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In Odessa, my hometown, the tram company belonged to a Belgian company, and the manager was a certain Monsieur Cambier. In public, in the middle of the street, he would slap the conductors' cheeks, but at home, in his armchair, he was considered a very proper and decent gentleman, because in his armchair it was forbidden, and in any Russian city thirty years ago it was permitted.

Take any object in the universe and write on it "Permitted!" – and someone will always be found to desecrate it. Civilization mainly consists of this: that the number of objects which it is "permissible" to desecrate continuously decreases. It would be childish on our part to imagine that a hundred years ago people were evil, and today they are good. It is simply that they then treated a peasant, a worker, as an inanimate block, and now they remove their hats before them. The percentage of good and evil people was the same then as it is today, but in the meantime, the common man is learning to object.

It is possible that today, in the civilized world, not a single corner remains upon which is inscribed "Ownerless." The exception is the Jewish one – we, the Jews. This is why the people, the youth, so love our plowshare, our inaction; if they were to search for him, not... not our plowshare, but rather our sword. For this reason, the Spanish pioneer is sacred in their eyes and his value is higher than that of the pioneer of the Kvutza. This is a symbol in their eyes that there is, after all, a means to be rid of this "Ownerless" status.

Song of the Pioneers

The days are plowed for you, - What is it to you, my brothers? Upon eternity, evening has descended, Trembling, O pioneers! My people! Pioneers - to life! The blood will beat with life - Pioneers of the blood and the flesh together