The White Terror and The Red: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia

by Abraham Cahan

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  ON SACRED GROUND.

  In 1648, when Chmyelnicki's Cossacks slaughtered 40,000 Jews, Miroslavwas among the cities that fell into their blood-dripping hands. It was asmall town then; the Jewish population did not exceed eight hundred, butthese unanimously decided to be slain rather than abandon their faith.Not a man, woman or child was spared. The scene of the slaughter, asmall square in the vicinity of Cucumber Market, is sacred ground to theJews of Miroslav. The Bloody Spot they call it reverently. A synagoguestands there and ten recluses find shelter under its roof, so that theWord of God may be heard with unbroken continuity within its walls. Ifthis house of prayer and divine study were to fall silent for a singleminute, say the children of the town, the blood of the slain Jews wouldburst into a roar of sobbing that could be heard for seven miles.

  But the ten recluses were not the only Talmudists in the place. The OldSynagogue, as it was generally called, was the favourite haunt ofscholars. It was here where Rabbi Rachmiel, Clara's father, spent everyday and evening in the week except Saturdays and holidays.

  It was about eight o'clock of a warm evening, several days after thedisappearance of the political prisoner. The Old Synagogue was filledwith people. The evening service was over. Candles flickered on gaunt,tallow-stained reading-desks and blazing oil-lamps dangled from theceiling. The recluses were freely gossiping or snoozing; there were somany others to do the holy work--a medley of voices and melodies--fromthe enthusiastic soprano of the schoolboy to the dignified drone of theelderly merchant; from the conscious, over-elaborate intonation of thenewly-married young man to the absorbed murmur of the tattered oldscholar. As to the Talmudists themselves, they found stimulating harmonyin this chaos. To them it was as if the synagogue itself were singing ina hundred voices, an inspired choir that quickened one's intellectualpassions and poured fire into one's gesticulations.

  One of the younger men in the crowd was Makar. Seated in a snug corner,with his reading-desk tilted against his breast, he was sincerelyabsorbed in a passage on the slaying of cattle. The treatise is one ofthe most intricate in the Talmud, and he had taken it up as he might agame of chess. The lower part of his face was buried in the slopingsurface of a huge long book, the handle of a tin candlestick hooked tothe top of the folio. The flame of a guttering candle threw a stream oflight upon his dusky high forehead and heavy black eyebrows. Slightlyrocking the desk, he intoned the Chaldaic text and the Yiddishinterpretations, listening to his own sing-song as one listens, at somedistance, to a familiar voice.

  Rabbi Rachmiel, Clara's father, was studying quietly in a corner, inpeaceful ignorance of the mad hunt that was going on for his daughter atthis moment. That this red-bearded little man was the father of theNihilist girl who had brought about his escape Makar had not the leastidea.

  After bidding Clara good-bye on the evening of his rescue, he had takenthe first cab he came across, getting off at Cucumber Market, asdirected. After zig-zagging about for five minutes, he was going to hailanother cab, but checked himself because the man proved to be the samewho had brought him to Cucumber Market. A boy stopped to look at him,whereupon he made up his mind that the official cap which he wore (andwhich had been expected to give him the appearance of a teacher in agovernment school for Jews) scarcely went well with his face, and thatit must be this cap of his which had attracted the boy's attention. Hetherefore went to a capmaker's shop and bought an ordinary cap, such asis worn by the average old-fashioned Jew, explaining to the artisan thatit was for his father, who had his size. This part of the town he knewwell, for it was in the centre of the Jewish quarter, not many minutes'walk from his former lodgings. The Old Synagogue was in the sameneighbourhood, and it flashed upon him to seek temporary refuge in thecelebrated house of worship and learning. Living in such a place waslike hiding in the depths of the Fourth Century--the age of the Talmud,which was still the soul of the Ghetto, still the fountain-head of thespiritual and intellectual life of the orthodox Jew. He would be in hisnative element there, at any rate, and would certainly feel morecomfortable than amid the imposing interiors of a noblewoman's mansion.On his way to the synagogue he twisted the hair at his temples till helooked as he used to, before he left Zorki. As to his shave, he preparedan explanation: he was subject to a species of skin disease that madeshaving unavoidable.

