The Maccabaean

JACOB LEVI had not yet made "a reputation," and he had risked what little credit he had with indulgent friends by reading to the club his latest story. Twenty men had sat around, with ears wide open, and faculties at work, whilst Levi had patiently read into the circle of smoke. He was young and nervous, his spectacles were often dampened by the smoke of cigar, pipe and cigarette; and he did not know whether the applause that greeted him at the end was respect, sympathy, or real appreciation. They were not cruel in the club; on the contrary, the members were known to be keenly appreciative of talent; but they were intensely critical, and the criticism was to follow. Indeed, one stoutish member, Max Dyer, had already reduced the story to its elements, and quoted ten parallels, professing the while to be no keen reader of stories.

Big bearded Rubenson, sitting and dreaming into the flaming logs, called attention to at least four mistakes in incidental matters of ritual observance.

Haftel complained of the lack of mental perception on the part of the hero— heroes and heroines never seemed to see the length of their Jewish noses. He never read stories except under compulsion.

Myron was excited. He combed his hair with his hand, and flung at his audience: "The fact is, the Jew has no perception of art, the Jew has no romance, he is not aesthetic, and he does not seek the beautiful. He can't bear being written of by a Jew. When a Jew writes about Jews he is hated because he introduces second class Jewish villains."

Morgenstein, his slight, girlish face

all aglow, flung in, "You want first-class Jewish villains!"

"Certainly, and if there is no real Jewish villain, let our writers dry their pens. We want the lyric quality, not cleverness in stories. The story is good—never mind the details—only I wish it wasn't Jewish and it wasn't petty—"

Kowner pressed him into his seat. "Myron wants the cake, and another to eat, and can't pay for both. Jewish stories are limited by Jewish conditions, and what is really romantic never comes to the surface, only the commonplace floats on top of the stream."

That was only the beginning. Jacobs discovered that the moon was only at its first quarter at the period of the story, and the author had made it appear full.

Jacob Levi resolved never to face the ordeal again, and never to publish the story; but the talk went on independent of his existence, and the argument continued for hours until all the Jewish pens had been broken into useless splinters.

The young writer returned home that night weakened in his resolve to be a writer. He felt no call to authorship.

Now he knew what keen intelligence could be brought to bear on one poor little story which had flowed from his pen so slowly, each sentence of which had been chiselled into that caustic form which the master, he was humbly following, had made the style for Ghetto tales. He plodded back to his narrow little room. It looked out on an old grimy yard; and next to him, in an equally small room, lived an oldish man who had taught him Talmud when he was in the mood to be taught—quite some years since—and still provided him