"The others are the vulgar ones, the uncultured, the mob, with whom we have nothing in common, and don't want to have anything in common."
"And the rest say the same of us. Let us have nothing to do with those aliens, those interlopers, those parasites, that ferment, which decomposes the healthy vigorous elements of the Aryan race. That's the gracious, charitable refrain."
"Here we are again at the Jewish question," said Mrs. Benas, somewhat displeased, "we three, here alone."
"Papa, mamma, and the baby," laughed Mr. Benas.
"It's really not funny, Joshua," said Mrs. Benas, earnestly and thoughtfully. "It actually seems as if we could never get rid of it, as if it followed us everywhere. Mr. Friedheim is right. It sits at our table, it accompanies us to social gatherings, to the theatre, and to concert halls; it stands next to us wherever we go in the world, meets us on our travels, and forces itself into our dreams and our prayers."
"You exaggerate, Fannsherl. The imagination and the eloquence of the Friedländers are awakening in you. We know how they think and speak, always in superlatives," he teased good-humoredly, in order to calm her excitement.
"But you see how it is yourself, Joshua. We get here together cozily, in order to chat a bit, to rest ourselves after the strain of entertaining, we have no sinister intentions, in fact, we are ready to reproach our relatives with indiscretion, and before we know it, we are in the thick of it."
"In the soup, I should have said," he added, trying to give the talk a jesting turn.
"Joshua, please, don't joke. I am in earnest. Isn't it very sad that all our thoughts should be dominated by this one subject? That we can't free ourselves from it any more? That we can't rise superior to it? That it intimidates us, makes us anxious, petty, serious, and embittered?"
"Yes, dearest, since you ask me to be in earnest, I must agree, that conditions are, indeed, very sad, even though great concessions are still made, have to be made, to us merchants who are in the world of commerce and finance. But for how long? Who knows? A festering wound spreads, despite morphine injections, as Freudenthal says. He could tell tales! One of the most talented of architects, full of spirit and taste, with artistic skill and training seldom met with in his profession, especially here in Berlin, and although he has been a royal Government architect since the year '78, he has been so completely pushed aside that he has been forced to put all his energies into land and suburban speculations out there on the Kurfürstendamm, in the Grunewald suburb, and in the elaborate business-houses on the Leipzigerstrasse. Naturally this brings him a large income, and that is one more reason why his work becomes a reproach."