Taking a logical
point of departure, that is what I thought, but this same logic
dictated to me an absolutely negative answer to all these questions:
no one needs it, it brings good to no one: all these discriminations
not only do not increase the sum of joy on this earth, but engender a
multitude of wholly unnecessary, aimless sufferings; some they
oppress, and others they badly corrupt. And yet I, a Russian
intellectual, a happy representative of the sovereign race, although
fully conscious and convinced that the "Jewish question" is no
question at all,--I felt powerless and doomed to the most sterile
tribulation of spirit. For, all the clear-cut arguments of my
intellect, the most fervent tirades and speeches, the sincerest tears
of compassion and outcries of indignation unfailingly broke against a
dull, unresponsive wall. But all powerlessness, if it is unable to
prevent a crime, becomes complicity; and this was the result:
personally guiltless of any offence against my brother, I have become
in the eyes of all those unconcerned and those of my brother himself,
a Cain.
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