count x was a landowner who lived in the south of Russia, not far from one of the large manufacturing towns. He spent the whole summer in a small country house, about six miles from the town, with his wife and children. Not far from the house, at about a mile’s distance, was a village which was bigger than an ordinary village and less big than an ordinary town. The greater part of the population consisted of Jews; they were poor Jews mostly, some of them very poor indeed. The Count and his wife knew the people of the place well, and their relations with the poor Jews were of the friendliest description; they were constantly employing them to do small jobs, and their special friends were the tailor and the bootmaker, p. 204whose shops were in the Jewish bazaar, the poorest quarter of the place. The bootmaker’s name was Gertzel, and the tailor was called Daniel. When the Dreyfus case was drawing to its close, the whole of this population was in a great state of excitement, and the Countess X. used every afternoon to go and give Gertzel and Daniel the latest news. Just before the result of the final court-martial at Rennes was known, Countess X. received a telegram from a friend of hers abroad saying that Dreyfus had been acquitted. She went post haste with the news to the village, and soon the whole place was in a tumult of thanksgiving and rejoicing. Next day, when the authentic news of the verdict arrived, she was obliged to go and tell the disappointing news. During all those summer months nothing else had been discussed in this little place; and, as everywhere else, the world was split up into two factions; and in the Countess’ family, while she and her husband believed violently in the innocence of Dreyfus, her brother-in-law and her uncle were equally p. 205firmly convinced of his guilt, and equally violent in their affirmations of it. In the village there was a strong orthodox faction which earnestly longed for the death of the traitor, and the Jewish populace cared more for his acquittal than for their own affairs. When Countess X. imparted to them the disappointing verdict, they lamented bitterly: all the more so on account of the false joy they had experienced the day before. And in the whole population there were no two beings more downcast and upset by the result than Gertzel and Daniel. It was in the autumn of that year, shortly after the result of the Dreyfus case became known, that one morning Gertzel and Daniel appeared in Countess X.’s garden and requested to see her. Gertzel was a thin, solidly built man, with dark tangled hair and mild soft eyes. He had a thick, untidy beard, a dirty loose shirt with a torn collar. Daniel was smaller, and younger; he wore no beard, and his eyes were penetrating and glistening; he was quiet and modest, and was passionately fond of reading books. p. 206 The Countess came out and asked them whether they wanted work. “No, it is not work that we want,” said Gertzel, “we want to know if we may bring our furniture to-day, and put it in your stables? It will not take up very much room,” he added. “Certainly you may,” said the Countess; “but why do you want to get rid of your furniture? Is it your feast day?” “No, it is very far from being our feast day—it is little enough a feast day,” said Gertzel; “but we want you in your kindness to let us store our furniture in your stables—in the barn perhaps. It will take little room. There are some chairs, a table, and the tools and implements that are necessary for our work. And Daniel has a lot of books he would like to bring, too—some of those which your Brightness gave him, if your Brightness remembers, last year.” “You may certainly bring your things,” said the Countess, “and put them in the stables or in the barn or anywhere else you please. But why do you want to do this?” p. 207 “It is because,” said Gertzel, “to-morrow morning there will be a Pogrom.” “How a Pogrom?” asked the Countess. “A Pogrom,” said Gertzel, “an ordinary Pogrom. It has been arranged; the date is fixed for to-morrow. It will be all right if we may store our furniture in your barn; and if we may ask as much, we have several friends who would like to do the same. For in that case all will be well, and we shall incur no loss. We cannot afford the loss this year: we are all poor people; we cannot afford to lose our property.” “But,” said the Countess, “I don’t understand. Who is going to make this Pogrom? The people here?” “God forbid!” said Gertzel. “We are living with all the people here in peace. They are coming from O. (O. was the big manufacturing town) and from A. (another town about fifty miles distant). They are coming by train; they will arrive early to-morrow morning. The Pogrom will take place in the morning; it will be all over by the evening, and they will go back by the night train.” “But who?” the Countess asked, “and what are they?” p. 208 “They say they have been sent; some people say it is the Tsar’s orders; others