Dr. Zamenhof’s opening address once again inspired me to throw caution to the wind and to marry on Switzerland’s neutral soil. Somehow the sight of this tiny, myopic Jew, thundering out his polemic with all the fire of an ancient prophet, stirred in me a corresponding fire. Dr. Zamenhof was no longer the meek little fellow he’d been a year before, capitulating to an army of French intellectuals. He’d endured a year of calumny from the critics of Hilelismo, and it had toughened him up. (Perhaps because he’d signed the work pseudonymously, as “Homo Sum,” his critics felt free to fall upon him like a pack of hungry dogs.) Catholic priests from eastern Europe ridiculed Homo Sum for his theological naïveté, meanwhile accusing him of betraying Christ their Lord. The response from the godless West was no better, and perhaps no critic was as vile as the Marquis de Beaufront. Dr. Javal had warned Dr. Zamenhof that France would never be receptive to these sorts of ideas, and the marquis picked up the flag of mockery and marshaled himself beneath its garish colors.Dr.
