The Maccabaean

THE story I am going to tell you, occurred in the little village of Kabuka in Russia, the owner of which in the days of my grandfather, was Stephan Stephanovich, a young man of about thirty, who was called Stephan the Mysterious. Stephan was the son of a Jewish apostate who had bought the village and the land adjacent to it from the original owner, and, in order to be eligible to receive the title to the land, had allowed himself to be baptized as well as his only son, then only nine years old.

After his conversion, the father of Stephan spent his life in feverish activity on his domains, and when he came to die, it was said, he rose from his bed by a superhuman, delirious effort, and with one blow stretched to the ground the priest who was standing over him and muttering prayers.

It was not long before his son, who was twenty-seven when he succeeded to his father's estate, became known as the Mysterious. He had no intercourse with the landed gentry of the neighborhood, and lived the life of a recluse. Rumors were current that for days he would shut himself up in his private chamber, and on dark nights he was sometimes seen sitting on the roof of his manor-house and gazing into the sky. Sometimes on a Sunday he would present himself in the nearest church, kneel in an obscure corner and remain in that attitude for hours even after the worshippers had all deserted the rude sand-strewn hall. He had but one passion, which would break out periodically, and that was for the hunt. On such occasions the whole country-side would ring for days with the shouting of his lackeys, the neighing of horses, the baying of hounds, and the scattered cracking of guns.

A peasant in arrears for his quit-rent or eager for come favor, would sometimes call on him bringing his fattest goose and prettiest daughter. Now, Stephan would never even glance at the girl!

'A mysterious man,' the peasants would drawl and shake their heads as they sip-

ped their vodka in the Inn of Sender the Jew.

Sender the innkeeper was the only Jew in the village, a thick-set individual, with bushy beard and eyebrows, a taciturn manner and a powerful fist. The house which he occupied, and which he rented from Stephan was adjacent to the manor; but Sender did not find him a hard landlord at all. Stephan, would sometimes, in private, harangue against the Jewish religion; so much so, that even Sender, stolid and stoical, silent by nature and policy, would be amazed at his landlord's feverish denunciations. When, however, it came to affairs between landlord and tenant, or to protecting the innkeeper against the malice of the peasants, Sender would be equally surprised at Stephan's leniency and friendship. The malice proverbially attributed to renegades was certainly lacking in Stephan the Mysterious.

Some of you, perhaps, know of the custom among Jews living in scattered villages to travel for worship on the Holy Days to some center where they can assemble at least to the number of ten, the minimum required for holding services. And any good Jew would consider it a great misfortune to be obliged to worship on the Day of Atonement without a minyan. For many years Sender's inn served as the rendezvous for this purpose of all the Jews living in the four neighboring villages. And rarely did this improvised synagogue of Sender's contain more than the indispensable minimum. Once or twice, it happened that the tenth Jew came tearing up to the inn on his vehicle or on horseback, after the tiny congregation were ready to give up hope.

One Yom Kipper eve, the great calamity that so often threatened, actually struck. The hazy autumn night was already advanced, the time for beginning the Kol Nidre had arrived, but the congregation still numbered no more than nine. Chaim, the forest-warden, whom one of those present had actually passed on the road, both on