“People are being strangled right and left and here you are bent on that idée fixe of yours.”
“Fine logic, that,” Makar replied. “If my idée fixe had been realised a year ago these men would now be free. But this is not the time to talk about things of that kind.” Instead of mourning the loss of the three revolutionists he was in a solemn, religious sort of mood at the thought of the new human sacrifices offered on the altar of liberty. He was panting to speak about the Jew who had been executed. He was proud of the fact that two men of his race had given their lives for the cause within five months. The other Jewish revolutionist had been executed in Nicolayeff. A letter which he had addressed to the revolutionists a few days before his execution, exhorting them not to waste any of the forces of the movement on attempts to avenge his death, was enshrined in Makar’s heart as the most sacred document in the entire literature of the struggle. But race pride was contrary to the teachings of the movement; so he not only kept these sentiments to himself, but tried to suppress them in his own bosom.
In the evening Pavel took two young cavalry officers of his acquaintance to the house of a retired major where a revolutionary meeting was to be held. They found the major’s drawing room sparkling with military uniforms. The gathering was made up of eight officers, two men in citizen’s clothes, and one woman, the dark long-necked hostess.
Two cheap lithographs, one of General Suvoroff and the other of the reigning monarch, occupied the centre of the best wall, in jarring disharmony with the refined and somewhat Bohemian character of the rest of the room. The two portraits had been put there recently, to bear witness to the political “reliability” of the house. The hostess presided over a pile of yellow aromatic tobacco, rolling cigarettes for her guests and smoking incessantly herself. An idiotic-looking man-servant and a peasant girl fresh from the country kept up a supply of tea, zwiebacks and preserves. Every time they appeared the hostess, whose seat commanded the door, would signal to the company. She did it rather perfunctorily, however, the revolutionary discussion proceeding undisturbed. The cultured, bookish Russian of the assemblage was Greek to the two servants. They talked of the three executions.
Presently two other civilians were announced.
“At last!” the hostess said, getting up from her pile of tobacco in a flutter.
The two newcomers were both above medium height, of solid build and ruddy-faced; but here their similarity of appearance ceased. One of them looked the image of social refinement and elegance, while the clothes and general aspect of the other bespoke a citified, prosperous peasant. His rough top-boots, the red woolen belt round his coat and the rather coarse tint of his florid complexion, like his full Russian beard, proclaimed the son of the unenlightened classes. He was taller than his companion and remarkably well-built, with a shock of dark brown hair thrown back from a high prominent forehead and regular features. He was introduced to the gathering as Zachar. He and the stylish-looking man by his side whose revolutionary nickname was “My Lord,” conveyed the effect of a bright, shrewd tradesman and a high-class lawyer bent on some legal business.
“If we are late, blame this guide of mine, not me,” Zachar said to the hostess, in a deep, rather harsh baritone, pointing at his companion. “It turned out that he did not know the place very well himself. There is a pilot for you.” He accepted a glass of tea in a silver holder and during the ensuing small talk the room rang with his merriment. His jests were commonplace, but his Russian and all he said betrayed the man of education. The tradesman’s costume was his disguise, and if it became him so well it was because his parents were moujiks. Born in serfdom but brought up as a nobleman at the expense of his former master, this university-bred peasant—a case of extreme rarity—for whom the gendarmes were searching in connection with a bold attempt to blow up an imperial train, loomed in the minds of the revolutionists as the most conspicuous figure of their movement.