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‘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.