Gromof had the right of entrance to the Kafarnaum. Here he continued to oppose the insurrection, and excited general ridicule.
"Instead of blaming our enthusiasm," replied they, "do something for us. Work the army. Work the dissenters from the orthodox church."
"Alas!" replied Gromof, "that is what we are doing. But our people do not respond to the first appeal. We have yet to instruct them and teach them their rights."
"And you desire us to remain inactive and wait for these babes to grow up? Oh, no! You cannot expect that any more than for us to return to the Greek calendar."
"But you are going to your own destruction. You are on the brink of an abyss."
"An abyss! To hell! rather than your yoke," cried an impetuous youth.
This argument was interrupted by a woman who came to tell that her son had been sent to the citadel, and that she had succeeded in saving some very compromising papers that he carried on his person. After the woman came a youth almost a child. He told how he had fled from the soldiers who had seized him for the Russian service.
Amid this noisy crowd came and went women chatting tranquilly, carrying important despatches hidden in their stockings or their corsets, and messengers waited while cobblers drew the nails from the heels of their boots where messages had been inserted.
Jacob saw before him an admirable tableau of devotion. To him the spectacle was most pitiful, for he was convinced that all these efforts could only result in a final catastrophe. Kruder returned. He informed his friend that one hour after their departure the police had invaded his dwelling, searched his papers, demolished stoves, had even taken up part of the floor, and carried away as sole trophy a pocket pistol, a prohibited weapon. The house was placed under strict supervision, and the search for Jacob was now going on in the streets.
There remained to him the choice between flight or prison; but whither should he fly? He thought of some obscure streets where the poor Jews lived. He had among them many friends whom he had aided in their distress. He had often penetrated into these houses of misery with the idea of devoting himself some day to their total extinction. With this end in view he had organized a Jewish school, for in his opinion popular instruction was the basis of moral reform and material improvement.