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he was still hungry for power: insistent repetition, like a fist banging on a door—brooking no refusal—and metaphors so striking, so just that no one could deny the truth of his vision.
    Faust would get the job—and he might even be mayor, one day. Faust was an obstacle. Faust was in Schmidt’s way.
    “Only ten years ago,” Faust continued, “the program for reform was accepted by everyone: removal of the Jews from the civil service, medicine, law, and small business. Only ten years ago, these proposals were taken very seriously indeed. Now look at the state of our most important institutions.”
    “There have been some successes,” said Hofrat Holzknecht. “There aren’t that many of them in the civil service, and we’ve managed to limit admissions to the gymnasia.”
    “But it’s not enough!” said Faust.
    “Well,” said Hofrat Holzknecht. “Should you ever find yourself in a position to revive the mayor’s flagging program for municipal reform”—his expression became arch and knowing—“then you would be assured of support from my bureau.”
    Schmidt felt his heart beating faster. It was so unfair. Holzknecht was acting as if the decision had already been made.
    Holzknecht blew out a cloud of smoke. “It won’t be easy,” he continued, “to fight this new complacency.”
    “Of course it won’t,” said Schmidt. “That is why we need something to capture the public’s imagination.” He wasn’t going to let Faust have a coronation. Holzknecht should realize that Faust wasn’t the only councillor with ideas. Schmidt paused, hoping that his silence would be sufficiently cryptic to elicit a further question. His ruse was successful.
    “What do you mean, Schmidt?”
    “I mean that there is only so much one can do to persuade the electorate with economic and social arguments. Sometimes you have to engage their emotions. Somebody once suggested to me that what we really need right now is another Hilsner.”
    Fabian, having already distributed the cognac and cigars, had been sitting quietly reading a newspaper. However, he had been half-listening to the conversation, and now he raised his head quizzically.
    “Hilsner, uncle?”
    Schmidt smiled at his nephew and then turned to Faust and Holzknecht. “He’s only eighteen… one forgets.” He came away from the window and sat down next to his nephew.
    “Leopold Hilsner, dear boy. He killed a nineteen-year-old virgin and drained her body of blood. It’s what they do. Christian blood for their bread. The scandal started a very healthy debate in the popular press… It got people thinking.”
    “Is it true, Uncle Julius? They really do this?”
    “As far as we’re concerned, it’s true,” said Schmidt, his eyes glinting mischievously.
    Fabian looked confused.
    “No, Julius,” said Faust, “I think you can be more emphatic than that. They are a superstitious and backward people. Whenever a child disappears—particularly in the rural areas of Hungary and Galicia—the local communities are quite right to suspect the tinkers and peddlers passing through from the east. I can assure you, young man, ritual murder is a real phenomenon. And you don’t have to take my word for it. Read the Reverend Joseph Decker’s A Ritual Murder or Father August Rohling’s The Talmudic Jew . They are chilling works that deserve a place on every right-thinking person’s bookshelf.”
    Schmidt’s jaw tightened with irritation. He had read neither of these tracts. Faust always seemed to be able to back up his arguments with scholarly references. It was particularly riling because Schmidt, unlike many of his colleagues, had made a thorough study of Jewish lore and was relatively well informed. Know thy enemy was an epigram he lived by.
    “That’s all very well, Schmidt,” said Holzknecht, “saying that we need another Hilsner. But you can’t expect something like that to happen just when you want it to.”
    “No,” said Schmidt. “My point exactly!