Almost a sense of brotherhood moved him to speak to her, but he

conquered the abnormal and incorrect impulse, contenting himself to

walk past her with a side-glance, while at the end of the

deck-promenade, instead of returning on his footsteps, he even arched

his path round to the windy side. After some minutes of buffeting he

returned chilled to his prior pacing ground. She was still there, but

had moved under the same electric light which had illuminated

Wilhammer's face, and she was reading a letter. As his walk carried

him past her, he was startled to see tears rolling down those radiant

cheeks. A slight exclamation came involuntarily from him; the girl,

even more startled to be caught thus, relaxed her grip of the

letter--a puff of wind hastened to whirl it aloft. Rozenoffski grasped

at it desperately, but it eluded him, and then descending sailed

sternwards. He gave chase, stumbling over belated chairs and

deck-quoits, but at last it was safe in his clutch, and as he handed

it to the agitated owner whom he found at his elbow, he noted with a

thrill that the characters were cursive Hebrew.

'How can I zank you, sir!' Her Teutonic-touched American gave him the

courage to reply gallantly in German:

'By letting me help you more seriously.'

'_Ach, mein Herr_'--she jumped responsively into German--'it was for

joy I was crying, not sorrow.' As her American was Germanic, so was

her German like the Yiddish of his remote youth, and this, adding to

the sweetness of her voice, dissolved the musician's heart within his

breast. He noted now with satisfaction that her fingers were bare of

rings.

'Then I am rejoiced too,' he ventured to reply.

She smiled pathetically, and began to walk back towards her cabin.

'With us Jews,' she said, 'tears and laughter are very close.'

'Us Jews!' He winced a little. It was so long since he had been thus

classed to his face by a stranger. But perhaps he had misinterpreted

her phrase; it was her way of referring to _her_ race, not necessarily

to _his_.

'It is a beautiful night,' he murmured uneasily. But he only opened

wider the flood-gates of race-feeling.

'Yes,' she replied simply, 'and such a heaven of stars is beginning

to arise over the night of Israel. Is it not wonderful--the

transformation of our people? When I left Russia as a girl--so young,'

she interpolated with a sad smile, 'that I had not even been

married--I left a priest-ridden, paralysed people, a cringing,

cowering, contorted people--I shall never forget the panic in our

synagogue when a troop of Cossacks rode in with a bogus

blood-accusation. Now it is a people alive with ideas and volitions;

the young generation dreams noble dreams, and, what is stranger, dies

to execute them. Our _Bund_ is the soul of the Russian revolution; our

self-defence bands are bringing back the days of Judas Maccabaeus. In

the olden times of massacre our people fled to the synagogues to pray;

now they march to the fight like men.'

They had arrived at her door, and she ended suddenly. The musician,

fascinated, feared she was about to fade away within.

'But Jews can't fight!' he cried, half-incredulous, half to arrest

her.

'Not fight!' She held up the Hebrew letter. 'They have scouts,

ambulance corps, orderlies, surgeons, everything--my cousin David Ben

Amram, who is little more than a boy, was told off to defend a large

three-story house inhabited by the families of factory-labourers who

were at work when the _pogrom_ broke out. The poor frenzied women and

children had barricaded themselves within at the first rumour, and

hidden themselves in cellars and attics. My cousin had to climb to

their defence over the neighbouring tiles and through a window in the

roof. Soon the house was besieged by police, troops, and hooligans in

devilish league. With his one Browning revolver David held them all

at bay, firing from every window of the house in turn, so as to give

the besiegers an impression of a large defensive force. At last his

cartridges were exhausted--to procure cartridges is the greatest

difficulty of our self-defence corps--they began battering in the big

front-door. David, seeing further resistance was useless, calmly drew

back the bolts, to the mob's amaze, and, as it poured in, he cried:

'Back! back! They have bombs!' and rushed into the street, as if to

escape the explosion. The others followed wildly, and in the panic

David ran down a dark alley, and disappeared in search of a new post

of defence. Though the door stood open, and the cowering inhabitants

were at their mercy, the assailants, afraid to enter, remained for

over an hour at a safe distance firing at the house, till it was

riddled with bullets. They counted nearly two hundred the next day,

embedded in the walls or strewn about the rooms. And not a thing had

been stolen--not a hooligan had dared enter. But David is only a type

of the young generation--there are hundreds of Davids equally ready to

take the field against Goliath. And shall I not rejoice, shall I not

exult even unto tears?' Her eyes glowed, and the musician was kindled

to equal fire. It seemed to him less a girl who was speaking than

Truth and Purity and some dead muse of his own. 'The Pale that I

left,' she went on, 'was truly a prison. But now--now it will be the

forging-place of a regenerated people! Oh, I am counting the days till

I can be back!'

'You are going back to Russia!' he gasped.

He had the sensation of cold steel passing through his heart. The

_pogroms_, which had been as remote to him as the squabbles of

savages in Central Africa, became suddenly vivid and near. And even

vivider and nearer that greater danger--the heroic Cousin David!

'How can I live away from Russia at such a moment?' she answered

quietly. 'Who or what needs me in America?'

'But to be massacred!' he cried incoherently.

She smiled radiantly. 'To live and die with my own people.'

The fire in his veins seemed upleaping in a sublime jet; he was like

to crying, 'Thy people shall be my people,' but all he found himself

saying was, 'You must not, you must not; what can a girl like you do?'

A bell rang sharply from the cabin.

'I must go to my mistress. _Gute Nacht, mein Herr!_'

His flame sank to sudden ashes. Only Mrs. Wilhammer's hireling!

III

The wind freshened towards the middle of the night, and Rozenoffski,

rocking in his berth, cursed his encounter with the red-haired

romanticist who had stirred up such a pother in his brain that he had

not been able to fall asleep while the water was still calm. Not that

he suffered physically from the sea; he was merely afraid of it. The

shuddering and groaning of the ship found an echo in his soul. He

could not shake off the conviction that he was doomed to drown. At

intervals, during the tedious night, he found forgetfulness in

translating into sound his sense of the mystic, masterless waste in

which the continents swim like islands, but music was soon swallowed

up in terror.

'No,' he sighed, with a touch of self-mockery. 'When I am safe on

shore again, I shall weave my symphony of the sea.'

Sleep came at last, but only to perturb him with a Jewish Joan of Arc

who--turned Admiral--recaptured Zion from her battleship, to the sound

of Psalms droned by his dead grandfather. And, though he did not see

her the next day, and was, indeed, rather glad not to meet a lady's

maid in the unromantic daylight, the restlessness she had engendered

remained, replacing the settled bitterness which was all he had

brought back from America. In the afternoon this restlessness drove

him to the piano in the deserted dining-hall, and his fever sought to

work itself off in a fury of practice. But the inner turbulence

persisted, and the new thoughts clung round the old music. He was

playing Schumann's _Fantasiestuecke_, but through the stormy passion of

_In der Nacht_ he saw the red hair of the heroic Jewess, and into the

wistful, questioning _Warum_ insinuated itself not the world-question,

but the Jewish question--the sad, unending Jewish question--surging up

again and again in every part of the globe, as Schumann's theme in

every part of the piano--the same haunting musical figure, never the

same notes exactly, yet essentially always the same, the wistful,

questioning _Warum_. Why all this ceaseless sorrow, this footsore

wandering, this rootless life, this eternal curse?

Suddenly he became aware that he was no longer alone--forms were

seated at the tables on the fixed dining-chairs, though there was no

meal but his music; and as he played on, with swift side-peeps, other

fellow-passengers entered into his consciousness, some standing about,

others hovering on the stairs, and still others stealing in on

reverent tip-toe and taking favourable seats. His breast filled with

bitter satisfaction.

So they had to come, the arrogant Americans; they had to swarm like

rats to the pied piper. He could draw them at will, the haughty

heathen--draw them by the magic of his finger-touch on pieces of

ivory. Lo, they were coming, more and more of them! Through the corner

of his eye he espied the figures drifting in from the corridors,

peering in spellbound at the doors.

With a great crash on the keys, he shook off his morbid mood, and

plunged into Scarlatti's Sonata in A, his fingers frolicking all over

the board, bent on a dominating exhibition of technique. As he

stopped, there was a storm of hand-clapping. Rozenoffski gave a

masterly start of surprise, and turned his leonine head in dazed

bewilderment. Was he not then alone? '_Gott im Himmel!_' he murmured,

and, furiously banging down the piano-lid, stalked from these

presumptuous mortals who had jarred the artist's soliloquy.

But the next afternoon found him again at the public piano, devoting

all the magic of his genius to charming a contemptible Christendom. He

gave them Beethoven and Bach, Paradies and Tschaikowski, unrolled to

them the vast treasures of his art and memory. And very soon, lo! the

Christian rats were pattering back again, only more wisely and

cautiously. They came crawling from every part of the ship's compass.

Newcomers were warned whisperingly to keep from applause. In vain. An

enraptured greenhorn shouted 'Encore!' The musician awoke from his

trance, stared dreamily at the Philistines; then, as the presence of

listeners registered itself upon his expressive countenance, he rose

again--but this time as more in sorrow than in anger--and stalked

sublimely up the swarming stairs.

It became a tradition to post guards at the doors to warn all comers

as to the habits of the great unknown, who could only beat his music

out if he imagined himself unheard. Scouts watched his afternoon

advance upon the piano in an empty hall, and the word was passed to

the little army of music-lovers. Silently the rats gathered, scurrying

in on noiseless paws, stealing into the chairs, swarming about the

doorways, pricking up their ears in the corridors. And through the

awful hush rose the master's silvery notes in rapturous self-oblivion

till the day began to wane, and the stewards to appear with the

tea-cups.

And the larger his audience grew, the fiercer grew his resentment

against this complacent Christendom which took so much from the Jew

and gave so little. 'Shylocks!' he would mutter between his clenched

teeth as he played--'Shylocks all!'

IV

With no less punctuality did Rozenoffski pace the silent deck each

night in the hope of again meeting the red-haired Jewess. He had soon

recovered from her menial office; indeed, the paradox of her position

in so anti-Semitic a household quickened his interest in her. He

wondered if she ever listened to his playing, or had realized that

she had entertained an angel unawares.

But three nights passed without glimpse of her. Nor was her mistress

more visible. The Wilhammers kept royally to themselves in their

palatial suite, though the husband sometimes deigned to parade his

fangs in the smoking-room, where with the luck of the rich he won

heavily in the pools. It was not till the penultimate night of the

voyage that Rozenoffski caught his second glimpse of his red-haired

muse. He had started his nocturnal pacing much earlier than usual, for

the inevitable concert on behalf of marine charities had sucked the

loungers from their steamer-chairs. He had himself, of course, been

approached by the programme-organizer, a bouncing actress from

'Frisco, with an irresistible air, but he had defeated her hopelessly

with the mysterious sarcasm: 'To meet the Bright Lights?' And his

reward was to have the deck and the heavens almost to himself, and

presently to find the stars outgleamed by a girl's hair. Yes, there

she was, gazing pensively forth from the cabin window. He guessed the

mistress was out for once--presumably at the concert. His heart beat

faster as he came to a standstill, yet the reminder that she was a

lady's maid brought an involuntary note of condescension into his

voice.

'I hope Mrs. Wilhammer hasn't been keeping you too imprisoned?' he

said.

