THE DEFENCE COMMITTEE.
The little man who played the part of errand boy at the cheese shop and
who was arrested before the work on the mine was well advanced had
ultimately turned state's evidence. Among the revolutionists he betrayed
was Pavel, but the prince was known to him under a false name. Still,
the information furnished by his man, added to some addresses found on
other captured Nihilists, led to a series of new arrests. The ranks of
the Will of the People were being rapidly decimated. Grisha, the
dynamiter, and several other members of the innermost circle were seized
shortly after the killing of the Czar. The few surviving leaders
withdrew to the provinces, in some cases only immediately to fall into
the hands of the police there. Thus in April, after a Jewish student
girl was arrested in Kieff, the "trap" at her lodgings caught a woman
and a man who proved to be Baska, the "wife" of the "cheesemonger"
couple, and her real husband, "the German." Urie (the "cheesemonger"),
Makar and several other active revolutionists were in Moscow.
One late afternoon Clara was slowly pacing the painted floor of her
room, her hands clasped behind her, while her lover lay on the lounge,
watching her through the gathering dusk.
"St. Petersburg is too hot now," he said, breaking a long silence.
"Everybody is going away."
"There is really no use staying here just at present," she assented,
sadly, without pausing.
They grew silent again. The gloom of the little parlour was thickening
so rapidly that it seemed as though the outline of Clara's face, as she
walked back and forth, became vaguer every time she turned in Pavel's
direction.
Presently, with a burst of amorous tenderness, he got up, saying:
"Clanya! Let us go for a rest somewhere. You know you need it."
"You need it even more than I do, poor boy," she replied, stepping up
close to him. "I do wish you would go home for a month or two--or
somewhere else. As to myself, I should first like to see my parents. The
riots may strike Miroslav at any moment. If any harm came to them, I
should never forgive myself. I must get them away from there. That's all
I can think of." There was an obvious blank in her words. She left
something unsaid, and the consciousness of it made him uncomfortable.
"But that's easily arranged," he urged. "You can send them money and
invite them to some safe place."
"That's what I have been thinking of. I am so restless I wish I could
start to-morrow. It couldn't be arranged too soon. There are persistent
rumors that a riot is coming there. I shan't be gone long, dearest."
He had it at the tip of his tongue to force a discussion of their
party's attitude toward the riots and to have it out once for all. In
his imagined debates with her on the subject he had often exclaimed: "I
happen to belong to a class of land-robbers and profligates; now,
suppose the revolution breaks out and my class is attacked by the
people, will that affect me? A nice revolutionist I should be if it
did!" This and other arguments were all ready; what he lacked, however,
was the courage to bring up the topic. As to her promise to marry him
when the great conspiracy was out of the way, her redeeming it now,
while she was so tremulously absorbed in the question of her parents'
safety, could not be thought of.
He gathered her to him and kissed her, at once sympathetically and
appealingly.
"Go home, Pasha," she besought. "But not to Miroslav. You won't rest
there. Go to some of your mother's country places, or, perhaps some
other place would be safer for you. Go and take good care of yourself.
It would be too terrible if I found you arrested when I got back."
"Will you marry me then?" he asked, impersonating a pampered child.
She nodded, in the same playful spirit, and again her reticence brought
disquiet to his heart. "Something tells me she'll never be mine," he
thought with a sigh.
* * * * *
While the government was actively fomenting the riots, making an
electric rod of the Jews, the Nihilists persisted in mistaking them for
revolutionary kindling wood. While the "Chronicle of Arrests" in the
revolutionary organ included a large number of Jewish names, several of
them of persons conspicuous in the movement and noted for their pluck,
another page of the same issue contained a letter from the riot-ridden
district that was strongly flavoured with anti-Semitism. Moreover, a
proclamation, addressed to the peasantry, was printed on an
"underground" press, naming the Czar, the landlords and the Jews as
enemies of the people. This proclamation met with a storm of
disapproval, however, on the part of Gentiles and Jews alike, and was
withdrawn from circulation. Chaos reigned in the minds of the Nihilists.
Their party was disorganised, their thinkers for the most part buried,
dead or alive, the editorial management of their publications in the
hands of the weakest man on the Executive Committee, of one who several
years later sent, from Paris, a most servile petition to the Czar,
abjuring his former views and begging permission to return home as an
advocate of unqualified absolutism and panslavism.
