Not, incidentally, that when all is said and done, it doesn’t come to the same thing. Share and share alike, as we once used to proclaim. What a nightmare, Benya! What a bad April Fool’s joke! He’s not really mine, and he certainly isn’t yours, and he’s not poor Hava’s either—in fact, he barely even belongs to himself. Still, I want you to know that if by any chance you are in cahoots with that obsessed woman of mine to lure my son to America with all kinds of goodies and make a degenerate, money-mad kike of him there, I’m determined to fight you with every means at my disposal until I’ve obliterated that web of deceit. Believe me, when it comes to playing dirty, I’ve learned a trick or two myself in this life. And just in case you need a hint to get the real picture, I don’t mind giving you one. There’s no reason why Hava should be above a full medical examination in order to establish her true mental condition. And don’t delude yourself, either, into thinking your America is, so to speak, an impregnable Shangri-la. With a little spadework, it should be easy enough to discover exactly how you came by that bonanza of yours and to find a suitable ear into which to whisper the charming tale of your hot-blooded youth. A word to the wise, etc. I will not let my son join you in America even if you are so swimming in money, as they say, that you can send a gold-plated airplane to fetch him.

I suppose you must have a mirror of some sort at home. Why don’t you look in it for a minute to see if you can stand the sight of the loathsome guttersnipe, the repulsive sewer rat you’ve become. Goddamn your hide, you bloodthirsty, blood-sucking vampire, it’s you and your ilk who’ve defiled and fouled up everything. Where were you while we were giving our life’s blood to water this land and rebuild its ruins and those of the Jewish soul? Play-acting! Clowning! Piddling around! Piddling with Plekhanov, and piddling with Lenin and the October Revolution, and piddling some more with Zionism and a midsummer night’s flirt with pioneering in Palestine. And once you’d sown your wild oats here, turning tail as quickly as you could to sell out to the Golden Calf.