“Ah, by the way! While I think of it!... You realize that, because of this little affair, I owe a certain courtesy to the Marquis de Meuze.... Would it hurt your feelings to lunch here with him?”
“Between you and me, I would care to,” the Galician grunted after a pause.
“Why not? Oh! I can guess.... The Marqui opinions! Well, first of all, if there is nothing else to stop you, you may rest assured.... I have already told him you were a good Jew.”
“My dear friend, I wish you would not use that expression!” Schleifmann said nervously. “Have I not taught you that there are no bad Jews? At the most, it can only be said that there are degenerate Jews....”
“Besides,” Cyprien went on, “the Marquis seemed to me very much calmed down on this subject! If you knew all the kind things he said concerning several of your co-religionists!”
“It was one of two things,” Schleifmann said dryly. “Either he was laughing at you or he is a bad Catholic.”
“He! He adores the curés!”
“He may adore the curés,” the Galician retorted, in the same tone. “But, as a good Catholic, he cannot love the Jews.... Catholic religion means universal religion.... So long as there remains one heretic on the globe, the crusade remains open.... Wriggle out of this if you can!... And is it not natural? Religions thrive on fanaticism alone and perish through tolerance alone.”
“So, you approve of the Saint Bartholomew, the Inquisition, and the Dragonnades?” exclaimed Cyprien, whose bourgeois background was shocked by the sharpness of these aphorisms.
“As of the Terror!” Schleifmann replied. “Or rather I do not approve of them, but I can explain their existence.... Such events are political measures which happen to be useful to a party.... You cannot sow the seeds of such beliefs on dry soil, by means of reasoning; they germinate only in blood and blossom only through fear.”