Rabbi and Priest Part 37

Joseph shook his head, sorrowfully.

"I would be recaptured if I waited. No, I have no time to lose; every moment is precious. Think of me, my dear ones, and pray for me. When I can do so in safety, I shall return to Kief; until then, G.o.d bless you all."

Kissing his weeping friends farewell, he wrapped himself in a stout mantle which the Rabbi had procured for him, and stepped out into the inhospitable night.

For a time the sorrow-stricken families wept silently; then Mendel advised the Kiersons to return to their home at once.

"If the police follow him," he said, "they will naturally search your dwelling first. It will be unfortunate if they find you absent, and might lead to inquiries which would give them a clue to his whereabouts.

As it is, you can truthfully say that he has not shown himself in your house."

The old people acted upon the suggestion and reached their house not a moment too soon. They had scarcely entered before a number of officers demanded admittance and began a thorough search of the premises.

Satisfied by the replies of the lad's parents that he had not visited the house, they withdrew in no very amiable humor to continue their investigations at the house of the Rabbi, where they were equally unsuccessful. Failing to trace him in the Jewish quarter, the officers returned to the fortress and reported their lack of success to the warden. This worthy was at first inclined to lose his temper, but he finally shrugged his shoulders and muttered:

"Let him go, poor fellow! He has been here nearly two months, and that is punishment enough for having thrashed a man, were that man the Governor himself."

A few days later, Kathinka received two letters. The first she opened was from Joseph. It announced his safe arrival in Berditchef and his kind reception by the Rabbi's friend, who had at once found him congenial employment. It abounded in expressions of affection and undying love. Kathinka pressed it to her lips and, with an overflowing heart, thanked the Almighty that her lover was safe.

The second letter was from Loris. It, too, was full of pa.s.sionate yearning, but its flowery phrases created a feeling of intense disgust.

The Count, evidently ignorant of Joseph's escape, ended his missive with the a.s.surance that unless Kathinka acceded to his demands, her friend would be sent to Siberia on the morrow.

Kathinka threw the paper into the fire.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

AN ATTEMPT UPON THE CZAR.

Kathinka remained unmolested for some time, not because Loris had ceased to admire her, but because the young Count was condemned to a twelve-months' absence from Kief. This unsuspected stroke of good fortune for the girl happened in this wise:

Towards the end of the year 1879, it became very evident that Nihilism was spreading to an alarming extent in the army. Four officers of Loris'

regiment were arrested on a charge of disseminating revolutionary pamphlets and were summarily exiled. Another officer had a.s.sisted eight political offenders to escape and was kept in close confinement. General Drentell, in consequence, declared Kief, Kharkov and other districts under martial law.

A stormy scene took place between the Governor and his son Loris, in which the former, mindful of the latter's past escapades, expressed his belief that his son was implicated in the plots of his comrades, while Loris indignantly denied all knowledge of the matter.

"Listen to me, Loris!" said the General, purple with rage. "I saved your life once, at the risk of losing my own. As true as St. Nicholas hears us, if ever you repeat your plottings, I shall be as inexorable as though you were the meanest of the Czar's subjects."

Loris saw that his father was in earnest and recoiled before the wrath of the stern old soldier. He again a.s.serted his ignorance of any conspiracy.

Not knowing how many more officers of the regiment were implicated, Drentell decided to transfer the entire division to another district, in the hope of severing any connection which might exist between the men and the Revolutionary Committee.

Loris had to obey the order and accompany his regiment to the steppes of Central Russia, where he remained until the active disorders in Kief a year later recalled him.

Nihilism was not to be rooted out by the removal of any particular set of men. It had spread its branches among all cla.s.ses and conditions of society, and the number of its adherents was increasing with alarming rapidity.

The martyr who unflinchingly faces death for the sake of his faith, the Nihilist who exposes himself to imprisonment or death in the hope of attaining const.i.tutional liberty, are examples of the heroic endurance of minds exalted by principle. The Jew's devotion to his religion has always been most intense when intolerance and persecution were at their height. In like manner the love of liberty is developed to its greatest extent when despotism seeks to stifle it.

"Brightest in dungeons, liberty thou art, For there the habitation is the heart."

Twenty-one persons were arrested in Kief, and almost as many in Kharkov, and still Nihilism was not stamped out. Phoenix-like it arose from the ashes of its martyrs.

On February the 17th, 1880, just as the imperial family were about to dine, a mine was exploded beneath the winter palace, the guard-room was demolished, ten soldiers were killed and forty-five wounded; but, the divinity which sometimes hedges a king preserved the royal family from harm.

Excitement was intense. A commission of public safety, with authority to preserve order at any cost, was at once appointed, with General Melikoff at the head.

On the second day of March, during the festival, General Melikoff was shot at as he alighted from his carriage. The would-be a.s.sa.s.sin was so close that the General struck him in the face, and the man was arrested.

At the trial it was discovered that the malefactor was a baptized Jew, by the name of Wadetsky Minsk. The trial excited universal interest. The culprit was asked by the judge why he had deserted his faith.

"Because I found it impossible to live as a Jew," he replied, bitterly.

"You took from me my children to send them to the army; you deprived me of the lands I had cultivated and left me penniless; you despised and degraded me, and when I had suffered until the fibres of my heart were torn, you showed me a glowing picture of the happiness that awaited me here and in heaven if I became a Christian. I allowed myself to be baptized."

