# Old-New Land/Book 1/Part 5

(page 21)
The Littwak's room by daylight looked even drearier than at night, but Friedrich found the family in an almost happy mood. David was standing near the window-sill with an open book before him, chewing a mighty slice of bread and butter. His father and mother sat on the straw, and little Miriam played with bits of chaff.
Hayim hastily rose to greet his benefactor. The wife too tried to rise, but Friedrich checked her. He knelt beside her quickly and petted the nurseling, who smiled at him sweetly out of her rags.
"Well, and how are things today, Mrs. Littwak?" The poor woman tried vainly to kiss his hand. "Better, sir," she answered. "We have milk for Miriam, and bread for ourselves."
"And we've paid the rent, too," added Hayim proudly.
David had put down his bread and butter, and stood regarding Friedrich steadily with folded arms.
"Why do you look at me so closely, David?" he asked.
"So that I may never forget you, sir. I once read a story about a man who helped a sick lion."
"Androcles," smiled Friedrich.
"My David has already read a great deal," said his mother, in her weak, soft tones.
Friedrich rose, and said jestingly, as he placed his hand on the boy's round head, "And so you are the lion? Judah once had a lion."
"That which Judah once had, he can have again," replied David almost defiantly.
"We cannot even offer you a chair, sir," lamented the housewife.
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"It doesn't matter, dear madam. I came only to see how you were feeling today, and to bring something. You are to open this letter only after I have left. It contains a recommendation that will be useful to you. You must eat well, Mrs. Littwak, and bring up this pretty little girl to be as fine a woman as yourself."
"May she have a better fate," sighed the mother.
"And let this chap here study something worth while. Give me your hand, boy! Promise me you will become an upright man."
"Yes, sir, I promise you that."
What remarkable eyes the boy has, thought Friedrich, as he shook the small hand. He laid the bulky envelope on the window-sill and turned to go. "Pardon me, sir," Hayim asked at the door, "but does this letter contain a recommendation to the Community offices?"
"Quite so. It will recommend you there also."
He walked quickly out of the room and ran down the stairs as if he were being pursued. A cab was waiting for him in the street: "Hurry!" he shouted to the driver, and jumped in.
The horses started off at a gallop. It was high time. A moment later David came running breathlessly through the gate, spying in every direction. When he could find no trace of the benefactor, he wept bitterly. Friedrich watched him through the rear cab window, happy to have escaped the flood of thanks. With five thousand gulden the family could probably establish itself.
At the hotel Kingscourt greeted him laughingly. "Well, and have you performed your good works?"
"It would be fairer to say, your good works, Mr. Kingscourt. The money was yours."
"No, no! I object decidedly. I should not have given a penny in order to benefit people. I don't mind your being a fool about loving your neighbor. I'm not any more. The money was an advance to yourself. You were free to use it as you pleased."
"Let it go at that, Mr. Kingscourt."
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"If you had told me you wished to do something for dogs or horses or other respectable creatures, you could have had my help. But for humans, no! Don't bring that kind around. They're too vile. Wisdom consists only in recognizing their baseness....There was a story in the papers recently about an old lady who left her fortune to her cats. In her last will she left instructions that her home was to be turned into thus-and-so many fine apartments for the cat tribe, with servants, and all that, to look after them. The writer fellow stupidly said that very likely the old lady was cracked. She wasn't cracked at all, but enormously clever. She wanted to make a demonstration against the human race, and especially against her beastly, fortune-hunting relatives. Help for animals, yes. For humans, no! You see, I feel deeply for that old lady, God rest her soul!"
The vileness of mankind was Kingscourt's favorite topic, and he elaborated it with inexhaustible verve.
Friedrich arranged his few affairs, and was ready to join Kingscourt the following day. He told his landlady that he was making an excursion to the Grossglockner. She tried to dissuade him; one heard so much about mountain accidents in mid-winter.
"It will be all right," he assured her, with a wistful smile. "If I do not return after eight days, you may report me missing to the police. I shall probably be resting peacefully in some mountain cleft. My belongings here I bequeath to you."
"Don't talk sinfully, sir."
"I was only joking!"
That evening Friedrich left Vienna with Kingscourt. He had not gone again to the Cafe Birkenreis, and so did not know that little David Littwak waited for him in the doorway night after night....
Kingscourt's handsome yacht was rolling on the waters of Trieste harbor. The two men made their final purchases for the long journey in the town; and then, on a beautiful December day, the anchor was raised and the yacht steered south and eastward. In other circumstances, Friedrich would have been enchanted with the free life of the sea. But, as it was, the sunny cruise hardly eased his heartache.
