“I went to work with a Jewish baker. He did not get drunk and he did not beat his wife; when he looked at her his face beamed and he was kind to her always. She was sick and he carried her to her bed as if she were a baby—her body was shrivelled. It wasn’t lust he felt, perhaps it was pity. He told me she had been sick since their only child was born. Miriam was sixteen years of age and pity does not last sixteen years. It must have been something better than pity.
“Miriam was growing into womanhood. It seemed that every day I saw her she grew lovelier. Yet I never thought about her body; it was her mind. She taught me how to read German—she opened the doors of a new world to me. We read many good books together. She told me to go to the theatre. I saw Romeo and Juliet.
“It was not Miriam’s mind after all—it was something else. I know it was not her body—I desired something more. I loved her.
“I spoke to her father—he told me that I could not marry her for I was a Christian. I went to the rabbi. I wanted to be a Jew so I could marry her.
“It is hard to get into Judaism. I wonder whether it is hard to get out?
“A little drop of water makes a man a Christian no matter what he was. The Jews want blood.
“I was willing to give it but the baker journeymen heard about it and I was called before the guild. They drowned my love with beer. They awakened the beast within me. I became like my father—‘Bestia Sum.’
“In the year 1865 war broke out and I, as an Austrian subject, was sent across the border. I was drafted into the army and taught how to kill the Prussians. That was all I seemed good for, and I did it as fast as the Prussians would let me. They had better guns and were sober; they had generals, we had the Hapsburghs.
“The Hapsburghs said, ‘Let them come in,’ and the generals came. Then the Hapsburghs said: ‘We’ll drive them out,’ but they didn’t. This was our last stand and we capitulated. I have stayed here ever since.
“I have capitulated to the Germans, to force and to reason. I shall never capitulate to the priest and to the church.”