CHAPTER XX
The town was in a state of unrest: strikes were in the air, patriotic demonstrations were held. Its outer environs were visited by suspicious-looking characters; these distributed proclamations, mostly of an illiterate nature, in the villages. The proclamations threatened incendiarism if the peasants did not revolt. The incendiaries were to be “students,” discharged from the factories on account of the strikes. The peasants believed the announcement. In some of the villages watchmen were engaged to catch the incendiaries at night.
Ostrov began to play a noticeable rôle in town. He quickly squandered the money he received from Trirodov in drink and in other ways. He did not dare as yet to visit Trirodov again, but appeared to be in an expectant mood, and remained in town.
It was here that Ostrov met his old friend Yakov Poltinin.
Yakov Poltinin and two other members of the Black Hundred were sent from the capital at the request of Kerbakh and Zherbenev. The apparent purpose of this request was to establish a connexion between the local section of the All-Russian Black Hundred union—organized by Kerbakh, Zherbenev, and Konopatskaya, the wife of a general—with the central office of the organization. The actual purpose, however, as understood by all these respected folk, though they ventured to do little more than hint of it to one another, was to establish—with the help of the trio—a patriotic movement; in short, to strike a blow at the intelligentsia.
Yakov Poltinin took Ostrov with him to visit the families of the patriots. A company of suspicious characters was in town—ready to do anything they were bidden. Yakov Poltinin led Ostrov also among this company.
In the course of the company’s friendly carouse at Poltinin’s apartments in a dirty little house on the outskirts of the town, the idea of stealing the sacred ikon came into some one’s mind. Poltinin said:
“There’s no end of precious stones on it of all sorts—diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. It took hundred of years to collect them. Little Mother Russia, orthodox Russia, has done her best.”