Benya, listen. I wish you well. Wherever you are. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. But for heaven’s sake, stop hounding me. Let me live too for once in my life. And above all, keep your hands off the boy. If there’s any fear of God in your heart, cable me at once just four words, Yes, he is yours, or else, No, he is mine. So I needn’t go on being poisoned by doubt until the day I die. Not that that will help much either, because there isn’t such a natural-born, poetic, ingratiating liar in the whole world as you. Still, Benya, if there is anything at all to our ancestors’ belief in the life hereafter, they’re sure to have an information desk where I can get a straight answer about the real father. Except that now I’m really writing poppycock, because by any standard of justice Yoni is all mine and you have no possible claim on him. What the devil difference does it make whose filthy fluids he came from? A vile droplet of pus is not what makes the man. If it is, this world is really a sorry jest.

Benya, you listen to me now. The boy is my son, and if there’s a shred of human decency left in you, you’ll tell me so. Yes. In a telegram.