She smiled faintly. 'Not so close as Neptune has kept her.'

'Ill?' he said, with a shade of malicious satisfaction.

'It is curious and even consoling to see the limitations of Croesus,'

she replied. 'But she is lucky--she just recovered in time.'

'In time for what?'

'Can't you hear?'

Indeed, the shrill notes of an amateur soprano had been rending the

air throughout, but they had scarcely penetrated through his

exaltation. He now shuddered.

'Do you mean it is she singing?'

The girl laughed outright. 'She sing! No, no, she is a sensitive

receiver. She receives; she gives out nothing. She exploits her soul

as her husband exploits the globe. There isn't a sensation or an

emotion she denies herself--unless it is painful. It was to escape the

concert that she has left her couch--and sought refuge in a friend's

cabin. You see, here sound travels straight from the dining-hall, and

a false note, she says, gives her nerve-ache.'

'Then she can't return till the close of the concert,' he said

eagerly. 'Won't you come outside and walk a bit under this beautiful

moon?'

She came out without a word, with the simplicity of a comrade.

'Yes, it is a beautiful night,' she said, 'and very soon I shall be in

Russia.'

'But is Mrs. Wilhammer going to Russia, then?' he asked, with a sudden

thought, wondering that it had never occurred to him before.

'Of course not! I only joined her for this voyage. I have to work my

passage, you see, and Providence, on the eve of sailing, robbed Mrs.

Wilhammer of her maid.'

'Oh!' he murmured in relief. His red-haired muse was going back to

her social pedestal. 'But you must have found it humiliating,' he

said.

'Humiliating?' She laughed cheerfully. 'Why more than manicuring her?'

The muse shivered again on the pedestal.

'Manicuring?' he echoed in dismay.

'Sure!' she laughed in American. 'When, after a course of starvation

and medicine at Berne University, I found I had to get a new degree

for America....'

'You are a doctor?' he interrupted.

'And, therefore, peculiarly serviceable as a ship-maid.'

She smiled again, and her smile in the moonlight reminded him of a

rippling passage of Chopin. Prosaic enough, however, was what she went

on to tell him of her struggle for life by day and for learning by

night. 'Of course, I could only attend the night medical school. I

lived by lining cloaks with fur; my bed was the corner of a room

inhabited by a whole family. A would-be graduate could not be seen

with bundles; for fetching and carrying the work my good landlady

extorted twenty cents to the dollar. When the fur season was slack I

cooked in a restaurant, worked a typewriter, became a "hello girl"--at

a telephone, you know--reported murder cases--anything, everything.'

'Manicuring,' he recalled tenderly.

'Manicuring,' she repeated smilingly. 'And you ask me if it is

humiliating to wait upon an artistic sea-sick lady!'

'Artistic!' he sneered. His heart was full of pity and indignation.

'As surely as sea-sick!' she rejoined laughingly. 'Why are you

prejudiced against her?'

He flushed. 'Prej-prejudiced?' he stammered. 'Why should I be

prejudiced? From all I hear it's she that's prejudiced. It's a wonder

she took a Jewess into her service.'

'Where's the wonder? Don't the Southerners have negro servants?' she

asked quietly.

His flush deepened. 'You compare Jews to negroes!'

'I apologize to the negroes. The blacks have at least Liberia. There

is a black President, a black Parliament. We have nothing, nothing!'

'We!' Again that ambiguous plural. But he still instinctively evaded

co-classification.

'Nothing?' he retorted. 'I should have said everything. Every gift of

genius that Nature can shower from her cornucopia.'

'Jewish geniuses!' Her voice had a stinging inflection. 'Don't talk to

me of our geniuses; it is they that have betrayed us. Every other

people has its great men; but our great men--they belong to every

other people. The world absorbs our sap, and damns us for our putrid

remains. Our best must pipe alien tunes and dance to the measures of

the heathen. They build and paint; they write and legislate. But never

a song of Israel do they fashion, nor a picture of Israel, nor a law

of Israel, nor a temple of Israel. Bah! What are they but hirelings?'

Again the passion of her patriotism uplifted and enkindled him. Yes,

it was true. He, too, was but a hireling. But he would become a

Master; he would go back--back to the Ghetto, and this noble Jewess

should be his mate. Thank God he had kept himself free for her. But

ere he could pour out his soul, the bouncing San Franciscan actress

appeared suddenly at his elbow, risking a last desperate assault,

discharging a pathetic tale of a comedian with a cold. Rozenoffski

repelled the attack savagely, but before he could exhaust the enemy's

volubility his red-haired companion had given him a friendly nod and

smile, and retreated into her shrine of duty.

V

He spent a sleepless but happy night, planning out their future

together; her redemption from her hireling status, their joint work

for their people. He was no longer afraid of the sea. He was afraid of

nothing--not even of the _pogroms_ that awaited them in Russia. Russia

itself became dear to him again--the beautiful land of his boyhood,

whose birds and whispering leaves and waters had made his earliest

music.

But dearer than all resurged his Jewish memories. When he went almost

mechanically to the piano on the last afternoon, all these slumbering

forces wakened in him found vent in a rhapsody of synagogue melody to

which he abandoned himself, for once forgetting his audience. When

gradually he became aware of the incongruity, it did but intensify his

inspiration. Let the heathen rats wallow in Hebrew music! But soon all

self-consciousness passed away again, drowned in his deeper self.

It was a strange fantasia that poured itself through his obedient

fingers; it held the wistful chants of ancient ritual, the festival

roulades and plaintive yearnings of melodious cantors, the sing-song

augmentation of Talmud-students oscillating in airless study-houses,

the long, melancholy drone of Psalm-singers in darkening Sabbath

twilights, the rustle of palm-branches and sobbings of penitence, the

long-drawn notes of the ram's horn pealing through the Terrible Days,

the passionate proclamation of the Unity, storming the gates of

heaven. And fused with these merely physical memories, there flowed

into the music the peace of Sabbath evenings and shining candles, the

love and wonder of childhood's faith, the fantasy of Rabbinic legend,

the weirdness of penitential prayers in raw winter dawns, the holy joy

of the promised Zion, when God would wipe away the tears from all

faces.

There were tears to be wiped from his own face when he ended, and he

wiped them brazenly, unresentful of the frenzied approval of the

audience, which now let itself go, out of stored-up gratitude, and

because this must be the last performance. All his vanity, his

artistic posing, was swallowed up in utter sincerity. He did not shut

the piano; he sat brooding a moment or two in tender reverie. Suddenly

he perceived his red-haired muse at his side. Ah, she had discovered

him at last, knew him simultaneously for the genius and the patriot,

was come to pour out her soul at his feet. But why was she mute? Why

was she tendering this scented letter? Was it because she could not

trust herself to speak before the crowd? He tore open the delicate

envelope. _Himmel!_ what was this? Would the maestro honour Mrs.

Wilhammer by taking tea in her cabin?

He stared dazedly at the girl, who remained respectful and silent.

'Did you not hear what I was playing?' he murmured.

'Oh yes--a synagogue medley,' she replied quietly. 'They publish it on

the East Side, _nicht wahr_?'

'East Side?' He was outraged. 'I know nothing of East Side.' Her

absolute unconsciousness of his spiritual tumult, her stolidity before

this spectacle of his triumphant genius, her matter-of-fact acceptance

of his racial affinity, her refusal to be impressed by the heroism of

a Hebrew pianoforte solo, all she said and did not say, jarred upon

his quivering nerves, chilled his high emotion. 'Will you say I shall

have much pleasure?' he added coldly.

The red-haired maid nodded and was gone. Rozenoffski went mechanically

to his cabin, scarcely seeing the worshippers he plodded through;

presently he became aware that he was changing his linen, brushing his

best frock-coat, thrilling with pleasurable excitement.

Anon he was tapping at the well-known door. A voice--of another

sweetness--cried 'Come!' and instantly he had the sensation that his

touch on the handle had launched upon him, as by some elaborate

electric contrivance, a tall and beautiful American, a rustling

tea-gown, a shimmer of rings, a reek of patchouli, and a flood of

compliment.

'So delightful of you to come--I know you men of genius are

_farouches_--it was awfully insolent of me, I know, but you have

forgiven me, haven't you?'

'The pleasure is mine, gracious lady,' he murmured in German.

'_Ach_, so you are a German,' she replied in the same tongue. 'I

thought no American or Englishman could have so much divine fire. You

see, _mein Herr_, I do not even know your name--only your genius.

Every afternoon I have lain here, lapped in your music, but I might

never have had the courage to thank you had you not played that

marvellous thing just now--such delicious heartbreak, such adorable

gaiety, and now and then the thunder of the gods! I'm afraid you'll

think me very ignorant--it wasn't Grieg, was it?'

He looked uncomfortable. 'Nothing so good, I fear--a mere impromptu of

my own.'

'Your own!' She clapped her jewelled hands in girlish delight. 'Oh,

where can I get it?'

'East Side,' some mocking demon tried to reply; but he crushed her

down, and replied uneasily: 'You can't get it. It just came to me this

afternoon. It came--and it has gone.'

'What a pity!' But she was visibly impressed by this fecundity and

riotous extravagance of genius. 'I do hope you will try to remember

it.'

'Impossible--it was just a mood.'

'And to think of all the other moods I seem to have missed! Why have I

not heard you in America?'

He grew red. 'I--I haven't been playing there,' he murmured. 'You see,

I'm not much known outside a few European circles.' Then, summoning up

all his courage, he threw down his name 'Rozenoffski' like a bomb, and

the red of his cheeks changed to the pallor of apprehension. But no

explosion followed, save of enthusiasm. Evidently, the episode so

lurid to his own memory, had left no impress on hers.

'Oh, but America _must_ know you, Herr Rozenoffski. You must promise

me to come back in the fall, give me the glory of launching you.' And,

seeing the cloud on his face, she cried: 'You must, you must, you

must!' clapping her hands at each 'must.'

He hesitated, distracted between rapture and anxiety lest she should

remember.

'You have never heard of me, of course,' she persisted humbly; 'but

positively everybody has played at my house in Chicago.'

'_Ach so!_' he muttered. Had he perhaps misinterpreted and magnified

the attitude of these Americans? Was it possible that Mrs. Wilhammer

had really been too ill to see him? She looked frail and feverish

behind all her brilliant beauty. Or had she not even seen his letter?

had her secretary presumed to guard her from Semitic invaders? Or was

she deliberately choosing to forget and forgive his Jewishness? In any

case, best let sleeping dogs lie. He was being sought; it would be the

silliest of social blunders to recall that he had already been

rejected.

'It is years since Chicago had a real musical sensation,' pleaded the

temptress.

'I'm afraid my engagements will not permit me to return this autumn,'

he replied tactfully.

'Do you take sugar?' she retorted unexpectedly; then, as she handed

him his cup, she smiled archly into his eyes. 'You can't shake me off,

you know; I shall follow you about Europe--to all your concerts.'

When he left her--after inscribing his autograph, his permanent Munich

address, and the earliest possible date for his Chicago concert, in a

dainty diary brought in by her red-haired maid--his whole being was

swelling, expanding. He had burst the coils of this narrow tribalism

that had suddenly retwined itself round him; he had got back again

from the fusty conventicles and the sunless Ghettos--back to spacious

salons and radiant hostesses and the great free life of art. He drew

deep breaths of sea-air as he paced the deck, strewn so thickly with

pleasant passengers to whom he felt drawn in a renewed sense of the

human brotherhood. _Rishus_, forsooth!

