Page:The Shield (Knopf, 1917).djvu/58

32 May I be pardoned that in an hour so momentous for the Jews I persist in speaking not of them and their sufferings, but of ourselves. I repeat, the Jewish question was never a question for me, and in order to justify the proposed measures I need not allege the heroism shown by the Jews in defending Russia, their love for Russia, tragic in its faithfulness. As for demonstrating again and again that a Jew, too, is a human being, to do so would mean not only to bow too low to absurdity, but also to insult those whom I respect and love. And if I persist in speaking of ourselves and our suffering, it is not for personal egoism, nor even class egoism, but the pardonable egoism of a nation, which has been too long playing a miserable part on Europe's stage and in its own conscience, and which now repudiates the suffering of yesterday and, at the dawn of new life, seeks the possibility—oh, only the possibility!—of respecting itself.

Yes, we are still barbarians, the Poles still mistrust us, we are a dark terror for Europe, a baffling menace to her civilisation, but we do not want to be that any more, we long for purity and reason, our wretched rags burden