he 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,