At the sound of the shot, an officer did come. He led the soldier away. Two days later, the fellow was back at his post, looking meaner than ever. Nobody said a word to him, not if he could help it.

Enos had another reason to hope exchange came soon. It was already too late for his comrade.

D ashing in spats and a double-breasted herringbone overcoat with a breast pocket slanted at the latest angle-or so he said-Herman Bruck came into the Socialist Party headquarters with a copy of the New York Times in one hand. He quickly hung his homburg on a tree and got out of the overcoat. It was icy outside, but very much the reverse with a couple of coal stoves and a steam radiator heating the office.

He went over to Flora Hamburger and set the newspaper on the desk in front of her. "Bully speech by Senator Debs," he said, pointing. The newsprint had smudged on the gray calfskin of his gloves.

Flora bent over it. "Let me see," she said. Debs had been the first Socialist elected to the Senate, coming out of Indiana when the Republicans broke up in disarray in the aftermath of the Second Mexican War. He'd been there ever since, and twice run unsuccessfully for president.

"'Our losses in a few brief months have exceeded all those in the War of Secession, till now our bloodiest conflict,'" Flora read aloud. " 'Soon they will exceed those in all our previous wars combined. And for what? For what, I ask, Mr. President? When we fought to keep the Confederate States from abandoning our Union, we fought for a principle: that the covenant of the United States, once made, was indissoluble. Here, on what great principle do we stand? That the European alliances with which we have entangled ourselves be honoured when even to be in them is to hold no honour? How splendid! How noble! What a fine principle for which to crucify mankind on a cross of blood and iron!'" She looked up in admiration. Several people who'd been listening to her broke into applause. "That is strong stuff," she said.

Bruck nodded, as proud as if he'd made the speech himself. "When Debs crosses swords with TR, sparks always fly."

Flora nodded. She read on down the column to the reply by Senator Lodge, who often spoke as Roosevelt 's surrogate in the Senate. Halfway through the summary of his remarks, she winced and softly quoted one sentence: "'The distinguished gentleman's remarks on the power of principle would seem more forceful had he not, in this very chamber, recently voted to support and finance the war he now so eloquently professes to despise.'" Her chin went up in defiance. "I knew that was a mistake, and I said so at the time."

"So you did," Bruck admitted. He saw the smudges on his gloves and took them off. His hands were winter pale. He spread them. "But what could we do? If we'd voted against the credits, we wouldn't have had five Socialists left in Congress after the November elections. As things are, we picked up half a dozen seats."

"What good does it do us to pick them up if we don't act like Socialists once we have them?" Flora said.

A secretary, an Italian woman named Maria Tresca, who, along with her sister Angelina, was one of the few gentiles in the Tenth Ward office, quoted from the New Testament: "'What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'"

It was not language commonly heard in the Socialist Party office, but no less effective for that. Herman Bruck spread his hands again. "We've been talking about that ever since the Party decided to run for office and accept seats if we won. Does working within the government advance the cause of the proletariat or delay the revolution?"

The argument that spawned kept the office lively the rest of the day. While Bruck was putting on his hat and overcoat to leave for the evening, he asked Flora, "Would you like to go to the moving pictures with me? The Orpheum is showing the new play with Sarah Bernhardt in it."

"I can't, Herman," she answered, also buttoning her coat. "We're having cousins over for supper, and I promised my mother I wouldn't be late."

Herman Bruck made a sour face. Maybe he suspected the cousins were fictitious, as in fact they were. That, though, wasn't the sort of thing it was politic to say. "Another time, maybe," he mumbled, and hurried out the door.

Angelina Tresca sent Flora an amused look. She returned one of resolute innocence. The less you admitted to anyone, the less you had to worry about getting to the wrong ears. Flora waited a few moments so she wasn't likely to run into Bruck on the street, then went downstairs and walked home to her flat.

Cooking odors filled the hallway as she came up to her door. When she opened it, more came out. Sweet-and-sour stuffed cabbage tonight, she thought. Along with that savory scent came smoke from her father's pipe. It was harsher than it had been. He'd smoked Mail Pouch for years, but the Virginia and Kentucky tobaccos that went into the blend weren't available any more. Now he fed the pipe with something called Corn Cake, which smelled, as far as Flora was concerned, like burning corn husks. She kept quiet about that, not wanting to hurt his feelings.

Esther was in the kitchen, helping their mother. David and Isaac bent over a chess board at the table from which they would soon be evicted so everyone could eat supper. Flora glanced at the game. Isaac was a couple of pawns up, which was unusual; his brother beat him more often than not. The two mental warriors said hello without looking up from their battlefield.

"And how are things with you today?" Benjamin Hamburger asked.

"All right," Flora answered. "I'm tired." The moment the words were out of her mouth, she felt ashamed of them. Sophie was the one who had the right to complain about being tired: she worked longer hours at a harder job for less pay than her younger sister. Especially since the start of the useless, stupid war, Sophie had been dragging herself home exhausted every night.

As if thinking about her were enough to bring her home, Sophie came in just then, worn out as usual. She sank down onto the divan couch with a soft sigh and a posture so limp, it said she didn't want to have to get up again for anything in the world.

Esther stuck her head out of the kitchen and said, "Oh, good, that was you. I thought I heard the door. Ready in a minute." Sophie nodded wearily. She'd even been too tired to eat lately, which alarmed her mother. Esther's eyes flicked to her brothers. Pointedly, she repeated, "Ready in a minute." When that didn't shift them, she started setting the table. They had to move the chess set in a hurry to keep from having a plate land on top of it.

Supper almost made Flora wish she'd gone out with Herman Bruck. Her family didn't really want to hear about Socialist Party doings, not even her father. All any of them seemed to care about was ways to rise into the bourgeoisie, not how to aid and radicalize the vast masses of the proletariat. She sadly shook her head. Her own flesh and blood, class enemies. They didn't even try to understand the goals toward which she worked.

After supper, she and Esther washed and dried dishes. Esther wanted to talk about how the war was going. Flora didn't. That it was going at all was bitter as wormwood to her.

As soon as she'd put the last fork in its drawer, she got her coat and went out onto the fire escape. Her mother's voice pursued her: "We're not good enough for you?" But that wasn't it, even if her family thought it was. It was just that she didn't fit in among them, and the harder they tried to drive her back into what had been her place, the less it suited her.

It was chilly out there, but not intolerable. The nip of January air on her cheeks made her feel as if she were in a sleigh gliding down some quiet country road, not in the middle of the most crowded part of the biggest city in the United States, though she had to ignore the racket from her building and all the others to make the illusion complete.