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into a smile. "This business of depending on history, what nonsense!"

"What else would you like?" Lamarque laughed. "Maybe you'd like a single smear of the brush to wipe out all culture, all civilization, the cities and the farms-and go right back to the jungle?"

"It might not be such a bad idea." Berger dropped the burned-out butt of the cigarette. His face flamed with the old eagerness and ardor. "I wouldn't be at all surprised, friend Lamarque, if some day this sort of culture and civilization will develop war techniques capable of destroying everybody and everything. The few who survive will be reduced to the jungles that you're talking about." Berger seemed to have broken out of his prison wall and landed on the thin air of philosophical abstraction. "But that's not what I wanted to say, my friend," he went on with increased fervor. "I mean that history enslaves our minds-we can't think independently. History is fat with hatred and the generations are poisoned. People must be taught to believe that progress is the result of knowledge, not brute force. Violence leads to destruction."

While Morris was talking, Anna listened intently, absorbing every word as if it were the Gospel. When the flow of words ended at last, he took a deep breath and wiped his forehead.

"You know, Berger," said Lamarque, measuring his words soberly, "it's strange that you, a Jew should talk like that. History means everything to the Jew-it has made him deathless. The ebb and flow of the human tide leave him un- touched. His roots remain stiff and dry. When they drive you out of one land you take root in another. When you're whipped you bend your back-while within you the spirit remains unbent.