-he would
hear the voice of the people.

On every side the voice babbled of the Duma--babbled happily, as
though the word was a new religious charm or a witch's incantation.
Crude political conversations broke out amid all the business of the
mart. He had only to listen to know how he would be answered:

A blacksmith buying a new hammer stayed to argue with the vendor.

'We must put our trust in the Constitutional Democrats.'

'And why in the Cadets? Give me the Democrats.'

'Nay, we must put our trust only in the Czar.' (This came from the
Rabbi's wife, who was cheapening fish at the next stall.)

'For shame, _Rebbitzin_! Put not your trust in Princes.'

The bystanders hushed down the text-quoter--a fuzzy-headed
butcher-boy.

'Miserable Monarchists!' he sneered. 'We Jews will have no peace till
the Republicans----'

'A Republic without Socialism!' interrupted a girl with a laundry
basket. 'What good's that? Wait till the N.S.'s----'

'The D.R.'s are the only----' interrupted a phylactery-pedlar.

'And who but the Labour group promises equal rights to all
nationalities?' interrupted a girl in spectacles. 'Trust the
_Trudowaja_----'

'To the devil with the Labour Parties!' said an old-clo' man. 'Look
how the Bundists have betrayed us. First they were bone of our bone;
now it is they who by their recklessness provoke the _pogroms_.'

The blacksmith brought his hammer down upon the stall. 'There is only
one party to trust, and that's the C.D.'s,' he repeated.

'Bourgeois!' simultaneously hissed the Republican youth and the
Socialist lass.

'My children!' It was the bland voice of Moses the _Shamash_ (beadle).
'Violence leads to naught. Even the Viborg Manifesto was a mistake. As
a member of the Party of Peaceful Regeneration----'

'Peaceful Regeneration?' shouted the blacksmith. 'A Jew ally himself
with the Reactionary Right, with the----!'

A Cossack galloped recklessly among the serried stalls. The Jews
scattered before him like dogs. The member of the P.P.R. crawled under
a barrow. Even the blacksmith froze up. David drew the moral when the
Cossack had disappeared.

'Peaceful Regeneration!' he cried. 'There will be no Regeneration for
you till you have the courage to leave Russian politics alone and to
fight for yourselves.'

'Ah, you're a Maximalist,' said the beadle.

'No, I am only a Minimalist. I merely want the minimum--that we save
our own lives.'

It was asking too little. The poor Rus