The attitude of the Nihilists toward the Jewish population in general
was thus anything but sympathetic; and yet, so far as the higher strata
of the movement were concerned, the personal relations between Jew and
Gentile were not affected by this circumstance in the slightest degree.
The feeling of intimate comradeship and mutual devotion between the two
elements was left unmarred, as if one's views on the Jewish question
were purely a matter of abstract reasoning without any bearing on the
Jew of flesh and blood one happened to know.
More than this, in their blind theorising according to preconceived
formulas, most of the active Jewish Nihilists shut their eyes to the
actual state of things and joined their Gentile comrades in applauding
the riots as an encouraging sign of the times, as "a popular
revolutionary protest."
Pavel longed to discuss the riots with Makar. When he saw him, however,
he found him far more interested in the "new revolutionary program" upon
which he was engaged than in the anti-Semitic crusade.
"As if it was the first time Jewish blood had been shed," he said,
answering a question from Pavel, half-heartedly. "The entire history of
the Jews is one continuous riot. Indeed, the present outbreaks are a
mere flea-bite to what they have undergone before. So, what has
happened to make one revise one's views on the movement? One might as
well stay away from the _Will of the People_ because, forsooth, Jews
were burned by Gentiles in the 15th century. Nonsense."
"Clara doesn't seem to take it quite so easy," Pavel thought to himself.
"Clara has gone to meet her parents," he said, thirsting to talk of her.
"Has she? There may be a riot in Miroslav at any time. I wonder how
Zorki is getting along. But then my father will be able to take care of
himself,--and of Miriam, too," he added, lukewarmly. The only thing of
which he could have spoken with enthusiasm in these days was his
program.
Pavel came away hankering for more conversation about his fiancee and
about the riots. Instead of seeking rest and safety, as he had promised
Clara to do, he coveted a new sort of excitement and danger. He felt
that there was something wrong about that crusade, and he had a
sportsmanlike craving to see it for himself. Lacking the courage to
criticise his party, he accused himself of allowing his revolutionary
convictions to be affected by the interests of his love; yet he
continued to pray in his heart that the Jews of Miroslav, at least,
might be spared. He read all he found in the newspapers about the
atrocities, and on taking up a paper he would tremble lest it should
contain news of a riot in his birthplace.
When he read of the Miroslav panic he went there at once.
"If it's really a riot she'll never come back to me," he brooded,
wretchedly.
* * * * *
The rumours of an impending catastrophe were assuming definite outline
in Miroslav. A date was mentioned and tall Great-Russians in red
shirts--specialists at the business--were said to have been seen about
town. Great-Russia is and has always been strictly without the pale of
Jewish settlement, it being one of the characteristic features of the
anti-Semitic riots of the period that their leaders were imported from
the rabble in those districts in which very few people had an idea what
a Jew looked like.
The Jews of Miroslav sent a snug bribe to Pavel's uncle, but their agent
came back with the money. The governor had commissioned him to assure
them that everything would be done to make an outbreak impossible, but
"gratitude" he would not accept. The Jews took alarm. "If he doesn't eat
honey," they said, in the phrase of a current proverb, "then it looks
bad indeed." When a deputation of representative men called on him he
lost his temper.
"You Jews are too intense, that's what's the trouble with you," he said,
blinking his eyes. "I have let you know twice that there is no cause for
alarm, yet it seems that it is not enough for you." When he had softened
down he talked quite at length, although in a haughty tone of authority
and immeasurable aloofness, of the steps he had taken. The main point
was that the Jews should not tempt people to lawlessness by betraying
anxiety. He delivered quite a lecture on the point. The deputation came
away greatly encouraged. They knew of the extensive business relations
which the managers of his estates had with Jewish merchants, and they
argued, among themselves, that a riot, involving as it usually did the
wholesale destruction of Jewish property and a general demoralisation of
business, could not but entail serious financial losses upon himself.