SAMOOBORONA

SAMOOBORONA

I

Milovka was to be the next place reddened on the map of Holy Russia.

The news of the projected Jewish massacre in this little Polish town

travelled to the _Samooborona_ (Self-Defence) Headquarters in Southern

Russia through the indiscretion of a village pope who had had a drop

of blood too much. It appeared that Milovka, though remote from the

great centres of disturbance, had begun to seethe with political

activity, and even to publish a newspaper, so that it was necessary to

show by a first-class massacre that true Russian men were still loyal

to God and the Czar. Milovka lay off the _pogrom_ route, and had not

of itself caught the contagion; careful injection of the virus was

necessary. Moreover, the town was two-thirds Jewish, and consequently

harder to fever with the lust of Jewish blood. But in revenge the

_pogrom_ would be easier; the Jewish quarter formed a practically

separate town; no asking of _dvorniks_ (janitors) to point out the

Jewish apartments, no arming one's self with photographs of the

victims; one had but to run amuck among these low wooden houses, the

humblest of which doubtless oozed with inexhaustible subterranean

wealth.

David Ben Amram was hurriedly despatched to Milovka to organize a

local self-defence corps. He carried as many pistols as could be

stowed away in a violin-case, which, with a music-roll holding

cartridges, was an obtrusive feature of his luggage. The winter was

just beginning, but mildly. The sun shone over the broad plains, and

as David's train carried him towards Milovka, his heart swelled with

thoughts of the Maccabean deeds to be wrought there by a regenerated

Young Israel. But the journey was long. Towards the end he got into

conversation with an old Russian peasant who, so far from sharing in

the general political effervescence, made a long lament over the good

old days of serfdom. 'Then, one had not to think--one ate and drank.

Now, it is all toil and trouble.'

'But you were whipped at your lord's pleasure,' David reminded him.

'He was a nobleman,' retorted the peasant with dignity.

David fell silent. The Jew, too, had grown to kiss the rod. But it was

not even a nobleman's rod; any moujik, any hooligan, could wield it.

But, thank Heaven, this breed of Jew was passing away--killed by the

_pogroms_. It was their one virtue.

At the station he hired a ramshackle droshky, and told his Jewish

driver to take him to the best inn. Seated astride the old-fashioned

bench of the vehicle, and grasping his violin-case like a loving

musician, as they jolted over the rough roads, he broached the subject

of the Jewish massacres.

'_Be!_' commented the driver, shrugging his shoulders. 'We are in

_Goluth_ (exile)!' He spoke with resignation, but not with

apprehension, and David perceived at once that Milovka would not be

easy to arouse. As every man thought every other man mortal, so

Milovka regarded the massacres as a terrible reality--for other towns.

It was no longer even shocked; Kishineff had been a horror almost

beyond belief, but Jew-massacres had since become part of the natural

order, which babes were born into.

II

The landlord shook his head.

'All our rooms are full.'

David, still hugging his violin-case, looked at the dirty,

mustard-smeared tablecloth on the long table, and at the host's brats

playing on the floor. If this was the best, what in Heaven's name

awaited him elsewhere?

'For how long?' he asked.

The landlord shrugged his shoulders like the driver. 'Am I the

All-knowing?'

He wore a black velvet cap, but not with the apex that would have

professed piety. Its square cut indicated to the younger generation

that he was a man of the world, in touch with the times; to the old

its material and hue afforded sufficient guarantee of ritual

orthodoxy. He was a true host, the friend of all who eat and drink.

'But how many rooms have you?' inquired David.

'And how many shall I have but one?' protested the landlord.

'Only one room!' David turned upon the driver. 'And you said this was

the best inn! I suppose it's your brother-in-law's.'

'And what do I make out of it, if it is?' answered the driver. 'You

see he can't take you.'

'Then why did you bring me?'

'Because there is no room anywhere else either.'

'What!' David stared.

'Law of Moses!' corroborated the landlord good-humouredly, 'you've

just come at the recruiting. The young men have flocked here from all

the neighbouring villages to draw their numbers. There are heathen

peasants in all the Jewish inns--eating _kosher_,' he added with a

chuckle.

David frowned. But he reflected instantly that if this was so, the

_pogrom_ would probably be postponed till the Christian conscripts had

been packed off to their regiments or the lucky ones back to their

villages. He would have time, therefore, to organize his Jewish corps.

Yes, he reflected in grim amusement, Russia and he would be recruiting

simultaneously. Still, where was he to sleep?

'You can have the _lezhanka_,' said the host, following his thoughts.

David looked ruefully at the high stove. Well, there were worse beds

in winter than the top of a stove. And perhaps to bestow himself and

his violin in such very public quarters would be the safest way of

diverting police attention. 'Conspirators, please copy,' he thought,

with a smile. Anyhow, he was very tired. He could refresh himself

here; the day was yet young; time enough to find a better lodging.

'Bring in the luggage,' he said resignedly.

'Tea?' said the host, hovering over the samovar.

'Haven't you a drop of vodka?'

The landlord held up hands of horror. '_Monopolka?_' (monopoly), he

cried.

'Haven't they left any Jewish licenses?' asked David.

'Not unless one mixed holy water with the vodka, like the baptized

Benjamin,' said the landlord with grim humour. He added hastily: 'But

his inn is even fuller than mine, four beds in the room.'

It appeared that the dinner was already over, and David could obtain

nothing but half-warmed remains. However, hunger and hope gave sauce

to the miserable meal, and he profited by the absence of custom to

pump the landlord anent the leading citizens.

'But you will not get violin lessons from any of them,' his host

warned him. 'Tinowitz the corn-factor has daughters who are said to

read Christian story-books, but is it likely he will risk their

falling in love with a young man whose hair and clothes are cut like a

Christian's? Not that I share his prejudices, of course. I have seen

the great world, and understand that it is possible to carry a

handkerchief on the Sabbath and still be a good man.'

'I haven't come to give lessons in music,' said David bluntly, 'but in

shooting.'

'Shooting?' The landlord stared. 'Aren't you a Jew, then, sir? I beg

your pardon.' His voice had suddenly taken on the same ring as when he

addressed the _Poritz_ (Polish nobleman). His oleaginous familiarity

was gone.

'_Salachti!_' (I have forgiven), said David in Hebrew, and laughed at

the man's bemused visage. 'Don't you think, considering what has been

happening, it is high time the Jews of Milovka learned to shoot?'

The landlord looked involuntarily round the room for a possible spy.

'Guard your tongue!' he murmured, terror-stricken.

David laughed on. 'You, my friend, shall be my first pupil.'

'God forbid! And I must beg you to find other lodgings.'

David smiled grimly at this first response to his mission. 'I dare say

I shall find another stove,' he said cheerfully--at which the

landlord, who had never in his life taken such a decisive step, began

to think he had gone too far. 'You will take the advice of a man who

knows the world,' he said in a tone of compromise, 'and throw all

those crazy notions into the river where you cast your sins at New

Year. A young, fine-looking man like you! Why, I can find you a

_Shidduch_ (marriage) that will keep you in clover the rest of your

life.'

'Ha! ha! ha! How do you know I'm not married?'

'Married men don't go shooting so lightheartedly. Come, let me take

you in hand; my commission is a very small percentage of the dowry.'

'Ah, so you're a regular _Shadchan_' (marriage-broker).

'And how else should I live? Do you think I get fat on this inn? But

people stay here from all towns around; I get to know a great circle

of marriageable parties. I can show you a much larger stock than the

ordinary _Shadchan_.'

'But I am so _link_' (irreligious).

'_Nu!_ Let your ear-locks grow--the dowry grows with them.' Mine host

had quite recovered his greasy familiarity.

'I can't wait for my locks to grow,' said David, with a sudden

thought. 'But if you care to introduce me to Tinowitz, you will not

fail to profit by it, if the thing turns out well.'

The landlord rubbed his hands. 'Now you speak like a sage.'

III

Tinowitz read the landlord's Hebrew note, and surveyed the suitor

disapprovingly. And disapproval did not improve his face--a face in

whose grotesque features David read a possible explanation of his

surplus stock of daughters.

'I cannot say I am very taken with you,' the corn-factor said. 'Nor is

it possible to give you my youngest daughter. I have other plans. Even

the eldest----'

David waved his hand. 'I told my landlord as much. Am I a Talmud-sage

that I should thus aspire? Forgive and forget my _Chutzpah_

(impudence)!'

'But the eldest--perhaps--with a smaller dowry----'

'To tell the truth, _Panie_ Tinowitz, it was the landlord who turned

my head with false hopes. I came here not to promote marriages, but to

prevent funerals!'

The corn-factor gasped, 'Funerals!'

'A _pogrom_ is threatened----'

'Open not your mouth to Satan!' reprimanded Tinowitz, growing livid.

'If you prefer silence and slaughter----' said David, with a shrug.

'It is impossible--here!'

'And why not here, as well as in the six hundred and thirty-eight

other towns?'

'In those towns there must have been bad blood; here Jew and Russian

live together like brothers.'

'Cain and Abel were brothers. There were many peaceful years while

Cain tilled the ground and Abel pastured his sheep.'

The Biblical reference was more convincing to Tinowitz than a

wilderness of arguments.

'Then, what do you propose?' came from his white lips.

'To form a branch of the _Samooborona_. You must first summon a

meeting of householders.'

'What for?'

'For a general committee--and for the expenses.'

'But how can we hold a meeting? The police----'

'There's the synagogue.'

'Profane the synagogue!'

'Did not the Jews always fly to the synagogue when there was danger?'

'Yes, but to pray.'

'We will pray by pistol.'

'Guard your tongue!'

'Guard your daughters.'

'The Uppermost will guard them.'

'The Uppermost guards them through me, as He feeds them through you.

For the last time I ask you, will you or will you not summon me a

meeting of householders?'

'You rush like a wild horse. I thank Heaven you will _not_ be my

son-in-law.'

Tinowitz ended by demanding time to think it over. David was to call

the next day.

When, after a sleepless night on the stove, he betook himself to the

corn-factor's house, he found it barred and shuttered. The neighbours

reported that Tinowitz had gone off on sudden business, taking his

wife and daughters with him for a little jaunt.

IV

The flight of Tinowitz brought two compensations, however. David was

promoted from the stove to the bedroom. For the lodger he replaced had

likewise departed hurriedly, and when it transpired that the landlord

had betrothed this young man to the second of the Tinowitz girls,

David divined that the corn-factor had made sure of a son-in-law. His

other compensation was to find in the remaining bed a strapping young

Jew named Ezekiel Leven, who had come up from an outlying village for

the military lottery, and who proved to be a carl after his own heart.

Half the night the young heroes planned the deeds of derringdo they

might do for their people. Ezekiel Leven was indeed an ideal

lieutenant, for he belonged to one of the rare farming colonies, and

was already handy with his gun. He had even some kinsfolk in Milovka,

and by their aid the Rabbi and a few householders were hurriedly

prevailed upon to assemble in the bedroom on a business declared

important. Ezekiel himself must, unfortunately, be away at the

drawing, but he promised to hasten back to the meeting.

