us beyond all measure. The Jews' tragic love for Russia finds a counterpart in our love for Europe, as tragical in its faithfulness and completeness. Are we not ourselves the Jews of Europe, and is not our frontier—the same "Pale of Settlement"—something in the nature of a Russian Ghetto? And try as our Pushkin and Dostoyevsky and your Byalik may to prove that we, too, are human beings, people do not believe us, as they do not believe you: here is that equality whence we all can derive a bitter consolation; here is the punishment by means of which impartial life takes revenge on the Russians for the Jews' sufferings.
The thirst for self-respect—that is the fundamental feeling which now, in the days of the most terrible war, has seized all Russian society, which has exalted the people to the heights of heroism, and which makes us fear all that reminds us of our sad past. That is why persecution of Germans in our own country is so unbearable to us; we want no persecution; that is why we hate all that, like the belching of yesterday's drinking, distorts our disinterested aims and intentions: better yield
