24
PARTISAN REVIEW
the armies of Poland, Rumania and Hungary-were
eating soup and
conversing quietly.
In a corner old Schnazel sat murmuring to himself.
He was only
forty-five years old,
although he looked like a man of seventy.
He had gray hair and a white, tobacco-stained beard.
I was told that
during the World War he was wounded six times. As a result he lost
his mind as well as his nose, which, like a flat piece of chopped flesh was
pasted to his face. The snot was constantly running down his beard and
into the soup.
In spite of repeated attempts to start a conversation with Schnazel,
there were only two sentences I could get out of him: "St. Bartholomews'
Night" and "They must not win ....
" On every vccasion he would
repeat them to me. Perhaps they had some connection with his experiences
during the war.
Perhaps Schnazel was conscious of what he was saying.
That night, to be sure, his words sounded to me like a horrible prophecy.
5.
Herr Silberstadt-
After supper, Herr Silberstadt, the manager of the Foundation, came
in to inspect us. He did that every night after he had finished reading
the Talmud.
Herr Silberstadt was a short plump Jew with a silvery Van Dyke
beard and gold-rimmed spectacles stuck on his hooked nose. He wore a
black silk skullcap and bedroom slippers.
He stood in the doorway and looked at us contemptuously.
His gaze
stopped on Hans.
"Whence does the Jew come from?" Herr Silberstadt asked Hans
in his velvety sing-songl voice.
"He is a friend of mine," I replied, "a German seaman."
"Ich bin kei1'.Jude,"
interjected Hans.
"Kein Jude .....
"
said Silberstadt. "zo-o ....
Don't you see" my
friend, that we h:lve en()l:~h J eWlsn bums to feed here?"
"He is only going to stay here one night," I said.
Here something strange happened.
Hans walked slowly over to Sil-
berstadt and shook his fist in the plump man's face. The latter turned
pale and began to move backwards.
"They are not bums ....
," Hans lisped, "I
am,
not a bum ....
I am ....
"
"H
eraus! ....
H
eraus!
"
Silberstadt began to shriek moving
towards the door.
"Heraus!
"
Flapping with his slippers he ran
out into the streets to call a policeman.
