She described the nuns mumbling their prayers, and punctuating them with irate commands to the children; the many and various rules, the Mére Supérieure, the food, the clothes, the eccentricities of Monsieur le Directeur. She had the rare and unwomanlike art of witty description, though it assorted badly with her tragic face and unsmiling eyes. As she talked her voice rippled and broke into suppressed laughter.
"It was all rather dull, n'est-ce-pas?" said Emile, who felt more amusement than he had any intention of showing. "You'll find the Cause more exciting."
Before any practical steps were taken to make her a member of the band it was necessary to stimulate her enthusiasm, her imagination. He knew that for all her outward calmness she had no lack of fire. The coldest countries sometimes produced the most raging volcanoes.
"It's the only thing you care about—isn't it—the Cause?" she said.
"Tell me more about it. As I'm going in for it I ought to understand.
Of course I like anything that's 'agin the Government.' All the Irish
have always been rebels and patriots. We've helped your country too."
Emile did not require a second invitation to induce him to expound his views. "I suppose you think we throw bombs about by way of a little distraction?" he asked sarcastically. "What have we suffered before we took to throwing bombs? Before I came here I saw men and women, old and young together, shot down in the streets of St. Petersburg. Because they rioted? No! Because they wished to offer a protest against the brutalities of the Government officials. Are our petitions ever read, our entreaties ever answered? There were other things too, but they didn't generally get into the newspapers. Women stripped in barrack rooms,—and that in winter,—the Russian winter,—and beaten by common soldiers. Not women of the streets and slums, but women of the higher classes. Mock trials held with closed doors, the crime,—to have incurred the displeasure of someone in favour at the Court,—the end,—Siberia! A student is known to be quiet, a great reader and interested in the condition of the serfs. He is watched, arrested, and on the false evidence of the police ends his days in the mines. Entreaties, reason, appeal! Have we not tried them? Now we have only one weapon left—retaliation. Sometimes we are able to avenge our martyrs. The two fiends who guarded Marie Spiridonova were shot by the members of her Society. She was only a girl too—about the same age as you. We Anarchists do not serenade women and make them compliments, but we think it an honour to kiss the hand of such as Marie Spiridonova. She was tortured, starved, outraged, and came through worse than death to be transported to a convict settlement. Now she is in the Malzoff Prison. She will never see the world again, but it may be years before the life is ground out of her by labour and privations. Her case will soon be forgotten, except by a few, and thousands of other women have gone the same road. The details of the tragedy may be a little different, the thing itself is the same. One day I shall go back to my own country. In the meantime I carry on the campaign here.
"It's a losing cause. But if we lose we pay. We don't ask for mercy!"
* * * * * *
They sat together that evening at a café on the Rambla, the strolling place of the Spanish beauties, who promenaded there in an endless stream, with waving fans and rustling draperies, carnations and roses burning in dark, elaborately dressed hair. Tziganes made wild, witch music. At the cafés people laughed and drank.
Suddenly Arithelli leant across the little table, raising her glass.
"To the Cause!" she whispered under her breath.
For an instant the two pairs of eyes flamed into each other; then those of the man, hard and steel-grey, softened into something like admiration. Their glasses clinked softly together. "To the Cause!" he repeated. "Mon Camarade!"