When the news reached Makar he wondered whether it would not be advisable for him to decamp at once. But he was so snugly established in his present berth that he was loath to abandon it.
Some of the worshippers who dropped in to read a page or two of an evening would gather in groups, bandying gossip or talking foreign politics, of which, indeed, they had the most grotesque conceptions. Here Makar picked up many a side-splitting story illustrative of the corruption, intemperance and childlike ineptitude of government officials. His attention seized with special eagerness upon a description of the demoralised state of things in the printing shop connected with the governor’s office. There is not an article of merchandise over which the Russian authorities maintain a more rigorous control than they do over type, every pound, almost every letter of it, used in the empire being registered and supposedly kept track of; yet the foreman of that shop often offered some of the Czar’s own supply for sale, and in default of buyers (the licensed private printers of the town being too timid to handle this most dangerous species of stolen goods) he had once molten a large quantity of new type and sold it for scrap lead. Makar could not help picturing the revolutionists in regular communication with this man. Nor did his fancy stop there. Gradually all the typesetters under that foreman would be supplanted by revolutionists, and the Czar’s printing office would print the Will of the People!
Two days elapsed before Rabbi Rachmiel returned. When he did he scarcely spoke to anybody. Naturally a man of few words, he now spent every minute reading his book with ferocious absorption.
The next day was Friday. In the evening the turmoil of Talmudic accents gave way to an ancient chant, at once light-hearted and solemn—the song of welcome to Sabbath the Bride. The brass chandeliers, brightly burnished, were filled with blazing candles. About half of the seats were occupied by worshippers, freshly bathed and most of them in their Sabbath clothes. Rabbi Rachmiel wore a beaming face, “in honour of the Sabbath,” that was plainly the result of effort. As Maker watched him chant his Sabbath-eve psalms, the heart of the escaped Nihilist was contracted with sympathy and something like a sense of guilt.
Meanwhile Count Loris-Melikoff had abolished the Third Section, transferring the secret service to the Interior Department, and while the change had not displaced the Dandy from office, yet it materially impaired his usefulness to his party.
When Makar returned to St. Petersburg Pavel met him with kisses and hugs and punches. The Janitor, whom he saw the next day, shook his hand heartily.
“It’s all right,” he said, looking Makar over with an amused air.
“What are you smiling at?” Parmet demanded, colouring.