by Joseph Roth
‘If that is so,’ I replied, ‘it might happen that you will one day become a cruel man. You carry the seed of injustice within you.
‘On what grounds therefore do you come to me and complain about it?’
The weak man left me with a sigh, but it sounded like a curse. He sighed and cursed at the same time. By this I recognized that he also, this weak man, was commanded by the Antichrist.
The ability to sigh came from God.
But the curse within it came from the Antichrist.
But then those who hate the Jews sent me one of their own.
‘I am a hater of Jews,’ he said. ‘I call myself an anti-Semite. The Jews plague the world with their breath, their businesses, their minds, their books, their songs, their pictures and their faith. They are bloodthirsty and goldthirsty. They are power-hungry and vengeance-hungry.’
‘I have no reply to that,’ said I. ‘I have seen many evil men. But their wickedness was a human wickedness, for man is weak and is inclined to be evil. Their own earthly wickedness was mixed together with just a grain (or sometimes a few grains) of that wickedness that I recognize as the hellish evil of the Antichrist.
‘But out of you, anti-Semite, there speaks the entire wickedness of the Antichrist. For you live upon the hatred that all other men in this world also know but which they don’t all act upon – hatred towards the Jews.
‘You are filled completely with this hatred and with this alone. And you have even less trouble than other zealots do in spreading your hatred among mankind.
‘For, as I have said, you find in all the people of the earth the smouldering spark of this special hatred.
‘You see, all other haters have at least to make some effort to light in the hearts of other men the same fire than burns in their own hearts.
‘But you put a flame to a common one that is already smouldering in most people’s hearts.
‘You are therefore unlike the average arsonist who takes the trouble to lay the match in the barn or the village and seek out and prepare the kindling.
‘You are a lazy arsonist. You light fire where a spark already glows.
‘You aren’t an arsonist because of your own human love of a fire. You are a helper of the Antichrist.
‘It is he who fans the spark. And you are with him, in his service as an incendiary. You don’t work because of your own wickedness; you work by order of the mighty evil of the Antichrist.
‘I have seen many evil men, but in each of them there was still a certain degree of chivalry, that human characteristic from which, even when love and goodness have died, there is always the possibility that justice may grow. With you that is impossible.
‘There are, however, weak, evil men who hate the evil men who are strong and all other evil men as well as good men and weak men.
‘He who hates only those at whom the spark of hatred is directed, the spark that already glimmers in everyone’s heart, is worse than an ordinary hater – he is a hater without chivalry.
‘For the Jews are hated by the faithful and the godless, the oppressors and the oppressed, the healthy and the sick, the rich and the poor and, as they say these days, the capitalists and the proletariat, by those who say all men are equal and others who say that all men are not equal, by white people and by coloured people.
‘But if it happened that I was inspired by a desire to hate, I would find people to hate other than the Jews. Furthermore, you must acknowledge the remarkable fact that all, without distinction, don’t like the Jews – even if they don’t hate them – and this should make people realize that it is God himself who has struck the Jews with the hatred of mankind.
‘God alone has the right to punish the Jews. He, God Himself, hates people who hate the Jews.
‘Certainly the Antichrist lives and works among the Jews as well. However, he who hates them alone causes everything else, everything else of which the Antichrist has taken possession, not to be hated.
‘By this I also recognize that it is the Antichrist who drives the anti-Semites. He chose them so that all the other evils that he has instigated remain undetected.
‘The Antichrist works like an illusionist. While he waves his magic wand with his right hand he is already holding in his left hand the magic surprise that he said he would conjure using his wand.
‘You, anti-Semite, are the right hand and the magic wand of the Antichrist. You make all the wickedness of the Antichrist invisible while his left hand is conjuring up the Jews.
‘You are the disguising magic cloth and the lying handkerchief of the Antichrist.’
The anti-Semite then left me. He resented me. Alas, I was proud that he resented me.
Then came another righteous man whom the Antichrist had corrupted and persuaded to visit me to convince me to believe that he understood the anti-Semite.
This and that evil – said he – had the Jews committed. One must understand.
At this, I told him that it isn’t the concern of men to understand wickedness when a wicked man explains it. One cannot understand the anti-Semite when an evil man calling himself an anti-Semite argues that the Jews are wicked.
‘Overall, it seems to me,’ I said to the righteous man, ‘that these supposedly noble words “to know all is to forgive all” had been coined by the Antichrist himself.
‘It is the privilege of God,’ I said, ‘to know all and forgive all. But just as the Antichrist has convinced man that he possesses other divine qualities, so has he convinced him that he can know all and forgive all.
