"But he is not a revolutionist."
"That is still worse. Sooner or later a revolutionist will change his skin. A revolutionist can be dealt with; but a liberal, a legalist, a moralist, who believes in men's rights, this is a dangerous animal. Give me individuals like Pikulinski, malleable to our will, and I will place them in the centre of our social organism. We can control them, and, with the rabble at our feet, all will go smoothly. Hurrah!"
CHAPTER XXIV.
[THE SEDUCER.]
Jacob was absorbed in the study of the works of Maimonides, when his servant brought him a visiting-card.
This servant had replaced him who had so rudely received his master's mother, and who, on account of her, had left Jacob's service, with tears in his eyes, but too proud to serve a country-woman in Jewish costume.
The visiting-card bore a name engraved indistinctly. Without deciphering the name, Jacob received his visitor. He frowned when he recognized David Seebach the younger, the seducer of Lia. He was dressed richly, but in bad taste, with a cane in his hand, an eye-glass at his eye, and a smile on his lips. Jacob received him coldly, and, with a wave of the hand, indicated a chair. David seated himself, put the end of his cane in his mouth, adjusted his eye-glass, and spoke in a low voice:--
"My presence at your house is perhaps a surprise, for you gained, I fear, a bad impression of us on our last interview. We were very sorry, my father and I, not to have been able to conceal that unfortunate exile for you, but"--
"I do not blame you for that. Every one has a right to act as he pleases."
"Since then I have thought it over, and I admit that I was in the wrong. Your reasoning was just at all points. We must follow the current; we must side with Poland. My father and I, however, do not think alike, on account of his former relations. He remains in the Russian camp, while I take the side of the Poles. Thus we are safe in any case."