"House burned. Daughter taken. Child injured. Horse let loose. They’re not politics. They’re people”
I
n this cold, cold winter, a newspaper off the press is not just something fresh to read. The hot pages are a joy for his fingers, and the ripe smell of drying ink is strangely pleasant. Felix inserts his hands between the pages and spreads his fingers, the better to warm them, as he scans the headlines.
Just an ordinary week’s news. A train in Moravia crashed into a herd of cows, crossing the line. Five people sustained minor injuries, one of them a badchan on his way to a chasunah. A replacement was quickly found, to the delight of the chassan and kallah.
In Germany, Adolph Stoeker is planning a conference. Lunatic. The journalist revives — why, just to sow discomfort? — one of Stoeker’s speeches: If modern Jewry continues to use the power of capital and the power of the press to bring misfortune to the nation, a final catastrophe is unavoidable. Israel must renounce its ambition to become master of Germany. It should renounce its arrogant claim that Judaism is the religion of the future, when it is so clearly of the past.
The Crown Prince of Prussia himself said that the man is a lunatic. Trust a newspaper to give space to sensational stories, just to make people sit up — and buy next week’s edition. He sighs and turns the page.
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