下载掌阅APP，畅读海量书库
立即打开
During that memorable Sabbath day, hundreds of refugees came in from the surrounding villages where the outrages had already begun. They fled to Kief as a place of refuge, vainly believing that a city with such important mercantile interests centred in the Jewish population would be exempt from serious danger. The poor Israelites feared to stir from their homes; they sat in prayer during the entire day and fasted as on the Day of Atonement.
Towards night, the door of Rabbi Winenki's house was suddenly thrown open, and Joseph Kierson, haggard and travel-stained, entered.
"What are you doing here?" ejaculated both the Rabbi and Kathinka, in a breath.
"Has there been a riot in Berditchef?" queried Mendel.
"No," answered Joseph, sinking into a chair; "not yet; but I heard that there would be danger here, and I hurried back to share it with you."
"Unhappy man," said Kathinka. "Think of the peril of remaining here. If you are recognized they will take you back to prison."
"I do not care," answered the young man. "I could not remain in Berditchef, when I knew that you and my family were exposed to danger. My place is at your side; come what may, I will live or die with you."
"You are a noble boy," exclaimed the Rabbi, grasping his hand, affectionately. "Kathinka, get Joseph some supper; he must be hungry."
"You are right, Rabbi," returned Joseph. "I am hungry and tired, and yet since I have seen Kathinka I am supremely happy."
It was a sad and fearful night. Sleep was out of the question for the threatened Israelites. All night long the noise of hammering could be heard; the Christians were attaching little wooden crosses to their houses that they might be spared by the mob. The Jews gathered their portable treasures and trinkets and conveyed them to places of safety.
The morning of the eighth of May dawned; a quiet serene Sunday morning, the day on which is proclaimed throughout Christendom the golden rule: "Love your enemies."
At an early hour armed gangs appeared on the streets, wandering hither and thither, without any definite plan or object. Ringleaders, however, were not long in making their appearance.
As in Elizabethgrad, the first act of the mob was to storm the dram-shops; it needed the inspiration of vodki . Having broken in the doors and windows, they rolled the barrels out into the street. Vodki flowed in streams; the rioters waded, they bathed, they wallowed in whiskey. The women carried it away by the pailful. From shop to shop they went, becoming more hilarious, more boisterous as they proceeded. Through the uproar could be heard their shouts: "The Jews have lorded it over us long enough; it is our turn now! Down with the Jews!"
They came to the inn of a man named Rykelmann and here they met their first resistance. Rykelmann refused to admit them. He had barricaded himself and his family behind stout doors and stood guard over his premises with a pistol. The mob besieged the place from all sides and finally succeeded in forcing an entrance in the rear. The poor proprietor was forced to accompany the rioters to his wine cellar, where they amused themselves staving in the barrels and breaking the bottles, while some of the drunken ruffians in the rooms above cut the throats of his wife and six children. It was the first blood shed in Kief and it served to stimulate the appetites of the vampires.
Onward sped the rioters. They divided into groups, each, under a self-appointed leader, attacking a different quarter. Here and there houses were burning fiercely, and to the crackling of the flames was added the piteous cries of women and children consigned to a fiery death.
At this stage several companies of soldiers, headed by Loris Drentell, appeared upon the scene. The Governor fearing that Christians might suffer in the general massacre, had at length yielded to the importunities of his counsellors and sent his son with a detachment of men as a protection, not to the Jews, but to the Christians. Loris had returned to Kief shortly after the assassination of the Czar.
For an hour the soldiers allowed the work of destruction to go on unhindered, and then, no longer able to control their appetites, they joined the mob.
The rioters came to the house of Hirsch Bensef.
"He is the richest of them all," shouted a Russian, who had once been employed by him. "His house is a regular mine of wealth. I've been in it."
"Down with the house!" shouted the mob. "His wealth belongs to us. Show him no mercy!"
They battered down the door, and regardless of the piteous pleadings of the aged man and his wife they pillaged and plundered from cellar to attic. Nothing was left intact. What could not be carried away was destroyed. Loris himself, stimulated by reports of the fabulous wealth which Bensef was said to possess, led the charge and took an active part in the attack. When he left the house it was because he could conceal no more of the booty about his person. Valuable property was scattered upon the ground by the rioters and lay in mud-bespattered heaps, to be picked up by the crowds of women and children that followed in their wake. Bensef and his wife escaped assault at the hands of the ruffians by fleeing precipitately through a rear door and taking refuge in the house of a Christian friend.
Haim Goldheim's dwelling, not far from that of Bensef, was next attacked. Father, mother and children had fled at the approach of the rioters, but the rich furniture and works of art which the well-to-do banker had accumulated fell into the destroying hands of the mob. An hour afterwards, hungry flames devoured all that remained of the once luxurious home.
