“Yes!” a voice—it must have belonged to the daring pamphleteer—rang out from the balcony. “For fertilizer!”

That’s all it took, those two words, to set off the panic. People shouting. People screaming. People fainting, too. Some young fellows tried to rush through the door, but the no-neckers drove them back. Hundreds of Baluters were shoving about the place where a Council member was struggling to stand on his chair.

It was Fried Rievesaltes. He threw up his arms, so that his head, with its bulging temples, its wisp of black hair, looked like a ball wedged between them. You could see his revolver strapped in the pit of his arm. His mustache, when he smiled, stretched in sparse strokes across his face. “Friends,” he was saying. “Try to be calm.” But the crowd yelled louder than ever. They were holding things up to him, not only their coupons, but jewelry, necklaces, brooches of gold. Some people were trying to touch him, or his coat, just his coat hem, as if he were an idol. He was directing some people to go one way, and some in another. “Yellow cards, kindly. Yellow cards, please. Not the ones with the pictures. No, no, they’re out of date. The blank yellow cards. Pink cards? Pink cards no longer count. Oh, you Jewish people! You people!”

If anyone had thought to glance at I. C. Trumpelman then, he would have seen that the Elder had grown not merely pale, but completely chalk-colored. The Judenrat President was no child. He knew that this was the moment that marked the transfer of power within the Ghetto. What had he, Trumpelman, to offer his thousands of Jews? Jobs? Jobs, yes, printed money, and even food. But Rievesaltes, crooking his finger at some cards, turning his thumbs down at all the others—Rievesaltes had become the god of life and death.

The Elder wrapped his cape about his body and thrust out his chin. “I, Trumpelman, came like a robber to rob you of your dearest ones. I, Trumpelman, took you by the hand and led you to death. It’s Trumpelman who made you work until your hearts explode. No wonder you turn from him now! Abandon him! What a monster he is! Lock him up in a cage! Ha! Ha! That’s your mistake, Jews! A big mistake! We are in the same cage together! There are no bars between you and me! And look! In this same cage with us there is a hungry lion! He wants to devour us all! He’s ready to spring! And I? Trumpelman? I am the lion tamer. I stuff his mouth with meat! It’s the flesh of my own brothers and sisters! The lion eats and eats! He roars! But he does not spring. Thus, with ten Jews, I save a hundred. With a hundred, I save a thousand. With a thousand, ten thousand more. My hands are bloody. My feet are bloody. My eyes are closed with blood. If your hands are clean, it’s because mine are dirty! I have no conscience! That’s why your conscience is clear! I am covered in blood completely!”