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.

[396]'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 [397]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.

[398]'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 [399]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 [400]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 [401]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.

[402]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 [403]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 [404]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 [405]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 [406]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.