At the further end of the street was the house of one David Wienarski.
"He, too, is rich!" shouted a Russian, and the rabble attacked the place without delay. A search failed to discover the wealth they expected to find, for the poor man had buried his meagre possessions in the garden, the night before. Disappointed in their search for plunder, they caught up his three-year-old child and threw it out of the window. It fell dead upon the pavement at the feet of Loris and his soldiers, and the poor corpse was mercilessly thrust into the gutter, to be out of the way.
Still on they went! When their ardor slackened, the ringleaders harangued them and stimulated their flagging energies.
"Leave nothing untouched!" they shouted. "The Czar has given it all to you! Take what belongs to you! Let not a Jew escape!"
There were many among the ferocious gathering who really liked the Jews, who had for years lived side by side with them in peace and amity. They arose against their former friends, because the Czar, in a ukase , desired it; and his imperial will must be fulfilled. In the heat of the turmoil, the example set them by their leaders spurred them on; and on they went, thoroughly regardless of consequences.
It would be impossible to describe all the outrages of that bloody day; the pen refuses to depict the appalling scenes, the dire calamities, the nameless atrocities that were visited upon the helpless Israelites.
The Jews performed prodigies of valor. Though unarmed, many made a heroic resistance to the onslaught of the rioters.
Down near the Dnieper stood the house of David Kierson. It was one of the earliest attacked during the day, and the rioters were crazed with drink and passion. David and his son Joseph, without any other weapons than their hands, kept the horde from entering their home. Joseph engaged three of the rabble at one time, while his father disabled man after man, until the drunken wretches desisted and turned their attention to houses where they would find less resistance.
Suddenly there was a shout of terror, and the attention of the attacking party was directed towards the river.
"A man overboard!" was the cry.
"Let him drown," answered the mob, derisively; "it is only a Jew!"
Joseph, who was still guarding the door of his father's house, saw the struggling creature in the waves of the muddy river. In an instant he had divested himself of his coat and shoes, and, edging his way through the crowd that lined the banks, he sprang into the water. A few powerful strokes brought him to the drowning man, whom he seized by the collar of his coat and held above the surface of the water. Then he swam slowly and laboriously to the shore, and, amid the silence of the spectators, he landed the man upon the banks. It was a Russian he had saved; one of the ringleaders of the men who had so recently besieged his home.
For a moment the crowd was hushed in admiration of the heroic deed, but it was only for a moment.
"Forwards, we are losing time!" shouted one of the principals, and the rioters rushed down the streets to continue their work of destruction.
Suddenly a priest, laboring under powerful excitement, appeared before them. His features were deadly pale and a strange fire gleamed in his eyes.
"Stop!" he cried; "in the name of the Madonna, I command you to stop!"
The mob, overawed by his aspect as well as by his words, paused in their mad career. The ringleaders fell back for a moment in surprise.
"Hush!" said one; "it is Mikail the priest who appointed us to our posts and gave us our instructions. Let us hear what he has to say."
"You have been deceived," cried the priest, wildly. "Stop your mad slaughter. The Jews are innocent of the wrongs that have been imputed to them. Do you hear me? The Jews must not be persecuted! The ukase giving you their property does not exist; it was but an invention!"
"Nonsense," answered one of the leaders; "I saw it with my own eyes. On, friends! We want the wealth of the Jews; we want their blood! Down with them!"
Mikail endeavored to bar the way.
"You shall not do further harm, I tell you! Hear me! In the name of the Czar, I command you to halt!"
The monk's incoherent sentences fell upon deaf ears. Like an avalanche, the mighty mob swept down upon him, carrying him along upon the resistless tide.
When Joseph found his street deserted, he uttered a fervent prayer of gratitude.
"We are safe for the moment, father," he said; "it will be some time before the rabble returns this way. I shall change my wet clothing, and while you guard the house, I will go to Rabbi Winenki's. Perhaps he needs my assistance."
"Go, my boy," answered the old man; "and God be with you."
A frightful scene had in the meantime been enacted at the Rabbi's dwelling, whither many an unprotected woman and child had hastened in the belief that it would be safe from the mob. The detachment of rioters under the leadership of Loris had already attacked it and the crying and pleading of the inmates could be heard above the confusion of the mob. But they pleaded in vain. Had anyone but Loris been in command, the house of the beloved and honored Rabbi might have been spared, for his many acts of kindness had endeared him to the moujiks as well as to his own people. When Loris arrived before the humble dwelling, however, there was but one sentiment in his heart—revenge. Too well he remembered the ignominious defeat he had experienced within those walls, and at the recollection of Kathinka, the base passion which absence had not subdued broke forth again and transformed the man into a savage. There was no pity, no mercy to be expected from him.
