“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 all 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 goods 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 taken--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!” THE ANTICHRIST