An enthusiastic remark from Vernon and sympathetic rejoinders from Clare and Cora had sufficed to mitigate in the Austrian that sense of being trapped by the enemy with which he had entered the room, for he saw that these young people had, at anyrate, one thing in common with him—a great respect for and interest in his Russian friend. And knowing this, his tongue was loosed; and his love of his friend overcoming in some degree the difficulties presented to him by the English language, he began to tell tale after tale of Petrovitch's kindness, bravery, self-sacrifice, and nobility. His knowledge of English had improved in the last four months, and his hearers found it easy to understand him.
'I have only known him half a year,' he said at last; 'and in that time I know of him more good than of any other man in half a lifetime.'
'I've known him less time than that,' chimed in young Vernon; 'and even I can see that he's different to any one else. The only person I ever knew who was in the least like him is Count Litvinoff.'
'Thereby I see you know not well either the one or the other,' said Hirsch, with some return to his normal grumpiness.
'I don't agree with Mr Vernon,' put in Clare; 'the principles of Count Litvinoff and Mr Petrovitch may be the same, but it seems to me that the two men are utterly different.'
'Yes,' said Miss Quaid. 'Count Litvinoff has much more of the dash and "go" that one expects in a revolutionist. Mr Petrovitch is very solid, I should think; but Count Litvinoff is certainly more brilliant and sparkling.'
Hirsch smiled sardonically.
'Mademoiselle is happy in her epithets. Froth sparkles in the sunshine and the most precious metal is the most solid. I will tell you one thing of Petrovitch. When you can tell me such another of Litvinoff, I will say Mr Vernon is right—the two men are like.
'It was on your Christian festival of Christmas—in a Russian town, no matter to name it—there was a chase, and all the townspeople turned out of their doors for the pleasure-excitement of seeing it. The chased? Only a poor woman, on her way from Moscow to the Austrian frontier. Her crime? She was a Jewess. For this, men and boys, with savage dogs, with sticks, with stones, with all that their devilish brutality told them to use against her, hunted her down, shouting, deriding, exulting. And she fled from them, but slowly, for she was not young. And those who took no part in the bloody pursuing looked on, smiling, many of them, and those who smiled not, with interest; men who were well born, and had not the ignorant superstition for whose sake we can pardon any crime to the poor. Those who hunted her were men who knew not their right hand from their left—thanks to their priests—and those who looked on approving were men of your world—"cultured," how you say?
'The poor woman fled, and still more slowly; a stone had hit her hard, and she felt already at the sickness of death. At a corner a tarantass across the road barred her way. Its coachman had stopped for the pleasure of seeing the sport. A Jewess stoned to death! The excellent pastime!