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Perhaps the Milovka study-house boasted even Cabbalists starving themselves into celestial visions and graduating for the Divine kiss. How infinitely restful after the Milovka market-place! No more, for that day at least, would he prate of Self-Defence and the horrible Modern. He asked the way to the Beth Hamedrash. How fraternally the sages and the youths would greet him!
It appeared that Milovka, though remote from the great centres of disturbance, had begun to seethe with political activity, and even to publish a newspaper, so that it was necessary to show by a first-class massacre that true Russian men were still loyal to God and the Czar. Milovka lay off the pogrom route, and had not of itself caught the contagion; careful injection of the virus was necessary.
Besides, I'm the censor of Milovka! 'Eh? David looked like a trapped animal. The censor smiled on. 'Don't scowl at me like the other pious zanies. After all, you're an enlightened young man a violinist, they tell me; you can't take your Judaism any more seriously than I take my baptism. Come have a glass of vodka. 'Then, you won't inform? David breathed.
Ezekiel Leven was indeed an ideal lieutenant, for he belonged to one of the rare farming colonies, and was already handy with his gun. He had even some kinsfolk in Milovka, and by their aid the Rabbi and a few householders were hurriedly prevailed upon to assemble in the bedroom on a business declared important.
No Machiavellian paraphernalia of agents provocateurs, no hooligans with false grey beards, masquerading as Jewish rioters or blasphemers. Artillery was calmly brought up against the Jewish quarter, as though Milovka were an enemy's town.
Moreover, the town was two-thirds Jewish, and consequently harder to fever with the lust of Jewish blood. David Ben Amram was hurriedly despatched to Milovka to organize a local self-defence corps. He carried as many pistols as could be stowed away in a violin-case, which, with a music-roll holding cartridges, was an obtrusive feature of his luggage. The winter was just beginning, but mildly.
We have the whole Russian Revolution on our shoulders; how can we throw away our lives for the capitalists of the Milovka Ghetto? Then there are the elections at hand I have to work for the Left. Ah, here come some of our bourgeois; ask them, if you like. I will keep my father-in-law out of the shop. Two men in close confabulation strolled in, a third disconnected, but on their heels.
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. 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.
Seated astride the old-fashioned bench of the vehicle, and grasping his violin-case like a loving musician, as they jolted over the rough roads, he broached the subject of the Jewish massacres. 'Bê! commented the driver, shrugging his shoulders. As every man thought every other man mortal, so Milovka regarded the massacres as a terrible reality for other towns.
He rummaged his memory for 'news' for theological ingeniosities, textual wire-drawings that might have escaped the lore of Milovka; and as one who draws nigh to a great haven, he opened the door of the Beth Hamedrash, and, murmuring 'Peace be to you, dropped upon a bench before an open folio whose commentaries and super-commentaries twined themselves lovingly in infinite convolutions round its holy text.
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