"Perhaps you are right, Hugo. I have been walking fast, lost in thought; and when you think hard, you forget the weather."
"I wager Henry was wandering under cedars and palms on his way here, when in reality he was passing under snow-laden trees along the Linden, through the Tiergarten," laughingly cried out a young man of dark complexion, as he twisted his black moustache, and pushed his gold-rimmed eyeglasses closer to his near-sighted eyes.
He caught a curious glance from Rosenfeld; his deep blue eyes, fixed upon an imaginary point in the far distance, seemed to carry the suggestion of energy and fanaticism.
"That's possible, Sternberg," he answered, "why not?"
"I cannot understand, Sternberg, how you can profane and make a joke of a matter that is sacred to us, the memory of the history of our race," said Hugo.
"Never mind, Hugo, why shouldn't dreams become realities?" said Rosenfeld, with sadness and longing in his voice.
"Not in wanton jests, however."
"A fellow might be allowed a joke now and then," muttered the culprit.
"Hardly! Everything that belongs to our past is too beautiful; and now that it is a departed glory, a lost sanctuary, it is too sad to make mock of. I find it quite out of place to assuage the irritating wounds of the soul with scorn. It is a sign of degeneracy in us to banter and to scoff, and cynically to vulgarize the ridicule and the contempt heaped upon us by others. It is undignified, and makes for disintegration. That's the reason I object to the type of drama in which Jewish manners and peculiarities of the most degenerate and pitiable of our race are exposed on the pillory. They are considered as typical, and people say: 'Look you, such they are!' If I had the authority, I should prohibit them. And then, too, I hate those wretched money jokes, those translations of words from the noble language of our race, which give them a distorted, ambiguous meaning. We are not raised so high out of the mire as to allow ourselves such privileges. We are in the midst of it, in the midst of sorrow and enmity, struggle and defense, and we are far from victory, and we alone are at fault. This lukewarmness, this indifference, this hushing-up, this self-ridicule, they are our misfortune. The tactics of an ostrich! Keep your eyes tight shut! Don't peep! Imagine others are blind! But they are only too well aware of our helplessness, our weakness, our cowardice, our lack of courage. Where could they find a more suitable object on which to let out their bad humor? I tell you, I would do the same thing. He who grovels on the ground, must expect to be spat upon, and he mustn't complain."
His words poured forth in a torrent. He breathed hard, and his face turned ghastly white. Deep silence followed his speech. Sternberg, embarrassed, fingered a book lying before him. His eyeglasses slipped down on his nose, and his near-sighted eyes roved with searching glances from one to the other of the company. At last a young man spoke: