I was not attracted by Knabenhut or his opinions, but I thought about him a great deal. A great quality is power, but greater still is the quality of renunciation. When we find both of them in one man, we admire him. These two qualities were united in Knabenhut. He showed his power in deeds, and renounced his own interests. Sometimes his means were wrong and the end was right, and sometimes his means were right and the end was wrong, but one way or the other we never heard of him seeking his own welfare. We were accustomed to men who summoned up strength to defeat their enemies and gave up a little of their own interests so that others should renounce much, but we did not see a man who gave up his own to others and for their benefit. When they tried to bribe him with a good post he would not accept it. Moreover, he abandoned philosophy and such studies, and went to study law; and he did not use it for his own selfish purposes, but served the oppressed even without pay, and borrowed money at interest to support the strikes. We were accustomed to men who squandered money for power and authority, for women or horses; Knabenhut did not chase women, or want to become a member of parliament, or seek any other kind of greatness for himself. It cannot be said that Szibucz lacked idealists, but between ourselves, how much did it cost? A man who bought a share in a Zionist bank, and took the shekel as a sign of membership, and paid a monthly contribution of twenty-five groschen to a Zionist society, was called a loyal comrade. And if he gave half a zloty for the people of Mahanayim he was called a good Zionist. But Knabenhut rented and furnished a house for his comrades, and bought books and newspapers for them, and learned to speak Yiddish so as to be able to speak to his comrades in their own language — unlike most of our leaders, who were too lazy even to learn the Hebrew alphabet.
Chapter four and fifty. How the World Grows Uglier
And what was the end of Knabenhut? On that Sabbath afternoon Schutzling visited me again. He had finished all his work in the town, and he was free for himself and for me. He had not done much business here, and you could even say that he had done none at all. He had just come from the pharmacist, a sickly, grumbling old Pole, who wears galoshes over his shoes summer and winter, has a woollen cloth wound around his neck, and coughs and sneezes. Schutzling said, “The pharmacist said to me, ‘Once again you bring me drugs from Germany, my dear sir. The devil begot the Prussians and the Prussians begot the drugs. Do you think, my dear sir, that without these medicines the sick man cannot die? Your doctors, my dear sir, whenever they see some new kind of drug in their medical papers, immediately prescribe it for their patients, and the patients come and squawk: Give us this drug, give us this medicine. And I, my dear sir, spend money to bring them drugs. In the meantime, the Prussians have invented some other kind of medicine and the doctor prescribes the new one and the patients buy that instead of the old. Perhaps you know, my dear sir, in what way the new drug is better than the old one? I do not know and you don’t know, so who knows? Now both of them are lying in my pharmacy, and even the rats don’t want to touch them. Perhaps you know, my dear sir, what is the use of a pharmacy if the pharmacist does not grind the drugs, but gets them from the Prussians packed and sealed zierlich manierlich. If it is a question of selling, any Jewess with a shop can do it and there is no need for a scholarly man who has studied six years in high school and several years in the university.’” After Schutzling had told me of his conversation with the pharmacist, he put his arm around my neck and said, “My dear sir, perhaps we should go out for a walk and some fresh air. Atishoo! My nostrils are all stopped up with the smell of drugs. Well, my dear sir, pick up your feet and let us go.”
Schutzling was in a jesting mood. Every moment he would recall something the pharmacist had said to him and drag his feet as if he were wearing rubber shoes. Finally he forgot the pharmacist and went back to telling me all that was in his heart. You cannot imagine all that was in his heart. A man’s mouth is small, but when it is opened it pours forth in overflowing measure.
