“Oh, jolly!” Jack exclaimed, springing to his feet. “He was a nihilist! And you are one! I am so glad! I wanted to see you; but did not suppose they were like you.”
“Sit down, Jack, and be quiet,” I said.
Sophie’s face underwent many colors, but finally subsided into a pallid hue as she tried to laugh, and said:
“My father was a nihilist, though not the murderous kind. He did not believe in that. He was not an anarchist, and when the czar was killed in ‘81 no one regretted it more than he did. I scarcely know of what he was suspected. It takes so little to put one under a ban, and when the bloodhounds are on your track, you are doomed. For a time my father eluded them, but he was caught at last and sent at once to Siberia, with scarcely a hearing and no chance to defend himself. I believe the dreadful journey was made as easy for him as possible, and he was not put to hard labor; indeed, he did not labor at all, for he died within three months. He was the idol of his father, who died of a broken heart soon after hearing the sad news that his son was dead. Pride, I think, had something to do with it, for the Scholaskies are a proud race; and the dear old man, with his long white hair and majestic appearance and courtly manners, sank under the blow which had humiliated him so much. We lost the greater part of our money and our handsome house on the Nevsky, where Ivan and I were once so happy, with no care or thought for the morrow. Now we live in an apartment house on another street, and Ivan and I work for our living. He is a salesman and I am a teacher of music—German, Russian and English—in Paris, so that we keep our mother in comfort, if not in the luxury to which she was once accustomed. I have told you my history in brief, and shall be glad to be of any assistance to you while you are in the city.”
She seemed tired and heated and took off the fur cap she wore and wiped the drops of sweat which had gathered so thickly upon her face. She was handsomer with her cap off, for one could see her white, well-shaped forehead and mass of soft, brown, wavy hair, which was brought up just over her ears and twisted in a large, flat knot in her neck.
During her recital, which had taken some time, as she stopped often, as if talking were painful, Jack had given vent to many exclamations of anger and disgust, and had once clinched his fists as if ready to fight some one. Katy sat perfectly still and scarcely gave a sign that she had heard; but when the story was finished she left her seat by the window and sat down beside Sophie, whose hand she took in hers, pressing it in token of her sympathy.
“I am so sorry for you,” she said; “and I don’t know that I want to go to Russia.”
“I do!” Jack exclaimed. “I want to lick ’em.”
This created a diversion, at which we all laughed, and no one more heartily than Sophie.
“Better keep quiet, my boy,” she said. “You can do no good. No one can help us but God, and sometimes it seems as if He had forgotten. But He will remember; there will be a change, I don’t know how or when, but old men and women who pretend to read the future see a heavy cloud over Russia—a cloud red with the blood of her children, yet with a silver lining which means liberty to the oppressed. May I live to see it!”