This was in keeping with declarations made by the boards of trade at
Moscow, Warsaw and Kharkoff, the three chief centres of Russian
commerce, regarding the anti-Jewish crusade. These bodies had pointed
out the importance of the Jews of the south as the prime movers of local
industry, as almost the exclusive connecting link between the south of
Russia and the world markets of Germany and England; accordingly, they
had protested against the anti-Semitic campaign as a source of ruin to
the economic interests of the whole empire. All this the members of the
deputation were aware of, so they saw no reason to doubt the sincerity
of the governor's pledges. His advice not to put the thought of a riot
in the popular mind by a demonstration of timidity produced a strong
impression.
The upshot was that the Jews of Miroslav were afraid to be afraid. A
singular mood took hold of them. Everybody made an effort to act upon
the presumption that Miroslav was immune, that it was in an exceptional
position, and at the same time everyone read suspense and mortal fear in
the eyes of everyone else. It was like walking in one's stocking feet
with a spectacular effect of making a noise. Jewish women still avoided
the proximity of Christian men, and a Jewish face that did not look
Jewish was still eyed enviously as a shield against violence. The only
tangible manifestation of the spirit advocated by the governor was a
slight lengthening of business hours. Since the beginning of the panic
Jewish tradesmen had been closing their shops before it was quite
dark--three or four hours earlier than usual. Now they compromised on
keeping them open until the street lamps were lit. Nevertheless those of
them who depended on Christian trade continued to treat their customers
with a gentleness and a fawning attention that had nothing to do with
the ordinary blandishments of the counter. Inveterate rogues among
Jewish tradesmen became honest men. On the other hand a most respectable
Gentile often yielded to temptation that amounted to downright robbery,
while the license of "shady Christian characters" was asserting itself
more portentously every day.
A queer story came from one of the suburbs. When three Gentiles wearing
red shirts entered an out-of-the-way house to inquire the road, their
appearance frightened the two Jewish women they found there out of the
place, whereupon one of these, in a frenzy of terror, jumped into a well
and was drowned. Meanwhile the three strangers, finding themselves
alone, stripped the house of its valuables--a finale which struck the
fancy of a notorious thief and his gang, who then put on red shirts and
made a practice of plundering Jewish houses after scaring away their
occupants. The thief was known as Petroucha Sivoucha, which, foregoing
the rhyme, may be rendered as Cheap Vodka Pete. When he was arrested at
last he said, impersonating a simple-minded peasant:
"But it was only Jewish stuff and everybody says a Gentile is welcome to
it nowadays, that such is the will of our little father, the Czar."
The riots continued to spread, and while they did, General Ignatyeff,
the new Minister of the Interior, announced measure after measure
against the Jews. In a country where every official is perpetually
craning his neck toward the capital, it was only natural that an
attitude like this on the part of the Minister of the Interior should
create an atmosphere of anti-Semitic partiality amid which justice to
the Jew became impossible. Ignatyeff knew of the widespread rumour as to
the existence of an imperial ukase ordering the peasantry to plunder
and commit violence upon the Jews. Apart from his official sources of
information, the newspapers were full of instances showing the effect of
that rumour, yet he did nothing to stop it or to disabuse the minds of
the peasantry in that connection. This was interpreted by the officials
as a sign that the rumour was not meant to be stopped, and it was not.
Governor Boulatoff's encouraging answers to the Jews of his province
brought to Miroslav hundreds of people from other towns. Some of these
were victims of former atrocities, left without shelter in their native
places; others had not yet been through an anti-Semitic outbreak, but
dreaded one.
While people from other provinces were flocking to Miroslav in quest of
safety the leading Miroslav families were quietly sending their wives
and children abroad and taking their valuables to the government bank.
The offices of Dr. Lipnitzky and of Sender the Arbitrator, Vladimir's
father, were visited by scores of panic-stricken people daily.
"The rich people put their money and their plate in the bank," said a
teamster's wife to Vladimir and his father, "but what shall we do with
our traps?"
"Don't worry, my dear woman, there will be no riot in Miroslav," the
Arbitrator reassured her.
"It's all very well to say don't worry," the woman retorted sharply.
"You people can afford to say it, because your house is safe. But if
they kill my husband's horse and destroy his truck, we'll have to go
begging. It did not come easy, I can assure you." She burst into tears.