At the windows of Winenki's house stood the women, their faces blanched with fear as they looked upon the blood-thirsty army without.
"Down with the door!" shouted Loris, and a dozen ready hands shook the door upon its fastenings.
Suddenly the men stopped in their mad work. Mikail the monk had rushed into their midst. His priestly robes were torn and covered with mud, his eyes were bloodshot, his face the picture of wild despair; his bosom heaved and his clenched hands gyrated madly in an effort to command silence.
"Men of Kief!" he cried, hoarsely, "this bloody work must cease. In the name of the Czar I command you to go to your homes and molest the Jews no further! They are innocent of the charges brought against them."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Loris. "Since when has Mikail turned protector of the Jews?"
"They are innocent, I tell you!" cried the priest. "Leave them in peace!"
"Down with the Jews!" cried one of the band. "The Czar has given us their property and we will have it!"
"It is false!" shouted Mikail. "The ukase is a forgery. I myself wrote it and had it circulated. It never had the Czar's sanction."
"The priest is mad!" cried Loris. "For three years he has incited us to enmity against the Jews and now he pleads their cause. On with the work! We have much to do before night."
"In the name of his majesty, I command you to cease!" yelled the priest, in a hoarse voice.
"In the name of the Governor of Kief, I command you to go on!" shouted Loris. "Down with Rabbi Winenki and his family! Down with the miserable race that killed our Saviour!"
The battering at the door was resumed with renewed vigor. A cry of triumph announced to the crowd that the barrier was down, and a portion of the infuriated mob rushed into the house.
In vain did Mikail circulate among the men, by turns commanding and pleading, to induce them to desist from their work of destruction.
They looked at him askance and then at each other, significantly. But yesterday this same priest spurred them on to vengeance, filling them with passion against the people whose cause he now espoused.
"He is mad," they whispered, and turning their backs upon him, they continued their excesses.
Loris had in the meantime entered the room in which he had kneeled to the beautiful Kathinka.
The Rabbi with his aged father and a number of beardless youths, pupils of his school, guarded the door leading to the inner room, in which the women and girls had taken refuge. They had armed themselves with chairs and whatever happened to be within reach, and with these primitive weapons they expected to hold the enemy in check. As well endeavor to stay the flood of the mighty Dnieper with a net drawn across its stream! The mob charged upon them with an impetus that could not be resisted. The Rabbi, single-handed, felled two powerful moujiks ; then he himself fell bleeding to the floor. His gray-bearded father was dealt a blow on the head from a stout cudgel, and he lay upon the ground in the agonies of death. The young men seeing that resistance but increased their peril, threw down their weapons and fled, leaving the inner room with its helpless inmates in the hands of the rioters.
Loris was the first to enter, and his companions were not slow in following his example. A number of maidens, crazed with horror, sprang from the windows, only to fall into the arms of the rabble without. Three of the women were killed in the heroic struggle for their honor and not less than twenty suffered indignities worse than death.
The Rabbi's wife, Recha, succeeding in escaping the vigilance of the invading party and hurried into the outer room. Suddenly her eyes encountered the form of her husband lying upon the floor, bathed in blood and apparently dead. With a shriek she threw herself upon his prostrate body. When her friends attempted to move her after the danger had passed, they found that terror and grief had done their work. Recha had lost her reason.
On his entrance into the room, Loris gazed about him, and soon singled out Kathinka, standing among her friends, silently praying. With a cry of mingled joy and rage, he threw himself upon her and put his arms firmly around her.
"Ha! beautiful Kathinka!" he said, ironically; "so we meet again. How happy you must be to see me! Yes, I love you still, and you shall be mine, all mine! Don't struggle, sweet one; I shall remove you to my dwelling, far from all this noise and tumult. Ho, there! make room there for me and my prize!"
Lifting the struggling maiden in his arms, he pressed through the crowd, out into the street. There he set down his precious burden and paused to regain his breath.
Kathinka looked hastily about her. There were many in the crowd who had known her since her childhood, many whom her father had befriended, but they stood passively by and abstained from offering her either assistance or sympathy. Then, as Loris again wound his arms about her; she cried loudly for help:
"Come to my aid," she cried, imploringly. "Do none of you know me; will none lend me a helping hand? I am Kathinka, the daughter of Rabbi Winenki! Will no one raise his arm in my defence?"
There was no reply to her appeal; the rioters had no mercy for the despised Jewess.