‘So, for example, a man can fly. But one day he might fall headfirst.
‘He isn’t an angel; angels don’t fall. Even birds don’t fall.
‘A man may also believe that he knows everything. Still, he can suddenly fall headfirst from the heights of his reason.
‘His reason is fragile, like an aeroplane. He cannot know or forgive anything.
‘That is the privilege of God and of the thirty-six true righteous men.
‘Their identities, however, we don’t know.
‘And if we do happen to recognize one of them, who knows whether he isn’t then removed from the thirty-six as though he had died?’
This false righteous man also resented me and left.
Thereupon the Antichrist sent another man, who came and said: ‘I love my country. Allow me to introduce myself. I am a patriot.
‘In my fatherland any evil may be perpetrated, perhaps even committed against me. I love it anyway.’
‘If evil is committed in your fatherland,’ I replied, ‘and you still love it, then you don’t love your country but, rather, evil itself.
‘If good is done anywhere, I love the country in which good is done.
‘Where it is good, there is my fatherland. That isn’t to say that wherever things go well for me is therefore my country.
‘Rather that is to say that wherever there is good, there is my home. And a home where good isn’t done is no home at all.
‘Above all, we are Children of God, and God alone is our home. He has given us legs and feet not only so that we may be at home in all His countries but also that we may leave a home where evil is perpetrated. Where evil is practised is not our home.
‘That is why God has given us feet, so that we can leave a home where evil is perpetrated.
‘Whoever stays in a home where the people sin against God doesn’t deserve to have feet. He doesn’t deserve to call God his home. God is our only home. In His sublime presence there can be no evil but only love and justice.
‘Outside of His sublime presence He has given us no home other than paradise and after that the entire earth.
‘The whole earth is temporarily our home. Our real home, however, is the eternal presence of God.’
At that the patriot also left me resentfully.
Then a pious man was sent to me, a man of the Holy Church, who wore a brown robe, a cord around the waist and a large cross.
‘Praised be Jesus Christ!’ he said.
‘In all eternity, Amen!’ I replied.
‘I see,’ he began, ‘how you are fighting against the Antichrist. I will bring you help. I come from Rome, the holy city. I am one of the most humble servants of the Holy Father. But I have the honour to stay often in his hallowed environs.
‘I once saw another sitting in the place of the Holy Father on the throne of Peter.’
The monk was silent for some time. Then he reiterated: ‘Someone quite other!’
I, too, was silent for some time. Then I said: ‘It is written that a time will come when the Antichrist will sit upon the throne of Peter adorned with all the insignia of the office of the Holy Father. Tell me, is this time already come?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied the monk. ‘I am but one of the lowliest servants in the palace of the Holy Father. One day, however, I saw that the Holy Father had fallen asleep.
‘He was asleep for just a few hours.
‘But in this time another sat himself upon the exalted throne.
‘And it happened that precisely during these hours ambassadors from a number of heathen counties came to make their peace with the Holy Church.
‘There were three countries, three different countries. But the ambassadors of each of these lands said nearly the same thing, and the first ones said: “We render unto God the things that are God’s and unto the emperor those that are the emperor’s. You, Holy Father, have only to say yes. And we shall have prayers said in the churches and praise the name of the Saviour. In return, however, we beg you, Holy Father, to bless our emperor.”
‘The ambassadors kneeled, the Holy Father was perched high upon his throne, and all around stood the cardinals, all in their prescribed ornament.
‘And they all took that Holy Father for the real Holy Father. I alone knew that he, the Holy Father, had fallen asleep.
‘I wondered how he could sit upon the throne of Peter and converse in such an amicable fashion with the ambassadors of the heathen.
‘The first of the ambassadors said: “We wish to conquer only half of the world, Holy Father, not all of it! This half of the world once belonged to mighty Rome, so why not us? We are the heirs.
‘“We only want to shoot, Holy Father, only to shoot a bit.
‘“We want no more, Holy Father, than to stab, to stab just a little, and to wear the daggers that are required in order to stab.
‘“But we also promise to pray, Holy Father. We will also pray.
‘“We will honour you, Holy Father! You shall have an auto-mobile from the best manufacturer in our country. And an apparatus called a telephone, fashioned of gold and ivory. And all the Edisons, all the Edisons, all the sons of Edom, will dedicate their inventions to you. We will take you to see the world, Holy Father, in special trains and in special automobiles. We shall keep all the holy days and have our children taught the precepts of the Saviour twice weekly; but seven times a week, only seven times, we will teach them to shoot and stab.”