Minsk paused, and the expression of his face showed the mental anguish he was at that moment enduring. Suddenly, he continued, with great vehemence:

"Yes, I became a Christian, or rather a G.o.dless hypocrite, who had bartered away the sympathy of his co-religionists as well as his self-respect. How did you treat me after I had embraced your faith?

Humiliations, worse than any I had experienced as a Jew, were showered upon me. I was regarded as something impure, shunned and execrated. It was too late to turn back, and in spite of your treatment, I remained a Christian, I adhered to the glorious faith which teaches 'Peace on earth and good-will to men.' In sheer desperation, I joined the band of unfortunates as reckless as myself, whose self-imposed mission it is to pave the way to liberty."

Minsk preserved a defiant demeanor throughout the trial. He made no defence, nor did he endeavor to have his punishment mitigated. His condemnation followed, as a matter of course.

The scaffold found him unsubdued.

"My attempt has failed," he cried, "but think not that General Melikoff is safe! After me will come a second, and after him a third. Melikoff must fall, and the Czar will not long survive him."

The fifth of March witnessed his death struggles upon the scaffold.

Darker and darker it grew in Israel. The sun of its brief prosperity was gradually becoming obscured by heavy clouds of intolerance and fanaticism, clouds which did not display the proverbial silver lining of hope and comfort. This was a period of great activity for Mikail; never before had he found such congenial employment. After making a series of one-sided investigations, in which he interrogated princ.i.p.ally those who had real or imaginary cause for complaint against the Hebrews, the priest embodied his conclusions in a book, ent.i.tled "The Annihilation of the Jews." Unquenchable hatred breathed in every page. With a cunning hand, he subverted facts to suit his fancy. He drew a vivid picture of the great dissatisfaction existing because the Hebrews were achieving success in various branches of enterprise to the exclusion of the gentiles. With peculiar logic he argued that sooner or later quarrels must ensue between the races, that if there were no Jews there could be no trouble, and that they should therefore be driven out of the country.

His work accused the Jews of thriving almost entirely upon usury and gross dishonesty, in spite of the fact that many of the chief industries of Russia were in the hands of thrifty and honorable Israelites. It purposed to forbid the Jews from keeping inns, on the ground that they fostered intemperance, in the face of statistics which showed drunkenness to be most prevalent in provinces where no Jews are allowed to reside. It finally advised the confiscation of all property belonging to the Jews and the summary expulsion of the despised race from the Empire.

Such a book, at a time when rulers and people were alike eager for sensation, acted like a firebrand. The newspapers, knowing that the author was a member of the commission appointed by the Czar to investigate the conduct of the Jews and that his work would receive the imperial sanction, published extracts from its pages and commented editorially upon its arguments. Mikail's conclusions were accepted, and the cry rang throughout Russia, "Down with the Jews!" In all the land there was not a man who dared raise his voice in defence of the unfortunate people.

That Minsk, the would-be slayer of Melikoff, had once been a Jew, served to increase the outcry against the race. Of the scores of Nihilists who had already been executed not one was alluded to as a Catholic, although that church claimed them as her own; but the newspapers added the word "Jew" every time they had occasion to mention his name.

There were as yet no open hostilities in Russia. The great majority of laborers and _moujiks_ knew nothing of this agitation. They lived in peace with their Jewish neighbors, on whom many were dependent for work and wages. For the best of reasons, they did not read the newspapers and they cared little for the vague rumors of discontent that now and then a.s.sailed their ears. Occasionally there were quarrels, but these were unimportant and of rare occurrence.

A dispute arose one day in the shop of a man named Itikoff. A thief entered his place and having requested the proprietor to get him a certain article he rifled the money-box the moment the Jew's back was turned. Itikoff saw the act in a mirror, and turning suddenly he seized the man by the neck and beat him severely. The man's cries brought a crowd to the door who, seeing a fellow-gentile maltreated by a Jew, at once set upon the unfortunate shopkeeper and brutally a.s.saulted him.

They then sacked his shop and threw his merchandise into the street, whence it was quickly removed by the a.s.sembled mob. A number of policemen arrived and arrested Itikoff for instigating a riot. Despite his pleading he was carried to jail, and only released upon the payment of a fine of two hundred roubles.[19]

Such occasional incidents, while they were characteristic of Russian justice, were not of a nature to foster good feeling between the Jews and the gentiles.

Then came the event of March 3, 1881. Through the mighty Empire flashed the awful news, "The Czar has been a.s.sa.s.sinated!" For a time all other affairs were left in the background. Before that dire catastrophe the petty quarrels of the races faded into insignificance. Jew and gentile alike met to mourn over their ruler and looked forward with pleasant antic.i.p.ation to the accession of the new Czar, Alexander III., to the throne. The Nihilists, satisfied with their work, rested upon their arms and waited to see if the new Emperor would yield to their demands. The agitators who had conceived the crusade against the Jews as a means of diverting public attention from St. Petersburg had been unsuccessful and for the time being found their occupation gone. The Jew-haters, Drentell, Mikail and others, were busy at the capital, currying favor with the new government, and the poor Jews breathed more freely and enjoyed a brief respite from danger.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 19: See report of "Russian Outrages," in _London Times_.]