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‘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.