of "conspiracy houses" every morning and to
pick a quarrel with those of their occupants who had neglected to
furnish their windows with safety signals or were guilty of some other
manifestation of "Russian breadth." The episode antedated the above
conversation between Makar and Pavel by two months, and the medical
student had not seen the Janitor since. He dreaded to meet him. At this
minute, however, he was just the man he wanted to see, for it was he who
had taken the initiative in getting the Dandy into the Third Section.
Accordingly, Pavel had no sooner left him than he betook himself to a
place at which he expected to find that revolutionist. The place was the
lodging of a man who was known in the organisation as Purring Cat--a
nickname based on his shaggy eyebrows and moustache. His face was almost
entirely overgrown with hair. Short of stature, with a thick dark beard
that reached down to his knees and with blue eyes that peered up from
under his stern eyebrows, this formidable looking little man, the
nearest approach to the wax-works version of a Russian Nihilist, was the
gentlest soul on the Executive Committee. Besides Purring Cat and the
Janitor, Makar found in the room Andrey, an extremely tall man with
Tartarian features.
The Janitor greeted Makar with a volley of oaths, stuttering as he
spoke, as was usually the case when he was angry.
"You have no business to be here," he fulminated. "You are just the man
to bring a spy in tow. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if you had one at
your heels now."
"Come, don't fume," Makar pleaded, confusedly. "I won't be absent-minded
any more. I have taken myself in hand. Besides, my absent-mindedness is
not without its redeeming feature. You see, I am the last man to be
suspected of being on my guard; so the spies would never bother me."
Andrey and Purring Cat smiled. The Janitor started to do the same, but
changed his mind. Instead, he broke into a more violent fit of temper
and a more painful stutter than before. His compact figure was of medium
height, his face very blond, with prominent eyes and well-trimmed red
beard. His military cap matched the passport of a retired army officer
under which he was registered at the police station. He was supposed to
be employed at some civil tribunal, and every morning, on the stroke of
eleven he would leave his lodgings, a portfolio under his arm, his
military cap slightly cocked--the very personification of the part he
acted. The name in his passport was Polivanoff. His real name was
Michailoff, and under that name he was wanted by the gendarmes in
prominent connection with several attempts on the life of the Czar. He
had once escaped from under arrest and on another occasion he had
managed to disappear from a railroad train while it was being searched
for him. He was one of the ablest and bravest men in the party. His
un-Russian punctuality and indefatigable attention to detail; his
practical turn of mind and the way he had of nagging his friends for
their lack of these qualities, were common topics of banter among the
Terrorists. He had made a special study of every lane and court in the
capital by which one might "trash" one's trail. He not only shadowed his
fellow revolutionists to see if they were aware of being shadowed or
whether they dressed in accordance with the type implied by their false
passports, but he also made a practice of spying over the spies of the
Third Section. With this end in view, he had once rented a room across
the street from that office--an institution that would have given
millions for his head. Here he would sit for hours at his window,
scrutinising every new person who entered the building so as to be able
to keep track of their movements afterward. Having thus discovered a
boarding house in which lived an important officer of the secret service
he had sent the Dandy to hire a room there. The desired appointment had
then been obtained without difficulty.
When Makar had laid the practical part of his scheme before the three
men, the Janitor fixed his prominent eyes on him and said, without
stammering:
"And you are just the chap to do it, aren't you?"
"And why not? It certainly doesn't need much adroitness and vigilance to
get arrested."
"The devil it does not. A fellow like you would get ten men arrested
before he fooled the measliest cub spy in the Third Section. Better keep
your hands off."
"Oh, well, if the escape was really a sure thing, the matter might be
arranged," Purring Cat interposed, charitably, in a low, gentle voice.
"Only this is scarcely the time for it." Whereupon Makar, feeling
encouraged, launched out to describe his far-reaching scheme in detail.
The look of the Janitor's prominent eyes, however, disturbed him, so
that he expounded the plan in a rather nerveless way; when he had
finished, the Janitor declared:
"He's certainly crazy."
Purring Cat's blue eyes looked up under their bushy brows, as he said,
gravely:
"There may be something in it, though, theoretically at least. In
reality, however, I am afraid that general state of chaos would rebound
upon ourselves. The government may get its spies into our circles until
one does not know who is who. It may become a double-edged weapon, this
'babel of distrust.' As to that prison scheme it might be tried some
day. Only don't be in a hurry, Makar."
"And what is your opinion?" Makar addressed himself to Andrey
solicitously.
Andrey who was a man of few words, and spoke with a slight lisp, said he
had no definite opinion to offer, but, when Makar pressed him hard, he
said:
"Well, we have one man there" (meaning the Third Section), "so let us
not make the mistake of the woman who cut her hen open in order to get
at all her eggs at once. Still, if the scheme could be worked in some of
the provinces, it might be worth while. It all depends on circumstances,
of course."
Makar longed to see Sophia, the daughter of the former governor of St.
Petersburg. She had taken an active part in one of the most daring
rescues and was celebrated for the ingenuity and motherly devotion with
which she gave herself to the "Red Cross" work of the party, supplying
political prisoners with provisions and keeping them in secret
communication with their relatives. It was the story of this young
noblewoman's life which afterwards inspired Turgeneff's prose poem, _The
Threshold_. Makar thought she might take an active interest in his
scheme, but she was overwhelmed with other work and inaccessible.