"The years that it has taken to save it all up, the pinching, the
scrimping--all in order that a thousand ghosts might have something to
grab. And what are we going to do with ourselves? Where shall we hide?
As to my husband and myself, well, all they can do is to kill us, but
how about the children?" And again she burst into sobs.
When an old woman who had two unmarried daughters, "both as handsome as
a tree," described her despair concerning them, Vladimir's mother
invited the girls to stay with her until the storm was over. And then
scores of other mothers begged her, with heart-breaking lamentations and
kisses, to take pity on their daughters also; which she could not do for
sheer lack of room.
The Vigdoroffs felt reasonably safe because Rasgadayeff, their Gentile
landlord and friend, was sure to keep the marauders away. Indeed, the
example of all previous outbreaks had shown that in most cases it was
enough for any Gentile to tell the rioters that he was the proprietor of
the house and that there were no Jews on his premises for them to pass
cordially on, and Rasgadayeff was one of the conspicuous and popular
figures in the Gentile community of the town. It is true that he was
looking forward to an anti-Semitic upheaval with joy himself, but his
liking for the Vigdoroffs was sincere.
Vladimir's father went about among his depositors asking to be relieved
of their money, jewelry or silver spoons. They refused to accept it.
Finally he moved his iron safe to Rasgadayeff's apartment.
Vladimir was in despair. He felt it quite likely that the panic should
be father to a catastrophe, as the governor had said. Once when he spoke
in this strain at his father's table, his mother remarked with light
irony:
"Look at the brave man. Look at the Cossack of straw."
The retort struck cruelly home. He knew that his heart grew faint every
time the anti-Semitic mobs pictured themselves vividly in his brain,
although often, indeed, he had a queer feeling as if it would be
disappointing to see Miroslav left out of the list of towns that were
sharing in the tragic notoriety of the year, and visioned himself going
through the experiences of a most brutal outbreak without facing its
dangers. The tragedy of his people filled his heart. He watched them in
their terror, in their misery, in their clinging despairing love of
their children; he studied their frightened look, their shrinking,
tremulous attitudes. Every Jewish woman he met struck him as a hunted
bird, on the alert for the faintest sound, trembling over the fate of
her nest. He saw many of them packing their things to flee, they did not
know whither. Indeed, the whole historical life of his race seemed to
have been spent in packing, in moving, in fleeing without knowing
whither. "Oh, my poor, my unhappy people!" Vladimir said to himself, in
a spasm of agony, yet with a glow of pleasure in calling them his
people. In his heart of hearts he knew that while he told everybody to
take courage his own mind was barren of conviction as to what was the
best thing to do. He felt crushed. He lost his head.
One day, as Vladimir walked along the street, his attention was arrested
by a rough-looking young man who was circling round him, and
scrutinising him now on this side, now on that. He felt annoyed. He was
not sure that the young man was a Jew, and as he asked him sternly,
"What are you looking at?" he was conscious of a little qualm of
timidity.
"Excuse me, sir," the other answered, in Yiddish. "I saw you at the
synagogue that Friday night. Do you remember?"
They paused. The young man had the manner of a Jewish horse-driver or
blacksmith. He was robust and broad-shouldered with small very sparse
teeth, somewhat bow-legged and somewhat cross-eyed. His coat was
literally in tatters and gave off a strong smell of herring.
"Well?" asked Vladimir.
"I have been wanting to see you, sir, only I have been too bashful." He
gave a smile, his tongue showing between his sparse teeth.
Vigdoroff rather liked his manner and invited him to his father's house.
On their way thither the young man said that his name was Zelig and that
he was a cooper by trade, making a specialty of herring barrels. When
they found themselves alone in Vladimir's room, Zelig grew still more
bashful, and after surveying the room, to make sure that they were not
overheard, he said:
"I want to belong to the committee."
"What committee?"
"You need not be on the lookout with me, sir; I am no babbler."
It appeared that there was a defence committee in town, with educated
young men at the head, and that in case of a riot it was expected to
fight "to the last drop of a fellow's blood," as Zelig phrased it. That
there should be such a thing in Miroslav without him being so much as
aware of its existence hurt Vladimir keenly.
"I don't know anything about it," he said, blankly.
