FullReads

‘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.

‘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 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.