Kingscourt was really a delightful person, good-natured despite the misanthropy he boasted of, charming, and tender-hearted. When he saw Friedrich depressed, he tried to divert him with all sorts of pleasantries, treating him like a sick child. Then Friedrich would say, "If the crew watch us together, they will get a wrong idea of our relations. They'll take me for the host, and you for the guest whom I've invited to entertain me. Ah, Mr.. Kingscourt, you could have found a more cheerful companion."
"My dear fellow, I had no choice," replied Kingscourt grimly. "I had to have someone who was disgusted with life, and such people are not as a rule very good company. But I'll cure you yet. You'll look at things quite differently when we've left the human mob behind us altogether. Then you'll become a cheerful fellow like me. When we're on our blessed island. If that's not true, may the Devil take me!"
The yacht was very cozy, and equipped with all sorts of American conveniences. Friedrich's cabin was just as fine as Kingscourt's. The dining saloon was magnificently decorated. The hours flew by in congenial talk as they sat together in the evenings under the friendly, steady light of the ceiling lamp. There was a small, well-selected library on board, but their days always seemed too full for books. Kingscourt exerted himself constantly to distract his companion. As they were crossing the rough waters near Crete, he suddenly came out with a suggestion.
"I say, Dr. Loewenberg, haven't you any desire to see your fatherland before you say farewell to the world?"
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"My fatherland! You don't want to turn back to Trieste?"
"God forbid!" roared Kingscourt. "Your fatherland lies ahead of us-Palestine."
"Oh, that's what you meant. You are mistaken. I have no connection with Palestine. I have never been there. It does not interest me. My ancestors left it eighteen hundred years ago. What should I seek there? I think that only anti-Semites can call Palestine our fatherland."
But, even as he spoke, Friedrich remembered David Littwak, and added, "Aside from the anti-Semites, I have heard only one little Jewboy say that Palestine is our land. ...Did you mean to tease me, Mr. Kingscourt?"
"No, may lightning strike me if I did! I meant it seriously. Really, I don't understand you Jews. If I were a Jew, I should be frightfully proud of that sort of thing. And yet you are ashamed of it. You needn't wonder that you are despised. Present company excluded, of course."
"Herr von Koenigshoff, are you perhaps an anti-Semite?" asked Friedrich annoyed. He had called his companion by his German name for the first time, without himself knowing why.
"Now you're excited, my son." Kingscourt was smiling. "I'm a hater of mankind. You know all about that. But you take it amiss if I don't care for the Jews. Comfort yourself, man. I hate the Jews no more and no less than I hate Christians, Moslems, and fire-worshipers. The whole lot aren't worth a charge of powder. I understand good old Nero. One single neck, to be run through at a single stroke. Or, no! Rather let the rascally crew live and worry each other to death."
Friedrich was mollified. "I was stupid," he said. "You took me with you. That's the best proof."
"I'm reminded," continued Kingscourt, "of an affair I once had with one of your fellow-nationals or co-religionists or-Devil take me! In short, with a Jew. It happened in the regiment. We had a volunteer there. Cohn was the creature's name, a low... excuse me! This Cohn was a damned bow-legged fellow, as if created for the cavalry. It happened during the riding lesson. I made the swine jump the barriers. That is, I wanted to make them jump. They didn't want to, or couldn't. It was a bit high, that's true. Well, I cursed them as such God-forsaken swine deserved. I. could still swear in those days, Devil take me! I've forgotten since. ..I gave them to understand in cavalry oaths that they were a cowardly bunch of scamps. I went for Cohn in particular. 'You probably ride notes of exchange better,' I sneered. The blood rushed to the Jew's face. He took the jump, but fell and broke his arm. That worried me for a while. Why must such carrion have a sense of honor into the bargain?"
"Do you think a Jew should have no sense of honor?"
"Oh, I say! How you twist my words....Well, and if the Jews have a sense of honor, why do they put up with all the mischief?"
"What would you have the Jews do, Mr. Kingscourt?"
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"What would I have them do? Really, I don't know. Something like that Cohn in the Tiding school. I respected him more after that."
"Because he broke his arm?"
"No, because he showed that he had a will of his own....If I were in your place, I'd do something bold, something big, something that would make my enemies gape. Prejudices, my dear fellow, there will always be. The human pack nourishes itself on prejudices from the cradle to the grave. Well, then. Since prejudices cannot be wiped out, they must be overcome....The more I think of it, the more it seems to me that it must be quite interesting to be a Jew these days. Just because one has the whole world against him."
"Ah, but you don't know how that feels."
"Not pleasant, I can imagine....Now, how about that old Palestine? Shall we have a look at it before we vanish?" "As you please, Mr. Kingscourt."
The prow of the yacht was turned toward Jaffa.