"Don't you really?" said Zelig. "I was sure you were in it and that you
could get me in, too. Why, everybody knows about it. Only the committee
is strict, because if the police hears of it, they'll all be arrested.
It's against the law." As he offered him more detail of the matter he
became patronisingly enthusiastic and confided to him the names of Elkin
and of several university students now on their vacation as the
organisers and leaders of the movement. Vladimir knew these young men
and his pain became sharper still.
"But what good will it do?" he said, drily. "It will only lead to
trouble."
"Trouble! The idea of an educated man speaking like that! Can there be
more trouble than the Jews are in now? I don't see why we should sell
ourselves so cheap. Once we are going to be licked, why act like a lot
of sticks? Let us pay them for their bother at least. Come what may,
when they attack us, let us go to work and crack their skulls at
least--with lumps of iron, clubs or even pistols. Let us fondle them so
that a ghost may get into every bone of theirs." His words were
accompanied with mighty swings of his shoulders and arms and these
gesticulations of his had a peculiar effect on Vladimir. They stirred
his blood, they hypnotised him. "What is the danger? They'll kill us?
Let them. As if the life of a Jew were worth living! Besides, aren't
they killing and maiming us anyhow?"
"But look here," Vigdoroff said seriously. "The governor has promised us
protection and he is perfectly sincere about it. Now if he learns that
our people take the law in their own hands, it may do us great harm. It
is a very serious matter."
"Spit upon him, sir! I'm an uneducated man, but the governor--a ghost
into his father's father!--may all he wishes the Jews befall his own
head."
"That's all true enough, but now he has promised us protection, and an
organisation of that kind is against the law and may lead to trouble,"
Vigdoroff said with perfunctory irritation.
"And an organisation of rioters is not against the law? And robbing and
killing innocent people is not against the law? Long life to you, sir;
you're so wise, so educated and yet you are speaking like a baby. Look
here, sir! If the governor--a plague take him--is as good as his word,
and he does not allow the riot to get started, well and good. Then we'll
call the bargain off. But suppose he proves to be neither better nor
worse than all governors?"
Zelig knew of a number of other Jewish artisans who were anxious to join
the "committee," and he urged Vigdoroff to visit their gathering and to
give them a talk like the one Zelig had heard from him at the Synagogue
on that Friday night. "Oh, that was sweet as sugar," he said, kissing
two of his dirty fingers. "You see, when it comes to striking a
scoundrel's snout such a blow as will set his eyes raining sparks, we
want no help. That we can manage ourselves, but we are only common
people, and when a smart man like you says a couple of words, they
simply go melting in a fellow's bones."
"But I don't know anything about the 'committee.'"
Zelig laughed familiarly. "Sender-the-Arbitrator's son doesn't know! If
you only had the desire, you could belong to it yourself and introduce
us fellows, too."
"Very well. I'll consider it. And I should advise you men to do the
same."
"Consider it! We are only plain uneducated people, but we aren't going
to do any considering. I have a sister, sir, and if a Gentile lays a
finger on her he'll be a dead man, I can tell you that. Jewish blood is
being spilled by the bucket and here you are talking of 'considering.'"
He insisted that Vladimir should attend the meeting of his informal
society, and Vladimir, completely in his power, promised to do so.
* * * * *
That evening, in a spacious barn, half of which was crowded with barrels
of herring, Vladimir found Zelig and some fifteen chums of his. Zelig
was playing with a huge iron key. He was employed here and the meeting
was held by his employer's permission. For more than nine persons to
assemble without a police permit is a crime; so it gave Vigdoroff
satisfaction to reflect that he was now incurring risks similar to those
incurred by Clara and her friends. The gathering seemed to be made up of
mechanics and labourers exclusively. One of the men present was the
sneering fellow whom Vigdoroff had seen at the synagogue. Of the others
Vladimir's attention was attracted by two big burly young butchers with
dried-up blood about their finger-nails, a chimney-sweep, who looked
like a jet-black negro, with white teeth and red lips, and three men
with medals from the late war which they apparently expected to act as
an amulet against Gentile rowdies. The chimney-sweep sat apart, cracking
sunflower seeds. Now and again he made as though to throw his sooty arms
round somebody's neck and then burst into laughter over his own joke.