  The assistant beadle at the Old Synagogue was a man with a luxuriouswhite beard. He was not learned in the Talmud himself, but he had servedin the great "house of study" so long that he was familiar with thetitles of the various volumes and sections in the same way as an oldservant at a medical college is familiar with anatomical nomenclature.He danced attendance on every diligent scholar, and was the terror ofevery boy who romped or talked "words of daily life" over his holy book.He was in charge of the synagogue library and the candle supply. Hissalary was no larger than that of a street labourer, yet he had theappearance of a stern, prosperous merchant.

  When Makar first applied for a book and a candle the assistant beadlecast a knowing look at his smooth-shaven face, and then, handing him thevolume, said:

  "You are in the army, aren't you?"

  "How do you know, by my shaved face?" Makar asked, sadly.

  The assistant beadle smiled assent. The skin-disease story provedunnecessary.

  "There is many a Talmudist among soldiers nowadays," the old man said."To think of a Child of Law having to live in military bondage, to weara uniform, to shave and to handle a gun!" He regarded Makar as a martyr.When he saw him reading his book in a pleasing, absorbed sing-song, hepaused and watched him with a look of paternal admiration.

  "Do you belong here?" he asked later.

  "No." He named the first town that came to his tongue.

  "Have you relatives here?"

  "No. But I have obtained a furlough and am going home. I am waiting fora letter and some money. I have left my uniform with a friend."

  The assistant beadle asked Makar for news--whether there were anyrumours of some new war, or of some fresh legislation affecting thecondition of Jews. The query was made on the supposition that Makar, asa member of the Czar's army and one who saw so many officers, could notbe unfamiliar with what was going on "up above"; and Makar appeased theold man's curiosity with some suitable bits of information. Theassistant beadle was particularly interested in the story of a certaincolonel, a bitter anti-Semite, who used to beat the Jews in his regimentbecause a Jewish money-lender had him under his thumb. Now this "Jews'enemy" lay in bed, stricken with paralysis--a clear case of divinereckoning. Did Makar know him? Makar said he did.

  The discussion was interrupted by the appearance of a bewigged womanwith a pound of candles, in commemoration of the anniversary of a death.She wanted to make sure that they were going to be used for diligentstudy and not to be thrown away on loafers, and the assistant beadletold her that it would be all right and that she had better go home andput the children to bed. Another woman, whose boy was studying in acorner, was watching his gesticulations with beaming reverence. She hadan apple for him and a copper coin for the assistant beadle, and whenshe saw Makar looking at her son, she said, nodding her head blissfully:

  "Praised be the Master of the World. It is not in vain that I amtoiling. The boy will be an adornment to my old age."

  Later in the evening a woman burst into the synagogue, lamenting andwringing her hands. She besought the recluses to pray for hernewly-married daughter, who was on her death-bed. Makar was deeplytouched. He felt like a foreigner amid these scenes that had once beenhis own world, and the consciousness of it filled him with melancholy.

  He slept at the synagogue. After the service next morning he sent out aboy for some bread, butter and pot cheese, and at two o'clock a devoutwidow brought him, at the assistant beadle's recommendation, a pot ofsoup and boiled meat. He ate his dinner with Talmudistic bashfulness,the woman looking on piously, and mutely praying to heaven that herdinner might agree with the holy man and give him strength for the studyof God's laws.


  Toward evening he ventured out on a stroll through the spaciouscourtyard which lay between the Old Synagogue and several other housesof worship. In this yard was a great octagonal basin, celebrated for itsexcellent tea water, with moss-grown spouts and chained wooden dippers.He watched the water-bearers with their pails and the girls with theirjugs--a scene that seemed to have sprung to life from certain passagesin the Talmud--until he came within a hair's breadth of being recognisedby his former landlady.

