'I—I have none,' stammered the landlord. 'I haven't the right.'
'There are no rights in Russia,' said the censor good-humouredly.
The landlord furtively produced a big bottle.
'But the idea of asking me to join the Self-Defence!' chuckled the burly Jew. 'You might as well ask me to play the violin!' he added with a wink.
David felt this was the first really sympathetic hearer he had met that morning.
VII
The vodka and a good three-course dinner (Plotki for fish, Lockschen for soup, and Zrazy for joint) brought David new courage, and again he sallied out to recruit.
This time he sought the market-place—a badly-paved square, bordered with small houses and congested with stalls and a grey, kaftaned crowd, amid which gleamed the blue blouses of the ungodly younger generation. He had hitherto addressed himself to the classes—he would hear the voice of the people.
On every side the voice babbled of the Duma—babbled happily, as though the word was a new religious charm or a witch's incantation. Crude political conversations broke out amid all the business of the mart. He had only to listen to know how he would be answered:
A blacksmith buying a new hammer stayed to argue with the vendor.