"Bernard Shaw—the clever Celt who would sacrifice socialism for an epigram.
"Curse all socialists!" she suddenly screamed.
Arthur, entranced by the playful manner with which she disposed of friend and foe, was aghast at this outbreak. He saw another Yetta. Her face was ugly and revengeful. She sawed the air with her thin arms.
"Repeat after me," she adjured her hearers, "the Catechism of Sergei Netschajew, but begin with Herzen's noble motto: 'Long live chaos and destruction!'"
"Long live chaos and destruction!" was heartily roared.
The terrific catechism of the apostle Netschajew made Arthur shake with alternate woe and wrath. It was bloody-minded beyond description. Like a diabolic litany boomed the questions and answers:—
"Day and night we must have but one thought—inexorable destruction." And Arthur recalled how this pupil of Bakounine had with the assistance of Pryow and Nicolajew beguiled a certain suspected friend, Ivanow, into a lonely garden and killed him, throwing the body into a lake. After that Netschajew disappeared, though occasionally showing himself in Switzerland and England. Finally, in 1872, he was nabbed by the Russian government, sent to Siberia, and—!
Ugh! thought Arthur, what a people, what an ending! And Yetta—why did she now so openly proclaim destruction as the only palliative for social crime when she had so eloquently disclaimed earlier in the day the propaganda by force, by dagger, and dynamite?—He had hardly asked himself the question when there came a fierce rapping of wooden clubs at door and window. Instantly a brooding hush like that which precedes a hurricane fell upon the gathering. But Yetta did not long remain silent.
"Quick, Arthur, play the Star-Spangled Banner! It's the police. I want to save these poor souls—" she added, with a gulp in her throat; "quick, you idiot, the Star-Spangled Banner." But Arthur was almost fainting. His ringers fell listlessly on the keys, and they were too weak to make a sound. The police! he moaned, as the knocking deepened into banging and shouting. What a scandal! What a disgrace! He could never face his own world after this! To be caught with a lot of crazy anarchists in a den like this!—Smash, went the outside door! And the newspapers! They would laugh him out of town. He, Arthur Schopenhauer Wyartz, the Amateur Anarch! He saw the hideous headlines. Why, the very daily in which some of his fortune was invested would be the first to mock him most!
The assault outside increased. He leaped to the floor, where Yetta was surrounded by an excited crowd. He plucked her sleeve. She gazed at him disdainfully.