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‘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.’