The second part of the novel opens with Mischa and Mery in St. Petersburg. The climate does not agree with Mery and Mischa arranges that they go to a Finnish village. Here they grow very dear to each other and Mischa is about to propose when Kowalski melodramatically appears. Kowalski and Mery now give expression to their love. Mischa returns to St. Petersburg but cannot pursue his studies because the revolutionary disturbances have closed the university. Kowalski and Mery return to St. Petersburg soon after and are admitted to the bohemian life there. Kowalski meanwhile has become famous. The lovers gradually grow apart and when the revolution breaks out Mery returns to her home for safety, leaving Kowalski never to see him again. Mischa has returned home also. After a massacre of the Jews in the Grube in which Rahel, the sister of David, is outraged, he sees that in marrying her lies his only means of becoming one of the Jews whom he was so desirous of helping. So despite the fact that he still loves Mery and she is now willing to be his wife, he marries Rahel. Mery after a period of restlessness in the little town returns to St. Petersburg to join the bohemian group there.
THE outstanding excellence of the novel lies in its characterization. The characters live before us and we see the workings of their minds and emotions with remarkable clarity. The mental struggles of Mischa between his love for Mery and his desire to help the oppressed Jews, always inhibited by inherited powerlessness to act; the carefree, art-centered, egotistical Kowalski; the adolescent romanticism and sympathetic insight of Mery; the cynically idealistic and self-sacrificing Dr. Lazarus—these constitute the real substance and artistic worth of the book. The pictures of contemporary Russian Jewish life are of marked interest, especially to the western reader. The following passages are descriptive of the Grube or ghetto and characterize the condition of the poorer Jews in the towns throughout Russia:
"The sun seldom shone into the valley. Old people lost their vision early and the percentage of child mortality was enormous. But even those who remained alive under these conditions were weak, sick, half crippled people; impoverished figures with crooked legs, large heads and weak arms crept through the streets.
"And in spite of everything the inhabitants never left their grave (Grube) and made no attempt to find a better, more healthy home. A sort of sick love bound them to their unfortunate homes, and like a curse it rested on each who was born in the valley—that he could not free himself from it and that until the end of his days he must eke out his sad existence there."
After the massacre Mischa walks through the Grube:
"The murmur of prayers re-echoed to his ears. From the little windows of the synagogue came the soft gleam of candles. He entered. Deep as in a cellar, as miserable and abandoned as themselves, lay the little house of prayer of the wretched inhabitants of the Grube. The walls were bare. The Ark of the Covenant was hung with only a piece of coarse linen. In front of the broken 'altar' stood an old man in a torn prayer shawl and prayed before the small penny candles. The room was full of worshippers, all inhabitants of the Grube. Their prayer was a groaning, and sighing, and screaming, out of tormented hearts. It rose up to the low ceiling and hung over them all like a heavy black cloud."
And then Mischa knew his people:
"He felt his strength to bear everything; sorrow and misery and persecution. He saw his people doing the work of servants through the centuries, from the farthest past to the present day. He saw the bare walls of the synagogue, the wretched Ark of the Covenant, he heard the sad melody of their prayers which grew to despairing screams. . . . He had the feeling that he was with his people in a large ship. For eternities this ship was on a voyage of searching. It landed at harbors always new and strange: Egypt, Palestine, Babylon, Arabia, Spain, at Turkey, at Holland and Russia. And to-day is also a test day for the Jews. And also this day will end, and many, many, but the ship will always sail on, will carry them all to new harbors into the farthest future."