"Curse all socialists!" she suddenly screamed.
Arthur, entranced by the playful manner with which she disposed of
friend and foe, was aghast at this outbreak. He saw another Yetta. Her
face was ugly and revengeful. She sawed the air with her thin arms.
"Repeat after me," she adjured her hearers, "the Catechism of Sergei
Netschajew, but begin with Herzen's noble motto: 'Long live chaos and
destruction!'"
"Long live chaos and destruction!" was heartily roared.
The terrific catechism of the apostle Netschajew made Arthur shake with
alternate woe and wrath. It was bloody-minded beyond description. Like
a diabolic litany boomed the questions and answers:--
"Day and night we must have but one thought--inexorable destruction."
And Arthur recalled how this pupil of Bakounine had with the assistance
of Pryow and Nicolajew beguiled a certain suspected friend, Ivanow, into
a lonely garden and killed him, throwing the body into a lake. After
that Netschajew disappeared, though occasionally showing himself in
Switzerland and England. Finally, in 1872, he was nabbed by the Russian
government, sent to Siberia, and--!
_Ugh!_ thought Arthur, what a people, what an ending! And Yetta--why did
she now so openly proclaim destruction as the only palliative for social
crime when she had so eloquently disclaimed earlier in the day the
propaganda by force, by dagger, and dynamite?--He had hardly asked
himself the question when there came a fierce rapping of wooden clubs at
door and window.
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