  Rabbi Rachmiel was absent from the synagogue that day. When Makarreturned to the house of study he noticed signs of excitement. Therecluses and other students were absorbed in whispered, panic-strickenconversation. They dared not discuss the news in groups, some evenpretending to be engrossed in their books, as much as to say: "In caseit comes to the knowledge of the police that you people are talkingabout it, I want you to remember that I took no part in your gossip."The meaning of Clara's disappearance was not quite clear to them. Theyknew in a very dim way that there were people, for the most parteducated people, who wanted to do away with czars in general, and now itappeared that Rabbi Rachmiel's daughter was one of those mysteriouspersons. Those of the Talmudists who knew Clara were trying to imagineher as something weird, preternatural, and when her familiar face cameback to them they uttered subdued exclamations of amazement.

  When the news reached Makar he wondered whether it would not beadvisable for him to decamp at once. But he was so snugly established inhis present berth that he was loath to abandon it.

  Some of the worshippers who dropped in to read a page or two of anevening would gather in groups, bandying gossip or talking foreignpolitics, of which, indeed, they had the most grotesque conceptions.Here Makar picked up many a side-splitting story illustrative of thecorruption, intemperance and childlike ineptitude of governmentofficials. His attention seized with special eagerness upon adescription of the demoralised state of things in the printing shopconnected with the governor's office. There is not an article ofmerchandise over which the Russian authorities maintain a more rigorouscontrol than they do over type, every pound, almost every letter of it,used in the empire being registered and supposedly kept track of; yetthe foreman of that shop often offered some of the Czar's own supply forsale, and in default of buyers (the licensed private printers of thetown being too timid to handle this most dangerous species of stolengoods) he had once molten a large quantity of new type and sold it forscrap lead. Makar could not help picturing the revolutionists in regularcommunication with this man. Nor did his fancy stop there. Gradually allthe typesetters under that foreman would be supplanted byrevolutionists, and the Czar's printing office would print the _Will ofthe People_!

  Two days elapsed before Rabbi Rachmiel returned. When he did he scarcelyspoke to anybody. Naturally a man of few words, he now spent everyminute reading his book with ferocious absorption.

  The next day was Friday. In the evening the turmoil of Talmudic accentsgave way to an ancient chant, at once light-hearted and solemn--the songof welcome to Sabbath the Bride. The brass chandeliers, brightlyburnished, were filled with blazing candles. About half of the seatswere occupied by worshippers, freshly bathed and most of them in theirSabbath clothes. Rabbi Rachmiel wore a beaming face, "in honour of theSabbath," that was plainly the result of effort. As Maker watched himchant his Sabbath-eve psalms, the heart of the escaped Nihilist wascontracted with sympathy and something like a sense of guilt.

  * * * * *

  Meanwhile Count Loris-Melikoff had abolished the Third Section,transferring the secret service to the Interior Department, and whilethe change had not displaced the Dandy from office, yet it materiallyimpaired his usefulness to his party.

  When Makar returned to St. Petersburg Pavel met him with kisses and hugsand punches. The Janitor, whom he saw the next day, shook his handheartily.

  "It's all right," he said, looking Makar over with an amused air.

  "What are you smiling at?" Parmet demanded, colouring.

  "At you. I can't get myself to believe it was really you who made such aneat job of it."

  "I!" Makar protested, exultingly. "Any idiot would know how to bearrested. It's Clara that carried the scheme through."

  "Still, there is better stuff in you than I gave you credit for."

  Makar was quivering to know something of the use that had been made ofhis arrest, but conspirators ask no questions. Indeed, to try to know aslittle as possible, to avoid information upon anything except that inwhich one was personally participating was (or was supposed to be) aniron law of the movement; and now Makar was more jealous of hisreputation as a conspirator than ever.

  "Well, it's all right," the Janitor said, reading his thoughts."Something has been done and it's all right; only under the new systemit's rather slow work."

  Makar did not understand. The abolition of the Third Section had takenplace while he was in prison. When he heard of the change he said indismay: "Will that affect my scheme?"

  "Your scheme? I don't think it will," the Janitor answered mysteriously."Of course, we'll first have to see how the new system works. We must dosome sounding and watching and studying before we know how to go aboutthings. Can't you wait a month or two?"

  Makar was silent, then his face broke into a roguish smile.

  "I will if you get me into an underground printing office for theinterval," he returned.

  The Janitor took fire. "What has that got to do with your cursedscheme?" he said with a slight stutter. "As if I had printing jobs togive away!"