that it is the Governor, but what does it matter? In any case, they have been sent to make a Pogrom.” “Surely,” said the Countess, “if you inform the police, measures will be taken to prevent this. It is absurd! It can’t possibly happen!” “It must be,” said Gertzel, and Daniel nodded his head in agreement, and repeated: “It must be: it is so decreed!” “It has all been arranged,” said Gertzel. “To-morrow there will be the Pogrom. Let us bring our furniture to your barn, our furniture and our friends’ furniture, and all will be well.” “It must be prevented!” said the Countess, “You must go to the police.” “It is useless,” said Gertzel; “it cannot be prevented; it has been arranged for to-morrow.” And no argument was of any avail; they merely repeated over and over again that the Pogrom was to be, and they left, with tears of gratitude in their eyes for having been p. 209allowed to store their furniture in the Count’s stables. The Countess went to her husband and related what had happened. They sent for Ivan, the moujik, who washed the plates, and who, being a native of the place, would be likely to know what was going on, and they asked him if it were true that there was to be a Pogrom. “Yes, your Brightness,” he said, “it is quite true. There will be a Pogrom to-morrow; it has been arranged.” “Who has arranged it?” asked the Countess. “I cannot know,” answered Ivan; “but it has been arranged.” “You mean the people here?” asked the Countess, “they will attack the Jews?” “God forbid!” said Ivan. “The Jews are a nice people. We live with them in peace; but everything may happen. Sometimes an orthodox Russian is worse than a Jew. But the Jews were much offended by the last Pogrom, and they have been giving false evidence, and attributing to many people crimes which they had not committed.” p. 210 “When was the last Pogrom?” asked the Countess. “It was in the spring,” said Ivan, “when your Brightness was away.” “And did they kill the Jews?” asked the Count. “God forbid!” Ivan answered. “They sinned a little, and they destroyed some of the Jews’ property, but murder—God forbid! they were innocent of that!” “But who is going to do this?” asked the Count. “They will come from various places,” said Ivan. “They will come by the night train from O. and A. They will arrive in the morning; there will be a Pogrom, and they will go away.” “But who?” asked the Count. “Those who are sent,” said Ivan. “But who is sending them?” repeated the Count. “I cannot know,” said Ivan. “How do you know this is so?” asked the Countess. “Everybody knows it,” said Ivan—“all the morning carts have been arriving from p. 211all the neighbouring villages just as when there is a fair.” “What for?” asked the Countess. “To take away all that is left after the Pogrom,” said Ivan. “It is advantageous for the peasants to get the property of the Jews and to pay nothing at all for it.” “It must be prevented,” said the Count. Ivan smiled, and merely repeated that there would be a Pogrom on the following day, for so it had been arranged, and nothing more could be got out of him. The Count went and interviewed the local police sergeant and spoke seriously to him about the matter. The police sergeant shrugged his shoulders and wrung his hands, and said that he could do nothing; what was his authority in the place? What could he and two policemen do against the populace? “If there is to be a Pogrom there will be a Pogrom,” he said. “We can do nothing. We should only be killed too. There is nothing to be done.” All day long Jews from the village who knew the Count and the Countess came to their house, bringing with them furniture and p. 212goods of every description, till the whole stables were filled with them, and all day long large creaking carts drove slowly into the village from the neighbouring villages, bringing the peasants who had come to bear off the booty when the Pogrom should be over. And they met and conversed with the Jews in the friendliest manner possible, discussing the Pogrom merely as an event of not very considerable importance, but as a fact, such as an eclipse or a feast day, about which there could be no possible doubt, and no possible change. The Countess had a further interview with Sasha, the cook, a peasant woman who was also a native of the place; but she, like Ivan, merely repeated over and over again that the Pogrom was fixed for the morrow, and that it would be executed by people sent for the purpose, who would come by train from the various big towns. The Count went once more to the police sergeant, and told him to take some steps; he replied that he would do his best, but that he was a married man, and the Count must have pity on him, that there were no steps to be p. 213taken—that he could do nothing—that nothing could be done—that nobody could do anything! The next morning, as soon as the Countess awoke, Sasha the cook came into her room and said— “There will be no Pogrom: it has been put off!”