Page:The Shield (Knopf, 1917).djvu/51

Rh which meant that I lost my self-confidence. Living together with the Jews as my co-citizens, being in constant personal and business relations with them, in the field of consorted social work, I came face to face with the Jewish "problem" every single day,—and every single day of my life I felt with intolerable keenness all the falsehood and wretched ambiguity of my situation, that of an oppressor against one's will. In the doctor's office, at my desk, in the editorial room, in the street, finally in jail, where together with the Jew I fulfilled the all-Russian prison duty—everywhere I remained the privileged "Russian," the representative of the sovereign race, the baron,—without the baronial blazon. And with horror I noticed that even the eyes of a Jew-friend were dimmed with strange shadows … that terrible images surged behind my friendly Russian shoulders and mingled wholly unsuitable noises and voices with my sincere plea for "world citizenship." … And yet he knew me well, he knew my attitude toward the Jews,—how about those who know only that I am a "Russian"?

I remember having spent one night in