Page:Auerbach-Spinozanovel.djvu/239

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DISCIPLES OF DESCARTES.
217

to tear down the building; he sprang forward, took the parchment out, and dead clay again lay at his feet. From that day they sang the Sabbath bridal song twice over in Prague. The great Rabbi Low certainly never thought of Descartes, and yet his Golem had as much life as any man, if we are to accept the new view, that the union between soul and body is so slight that at any moment it can be disjoined, and again reunited."

Meyer did not seem to notice the argumentative conclusion, for he said:

"When I publish my correspondence between Adam and Eve, your Golem shall have an honorable position therein."

With evident displeasure Oldenburg turned to Spinoza.

"Meyer is perpetually hunting after strange stories, which he arranges and classifies like his beetles and butterflies. To my taste your legend savors of Jewish spleen. To let a destroyer of the world, the creation of a Cabbalist, loose on the Jews' quarter! If, after the free manner of the popular legends, he had a love affair with a maiden, who every Sabbath awaited him in vain, or had he been a grand vizier, or advanced to be some other great minister, whom his master could reduce to dust, and raise again at will, there would at least be either poetry or satire in the thing; as it is the Golem of our lord and master pleases me