Each member strolled in casually, ordered a glass of tea, and drifted

upstairs. The landlord, uneasily sniffing peril and profit, and

dismally apprehending pistol lessons, left the inn to his wife, and

stole up likewise to the fateful bedroom. Here, after protesting

fearfully that they would ruin him by this conspirative meeting, he

added that he was not out of sympathy with the times, and volunteered

to stand sentinel. Accordingly, he was posted at the ragged

window-curtain, where, with excess of caution, he signalled whenever

he saw a Christian, in uniform or no. At every signal David's oratory

ceased as suddenly as if it had been turned off at the main, and the

gaberdined figures, distributed over the two beds and the one chair,

gripped one another nervously. But David was used to oratory under

difficulties. He lived on the same terms with the police as the most

desperate criminals, and a foreigner who should have witnessed the

secret meetings at which tactics were discussed, arms distributed,

scouts despatched, and night-watches posted, would have imagined him

engaged in a rebellion instead of in an attempt to strengthen the

forces of law and order.

He had come to Milovka, he explained, to warn them that the Black

Hundreds were soon to be loosed upon the Jewish quarter. But no longer

must the Jew go like a lamb to the shambles. Too long, when smitten,

had he turned the other cheek, only to get it smitten too. They must

defend themselves. He was there to form a branch of the _Samooborona_.

Browning revolvers must be purchased. The wood-choppers must be

organized as a column of axe-bearers. There would be needed also an

ambulance corps, with bandages, dressings, etc.

The shudder at the first mention of the _pogrom_ was not so violent as

that which followed the mention of bandages. Each man felt warm blood

trickling down his limbs. To what end, then, had he escaped the

conscription? The landlord at the window wiped the cold beads off his

brow, and was surprised to find his hand not scarlet.

'Brethren,' Koski the timber-merchant burst out, 'this is a Haman in

disguise. To hold firearms is the surest way of provoking----'

'I don't say _you_ shall hold firearms!' David interrupted. 'It is

your young men who must defend the town. But the _Kahal_

(congregation) must pay the expenses--say, ten thousand roubles to

start with.'

'Ten thousand roubles for a few pistols!' cried Mendel the

horse-dealer. 'It is a swindle.'

David flushed. 'We have to buy three pistols for every one we get

safely into the town. But one revolver may save ten thousand roubles

of property, not to mention your life.'

'It will end our lives, not save them!' persisted the timber-merchant.

'This is a plot to destroy us!'

A growl of assent burst from the others.

'My friends,' said David quietly. 'A plot to destroy you has already

been hatched; the question is, are you going to be destroyed like rats

or like men?'

'Pooh!' said the horse-dealer. 'This is not the first time we have

been threatened, if not with death, at least with extra taxes; but we

have always sent _Shtadlonim_ (ambassadors). We will make a

collection, and the president of the _Kahal_ shall go at once to the

Governor, and present it to him'--here Mendel winked--'to enable him

to take measures against the _pogrom_.'

'The Governor is in the plot,' said David.

'He can be bought out,' said the timber-merchant.

'_Pogroms_ are more profitable than presents,' rejoined David drily.

'Let us rather prepare bombs.' A fresh shudder traversed the beds and

the chairs, and agitated the window-curtain.

'Bombs! Presents!' burst forth the old Rabbi. 'These are godless

instruments. We are in the hands of the Holy One--blessed be He! The

_Shomer_ (Guardian) of Israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth.'

'Neither does the _Shochet_ (slaughterer) of Israel,' said David

savagely.

'Hush! Epicurean!' came from every quarter at this grim jest; for the

_Shomer_ and the _Shochet_ are the official twain of ritual butchery.

The landlord, seeing how the tide was turning, added, 'Brazen

_Marshallik_ (buffoon)!'

'I will appoint a day of fasting and prayer,' concluded the Rabbi

solemnly.

A breath of reassurance wafted through the room. 'And I, Rabbi,' said

Guetels the grocer, 'will supply the synagogue with candles to equal in

length the graves of all your predecessors.'

'May thy strength increase, Guetels!' came the universal gratitude, and

the landlord at the window-curtain drew a great sigh of relief.

'Still, gentlemen,' he said, 'if I may intrude my humble opinion--Reb

Mendel's advice is also good. God is, of course, our only protection.

But there can be no harm in getting, _lehavdil_ (not to compare them),

the Governor's protection too.'

'True, true.' And the faces grew still cheerier.

'In God's name, wake up!' David burst forth. 'In _Samooborona_ lies

your only salvation. Give the money to us, not to the Governor. We can

meet and practise in your Talmud-Torah Hall!'

'The holy hall of study!' gasped the Rabbi. 'Given over to unlawful

meetings!'

'The hooligans will meet there, if you don't,' said David grimly.

'Don't you see it is the safest place for us? The police associate it

only with learned weaklings.'

'Hush, Haman!' said the timber-merchant, and rose to go. David's voice

changed to passion; memories of things he had seen came over him as in

a red mist: an old man scalped with a sharp ladle; a white-hot poker

driven through a woman's eye; a baby's skull ground under a True

Russian's heel. 'Bourgeois!' he thundered, 'I will save you despite

yourselves.' The landlord signalled in a frenzy, but David continued

recklessly, 'Will you never learn manli----'

They flung themselves upon him in a panic, and held him hand-gagged

and struggling upon the bed.

Suddenly a new figure burst into the room. There was a blood-freezing

instant in which all gave themselves up for lost. Their grip on David

relaxed. Then the mist cleared, and they saw it was only Ezekiel

Leven.

'Blessed art thou who comest!' cried David, jumping to his feet. 'You

and I, Ezekiel, will save Milovka.'

'Alas!' Ezekiel groaned. 'I drew a low number--I go to fight for

Russia.'

V

Fifteen thousand roubles were soon collected for the Governor, but

even before they were presented to him the Rabbi, in mortal terror of

that firebrand of a David, had rushed to inquire whether Self-Defence

was legal, and might the Talmud-Torah Hall be legitimately used for

drilling. Sharp came an order that Jews found with firearms or in

conclave for non-religious purposes should be summarily shot. And so,

when the _Shtadlonim_ arrived with the fifteen thousand roubles, the

Governor was able to point out severely that if a _pogrom_ did occur

they would have only themselves to blame. The Jews of Milovka had

begun to carry pistols like revolutionaries; they planned illegal

assemblies in halls; was it to be wondered at if the League of True

Russians grew restive? However, he would do his best with these

inadequate roubles to have extra precautions taken, but let them root

out the evil weeds that had sprung up in their midst, else even his

authority might be overborne by the righteous indignation of the loyal

children of the Little Father. Tremblingly the Ambassadors crept back

with their empty money-bags.

Poor David now found it impossible to get anybody to a meeting. His

landlord had forbidden any more gatherings in the inn, and his

original audience would have called as a deputation upon David to beg

him to withdraw from the town, but that might have been considered a

conspirative meeting. So one of the Ambassadors was sent to inform the

landlord instead.

'Don't you think I've already ordered him off my premises?'

'But he is still here!'

'Alas! He threatens to shoot me--or anybody who _massers_ (informs),'

said the poor landlord.

The Ambassador shivered.

'As if I would betray a brother-in-Israel!' added the landlord

reproachfully.

'No, no--of course not,' said the Ambassador. 'These fellows are best

left alone; they wear fuses under their waistcoats instead of

_Tsitsith_ (ritual fringes). Let us hope, however, a sudden death may

rid us of him.'

'Amen,' said the landlord fervently.

Not that David had any reason for clinging to so squalid a hostel. But

his blood was up, and he took a malicious pleasure in inflicting his

perilous presence upon his prudential host.

Reduced now to buttonholing individuals, he consoled himself with the

thought that the population was best tackled by units. One fool or

coward was enough to infect or betray a whole gathering.

Still intent on the sinews of war, he sallied out after breakfast, and

approached Erbstein the Banker. Erbstein held up his hands. 'But I've

just given a thousand roubles to guard us from a _pogrom_!'

'That was for the Governor. Give me only a hundred for Self-Defence.'

The Banker puffed tranquilly at his big cigar. 'But our rights are

bound to come in the end. We can only get them gradually. Full rights

now are nonsense--impossible. It is bad tactics to ask for what you

cannot get. Only in common with Russia can our emancipation----'

'I am not talking of our rights, but of our lives.' David grew

impatient.

Being a Banker, Erbstein never listened, though he invariably replied.

His success in finance had made him an authority upon religion and

politics.

'Trust the Octobrists,' he said cheerily.

'I'd rather trust our revolvers.'

The Banker's cigar fell from his mouth.

'An anarchist! like my nephew Simon!'

David began to realize the limitations of the financial intellect. He

saw that to get ideas into Bankers' brains is even more difficult than

to get cheques from their pockets. Still, there was that promising

scapegrace Simon! He hurried out on his scent, and ran him to earth in

a cosy house near the town gate. Simon practised law, it appeared, and

his surname was Rubensky.

The young barrister, informed of his uncle's accusation of anarchism,

laughed contemptuously. 'Bourgeois! Every idea that makes no money he

calls anarchy. As a matter of fact, I'm the exact opposite of an

anarchist: I'm a socialist. I belong to the P.P.S. We're not even

revolutionary like the S.R.'s.'

'I'm afraid I'm a great ignoramus,' said David. 'I don't even know

what all these letters stand for.'

Simon Rubensky looked pityingly as at a bourgeois.

'S.R.'s are the silly Social Revolutionists; I belong to the Polish

Party of Socialism.'

'Ah!' said David, with an air of comprehension. 'And I belong to the

Jewish Party of Self-Defence! I hope you'll join it too.'

The young lawyer shook his head. 'A separate Jewish party! No, no!

That would be putting back the clock of history. The non-isolation of

the Jew is an unconditional historic necessity. Our emancipation must

be worked out in common with Russia's.'

'Oh, then you agree with your uncle!'

'With that bourgeois! Never! But we are Poles of the Mosaic

Faith--Jewish Poles, not Polish Jews.'

'The hooligans are murdering both impartially.'

'And the Intellectuals equally,' rejoined Simon.

'But the Intellectuals will triumph over the Reactionaries,' said

David passionately, 'and then both will trample on the Jews. Didn't

the Hungarian Jews join Kossuth? And yet after Hungary's freedom was

won----'

Simon's wife and sister here entered the room, and he introduced David

smilingly as a Ghetto reactionary. The young women--sober-clad

students from a Swiss University--opened wide shocked eyes.

'So young, too!' Simon's wife murmured wonderingly.

'Would you have me stand by and see our people murdered?'

'Certainly,' she said, 'rather than see the _Zeitgeist_ set back. The

unconditional historic necessity will carry us on of itself towards a

better social state.'

'There you go with your Marx and your Hegel!' cried Simon's sister. 'I

object to your historic materialism. With Fichte, I assert----'

'She is an S.R.,' Simon interrupted her to explain.

'Ah,' said David. 'Not a P.P.S. like you and your wife.'

'Simon, did you tell him I was a P.P.S.?' inquired his wife

indignantly.

'No, no, of course not. A Ghetto reactionary does not understand

modern politics. My wife is an S.D., I regret to say.'

'But I have heard of Social Democrats!' said David triumphantly.

Simon's sister sniffed. 'Of course! Because they are a bourgeois

party--risking nothing, waiting passively till the Revolution drops

into their hands.'

