Indeed, it was this fault of ours that Serge kept pointing out to me
and berating us for. Well, Jacob's Klaus had been closed. But we
managed to get together in different places. Once in a while we
came to see one another at our patron's houses, and they did not
object.

I do not know who told Marusya what kind of a chap Jacob was, and
what he thought of her; but she hated him from the moment she first
saw him, when he came to visit me.

"He is a real savage," she would say. "I never saw such a Jew. I
am simply afraid of him. I am afraid of those wild eyes of his. I
detest him, anyway." That is what she used to tell me.

Whenever Jacob came to see me, and Marusya happened to be in the
room, she would walk out immediately, and would not return before he
was out of the house. I rather liked it. I could not be giving in
to both of them at the same time.

Such were the surroundings that shaped my life during those days.
Peter befriended me; but Anna kept on worrying me and making me
miserable. Marusya loved me as a sister loves a brother, and the
fire of her eyes ate into my heart. Jacob kept preaching to me that
it was wrong to accept favors from Gentiles, and that we had to
fight for our faith. Serge became my bitter enemy from the time he
betrayed our scheme of "honest stealing."

To top it all, my sergeant tried to put me through the paces of the
military drill, and succeeded.