Etta shook her head.
“I think not,” she answered, in a voice too light, too superficial, too hopelessly shallow for the depth of the moment. She was thinking only of Sydney Bamborough, and of that dread secret. She fought with what arms she wielded best—the lightest, the quickest, the most baffling.
“As you will,” said Steinmetz.
XXXV
On the Edge of the Storm
A Russian village kabak, with a smoking lamp, of which the chimney is broken. The greasy curtains drawn across the small windows exclude the faintest possibility of a draught. The muzhik does not like a draught; in fact, he hates the fresh air of heaven. Air that has been breathed three or four times over is the air for him; it is warmer. The atmosphere of this particular inn is not unlike that of every other inn in the White Empire, inasmuch as it is heavily seasoned with the scent of cabbage soup. The odor of this nourishing compound is only exceeded in unpleasantness by the taste of the same. Added to this warm smell there is the smoke of a score of the very cheapest cigarettes. The Russian peasant smokes his cigarette now. It is the first step, and it does not cost him much. It is the dawn of progress—the thin end of the wedge which will broaden out into anarchy. The poor man who smokes a cigarette is sure to pass on to socialistic opinions and troubles in the marketplace. Witness the cigarette-smoking countries. Moreover, this same poor man is not a pleasant companion. He smokes a poor cigarette.
There is also the smell of vodka, which bottled curse is standing in tumblers all down the long table. The news has spread in Osterno that vodka is to be had for the asking at the kabak, where there is a meeting. Needless to say, the meeting is a large one. Foolishness and thirst are often found in the same head—a cranium which, by the way, is exceptionally liable to be turned by knowledge or drink.
If the drink at the kabak of Osterno was dangerous, the knowledge was no less so.
“I tell you, little fathers,” an orator was shouting, “that the day of the capitalist has gone. The rich men—the princes, the nobles, the great merchants, the monopolists, the chinovniks—tremble. They know that the poor man is awakening at last from his long lethargy. What have we done in Germany? What have we done in America? What have we done in England and France?”
Whereupon he banged an unwashed fist upon the table with such emphasis that more than one of the audience clutched his glass of vodka in alarm, lest a drop of the precious liquor should be wasted.
No one seemed to know what had been done in Germany, in America, in England, or in France. The people’s orator is a man of many questions and much fist-banging. The muzhiks of Osterno gazed at him beneath their shaggy brows. Half of them did not understand him. They were as yet uneducated to a comprehension of the street orator’s periods. A few of the more intelligent waited for him to answer his own questions, which he failed to do. A vague and ominous question carries as much weight with some people as a statement, and has the signal advantage of being less incriminating.
The speaker—a neckless, broad-shouldered ruffian of the type known in England as “unemployed”—looked round with triumphant head well thrown back. From his attitude it was obvious that he had been the salvation of the countries named, and had now come to Russia to do the same for her. He spoke with the throaty accent of the Pole. It was quite evident that his speech was a written one—probably a printed harangue issued to him and his compeers for circulation throughout the country. He delivered many of the longer words with a certain unctuous roll of the tongue, and an emphasis indicating the fact that he did not know their meaning.
“From afar,” he went on, “we have long been watching you. We have noted your difficulties and your hardships, your sickness, your starvation. ‘These men of Tver,’ we have said, ‘are brave and true and steadfast. We will tell them of liberty.’ So I have come to you, and I am glad to see you. Alexander Alexandrovitch, pass the bottle down the table. You see, little fathers, I have not come begging for your money. No; keep your kopecks in your pocket. We do not want your money. We are no chinovniks. We prove it by giving you vodka to keep your throats wet and your ears open. Fill up your glasses—fill up your glasses!”
The little fathers of Osterno understood this part of the harangue perfectly, and acted upon it.
The orator scratched his head reflectively. There was a certain businesslike mouthing of his periods, showing that he had learnt all this by heart. He did not press all his points home in the manner of one speaking from his own brain.
“I see before me,” he went on, without an overplus of sequence, “men worthy to take their place among the rulers of the world—eh—er—rulers of the world, little fathers.”
He paused and drank half a tumbler of vodka. His last statement was so obviously inapplicable—what he actually did see was so very far removed from what he said he saw—that he decided to relinquish the point.
“I drink,” he cried, “to Liberty and Equality!”
Some of the little fathers also drank, to assuage an hereditary thirst.
“And now,” continued the orator, “let us get to business. I think we understand each other?”
He looked round with an engaging smile upon faces brutal enough to suit his purpose, but quite devoid of intelligence. There was not much understanding there.
“The poor man has one only way of making himself felt—force. We have worked for generations, we