'The name of bourgeois would be better applied to those who include

the landed peasants among their forces,' said Simon's wife angrily.

'If I might venture to suggest,' said David soothingly, 'all these

differences would be immaterial if you joined the _Samooborona_. I

could make excellent use of you ladies in the ambulance department.'

'Outrageous!' cried Simon angrily. 'Our place is shoulder to shoulder

with our fellow-Poles.'

Simon's sister intervened gently. Perhaps the mention of ambulances

had awakened sympathy in her S.R. soul. 'You ought to look among your

own Party,' she said.

'My Party?'

'The Ghetto reactionaries--Zionists, Territorialists, Itoists, or

whatever they call themselves nowadays.'

'Are there any here?' cried David eagerly.

'One heard of nothing else,' cried Simon bitterly. 'Fortunately, when

the police found they weren't really emigrating to Zion or Uganda, the

meetings were stopped.'

David eagerly took down names. Simon particularly recommended two

young men, Grodsky and Lerkoff, who had at least the grace of

Socialism.

But Grodsky, David found, had his own panacea. 'Only the S.S.'s,' he

said, 'can save Israel.'

'What are S.S.'s?' David asked.

'Socialistes Sionistes.'

'But can't there be Socialism outside Zion?'

'Of course. We have evolved from Zionism. The unconditional historic

necessity is for a land, but not for a particular land. Our Minsk

members already call themselves S.T.'s--Socialist Territorialists.'

'But while awaiting your territory, there are the hooligans,' David

reminded him. 'Simon Rubensky thought you would be a good man for the

self-defence corps.'

'Join Rubensky! A P.P.S.! Never will I associate with a bourgeois like

that!'

'He isn't joining.'

The S.S. hesitated. 'I must consult my fellow-members. I must write to

headquarters.'

'Letters do not travel very quickly or safely nowadays.'

'But Party Discipline is everything,' urged Grodsky.

David left him, and hunted up Lerkoff, who proved to be a doctor.

'I want to get together a _Samooborona_ branch,' he explained. 'Herr

Grodsky has half promised----'

'That bourgeois!' cried Lerkoff in disgust. 'We can have nothing to do

with traitors like that!'

'Why are they traitors?' David asked.

'All Territorialists are traitors. We Poali Zion must jealously guard

the sacred flame of Socialism and Nationality, since only in Palestine

can our social problem be solved.'

'Why only in Palestine?' inquired David mildly.

The P.Z. glared. 'Palestine is an unconditional historic necessity.

The attempt to form a Jewish State elsewhere can only result in

failure and disappointment. Do you not see how the folk-instinct leads

them to Palestine? No less than four thousand have gone there this

year.'

'And a hundred and fifty thousand to America. How about that

folk-instinct?'

'Oh, these are the mere bourgeois. I see you are an Americanist

Assimilator.'

'I am no more an A.A. than I am a Z.Z.,' said David tartly, adding

with a smile, 'if there is such a thing as a Z.Z.'

'Would to Heaven there were not!' said Lerkoff fervently. 'It is these

miserable Zioni-Zionists, with their incapacity for political

concepts, who----'

Milovka, amid all its medievalism, possessed a few incongruous

telephones, and one of these now started ringing violently in Dr.

Lerkoff's study.

'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'talk of the devil. There is a man who combines

all the worst qualities of the Z.Z.'s and the Mizrachi. He also

imagines he has a throat disease due to swallowing flecks of the furs

he deals in.' After which harangue he collogued amiably with his

patient, and said he would come instantly.

'Hasn't he the disease, then?' asked David.

'He has no disease except too much vanity and too much money.'

'While you cure him of the first, I should like to try my hand at the

second,' said David laughingly.

'Oh, I'll introduce you, if you let me off.'

'You I don't ask for money, but your medical services would be

invaluable. Milovka is in danger.'

'Milovka to the deuce!' cried Lerkoff. 'Our future lies not in

Russia.'

'I talk of our present. Do let me appoint you army surgeon.'

'Next year--in Jerusalem!' replied the doctor airily.

VI

Lerkoff asked David to wait in another room while he saw Herr Cantberg

professionally. There was an Ark with scrolls of the Law in the room,

betiding a piety and a purse beyond the normal. Presently Lerkoff

reappeared chuckling.

'He knows all about you, you infamous rascal,' he said.

'You have told him?'

'_He_ told _me_; he always knows everything. You are a baptized police

spy, posing as a P.P.S. I suppose he's heard of your visit to Herr

Rubensky.'

'But I shall undeceive him!'

'Not if you want his money. Such a blow to his vanity would cost you

dear. Go in; I did not tell him _you_ were the young man he was

telling me of. I must fly.' The P. Z shook David's hand. 'Don't forget

he's the bourgeois type of Zionist; his object is not to create the

future, but to resurrect the dead past.'

'And mine is to keep alive the living present. Won't you----?' But the

doctor was gone.

The Mizrachi Z.Z. proved unexpectedly small in stature and owl-like in

expression; but his 'Be seated, sir--be seated; what can I do for

you?' had the grand manner. It evoked a resentful chord in David.

'It is something I propose to do for you,' he said bluntly. 'Milovka

is in danger.'

'It is, indeed,' said the M.Z.Z. 'When men like Dr. Lerkoff (in whose

company I was sorry to see you) command a hearing, it is in deadly

danger. An excellent physician, but you know the Talmudical saying:

"Hell awaits even the best of physicians." And he calls himself a

Zionist! Bah! he's more dangerous than that young renegade spy who

dubs himself P.P.S.'

'But he seems very zealous for Zion,' said David uneasily.

Herr Cantberg shook his head dolefully. 'He'd introduce vaccination

and serum-insertions instead of the grand old laws. As if any human

arrangement could equal the wisdom of Sinai! And he actually scoffs at

the Restoration of the Sacrifices!'

'But do you propose to restore them?' David was astonished.

The owl's eyes shone. 'What have we sacrificed ourselves for, all

these centuries, if not for the Sacrifices? What has sanctified and

illumined the long night of our Exile except a vision of the High

Priest in his jewelled breastplate officiating again at the altar of

our Holy Temple? Now at last the vision begins to take shape, the hope

of Israel begins to shine again. Like a rosy cloud, like a crescent

moon, like a star in the desert, like a lighthouse over lonely

seas----'

The telephone impolitely interrupted him. His fine frenzy disregarded

the ringing, but it jangled his metaphors. 'But, alas! our people do

not see clearly!' he broke off. 'False prophets, colossally vain--may

their names be blotted out!--confuse the foolish crowd. But the wheat

is being sifted from the chaff, the fine flour from the bran, the

edible herbs from the evil weeds, and soon my people will see again

that only I----'

The telephone insisted on a hearing. Having refused to buy furs at the

price it demanded, he resumed: 'Territorialist traitors mislead the

masses, but in so far as they may bring relief to our unhappy people,

I wish them Godspeed.'

'But what relief can they bring?' put in David impatiently. 'Without

Self-Defence----'

'Most true. They will but kill off a few hundred people with fever and

famine on some savage shore. But let them; it will all be to the glory

of Zionism----'

'How so?' David asked, amazed.

'It will show that the godless ideals of materialists can never be

realized, that only in its old home can Israel again be a nation. Then

will come the moment for Me to arise----'

'But the English came from Denmark. And they're nation enough!'

The owl blinked angrily. 'We are the Chosen People--no historic

parallel applies to us. As the dove returned to the ark, as the

swallow returns to the lands of the spring, as the tide returns to the

sands, as the stars----'

'Yes, yes, I know,' said David; 'but where is there room in Palestine

for the Russian Jews?'

'Where was there room in the Temple for the millions who came up at

Passover?' retorted Herr Cantberg crushingly.

The telephone here interposed, offering the furs cheaper.

'A godless Bundist!' the owl explained between the deals.

'A Bundist!' David pricked up his ears. From the bravest revolutionary

party in Russia he could surely cull a recruit or two. 'Who is he?'

The owl tried to look noble, producing only a twinkle of cunning. 'Oh,

I can't betray him; after all, he's a brother-in-Israel. Not that he

behaves as such, opposing our candidate for the Duma! Three hundred

and thirteen roubles,' he told the telephone sternly. 'Not a kopeck

more. Eh? What? He's rung off, the blood-sucker!' He rang him up

again. David made a note of the number.

'But what have you Zionists to do with the Parliament in Russia?' he

inquired of the owl.

But the owl was haggling with the telephone. 'Three hundred and

fifteen! What! Do you want to skin _me_, like your martins and

sables?'

'You are busy,' interposed David, fretting at the waste of his day. 'I

shall take the liberty of calling again.'

A telephone-book soon betrayed the Bundist's shop, and David hurried

off to enlist him. The shopkeeper proved, however, so corpulent and

bovine that David's heart sank. But he began bluntly: 'I know you're a

Bundist.'

'A what?' said the fur-dealer.

David smiled. 'Oh, you needn't pretend with me; I'm a fighter myself.'

He let a revolver peep out of his hip-pocket.

'Help! _Gewalt!_' cried the fur-dealer.

A beardless youth came running out of the back room. David laughed.

'Herr Cantberg told me that you were a Bundist,' he explained to the

shopkeeper. 'And I came to meet a kindred spirit. But I was warned

Herr Cantberg is always wrong. Good-morning.'

'Stop!' cried the youth. 'Go in, Reb Yitzchok; let me deal with this

fire-eater.' And as the corpulent man retired with an improbable

alacrity, he continued gravely: 'This time Herr Cantberg was not more

than a hundred versts from the truth.'

David smiled. '_You_ are the Bundist.'

'Hush! Here I am the son-in-law. I study Talmud and eat _Kest_ (free

food). What news from Warsaw?'

'I want both you and your father-in-law,' said David evasively--'his

money and your muscles.'

'He gives no money to the Cause, save unwillingly what I squeeze out

of Cantberg.' The youth permitted himself his first smile. 'When he

deals with that bourgeois at the telephone, I always egg him on to

stand out for more and more, and my profit is half the extra roubles

we extort. But as for myself, my life, of course, is at the disposal

of headquarters.'

David was moved by this refreshing simplicity. He felt a little

embarrassment in explaining that headquarters to him meant

_Samooborona_, not Bund. The youth's countenance changed completely.

'Defend the Jews!' he cried contemptuously. 'What have we to do with

the Jewish bourgeoisie?'

'The Bund is exclusively Jewish, is it not?'

'Merely because we found the rest of the Revolutionary body too clumsy

for words. It was always getting caught, its printing-presses exhumed,

its leaders buried. So we split off, the better to help our

fellow-working-men. But we are a Labour party, not a Jewish party. We

have the whole Russian Revolution on our shoulders; how can we throw

away our lives for the capitalists of the Milovka Ghetto? Then there

are the elections at hand--I have to work for the Left. Ah, here come

some of our bourgeois; ask _them_, if you like. I will keep my

father-in-law out of the shop.'

Two men in close confabulation strolled in, a third disconnected, but

on their heels. With five Jews the concourse soon became a congress.

One of the couple turned out to be a Progressive Pole. He mistook

David for a Zionist, and denounced him for a foreigner.

