Canto XXXV

We start in 'Mitteleuropa' with a series of descriptions of people: Mr Corles, who walked away from his post in the army; Mr Fidascz, a violinist; "the Fraulein Doktor"; "bewhiskered sonvabitch François Giuseppe of whom nothing good is recorded"; and others. Then a Mr Elias turns up, who tells of how gets "inspiration" from looking at a pretty girl.

And then this:

The tale of the perfect schnorrer: a peautiful chewisch poy
wit a vo-ice dot woult
meldt dh heart off a shtone
and wit a likeing for to make arht-voiks
and ven dh oldt lady wasn't dhere any more
and dey didn't know why tdhere ee woss in the
oldt antique schop and nobodty know how he got dhere

and it goes on like that for a while. Why? Um Gottes Willen, why? Just one example, how would "schop" sound any different from "shop"? Obviously it's anti-semitic but really crap at the same time. I've mentioned before that Ez can do invective really well, but this is pathetic.

The canto goes on, as far as I can tell, to describe how Venice achieved and maintained its position as "The Dominant" in charge of commerce and shopping, propped up, I think, by merchants of Venice - pioneering money-lending.