All the others looked grave. They showed Vigdoroff much respect and
attention. Even the sneering man made a favourable impression on him
to-night. Only he himself was so ill at ease he could scarcely take part
in the conversation. Other men came. When one of these proved to be
Motl, the trunk-maker in his aunt's employ, Vigdoroff felt somewhat more
at home.
One of the retired soldiers took to bragging of the courage he and his
two comrades had shown at the taking of Plevna, and when one of the
other two signed to him to stop boasting, he said, with a blush:
"I am saying all this because--because--what good did it do us? Does the
Czar pat us on the head for it? We risked our lives and many of our
people died under Plevna, and yet if we tried to settle in Great-Russia
we would be kicked out neck and crop, wouldn't we?"
"Indeed we would, war record, medal and all," one of the other two
chimed in.
"And why? Because we are Jews. We were not chased home from the firing
line because we were Jews, were we?"
"Talk of Great-Russia," somebody put in. "As if in a place like Miroslav
we were allowed to live in peace."
Another man assented with a sigh, adding: "If a thousandth part of the
courage shown by the Jews in the war was shown in our self-defence
against Gentiles, the Gentiles would have more respect for us."
The conversation turned on the subject of pistols, but the proposition
was overruled.
"Before we get pistols and learn to use them we'll be asleep under a
quilt of earth," said Zelig. "Why, what ails my cooper's hatchet, or a
hammer, or a plain crowbar?"
Every time Vigdoroff opened his mouth the faces of the others would
become tense with expectation. But he had nothing to say except to ask
an occasional question, and every time Zelig, playing with his enormous
iron key, pressed him for a speech, he would adjure him, in a flutter of
embarrassment, to let it go this time.
They talked of the prospective fight in phrases like "forwarding a
remittance to one's snout" or "pulling up sharp under a fellow's
peeper," which amused and jarred on him at once. For the rest, there was
a remarkable flow of common sense, humour and feeling. The gathering
cast a spell over him. He had come with the partial intention of
speaking against their scheme, yet now he felt that he could much more
readily face a gang of armed Gentiles than betray a faint heart to
these Jewish artisans. Moreover--and this was the great point with him
at the present moment--he felt that with these men by his side he could
fling himself into the very thick of the hottest fight. A peculiar sense
of solemnity and of gratification came over him. He followed their talk
reverentially. He humbly offered to call on one of the leaders of the
Defence Committee and to apply for the admission of this group with
himself as one of its members.
His first dawn of consciousness as he opened his eyes next morning was
of something exceedingly important and solemn which somehow had the
flavour of herring. The active participation of a man like Elkin in the
work of the Defence Committee was a source of disappointment to him. He
usually kept out of Elkin's way, as much for his venomous pleasantry as
for his revolutionary affiliations which he divined from his friendship
with Clara. He wondered whether he meant to give the affair a
revolutionary character. "He must have warned the other members against
me as a silk stocking and a coward," Vigdoroff said to himself bitterly.
"That's probably the way Clara describes me."
The next morning he was surprised by a visit from Elkin himself. The
revolutionist frowned as he spoke, but this was clearly a disguise for
his embarrassment.
"Look here, Vigdoroff," he said. "There has not been much love lost
between you and me, but that's foolish--at a time like this anyhow. We
must all work together. We are all Jews. I understand you have organised
a number of good fellows. Let them join the others."
Vigdoroff's heart beat fast, with emotion as well as with a sense of
flattered pride. He would never have expected Elkin capable of such
soulful talk. Moreover his speaking of himself as a Jew seemed to imply
that he had abandoned Nihilism. "So we 'cowards' were not so very wrong
after all," he thought to himself triumphantly.
"In the first place," he answered, "it wasn't I who organised them. It
was just the other way, in fact."
"Well, anyhow, let them join the rest."
"Of course we will. Only look here, Elkin. You have been frank with
me----"
"I know what you mean, but you need not worry. I won't get you in
trouble," Elkin replied with his usual venom in his lozenge-shaped
sneer. And then, kindly: "It is not as a Russian revolutionist that I
have gone into this thing. I am one, as much as ever; I have not changed
my views a bit, in fact. But that's another matter. All I want to say is
that in this thing I am as a Jew, as a child of our unhappy, outraged,
mud-bespattered people."