Ask my son if you can find tea like this in all of Paris.’

‘Do you really think so?’ says Abel Glanz, pretending to think the matter over.

‘One could try it all the same, trying never did any harm.’ And Glanz moves his chair nearer to the samovar.

Abel Glanz had been prompter in a Roumanian little theatre but felt himself called to be a producer and could not bear to be in his prompt box and thus forced to look on while people made ‘mistakes’. Glanz told his tale to everybody. He had succeeded one day in obtaining a trial as a producer. A week later he was called up and ended in a field ambulance because the sergeant thought that souffleur had medical associations.

‘And that’s the way Fate plays with people,’Abel Glanz would conclude.

‘Glanz lives in the Savoy, too,’ Phöbus Bohlaug once remarked and it seemed to me as if my uncle wished to draw some comparison between myself and the prompter. To Phöbus Bohlaug we were two of a kind, some kind of ‘artist’, some kind of semi-parasite, although one had to admit that the prompter made an honest effort to master a respectable profession. He wanted to become a merchant, and that was the best trade of all because one ‘made deals’.

‘Mind you, Glanz makes good deals,’ says Uncle Phöbus.

‘What sort of deals?’

‘With currency,’ says Phöbus Bohlaug, ‘it’s dangerous but at the same time a sure thing. It’s a matter of luck. If someone has a magic touch he can be a millionaire overnight.’

‘Uncle,’ say I, ‘why don’t you deal in currency?’

‘God forbid,’ shouts Phöbus, ‘I want nothing to do wiith the police! If one is down and out one deals in currency.’

‘Phöbus Bohlaug should deal in currency, yet?’ asks Abel Glanz. ‘A man lays his head on the block – it is a Jewish destiny. One runs around all day long. If you’re after Roumanian lei everyone will offer you Swiss francs. As if you need francs. It is a business of witchcraft. Your uncle says I make good deals? A rich man believes everyone makes good deals.’

‘Who told you I was a rich man?’ asks Phöbus.

‘Who told me? There’s no need to tell you. The whole world knows that Bohlaug’s signature is as good as money.’

‘The world is lying!’ shouts Bohlaug, and his voice reaches a high pitch. He shouted as if ‘the world’ had accused him of a great crime.

‘Little Alexander’ made his entrance, wearing a suit in the latest fashion, a yellow hairnet over his crew-cut hair. He smelt of all sorts of things, of mouth wash and brilliantine, and he was smoking a scented cigarette.

‘There is nothing to be ashamed of in having money, Father,’ he said.

‘It’s true,’ cried Glanz happily, ‘your father is ashamed of it.’

Phöbus Bohlaug poured out more tea. ‘And so much for one’s own children,’ he grumbled.

At this moment Phöbus Bohlaug has turned into quite an old man. His face is ashen, his eyelids finely lined, his shoulders stooped, as if someone had transformed him.

‘None of us lives the right life,’ says he, ‘one works and drudges one’s whole life long, and then one is buried.’

All at once it must have become very quiet. Evening is falling, too.

‘We must have some light!’ says Bohlaug.

This was said for Glanz’s benefit.

‘I’ll be on my way now, many thanks for the good tea.’

Phöbus Bohlaug gives him his hand and says to me, ‘Let’s see more of you, too.’

Glanz led me along unknown lanes, past courtyards and untidy backyards, vacant lots with dirt and rubbish heaps, where pigs grunted and poked about for scraps with their dirty noses. Swarms of green flies buzzed about dark brown heaps of human excrement. The town had no drainage, all the houses stank, and from this combination of every kind of stink Glanz prophesied a sudden rainstorm.

‘This is how our affairs go,’ says Glanz, ‘Bohlaug is a rich man with a small heart. You see, Herr Dan, people’s hearts aren’t bad, just far too small. There isn’t enough to go round, just enough for a wife and children.’

We come to a little alley. Jews are standing about, strolling in the middle of the street, carrying umbrellas ludicrously rolled and with crooked shafts. They either stand still looking thoughtful or else walk ceaselessly to and fro. Here, one will disappear. There, one will emerge from a house door, look enquiringly to left and to right and begin to stroll about.

Silent as shadows, people pass each other. It is an assembly of ghosts and the long dead gather here. For thousands of years this race has been wandering in narrow alleys.

As one approaches one can see how two of them will stop, murmur for a second and walk on without a greeting, only to meet again a few minutes later and murmur half a sentence.

A policeman appears. His boots are yellow and they squeak. His sabre swings at his side as he strides up the middle of the street, past the Jews who make way for him, greet him, call to him, smile at him.