THE JEW[ToC]
Mikail Petrovich Artzibashef, the author of Sanine was born in the year 1878 in Southern Russia. He is widely read both in his own country and outside of its borders. In 1905 he took part in the revolutionary movement, and was indicted, but escaped punishment because of the temporary success of the popular movement at the end of that year.
THE JEW
(A STORY)
By M. ARTZIBASHEF
It so happened that the second platoon of the third squad of the Ashkadar regiment found itself completely cut off from the main body of the army, and this without the loss of a single cartridge or soldier.
How this came about, and why a group of men, fifteen or twenty strong, had suddenly become an independent fighting unit, none of them could tell.
At the outset, the entire Ashkadar regiment zealously trudged throughout the long autumn night along an interminable road, leading no one knew where, into the dark, damp, and hostile distance. To smoke or to converse was forbidden. In the dark, the black mass of the regiment, bristling with its bayonets like some huge, porcupine-like creature, crawled steadily onward, filling the air with the shuffling of innumerable feet. The men kept stumbling over each other, and swore viciously in half tones; they slipped in the mud and sank knee-deep into the wheel-tracks filled with cold water. "Some road!" they sighed quietly.