‘And then the ambassador of the second country spoke. “Holy Father, in all Christian humility, we want not half the world but all of it.
‘“But this also only in the name of God the Just.
‘“Rome once ruled half the world. But we have conquered Rome. Therefore, the whole world belongs to us.
‘“Allow us, Holy Father, to vanquish the entire world.
‘“In return for this we shall pray and guarantee that we won’t torture any more priests, for we are of the Germanic race and don’t willingly torture when we are promised that which we demand.
‘“We also wish to shoot and stab and wear daggers, and twice a week we will have our children learn the precepts of the Saviour.
‘“But only seven times, only seven times in a week, will we stab and shoot, Holy Father.
‘“But even this we shall do in the name of the Saviour.
‘“We will acknowledge not just one Cross but two.
‘“One on which the Saviour died. And the other to which we have made a few modern adjustments. We call it the crooked cross.
‘“Let us, Holy Father, have four hooks on our cross!
‘“In return, we shall destroy the godless, demolish the Jews, sanctify Sundays with shooting practice and offer up a prayer before each shot.”
‘And the Holy Father nodded.
‘Then the representatives of the third country came forward. They said: “We come from Hollywood, what some call Unholywood, but you shouldn’t believe them, Holy Father.
‘“We no longer wish to conquer the world, for we have already conquered it.
‘“We are the Land of Shadows.
‘“Goldwein-Mutro-Mayer sent us.
‘“Goldwein-Mutro-Mayer and its associates bind themselves to disseminate the shadow of the Saviour on to all the screens of the world.
‘“We shall make up your genuine cardinals and your genuine priests using the techniques of our art, so that they may become genuine shadows.
‘“In this way we will be able to spread the genuine faith across the world, through use of genuine shadows.
‘“For this we desire your blessing, Holy Father, and also your own holy shadow
‘“And Goldwein-Mutro-Mayer, mightier than the powers with whose ambassadors you have just spoken, wishes also that we might bring back a concordat.
‘“For the purposes of propaganda.
‘“For Goldwein-Mutro-Mayer doesn’t see why we, the Holy Trinity and rulers over the shadows, should have less than the rulers over the bodies, who in reality only desire to kill.
‘“Whereas Goldwein-Mutro-Mayer kills nothing but shadows.”
‘At this point, the Holy Father nodded.
‘And he concluded a concordat with Goldwein-Mutro-Mayer and its associates.’
This is what the monk related to me.
‘I don’t believe you, Brother!’ I said.
‘You’re wrong! The Holy Father has not fallen asleep! The Antichrist is not yet sitting on the throne of Peter!’
At this, the monk grew uncertain and said: ‘I am truly only a humble servant in the palace of the Lord. To err is human!’
Whereupon I said to him: ‘Get out! The end of days hasn’t yet arrived.’
He went obediently and fearfully. And it seemed possible to me that even he was the Antichrist or a messenger of the Antichrist.
But before long I became certain that he really was a messenger of the Antichrist.
For in the evening, in one of the theatres that they call cinemas, I saw my own shadow.
The Antichrist had filmed me while he was speaking with me, the enemy of the Antichrist.
Amid the shadows of skiers, rowers, tennis players, boxers, actors, politicians and criminals he also showed my shadow.
He had robbed me of my shadow.
So I left the theatre.
Also by Joseph Roth and available from Peter Owen
Flight Without End
The Hundred Days
Perlefter
The Silent Prophet
Weights and Measures
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Richard Panchyk is the author, editor or translator of eighteen books, including World War II for Kids, German New York City, Forgotten Tales of Long Island and Keys to American History, as well as a study on Jewish assimilation and name change in the Austrian Empire during the nineteenth century. He is distantly related to Joseph Roth.
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Translated from the German
Der Antichrist
First published in 1934 by Verlag Allert de Lange, Amsterdam
This translation first published in Great Britain by
Peter Owen Publishers 2010
Translation © Richard Panchyk 2010
Introduction © Richard Panchyk 2010
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publishers.
PAPERBACK ISBN 978-0-7206-1331-5
EPUB ISBN 978-0-7206-1402-2
KINDLE ISBN 978-0-7206-1403-9
PDF ISBN 978-0-7206-1404-6
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The editor and publisher acknowledge their gratitide to Williams Verlag for permission to quote from the works of Stefan Zweig and to Gabriel Picard for permission to quote from the works of Max Picard.
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