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 überwundener standpunkt.'

'i know.'

'ah!' said the young man eagerly. 'then you can [415]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!'

[416]'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 [417]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 [418]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.'

[419]'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.