The landlord relit the candle. David saw a cellar strewn with iron bars, instruments, boxes, and a confused heap of stones.
'Ah, hiding the vodka,' said David, with a smile.
'No, we are widening and fortifying the cellar—also provisioning the loft.'
'Samooborona?' said David.
'Precisely—and a far more effective form than yours, my young hot-head.'
'Perhaps you are right,' said David wearily. He went back to his Report. He was glad to think that the little Bundist had an extra chance. After all, he had achieved something, he would save some lives. Perhaps he would end by preaching the landlord's way—passive Samooborona was better than none.
IX
But the Report refused to write itself. It was too dismal to confess he had not collected a kopeck or one recruit. He picked up a greasy fragment of a Russian newspaper, and read with a grim smile that the Octobrists had excluded Jews from their meetings. That reminded him of Erbstein the Banker, who had bidden him put his trust in them. Would the Banker be more susceptible now, under this disillusionment? Alas! the question was, could a Banker be disillusioned? To be disillusioned is to admit having been mistaken, and Bankers, like Popes, were infallible.
David bethought himself instead of the owlish Mizrachi, his visit to whom had been left unfinished.