'We of the P.P.P.,' he said, 'will peacefully acquire equal rights

with our fellow-Poles--nay, we shall be allowed to become Poles

ourselves. But you Zionists are less citizens than strangers, and if

you were logical, you would all----'

'Where's your own logic?' interrupted the disconnected man. 'Why don't

you join the P.P.N. at once?'

The Progressive Pole frowned. 'The Nationalists! They are

anti-Semites. I'd as soon join the League of True Russian Men.'

'And do you trust the P.P.P.?' his companion asked him. 'I tell you,

Nathan, that only in the Progressive Democratic Party, with its belief

in the equality of all nationalities----'

'If you want a Party free from anti-Semites,' David intervened

desperately, 'you must join the _Samoo_----'

'I fear you will get no recruits here,' interrupted the Bundist, not

unkindly. He added with a sneer: 'These gentlemen of the P.P.P. and

the P.P.N. and the P.P.D. are all good Poles.'

'Good Poles!' echoed David no less bitterly. 'And the Poles voted _en

bloc_ to keep every Jewish candidate out of the Duma.'

'Even so we must be better Poles than they,' sublimely replied the

member of the P.P.P. 'We are joining even the Clerical Parties of the

Right for the good of our country. And now that the Party of National

Concentration----'

'Go to the Labour Parties,' advised the P.D. 'There you may perchance

find sturdy young men with the necessary Ghetto taint.' Of the four

great Labour Parties, he proceeded to recommend the P.S.D. as the most

promising for David's purposes. 'Not the Bolshewiki faction,' he

added, 'but the Menshewiki. Recruits might also be found in the

Proletariat or the P.P.S.----'

'No, I've tried the P.P.S.,' said David. 'But at any rate, gentlemen,

since you must all see that the defence of our own lives is no

undesirable object, a little contribution to our funds----'

A violent chorus of protest broke out. It was scarcely credible that

only four men were speaking. All explained elaborately that they had

their own Party Funds, and what a tax it was to run their candidates

for the Duma, not to mention their Party Organ.

'You see,' said the Bundist, 'your only chance lies with the men of no

Party, who have only their own bourgeois pleasures.'

'Are there such?' asked David eagerly.

A universal laugh greeted this inquiry.

'Alas, too many!' everybody told him. 'Our people are such

individualists.'

'But where are these individualists?' cried David desperately.

As if in answer, the bovine proprietor, encouraged by the laughter,

crept in again.

'You still here!' he murmured to David, taken aback.

'Yes, but if you'll give me a subscription for Jewish

Self-Defence----'

'Jewish Emancipation!' cried the fur-dealer. 'Why didn't you say so at

first?' He put his hand in his pocket. 'That's _my_ Party--or rather

the National Group in it, the Anti-Zionist faction.'

The stern Bundist laughed. 'No, he doesn't mean he's a J.E. even of

the other faction.'

His father-in-law took his hand out of his pocket.

David cast a rebuking glance at the Bundist. 'Why did you interfere?

Perhaps my way may prove the shortest to Jewish Emancipation.'

His hearers smiled a superior smile, and the fur-dealer shook his

head. 'I belong also to the Promotion of Education Party--I am for

peaceful methods,' he announced.

'So I perceived,' said David drily.

To be rid of him, the Bundist gave him the address of a man who kept

aloof from Polish politics--a bourgeois cousin of his, Belchevski by

name, who might just as well be killed off in the _Samooborona_.

But even Belchevski turned out to be a Territorialist. David

imprudently told him he had seen his fellow-Territorialist Grodsky,

who had half promised----

'Associate with a brainless, bumptious platform-screamer!' he

screamed. 'He's worse than the hysterical Zionists. It is a territory

we need, not Socialism.'

'I agree. But even more do we need Self-Defence.'

'The only Self-Defence is to leave Russia for a land of our own.'

'Five and a quarter million of us? Why, if two ships--one from Libau

for the north, and one from Odessa for the south--sailed away every

week, each bearing two thousand passengers, it would take over a

quarter of a century. And by that time a new generation of us would

have grown up.'

The Territorialist looked uneasy.

'Besides,' David continued, 'what new country could receive us at the

rate of two hundred thousand a year? It would be a cemetery, not a

country.'

The Territorialist smiled disdainfully. 'Why didn't you say at first

you were a bourgeois? The unconditional historic necessity which has

created the I.T.O. may drive at what pace it will; enough that as soon

as our autonomous land is ready to receive us, I intend to be in the

first shipload.'

'Have you this land, then?'

'Not yet. We've only had time to draw up the Constitution. No

Socialism as that idiot Grodsky imagines. But Democracy. Hereditary

privileges will be abol----'

'But what land _is_ there?'

'Surely there are virgin lands.'

'Even the virgin lands are betrothed!' said David. 'And if there was

one still without a lord and master, it would probably be a very ugly

and sickly virgin. And, anyhow, it will be a long wooing. So in the

meantime let me teach you to fire a pistol.'

'With all my heart--but merely to shoot wild beasts.'

'That is all I am asking for,' said David grimly.

Encouraged by this semi-success, David boldly called upon a

tea-merchant quite unknown to him, and asked for a subscription to buy

revolvers.

The tea-merchant, who was a small stout man, with a black cap of

dubious cut, protested vehemently against such materialistic

measures. Let them put their trust in _Cultur_! To talk

Hebrew--therein lay Israel's real salvation. Let little children once

again lisp in the language of Isaiah and Hosea--that was true Zionism.

'Then don't you want the Holy Land?' asked the astonished David.

'Merely as a centre of _Cultur_. Merely as a University where Herbert

Spencer may be studied in the tongue of the Psalmist. All the rest is

bourgeois Zionism. Political Zionism? Economic Zionism? Pah! Mere

tawdry imitations of heathen politics!'

'Then you agree with the Chovevi Zionists!'

'Not at all. Zion is less a place than a state of mind. We want

Culture--not Agriculture; we want the evolutionary efflorescence of

Israel's inner personality----'

David fled, only to stumble upon a Nationalist who declared that

Zionism was a caricature of true Nationalism, and Territorialism a

cheap philanthropic substitute for it.

'Then why not join in the Self-Defence of our nation?' David asked.

'I will--when we are on our own soil. Your corps is a mere mockery of

the military concept.'

David found no more comfort in his interview with the member of the

L.A.E.R., who was convinced that only in the League for the

Advancement of Equal Rights lay the Jew's true security. It was the

one party whose success was sure, the only one based upon an

unconditional historic necessity.

David's morning was not, however, to pass without the discovery of a

man of no Party. And, strangely enough, he owed his find to the

headache these innumerable Parties caused him. For, going into a

chemist's shop for a powder, he was served by a red-bearded Jew whose

genial face emboldened him to solicit a stock of bandages and

antiseptics--in view of a possible _pogrom_.

'But the _pogroms_ are over,' cried the chemist. 'They were but the

expiring agonies of the old order. The reign of love is at hand, the

brotherhood of man is beginning, and all races and creeds will

henceforth live at peace under the new religion of science.'

David's headache rose again triumphant over the powder. Even a

partisan would be easier to convince than this sort of seer.

'Why, a _pogrom_ is planned for Milovka!'

'Impossible! Europe would not permit it. America would prohibit it.

Did you not see the protest even in the Australian Parliament? Look on

your calendar; we have reached the twentieth century, even according

to the Christian calculation.'

David returned hopelessly to his inn.

Here he saw a burly Jew warming himself at the great stove. Before

even ordering dinner, he made a last desperate attempt to save his

morning.

'Me join a Jewish Self-Defence!' The burly Jew laughed loud and

heartily. 'Why, I'm a True Believer!'

'A _Meshummad_!' David gasped. Modern as he was, the hereditary horror

at the baptized apostate overcame him.

'Yes--_I_'m safe enough,' the Convert laughed. 'I've taken the

cold-water cure. Besides, I'm the censor of Milovka!'

'Eh?' David looked like a trapped animal. The censor smiled on. 'Don't

scowl at me like the other pious zanies. After all, you're an

enlightened young man--a violinist, they tell me; you can't take your

Judaism any more seriously than I take my baptism. Come--have a glass

of vodka.'

'Then, you won't inform?' David breathed.

'Not unless you publish seditious Yiddish. Keep your pistols out of

print. If my own skin is safe, that doesn't mean I'm made of stone

like these Tartar devils. Landlord, the vodka. We'll drink confusion

to them.'

'I--I have none,' stammered the landlord. 'I haven't the right.'

'There are no rights in Russia,' said the censor good-humouredly.

The landlord furtively produced a big bottle.

'But the idea of asking _me_ to join the Self-Defence!' chuckled the

burly Jew. 'You might as well ask me to play the violin!' he added

with a wink.

David felt this was the first really sympathetic hearer he had met

that morning.

VII

The vodka and a good three-course dinner (_Plotki_ for fish,

_Lockschen_ for soup, and _Zrazy_ for joint) brought David new

courage, and again he sallied out to recruit.

This time he sought the market-place--a badly-paved square, bordered

with small houses and congested with stalls and a grey, kaftaned

crowd, amid which gleamed the blue blouses of the ungodly younger

generation. He had hitherto addressed himself to the classes--he would

hear the voice of the people.

On every side the voice babbled of the Duma--babbled happily, as

though the word was a new religious charm or a witch's incantation.

Crude political conversations broke out amid all the business of the

mart. He had only to listen to know how he would be answered:

A blacksmith buying a new hammer stayed to argue with the vendor.

'We must put our trust in the Constitutional Democrats.'

'And why in the Cadets? Give me the Democrats.'

'Nay, we must put our trust only in the Czar.' (This came from the

Rabbi's wife, who was cheapening fish at the next stall.)

'For shame, _Rebbitzin_! Put not your trust in Princes.'

The bystanders hushed down the text-quoter--a fuzzy-headed

butcher-boy.

'Miserable Monarchists!' he sneered. 'We Jews will have no peace till

the Republicans----'

'A Republic without Socialism!' interrupted a girl with a laundry

basket. 'What good's that? Wait till the N.S.'s----'

'The D.R.'s are the only----' interrupted a phylactery-pedlar.

'And who but the Labour group promises equal rights to all

nationalities?' interrupted a girl in spectacles. 'Trust the

_Trudowaja_----'

'To the devil with the Labour Parties!' said an old-clo' man. 'Look

how the Bundists have betrayed us. First they were bone of our bone;

now it is they who by their recklessness provoke the _pogroms_.'

The blacksmith brought his hammer down upon the stall. 'There is only

one party to trust, and that's the C.D.'s,' he repeated.

'Bourgeois!' simultaneously hissed the Republican youth and the

Socialist lass.

'My children!' It was the bland voice of Moses the _Shamash_ (beadle).

'Violence leads to naught. Even the Viborg Manifesto was a mistake. As

a member of the Party of Peaceful Regeneration----'

'Peaceful Regeneration?' shouted the blacksmith. 'A Jew ally himself

with the Reactionary Right, with the----!'

A Cossack galloped recklessly among the serried stalls. The Jews

scattered before him like dogs. The member of the P.P.R. crawled under

a barrow. Even the blacksmith froze up. David drew the moral when the

Cossack had disappeared.

'Peaceful Regeneration!' he cried. 'There will be no Regeneration for

you till you have the courage to leave Russian politics alone and to

fight for yourselves.'

'Ah, you're a Maximalist,' said the beadle.

