Ghetto Comedies Part 58

'Why are they traitors?' David asked.

'All Territorialists are traitors. We Poali Zion must jealously guard the sacred flame of Socialism and Nationality, since only in Palestine can our social problem be solved.'

'Why only in Palestine?' inquired David mildly.

The P.Z. glared. 'Palestine is an unconditional historic necessity.

The attempt to form a Jewish State elsewhere can only result in failure and disappointment. Do you not see how the folk-instinct leads them to Palestine? No less than four thousand have gone there this year.'

'And a hundred and fifty thousand to America. How about that folk-instinct?'

'Oh, these are the mere bourgeois. I see you are an Americanist a.s.similator.'

'I am no more an A.A. than I am a Z.Z.,' said David tartly, adding with a smile, 'if there is such a thing as a Z.Z.'

'Would to Heaven there were not!' said Lerkoff fervently. 'It is these miserable Zioni-Zionists, with their incapacity for political concepts, who----'

Milovka, amid all its medievalism, possessed a few incongruous telephones, and one of these now started ringing violently in Dr.

Lerkoff's study.

'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'talk of the devil. There is a man who combines all the worst qualities of the Z.Z.'s and the Mizrachi. He also imagines he has a throat disease due to swallowing flecks of the furs he deals in.' After which harangue he collogued amiably with his patient, and said he would come instantly.

'Hasn't he the disease, then?' asked David.

'He has no disease except too much vanity and too much money.'

'While you cure him of the first, I should like to try my hand at the second,' said David laughingly.

'Oh, I'll introduce you, if you let me off.'

'You I don't ask for money, but your medical services would be invaluable. Milovka is in danger.'

'Milovka to the deuce!' cried Lerkoff. 'Our future lies not in Russia.'

'I talk of our present. Do let me appoint you army surgeon.'

'Next year--in Jerusalem!' replied the doctor airily.

VI

Lerkoff asked David to wait in another room while he saw Herr Cantberg professionally. There was an Ark with scrolls of the Law in the room, betiding a piety and a purse beyond the normal. Presently Lerkoff reappeared chuckling.

'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: "h.e.l.l 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 ma.s.ses, but in so far as they may bring relief to our unhappy people, I wish them G.o.dspeed.'

'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 sh.o.r.e. But let them; it will all be to the glory of Zionism----'

'How so?' David asked, amazed.

'It will show that the G.o.dless 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 Pa.s.sover?' retorted Herr Cantberg crus.h.i.+ngly.

The telephone here interposed, offering the furs cheaper.

'A G.o.dless Bundist!' the owl explained between the deals.

'A Bundist!' David p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. From the bravest revolutionary party in Russia he could surely cull a recruit or two. 'Who is he?'

The owl tried to look n.o.ble, producing only a twinkle of cunning. 'Oh, I can't betray him; after all, he's a brother-in-Israel. Not that he behaves as such, opposing our candidate for the Duma! Three hundred and thirteen roubles,' he told the telephone sternly. 'Not a kopeck more. Eh? What? He's rung off, the blood-sucker!' He rang him up again. David made a note of the number.

'But what have you Zionists to do with the Parliament in Russia?' he inquired of the owl.