«But if the meeting in Prague happened such a long time ago,» asked Golovinsky, «how could the rabbis have known about metropolitan railways?»
«First of all, if you go and look at the last version of ‘The Rabbi’s Speech,’ which had appeared about ten years ago in Le Contemporain, the meeting in the Prague cemetery took place in 1880, when I think there was already a metropolitan railway in London. Anyway, it’s quite enough that the plan sounds like a prophecy.»
Golovinsky was much taken by this passage, which he thought to be, in his words, most promising. Then he observed: «Don’t you think that many of the ideas expressed in these documents contradict each other? For example, the Jews want to ban luxuries and superfluous pleasures and punish drunkenness, and then, in the next breath, to encourage sport and entertainment, and turn the workers into alcoholics.»
«The Jews are always saying one thing and then the opposite—they are liars by nature. But if you produce a document many pages long, people won’t read it all in one go. We have to try to obtain one wave of revulsion after another, and when someone is scandalized by a statement they have read today, they forget the one that had scandalized them yesterday. And if you read carefully, you will see that the rabbis of Prague want to use luxury, entertainment and alcohol to reduce the common people to slavery now, but once they have gained power, they will force the people to lead far more temperate lives.»
«That’s quite true, excuse me.»
«You see,» I concluded with legitimate pride, «I’ve pondered over these papers for decades and decades, since I was a boy, and know them inside out.»
«You are right. But I’d like to end with a very powerful statement, something that will stick in the mind and symbolize the iniquity of the Jews. For example: ‘Ours is an ambition that knows no limits, a voracious greed, a desire for ruthless revenge, an intense hatred.'»
«Not bad for a cheap novel. But do you think the Jews, who are anything but stupid, are likely to say something that would immediately condemn them?»
«I wouldn’t be so worried about that. The rabbis are talking in their cemetery, sure that no one can hear them. They have no shame. The crowds must feel a sense of outrage.»
«But I’d like to end with a very powerful statement, something that will stick in the mind and symbolize the iniquity of the Jews. For example: ‘Ours is an ambition that knows no limits, a voracious greed, a desire for ruthless revenge, an intense hatred.'»
Golovinsky was a good collaborator. He took, or pretended to take, my papers as genuine, but did not hesitate to alter them when it suited him. Rachkovsky had chosen the right man.
«I think,» said Golovinsky finally, «I have enough material for what we shall call ‘The Protocols of the Assembly of Rabbis in the Prague Cemetery.'»
The Prague cemetery was slipping out of my control, but I was probably contributing to its success. With a feeling of relief I invited Golovinsky to dinner at Paillard, on the corner of rue de la Chaussée d’Antin and boulevard des Italiens. Expensive, but superb. Golovinsky clearly appreciated the poulet à l’archiduc and the canard à la presse. But someone who came from the Steppes may well have tucked into choucroute with the same enthusiasm. It would have cost me less, and I could have avoided the waiters’ suspicious looks at a customer who masticated so noisily.
But he ate with relish, his eyes glinting with excitement, perhaps because of the wine or—I don’t know—out of some real religious or political passion.
«It’ll be a fine piece of writing,» he said, «that reveals their deep hatred as a race and as a religion. Their hatred gushes forth from these pages, it seems to overflow from a vessel full of bile. Many will understand that we have reached the moment of the final solution.»
«I’ve already heard this expression from Osman Bey—you know him?»
«By reputation. But it’s obvious. This accursed race has to be rooted out at all costs.»
«Rachkovsky doesn’t seem to share that view. It’s better, he says, to keep the Jews alive as a good enemy.»
«A myth. It’s always easy to find a good enemy. And don’t imagine, just because I work for Rachkovsky, that I share all his views. He taught me himself that while you’re working for one master today, you must prepare yourself to serve another one tomorrow. Rachkovsky won’t last forever. In Holy Russia there are those with much more radical ideas than his. The governments of western Europe are too cowardly to decide upon a final solution. Russia, on the other hand, is a country full of energy and bright hope, thinking always of total revolution. It’s from there that we must expect the decisive gesture, not from these Frenchmen who continue to ramble on about egalité and fraternité, not from those German boors who are incapable of grand gestures…»
I had already guessed as much after my nocturnal meeting with Osman Bey. Abbé Barruel had decided not to pursue my grandfather’s allegations after reading his letter because he feared a general massacre. But what my grandfather had wanted was probably exactly what Osman Bey and Golovinsky were predicting. Perhaps my grandfather had condemned me to making his dream come true. Oh, God! Fortunately it wasn’t up to me to eliminate an entire people, but I was making a contribution in my own modest way.
And it was, after all, a profitable business. The Jews would never pay me to exterminate all Christians, I thought, since there are too many Christians and if it were possible they would do it themselves. Wiping out the Jews, when all is said and done, would be possible. Despite their numbers, God Almighty succeeded in drowning all of humanity during the time of the Flood, and the Jews were a minuscule percentage of the earth’s inhabitants in Noah’s time.
I wouldn’t have to destroy them myself—I am (as a rule) a man who recoils from physical violence—but I knew how it had to be done, since I lived through the days of the Commune. Take gangs of men who are well trained and indoctrinated, and drag anyone you meet with a hooked nose and curly hair straight up against the wall. You’d end up losing a few Christians but, in the words of the bishop who had to attack Béziers when it was occupied by the Cathars, it is better to be prudent and kill the lot. God will recognize his own.
As it is written in their Protocols, the end justifies the means.
27. Diary Cut Short
20th December 1898
Having handed over to Golovinsky all the remaining material for those cemetery Protocols, I felt an emptiness. «And what now?» I wondered, like a young student after graduation. Cured of my split consciousness, I no longer had anyone to tell my story to.
I had completed my life’s work, which had begun when I read Dumas’ Balsamo in the attic in Turin. I think of my grandfather, his eyes staring into the distance as he described the specter of Mordechai. Thanks to my work, all the Mordechais in this world are on their way to a tremendous raging pyre. But what about me? There’s a certain melancholy when a duty is completed, a melancholy greater and more impalpable than the sadness of a steamship voyage.
I continue to counterfeit wills and sell a few dozen hosts a week, but Hébuterne doesn’t come to see me any longer—perhaps he thinks I’m too old—and I might as well forget about the army, where my name must have been erased from the minds of those who remembered it, if any of them are still there, now that Sandherr lies paralyzed in a hospital bed and Esterhazy is playing baccarat in some smart London brothel.
It’s not that I need the money—I’ve saved up quite enough—but I’m bored. I have gastric upsets and can’t even enjoy good food. I make myself broth at home, and if I go to a restaurant I am kept awake all night. Sometimes I vomit. I pass water more often than I would wish.
I still visit the offices of La Libre Parole, but Drumont’s anti-Semitic ranting no longer interests me. As to what happened in the Prague cemetery, the Russians are now working on that.
The Dreyfus case still simmers away. Today there’s a lot of fuss over a surprise article by a Catholic Dreyfusard in La Croix, a newspaper that has always been rabidly anti-Dreyfusard (what wonderful times they were when La Croix campaigned in support of Diana!), and yesterday the front pages were full of news about a violent anti-Semitic demonstration in place de la Concorde. A satirical newspaper recently published a double cartoon by Caran d’Ache: in the first, a large family is sitting happily at table as the father cautions the others not to discuss the Dreyfus affair; the caption under the second explains that
