The three belong to the heroes. Who shall tell how they fought with themselves, who shall say how they suffered, and what they endured? "I have done what you wished," says the Rabbi, and his voice does not shake, and his lips do not tremble. "God's Name be praised!" And all the Jews ate that day, they ate and wept. Rays of light beam forth from the remembrance, and spread all around, and reach the table at which I sit and write these words. Once again: three people ate. At the moment when the awesome scene in the Shool is before me, there are three Jews sitting in a room opposite the Shool, and they also are eating. They are the three "enlightened" ones of the place: the tax-collector, the inspector, and the teacher. The window is wide open, so that all may see; on the table stands a samovar, glasses of red wine, and eatables. And the three sit with playing-cards in their hands, playing Preference, and they laugh and eat and drink. Do they also belong to the heroes? MICHA JOSEPH BERDYCZEWSKI Born, 1865, in Berschad, Podolia, Southwestern Russia; educated in Yeshibah of Volozhin; studied also modern literatures in his youth; has been living alternately in Berlin and Breslau; Hebrew, Yiddish, and German writer, on philosophy, aesthetics, and Jewish literary, spiritual, and timely questions; contributor to Hebrew periodicals; editor of Bet-Midrash, supplement to Bet-Ozar ha-Sifrut; contributed Ueber den Zusammenhang zwischen Ethik und Aesthetik to Berner Studien zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte; author of two novels, Mibayit u-Mihuz, and Mahanaim; a book on the Hasidim, Warsaw, 1900; Juedische Ketobim vun a weiten Korov, Warsaw; Hebrew essays on miscellaneous subjects, eleven parts, Warsaw and Breslau (in course of publication). MILITARY SERVICE "They look as if they'd enough of me!" So I think to myself, as I give a glance at my two great top-boots, my wide trousers, and my shabby green uniform, in which there is no whole part left. I take a bit of looking-glass out of my box, and look at my reflection. Yes, the military cap on my head is a beauty, and no mistake, as big as Og king of Bashan, and as bent and crushed as though it had been sat upon for years together. Under the cap appears a small, washed-out face, yellow and weazened, with two large black eyes that look at me somewhat wildly. I don't recognize myself; I remember me in a grey jacket, narrow, close-fitting trousers, a round hat, and a healthy complexion. I can't make out where I got those big eyes, why they shine so, why my face should be yellow, and my nose, pointed. And yet I know that it is I myself, Chayyim Blumin, and no other; that I have been handed over for a soldier, and have to serve only two years and eight months, and not three years and eight months, because I have a certificate to the effect that I have been through the first four classes in a secondary school.