Every night, every week, every month Sasha was there, and the crowd and the music and the air thick with _makhorka_ smoke. Not that the nights were always the same. Events in the town, in Russia, had their echoes there. In the time of the South African War Sasha played twenty times a night the _March of the Boers_. During the festivities of the Franco-Russian Alliance he played the _Marseillaise_, which was fearfully popular with the dock-labourers. When the Japanese War broke out he played all those sad tunes about far Manchuria and fighting in a strange land. Alas, the Japanese War made a great change in the tavern. Sasha was taken for a soldier and disappeared from ken. For a year and a half no word was heard from him or of him. He was given up for dead, and the tavern lost its old attraction. At last, however, one night in came Sasha, the same as ever, unhurt, untouched. He had been captured by the Japanese and held a year as a prisoner at Nagasaki. He had learned Japanese music. Not that anybody wanted it. “Play us the old tunes, Sasha; play _Maroosia_, play _To Odessa we sailed on the sea_.” Sasha played that night all the old tunes. The tavern became as of old. But there was storm in the air. Every one was talking of revolution. Sasha began to play the _Marseillaise_ again, and now with a different note from that in which he had played when friendship with France was being honoured. In came the police and stopped him. They forbade the playing of any Anthems whatsoever. There was a _pogrom_ in the town; hired ruffians appeared in the streets inciting the population to the murder of the Jews. Not once or twice Sasha himself was taken for a Jew and attacked. Into the tavern came the same ruffians, and tried to stir up the drunkards to pillage and violence. Sasha was playing a tune of his own fancy when suddenly one of them, a converted Jew, jumped up and cried: “The National Anthem! Brothers, the National Anthem in honour of our adored monarch. The National Anthem!” “Anthem, Anthem,” cried his mates. “No Anthems whatsoever,” said Sasha, repeating the words of the police-officer. “What do you mean, you don’t obey, you filthy Jew?” answered the man. “And you?” said Sasha. “I? What do you mean?” “I’m a filthy Jew. All right, what are you?” “I’m Orthodox.” “Orthodox! And for how much?” The whole tavern laughed. “Brothers,” said the ruffian, “shall we stand the blasphemy of this Jew against Throne and Church any longer?...” There was a rush at Sasha. But he jumped up, and lifting his fiddle in a rage, smashed it on the head of the first who came up to him.