Ghetto Comedies Part 57

'Trust the Octobrists,' he said cheerily.

'I'd rather trust our revolvers.'

The Banker's cigar fell from his mouth.

'An anarchist! like my nephew Simon!'

David began to realize the limitations of the financial intellect. He saw that to get ideas into Bankers' brains is even more difficult than to get cheques from their pockets. Still, there was that promising scapegrace Simon! He hurried out on his scent, and ran him to earth in a cosy house near the town gate. Simon practised law, it appeared, and his surname was Rubensky.

The young barrister, informed of his uncle's accusation of anarchism, laughed contemptuously. 'Bourgeois! Every idea that makes no money he calls anarchy. As a matter of fact, I'm the exact opposite of an anarchist: I'm a socialist. I belong to the P.P.S. We're not even revolutionary like the S.R.'s.'

'I'm afraid I'm a great ignoramus,' said David. 'I don't even know what all these letters stand for.'

Simon Rubensky looked pityingly as at a bourgeois.

'S.R.'s are the silly Social Revolutionists; I belong to the Polish Party of Socialism.'

'Ah!' said David, with an air of comprehension. 'And I belong to the Jewish Party of Self-Defence! I hope you'll join it too.'

The young lawyer shook his head. 'A separate Jewish party! No, no!

That would be putting back the clock of history. The non-isolation of the Jew is an unconditional historic necessity. Our emanc.i.p.ation must be worked out in common with Russia's.'

'Oh, then you agree with your uncle!'

'With that bourgeois! Never! But we are Poles of the Mosaic Faith--Jewish Poles, not Polish Jews.'

'The hooligans are murdering both impartially.'

'And the Intellectuals equally,' rejoined Simon.

'But the Intellectuals will triumph over the Reactionaries,' said David pa.s.sionately, 'and then both will trample on the Jews. Didn't the Hungarian Jews join Kossuth? And yet after Hungary's freedom was won----'

Simon's wife and sister here entered the room, and he introduced David smilingly as a Ghetto reactionary. The young women--sober-clad students from a Swiss University--opened wide shocked eyes.

'So young, too!' Simon's wife murmured wonderingly.

'Would you have me stand by and see our people murdered?'

'Certainly,' she said, 'rather than see the _Zeitgeist_ set back. The unconditional historic necessity will carry us on of itself towards a better social state.'

'There you go with your Marx and your Hegel!' cried Simon's sister. 'I object to your historic materialism. With Fichte, I a.s.sert----'

'She is an S.R.,' Simon interrupted her to explain.

'Ah,' said David. 'Not a P.P.S. like you and your wife.'

'Simon, did you tell him I was a P.P.S.?' inquired his wife indignantly.

'No, no, of course not. A Ghetto reactionary does not understand modern politics. My wife is an S.D., I regret to say.'

'But I have heard of Social Democrats!' said David triumphantly.

Simon's sister sniffed. 'Of course! Because they are a bourgeois party--risking nothing, waiting pa.s.sively till the Revolution drops into their hands.'

'The name of bourgeois would be better applied to those who include the landed peasants among their forces,' said Simon's wife angrily.

'If I might venture to suggest,' said David soothingly, 'all these differences would be immaterial if you joined the _Samooborona_. I could make excellent use of you ladies in the ambulance department.'

'Outrageous!' cried Simon angrily. 'Our place is shoulder to shoulder with our fellow-Poles.'

Simon's sister intervened gently. Perhaps the mention of ambulances had awakened sympathy in her S.R. soul. 'You ought to look among your own Party,' she said.

'My Party?'

'The Ghetto reactionaries--Zionists, Territorialists, Itoists, or whatever they call themselves nowadays.'

'Are there any here?' cried David eagerly.

'One heard of nothing else,' cried Simon bitterly. 'Fortunately, when the police found they weren't really emigrating to Zion or Uganda, the meetings were stopped.'

David eagerly took down names. Simon particularly recommended two young men, Grodsky and Lerkoff, who had at least the grace of Socialism.

But Grodsky, David found, had his own panacea. 'Only the S.S.'s,' he said, 'can save Israel.'

'What are S.S.'s?' David asked.

'Socialistes Sionistes.'

'But can't there be Socialism outside Zion?'

'Of course. We have evolved from Zionism. The unconditional historic necessity is for a land, but not for a particular land. Our Minsk members already call themselves S.T.'s--Socialist Territorialists.'

'But while awaiting your territory, there are the hooligans,' David reminded him. 'Simon Rubensky thought you would be a good man for the self-defence corps.'

'Join Rubensky! A P.P.S.! Never will I a.s.sociate with a bourgeois like that!'

'He isn't joining.'

The S.S. hesitated. 'I must consult my fellow-members. I must write to headquarters.'

'Letters do not travel very quickly or safely nowadays.'

'But Party Discipline is everything,' urged Grodsky.

David left him, and hunted up Lerkoff, who proved to be a doctor.

'I want to get together a _Samooborona_ branch,' he explained. 'Herr Grodsky has half promised----'

'That bourgeois!' cried Lerkoff in disgust. 'We can have nothing to do with traitors like that!'