In the course of his talk Schutzling went back to the story of Knabenhut. Although he had had many troubles on account of him, and had had to run away to America, he remembered the good Knabenhut had done him, for he had taken him from behind the stove and given him knowledge to know and understand the world, while he — namely Schutzling — had tormented him and made his life a misery, and had become an anarchist and drawn some of his comrades after him. How did anarchism come to Szibucz? Didn’t the Jews love the Emperor and sing his praises, as a merciful king and lover of Jews, and pray that his years and days might be long, for so long as he was alive he defended them against every foe and enemy and accuser, and whenever any trouble overtook Jews in other countries, the people of Szibucz would say, “How happy we are to live under the shelter of a benevolent state!” I have already said that Knabenhut had a disciple and comrade called Sigmund Winter, whom he loved very much and sent to study in the university, so that he should help him afterward in the class struggle. But Winter went and learned a different doctrine and brought it to Szibucz; he even drew away Schutzling and some of the other comrades. Then Knabenhut’s disciples were divided into two factions; one remained with him and the other took up anarchism. What the anarchists did to Knabenhut we have already told, and what happened afterward we shall tell now.
After this, or perhaps before this, Knabenhut cast his eyes on a certain girl called Blume Nacht. No one knows whether he wanted to marry her or she wanted to marry him, but it is known that he married another woman, who was rich and brought him money and he went and opened a lawyer’s office in Pitzyricz, near Szibucz. So he gave up socialism for a little while, because he owed twenty thousand zlotys to moneylenders, for he used to borrow money to maintain the strikers and his poor comrades, and the moneylenders pressed him to pay. They said of Knabenhut that he never managed to pay the capital, but all his life he went on paying the interest — and even that he paid from his wife’s money, for he earned no more than enough for his expenses, because he did not want to appear in civil cases or money matters, which he hated, but devoted himself to criminal cases, where there is much trouble and little pay, for most poor sinners have no money to pay the lawyer’s fee.
Although he had given up socialism, he was always available for any poor man injured at work whose master did not want to compensate him for pain, injury, and the rest. Likewise, if a girl was seduced by her master’s son and bore a child whom he did not want to recognize, Knabenhut would take her case. In the meantime, his wife’s money went and other money did not come in. In those days he went back to the love of his youth, namely philosophy, and abandoned his mistress, the study of law. As for flesh-and-blood women, he did the opposite: he abandoned his wife in favor of his mistresses. Although before he had married he had never cast his eyes upon women, he suddenly became attracted by them. And women — oh, my dear sir, a man looks for one and finds many. A Ukrainian student girl came from Switzerland to visit her sister, the doctor’s wife, and Knabenhut was attracted by her; but the sister herself was drawn to Knabenhut, and — on top of that — so was her sister-in-law, the doctor’s sister. Heart draws to heart and one woman draws another, and Knabenhut’s heart was drawn by them all. So he left his office to his deputy, while he lay in bed reading Sophocles, or spent his time with women. So his wife took the rest of her money and went back to her father. In the meantime, the war came.
The war did not do him much good. He was not taken to serve in the army, for most of his life had passed, and later, when they took everything that walked on two legs, including old men, they exempted Knabenhut because of his sickness. Like the rest of the people who lived in Pitzyricz, he ran away at the beginning of the war to Szibucz and from Szibucz to Vienna. The little money he had taken with him was spent, and more money he did not find. His former comrades did not recognize him and he did not get new ones. He, who had set the whole country in a tumult, was abandoned in its capital. Finally, an old cynic came forward to help him. This cynic was a rich contractor, who used to make deals with ministers on the basis of “half for me and half for you,” and Knabenhut used to denounce him in the newspapers to compel him to give an account of himself. When he heard that Knabenhut was in distress he took pity on him, or the whim took him, and he sent him money. This cynic — who, if anyone asked for a donation, would say, “Before you came, surely you knew that I wouldn’t give you anything, and just because of that I will never forgive you”—became a spendthrift where Knabenhut was concerned. Knabenhut used to take his dole and also help others. It can’t be helped; a man wants to live, and so long as he lives he cannot ignore the troubles of his fellows. All that time, his benefactor did not show himself to Knabenhut. Knabenhut went to thank him, but he would not receive him. Again Knabenhut went, and again he didn’t receive him. The contractor sent him a double gift by his servant. He took the money, bowed to the servant, and said, “Today we eat and tomorrow we die.” Then he went home and locked the door. From that day on he did not leave his room, until there came that one against whom no door is locked and took him from the world — this world that is becoming even uglier than Knabenhut and his comrades wished to make it.