Of a sudden the crowd parted. Thank God, there was a champion for Kathinka. Mikail the priest elbowed his way through the dense mass of maddened humanity and with eyes wilder and face more haggard than before, he approached the shrieking girl. With a cry of fury, he fell upon Loris and endeavored to tear him from his victim. Loris was for a moment too astonished to offer any resistance.
"What do you want with me, priest?" he cried, angrily, when he recognized his assailant.
"I am here to remind you of your honor, of your manhood; to plead with you in behalf of that poor maiden. You shall not harm a hair of her head while I have strength to defend her."
"This is, indeed, wonderful!" laughed Loris, mockingly. "The arch Jew-hater has become the champion of innocence! Go to your monastery, priest, and leave the battle-field to soldiers!" and pushing Mikail contemptuously aside, he renewed his hold upon the girl, who, overpowered by her terror and despair, had become insensible.
At that moment another form pushed its way through the crowd. It was Joseph, who after great difficulties, had at length succeeded in reaching the spot. He, too, had heard Kathinka's despairing cry, and had hastened to protect her. A rapid glance made the situation clear to him and he at once prepared to attack the Governor's son. But the priest had forestalled him. With a yell of rage, Mikail threw himself upon the young ruffian and the two were instantly engaged in a desperate combat. Loris was inspired by passion and revenge; the priest was moved by a feeling which he could not himself analyze. The hatred which he bore Loris broke out in unreasoning fury; he had heard Kathinka's cry of distress, had heard her assert that she was the daughter of his own brother, and in the strange revulsion of feeling which had overcome him since yesterday, he determined to effect her release at all hazards.
The men twined and twisted about each other, swayed to and fro in their endeavor to gain the mastery, while the crowd, forgetting its own passions, formed a circle about them, applauding now the one, now the other.
Meanwhile Joseph had raised the helpless form of his betrothed from the ground and endeavored to carry her through the mob. A score of brawny arms barred the way.
Fear for his beloved gave the young man almost superhuman strength. Seizing in his right hand a cudgel which was lying on the ground, while his left arm still supported Kathinka, he hewed a passage through the ranks. Eight men lay sprawling upon the ground and their companions retreated before the telling blows of Joseph's club. When he found himself unembarrassed by the rioters, he lifted Kathinka in both his arms and ran as fast as his feet would bear him to his father's house, which, having already been attacked, he hoped would escape a second visit.
The combat between Loris and Mikail was short. The priest labored under a manifest disadvantage in being crippled in one arm, while Loris, driven to desperation by seeing Kathinka carried off, gathered all his strength and with a mighty blow hurled the monk to the ground. There was a dull crash. The priest's head had struck the pavement with such force that his skull was crushed and a crimson stream of blood gushed from his lips and nostrils, his body quivered, his maimed arm fell heavily at his side. Mikail, the Jew-hater, had ceased to exist.
For a moment Loris was dazed and conscience-stricken. To kill a priest was a serious crime. Moreover, that priest had been his father's friend and favorite adviser, and Loris had much to fear from parental wrath. The mischief was done, however, and bestowing upon the dead body a parting glance of ineffable hatred, he set to work to reunite his scattered band.
The outrages in the Jewish quarter had been duly reported to the Governor, who shrugged his shoulders, rubbed his palms and smiled with secret satisfaction.
"Revenge is sweet," he muttered, and he placed himself at the window, where he could witness the burning of the houses.
About noon the body of Mikail was carried past the palace to the Petcherskoi convent, and at the same time exaggerated accounts reached Drentell's ears of the dangers to which his beloved son had been exposed.
"It is time to put an end to the attack," thought the Governor, and another detachment of soldiers was sent out to assist the first in quelling the riot and to arrest all disorderly persons found upon the streets. This order was vigorously enforced. About two thousand people were made prisoners, nearly half of them Jews, arrested for protecting their lives and property.
The scenes in the Jewish quarter at the close of the riot, beggar description. Dust and feathers filled the air, for one of the mob's chief amusements consisted in tearing open feather-beds and pillows and scattering their contents. Broken furniture, dishes and stoves strewed the pavements. Not a pane of glass or door was left entire. It was as though an army had invaded the place. Nearly three thousand Israelites were without shelter, their houses having been burned or otherwise demolished. Many hundreds more were reduced to poverty, having been despoiled of everything. The destruction of human life was appalling, many corpses being recovered from the river, days after the occurrence; and the number of people who were driven to insanity by the atrocities committed will probably never be known. [22]
Rabbi Winenki, who had received a dangerous wound, recovered slowly. His grief at the apparently hopeless insanity of his wife and the death of his father were indescribable; they were in a slight measure mitigated by the knowledge that his daughter had been spared the barbarous fate that had befallen so many of Israel's women.