“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.”