'No, I am only a Minimalist. I merely want the minimum--that we save

our own lives.'

It was asking too little. The poor Russian Jews, like the rich Russian

Jews, were largely occupied in saving the world, or, at least, Holy

Russia. Crushed by such an excess of Christianity, David wandered

round the market-place, looking into the bordering houses. In one of

the darkest and dingiest sat a cobbler tapping at shoes, surrounded by

sprawling children.

'Peace be to you,' called David.

'Peace have I always,' rejoined the cobbler cheerily.

David looked at the happy dirty children; he had seen their like torn

limb from limb. 'But have you thought of the danger of a _pogrom_?' he

said.

'I have heard whispers of it,' said the cobbler. 'But we

_Chassidim_ have no fear. Our wonder-rabbi, who has power over all the

spheres, will utter a word, and----'

[Illustration: The Jews scattered before him like dogs.]

'A _Tsaddik_ (wonder-rabbi) was killed in the last _pogrom_,' said

David brutally. 'You must join a Self-Defence band.'

The cobbler ceased to tap. 'What! Go for a soldier! When the _Rebbe_

caused me to draw a high number!'

'Our soldiering is not for Russia, but to save us from Russia. We must

all join together!'

'Me join the _Misnagdim!_' cried the cobbler in horror. 'Never will I

join with those who deny the Master-of-the-Name.'

David sighed. Suddenly he perceived a stalwart Jew lounging at a

neighbouring door. He moved towards him, and broached the subject

afresh. The lounger shook his head. 'You may persuade that foolish

_Chassid_,' said he, 'but you cannot expect the rest of us to join

with these heretics, these godless, dancing dervishes, who are capable

even of saying the afternoon prayer in the evening!'

In the next house lived a _Maskil_ (Intellectual), who looked up from

his Hebrew newspaper to ask how he could be associated with a squad of

young ignoramuses. His neighbour was a Karaite, drifted here from

another community. The Karaite pointed out that Self-Defence was

unnecessary in his case, as his sect was scarcely regarded by the

authorities as Jewish. There were other motley Jews living round the

market-place--a Lithuanian, who refused to co-operate with the Polish

'sweet-tooths,' and who was in turn stigmatized by a Pole as

'peel-barley,' in scarification of his reputedly stingy diet. A man

from Odessa dismissed them both as 'cross-heads.' It was impossible

to unite such mutually superior elements. Again weary and heart-sick,

he returned towards the inn.

VIII

But his way was blocked by a turbulent stream of Jewish boys pouring

out of the primary school. They seemed to range in years between eight

and twelve, but even the youngest face wore a stamp of age, and though

the air vibrated with the multiplex chatter which accompanies the

exodus of cramped and muted pupils, the normal elements of joyousness,

of horse-play, of individual freakishness, were absent. It was a

common agitation that loosed all these little tongues and set all

these little ears listening to the passionate harangues of

ringleaders. Instead of hurrying home, the schoolboys lingered in

knots round their favourite orators. A premature gravity furrowed all

the childish foreheads.

With one of these orators David dimly felt familiar, and after

listening for a few minutes to the lad's tirade against the 'autocracy

of the school director' and the 'bureaucratic methods of the

inspector,' it dawned upon him that the little demagogue was his own

landlord's son.

'Hullo, Kalman!' he cried in surprise.

'Hullo, comrade!' replied the boy graciously.

'So you're a revolutionary, eh?' said David, smiling.

'All my class belongs to the Junior Bund,' replied the boy gravely.

'Then you're not so peaceful as papa!'

The lad's aplomb and dignity deserted him. He blushed furiously, and

hung his head in shame of his Moderate parent.

'Never mind, Comrade Kalman,' said another boy, slapping his shoulder

consolingly. 'We've all got some shady relative or another.'

A shrill burst of applause relieved the painful situation. Turning his

head, David found all the childish eyes converged upon a single

figure, a bulging-headed lad who had sprung into a sudden position of

eminence--upon an egg-box. He was clothed in the blue blouse of

Radicalism and irreligion, and the faint down upon his upper lip

suggested that he must be nearing fifteen.

'Comrades!' he was crying. 'In my youth I myself was head boy at this

school of yours, but even in those old days there was the same brutal

autocracy. Your only remedy is a general strike. You must join the

Syndical Anarchists.'

More shrill cheers greeted this fiery counsel. The members of the

Junior Bund waved their satchels frenziedly. Only the landlord's son

stood mute and frowning.

'You don't agree with him,' said David.

'No,' answered the little Bundist gravely. 'I follow Comrade Berl. But

this fellow is popular because he was expelled from the Warsaw

gymnasium as a suspect.'

'You must strike!' repeated the juvenile agitator. 'A strike is the

only way of impressing the proletarian psychology. You must all swear

to attend school no more till your demands are granted.'

'We swear!' came from all sides in a childish treble. But the frown on

the brow of the landlord's son grew darker.

'It is well, comrades,' said the orator. 'Your success will be a

lesson to your elders, too. Only by applying the Marxian philosophy of

history can we upset the bourgeois _Weltanschauung_.'

The landlord's son reached the roof of the egg-box with one angry

bound and stood beside the agitator. 'Marx is an old fogey!' he

shouted. 'What's the good of a passive strike? Let us make a

demonstration against the director; let us----'

'Who told you that?' sneered the orator. 'Comrade Berl or Comrade

Schmerl?'

The boy missed the sarcasm of the rhyme. 'You know Schmerl's a mere

milk-blooded "Attainer,"' he said angrily.

'Believe me,' was the soothing reply, 'even beyond the Five Freedoms

the boycott is a better "Attainer" than the bomb.'

'Traitor! Bourgeois!' And a third boy jumped upon the egg-box. He had

red hair and flaming eyes. 'If Russia is to be saved,' he shrieked,

'it will be neither by the Fivefold Formula of Freedom nor by the

Fourfold Suffrage, but by the Integralists, who alone maintain the

purity of the Social Revolutionary programme, as it was before the

party degenerated into Maximalists and Mini----'

Here the egg-box collapsed under the weight of the three orators, and

they sprawled in equal ignominy. But the storm was now launched. A

score of the schoolboys burst into passionate abstract discussion. The

unity necessary to the school strike was shattered into fragments.

David ploughed his way sadly through the mimetic mob of youngsters,

who were yet not all apes and parrots, he reflected. Just as Jewry had

always had its boy Rabbis, its infant phenomenons of the pulpit,

prodigies of eloquence and holy learning, so it now had its precocious

politicians and its premature sociologists. He was tempted for a

moment to try his recruiting spells upon the juvenile Integralist,

whose red hair reminded him of his girl cousin's, but it seemed cruel

to add to the lad's risks. Besides, had not the boy already

proclaimed--like his seniors--that Russia, not Jewry, was to be saved?

It was an hour of no custom when he got back to the inn, so that he

was scarcely surprised to find host and hostess alike invisible. He

sat down, and began to write a melancholy Report to Headquarters, but

a mysterious and persistent knocking prevented any concentration upon

his task. Presently he threw down his pen, and went to find out what

was the matter. The noises drew him downwards.

The landlord, alarmed at the footsteps, blew out his light.

'It's only I,' said David.

The landlord relit the candle. David saw a cellar strewn with iron

bars, instruments, boxes, and a confused heap of stones.

'Ah, hiding the vodka,' said David, with a smile.

'No, we are widening and fortifying the cellar--also provisioning the

loft.'

'_Samooborona?_' said David.

'Precisely--and a far more effective form than yours, my young

hot-head.'

'Perhaps you are right,' said David wearily. He went back to his

Report. He was glad to think that the little Bundist had an extra

chance. After all, he had achieved something, he would save some

lives. Perhaps he would end by preaching the landlord's way--passive

_Samooborona_ was better than none.

IX

But the Report refused to write itself. It was too dismal to confess

he had not collected a kopeck or one recruit. He picked up a greasy

fragment of a Russian newspaper, and read with a grim smile that the

Octobrists had excluded Jews from their meetings. That reminded him of

Erbstein the Banker, who had bidden him put his trust in them. Would

the Banker be more susceptible now, under this disillusionment? Alas!

the question was, _could_ a Banker be disillusioned? To be

disillusioned is to admit having been mistaken, and Bankers, like

Popes, were infallible.

David bethought himself instead of the owlish Mizrachi, his visit to

whom had been left unfinished.

He threw down his pen, and repaired again to the house with the Ark

and the telephone.

But as he reached Cantberg's door it opened suddenly, and a young man

shot out.

'Never, father!' he was shrieking--'Never do I enter this house

again.' And he banged the door upon the owl, and rushed into David's

arms.

'I beg your pardon,' he said.

'It is my fault,' murmured David politely. 'I was just going to see

your father.'

'You'll find him in a fiendish temper. He cannot argue without losing

it.'

'I hope you've not had a serious difference.'

'He's such a bigoted Zionist--he cannot understand that Zionism is

_ein ueberwundener Standpunkt_.'

'I know.'

'Ah!' said the young man eagerly. 'Then you can understand how I have

suffered since I evolved from Zionism.'

'What are you now, if I may ask?'

'The only thing that a self-respecting Jew can be--a Sejmist, of

course!'

'A Jewish Party?' asked David eagerly. After all the enthusiasm for

Russian politics and world politics he was now pleased with even this

loquacious form of Self-Defence.

'Come and have a glass of tea; I will tell you all about it,' said the

young man, soothed by the prospect of airing his theories. 'We will go

to Friedman's inn--the University Club, we call it, because the

intellectuals generally drink there.'

'With pleasure,' said David, sniffing the chance of recruits. 'But

before we talk of your Party I want to ask whether you can join me in

a branch of the _Samooborona_.'

The young man's face grew overclouded.

'Our Party cannot join any other,' he said.

'But mine isn't a Party--a corps.'

'Not a Party?'

'No.'

'But you have a Committee?'

'Yes--but only----'

'And Branches?'

'Naturally, but simply----'

'And a Party-Chest?'

'The money is only----'

'And Conferences?'

'Of course, but merely----'

'And you read Referats----'

'Not unless----'

'Surely you are a Party!'

'I tell you no. I want all Parties.'

'I am sorry. But I'm too busy just now to consider anything else. Our

Party-Day falls next week, and there's infinite work to be done.'

'Work!' cried David desperately. 'What work?'

'There will be many great speeches. I myself shall not speak beyond an

hour, but that is merely impromptu in the debate. Our Referat-speakers

need at least two hours apiece. We did not get through our last

session till five in the morning. And there were scenes, I tell you!'

'But what is there to discuss?'

'What is there to discuss?' The Sejmist looked pityingly at David.

'The great question of the Duma elections, for one thing. To boycott

or not to boycott. And if not, which candidates shall we support? Then

there is the question of Jewish autonomy in the Russian

Parliament--that is our great principle. Moreover, as a comparatively

new Party, we have yet to thresh out our relations to all the existing

Parties. With which shall we form _blocs_ in the elections? While most

are dangerous to the best interests of the Jewish people and opposed

to the evolution of historic necessity, with some we may be able to

co-operate here and there, where our work intersects.'

'What work?' David insisted again.

'Doesn't our name tell you? We are the _Vozrozhdenie_--the

Resurrectionists--our work is an unconditional historic necessity

springing from the evolution of----!'

