The story of the daughter’s earnest affection was a touching one, and as the old man related it tears fell from his sightless eyes. The whole narrative was intensely interesting to me, inasmuch as his description of the terrible hardships of deportation by road, of life in the filthy, insanitary étapes, and the horrors of the Tomsk perisilni, were all well known and vivid in my own recollection. It was evident that the poor old man had been subjected to the same inhuman brutality that had wrecked so many thousand lives, and none could sympathise with him more sincerely than myself.
Without giving him any idea that I also had been exiled to the Great Prison Land, I questioned him upon various points, and his replies, one and all, were those of a man who had suffered in the same manner. Besides, his head had been shaved, for upon one side his white locks were thin, while on the other they grew thickly, and were of an iron grey.
“What can I do?” he asked mournfully, when he had concluded his story. “The money I have will not last me much longer. I must seek work.”
“But you are blind!” I exclaimed, looking into his dull, bleared, stony eyes.
“Yes; nevertheless I can still do my work. One can feel to cut and polish gems better than using the keenest eyesight. For three months prior to coming here I was employed at the Roeterseiland factory at Amsterdam. Do you know any one in London who wants a workman?”
I was silent. I happened to know a wealthy Jew diamond merchant, Goldberg by name, who lived in that dingy thoroughfare which contains more wealth, perhaps, than the whole of the rest of London—Hatton Garden.
“Ah! you do not speak,” he said entreatingly, laying his thin hand upon my arm. “If you do know any one, give me an introduction to them, and as a Russian and a brother, I shall thank you.”
“Yes, do,” urged Elyòna, jumping to her feet and placing her arm affectionately around her father’s neck. “He must do some work, or we shall starve.”
I hesitated, reflected upon the curious fact that this man, being an escaped “political,” was not included in our list. It was useless to give him the Nihilist sign, for he could not see.
“Well,” I said presently, “I know one gentleman, a dealer in gems, who frequently employs lapidaries. If you like I’ll speak to him to-morrow.”