The door of the inn arrested the Sejmist's harangue. As he pushed it

open, a babel of other voices made continuance impossible. The noise

came entirely from a party of four, huddled in a cloud of

cigarette-smoke near the stove. In one of the four David recognised

the tea-merchant of the morning, but the tea-merchant seemed to have

no recollection of David. He was still expatiating upon the

Individuality of Israel, which, it appeared, was an essence

independent of place and time. He nodded, however, to the young

Sejmist, observing ironically:

'Behold, the dreamer cometh!'

'I a dreamer, forsooth!' The young man was vexed to be derided before

his new acquaintance. 'It is you _Achad-Haamists_ who must wake up.'

The tea-merchant smiled with a superior air. 'The Vozrozhdenie would

do well to study Achad-Haam's philosophy. Then they would understand

that their strivings are bound to lead to self-constriction, not

self-expression. You were saying that, too, weren't you, Witsky?'

Witsky, who was a young lawyer, demurred. 'What I said was,' he explained

to the Sejmist, 'that in your search for territorial-proletariat practice

you Sejmists have altogether lost the theory. Conversely the S.S.'s have

sacrificed territorial practice to their territorial theory. In our party

alone do you find the synthesis of the practical and the ideal. It

alone----'

'May I ask whom you speak for?' intervened David.

'The newest Jewish Social Democratic Artisan Party of Russia!' replied

Witsky proudly.

'Are you the newest?' inquired David drily.

'And the best. If we desire Palestine as the scene of our social

regeneration, it is because the unconditional historic necessity----'

The Sejmist interrupted sadly: 'I see that our Conference will have

to decide against relations with you.'

'Pooh! The S.D.A.'s will only be the stronger for isolation. Have we

not of ourselves severed our relations with the D.K.'s? In the

evolution of the forces of the people----'

'It is not right, Witsky, that you should mislead a stranger,' put in

his sallow, spectacled neighbour. 'Or perhaps you misconceive the

genetic moments of your own programme. What evolution is clearly

leading to is a Jewish autonomous party in Parliament.'

'But we also say----' began the other two.

The sallow, spectacled man waved them down wearily. 'Who but the

P.N.D.'s are the synthesis of the historic necessities? We subsume the

Conservative elements of the Spojnia Narodowa National League and of

the Party of Real Politics with the Reform elements of the Democratic

League and the Progressive Democrats. Consequently----'

'But the true Polish Party----' began Witsky.

'The _Kolo Polskie_ (Polish Ring) is half anti-Semitic,' began the

Sejmist. The three were talking at once. Through the chaos a thin

piping voice penetrated clearly. It came from the fourth member of the

group--a clean-shaven ugly man, who had hitherto remained silently

smoking.

'As a philosophic critic who sympathizes with all Parties,' he said,

'allow me to tell you, friend Witsky, that your programme needs

unification: it starts as economic, and then becomes dualistic--first

inductive, then deductive.'

'_Moj Panie drogi_ (my dear sir),' intervened David, 'if you

sympathize with all Parties, you will join a corps for the defence of

them all.'

'You forget the philosophic critic equally disagrees with all

Parties.'

David lost his temper at last. 'Gentlemen,' he shouted ironically,

'one may sit and make smoke-rings till the Messiah comes, but I assure

you there is only one unconditional historic necessity, and that is

_Samooborona_.'

And without drinking his tea--which, indeed, the Resurrectionist had

forgotten to order--he dashed into the street.

X

He was but a youth, driven into action by hellish injustice. He had

hitherto taken scant notice of all these Parties that had sprung up

for the confusion of his people--these hybrid, kaleidoscopic

combinations of Russian and Jewish politics--but as he fled from the

philosophers through the now darkening streets, his every nerve

quivering, it seemed to him as if the alphabet had only to be thrown

about like dice to give always the name of some Party or other. He had

a nightmare vision of bristling sects and pullulating factions, each

with its Councils, Federations, Funds, Conferences, Party-Days,

Agenda, Referats, Press-Organs, each differentiating itself with

meticulous subtlety from all the other Parties, each defining with

casuistic minuteness its relation to every contemporary problem, each

equipped with inexhaustible polyglot orators speechifying through

tumultuous nights.

Well, it could not be helped. In the terrible nebulous welter in which

his people found themselves, it was not unnatural that each man

should grope towards his separate ray of light. The Russian, too, was

equally bewildered, and perhaps all this profusion of theories came in

both from the same lack of tangibilities. Both peoples possessed

nothing.

Perhaps, indeed, the ultimate salvation of the Jews lay in identifying

themselves with Russia. But then, who could tell that the patriots who

welcomed them to-day as co-workers would not reject them when the

cause was won? Perhaps there was no hope outside preserving their own

fullest identity. Poor bewildered Russian Jew, caught in the

bewilderments both of the Russian and the Jew, and tangled up

inextricably in the double confusion of interlacing coils!

The Parties, then, were perhaps inevitable; he must make his account

with them. How if he formed a secret _Samooborona_ Committee, composed

equally of representatives of all Parties? But, then, how could he be

sure of knowing them all? He might offend one by omitting or

miscalling it; they formed and re-formed like clouds on the blue. A

new Party, too, might spring up overnight. He might give deadly

affront by ignoring this Jonah's gourd. Even as he thus mused, there

came to him the voices of two young men, the one advocating a

P.P.L.--a new Party of Popular Liberty--the other insisting that the

new _Volksgruppe_ of all anti-Zionist Parties was an unconditional

historic necessity. He groaned.

It seemed to him as he stumbled blindly through the ill-paved alleys

that a plague of doctors of philosophy had broken out over the Pale,

doctrinaires spinning pure logic from their vitals, and fighting

bitterly against the slightest deviation from the pattern of their

webs. But the call upon Israel was for Action. Was it, he wondered

with a flash of sympathy, that Israel was too great for Action; too

sophisticated a people for so primitive and savage a function; too set

in the moulds of an ancient scholastic civilization, so that, even

when Action was attempted, it was turned and frozen into Philosophy?

Or was it rather that eighteen centuries of poring over the Talmud had

unfitted them for Action, not merely because the habit of applying the

whole brain-force to religious minutiae led to a similar

intellectualization of contemporary problems--of the vast new material

suddenly opened up to their sharpened brains--but also because many of

these religious problems related only to the time when Israel and his

Temple flourished in Palestine? The academic leisure and scrupulous

discrimination that might be harmlessly devoted to the dead past had

been imported into the burning present--into things that mattered for

life or death.

Yes, the new generation chopped the logic of Zionism or Socialism, as

the old argued over the ritual of burnt-offerings whose smoke had not

risen since the year 70 of the Christian era, or over the decisions of

Babylonian _Geonim_, no stone of whose city remained standing. The men

of to-day had merely substituted for the world of the past the world

of the future, and so there had arisen logically-perfect structures of

Zionism without Zion, Jewish Socialism without a Jewish social order,

Labour Parties without votes or Parliaments. The habit of actualities

had been lost; what need of them when concepts provided as much

intellectual stimulus? Would Israel never return to reality, never

find solid ground under foot, never look eye to eye upon life?

But as the last patch of sunset faded out of the strip of wintry sky,

David suddenly felt infinitely weary of reality; a great yearning

came over him for that very unreality, that very 'dead past' in which

pious Jewry still lived its happiest hours. Oh, to forget the Parties,

the jangle of politics and philosophies, the _tohu-bohu_ of his

unhappy day! He must bathe his soul in an hour's peace; he would go

back like a child to the familiar study-house of his youth, to the

_Beth Hamedrash_ where the greybeards pored over the great worm-eaten

folios, and the youths rocked in their expository incantations. There

lay the magic world of fantasy and legend that had been his people's

true home, that had kept them sane and cheerful through eighteen

centuries of tragedy--a watertight world into which no drop of outer

reality could ever trickle. There lay Zion and the Jordan, the Temple

and the Angels; there the Patriarchs yet hovered protectively over

their people. Perhaps the Milovka study-house boasted even Cabbalists

starving themselves into celestial visions and graduating for the

Divine kiss. How infinitely restful after the Milovka market-place! No

more, for that day at least, would he prate of Self-Defence and the

horrible Modern.

He asked the way to the _Beth Hamedrash_. How fraternally the sages

and the youths would greet him! They would inquire in the immemorial

formula, 'What town comest thou from?' And when he told them, they

would ask concerning its Rabbi and what news there was. And 'news,'

David remembered with a tearful smile, meant 'new interpretations of

texts.' Yes, this was all the 'news' that ever ruffled that peaceful

world. Man lived only for the Holy Law; the world had been created

merely that the Law might be studied; new lights upon its words and

letters were the only things that could matter to a sensible soul.

Time and again he had raged against the artificiality of this quietist

cosmos, accusing it of his people's paralysis, but to-night every

fibre of him yearned for this respite from the harsh reality. He

rummaged his memory for 'news'--for theological ingeniosities, textual

wire-drawings that might have escaped the lore of Milovka; and as one

who draws nigh to a great haven, he opened the door of the _Beth

Hamedrash_, and, murmuring 'Peace be to you,' dropped upon a bench

before an open folio whose commentaries and super-commentaries twined

themselves lovingly in infinite convolutions round its holy text.

Immediately he was surrounded by a buzzing crowd of youths and

ancients.

'Which Party are you of?' they clamoured eagerly.

XI

The _pogrom_ arrived. But it arrived in a new form for which even

David was unprepared. Perhaps in consequence of the Rabbi's warning to

the Governor, Self-Defence was made ridiculous. No Machiavellian

paraphernalia of _agents provocateurs_, no hooligans with false grey

beards, masquerading as Jewish rioters or blasphemers. Artillery was

calmly brought up against the Jewish quarter, as though Milovka were

an enemy's town.

As the shells began to burst over the close-packed houses, David felt

grimly that an economic Providence had saved him from wasting his time

in training pistoliers.

The white-faced landlord, wringing his hands and saying his _Vidui_

(death-bed confession), offered him and his violin-case a place in

the cellar, but he preferred to climb to the roof, from which with the

aid of a small glass, he had a clear view of the cordon drawn round

the doomed quarter. A ricocheting cannon-ball crashed through the

chimney-pots at his side, but he did not budge. His eyes were glued

upon a figure he had espied amid the cannon.

It was Ezekiel Leven, his whilom lieutenant, with whom he had dreamed

of Maccabean deeds. The new conscript, in the uniform of an

artilleryman, was carefully taking sight with a Gatling gun.

'Poor Ezekiel!' David cried. 'Yours is the most humorous fate of all!

But have you forgotten there is still one form of _Samooborona_ left?'

And with an ironic laugh he turned his pistol upon himself.

The great guns boomed on hour after hour. When the bombardment was

over, the peace of the devil lay over the Ghetto of Milovka. Silent

were all the fiery orators of all the letters of the alphabet; silent

the Polish patriots and the lovers of Zion and the lovers of mankind;

silent the bourgeois and the philosophers, the timber-merchants and

the horse-dealers, the bankers and the Bundists; silent the Socialists

and the Democrats; silent even the burly censor, and the careless

Karaite and the cheerful _Chassid_; silent the landlord and his

revolutionary infant in their fortified cellar; silent the Rabbi in

his study, and the crowds in the market-place.

The same unconditional historic necessity had overtaken them all.

THE END

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

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