The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

– by the force of economic conditions. Capitalism has made

socialism, and the laws made by the capitalism for the protection

of property are responsible for anarchism. No one can tell what

form the social organisation may take in the future. Then why

indulge in prophetic phantasies? At best they can only interpret

the mind of the prophet, and can have no objective value. Leave

that pastime to the moralists, my boy.”

Michaelis, the ticket-of-leave apostle, was speaking in an even

voice, a voice that wheezed as if deadened and oppressed by the

layer of fat on his chest. He had come out of a highly hygienic

prison round like a tub, with an enormous stomach and distended

cheeks of a pale, semi-transparent complexion, as though for

fifteen years the servants of an outraged society had made a point

of stuffing him with fattening foods in a damp and lightless

cellar. And ever since he had never managed to get his weight down

as much as an ounce.

It was said that for three seasons running a very wealthy old lady

had sent him for a cure to Marienbad – where he was about to share

the public curiosity once with a crowned head – but the police on

that occasion ordered him to leave within twelve hours. His

martyrdom was continued by forbidding him all access to the healing

waters. But he was resigned now.

With his elbow presenting no appearance of a joint, but more like a

bend in a dummy’s limb, thrown over the back of a chair, he leaned

forward slightly over his short and enormous thighs to spit into

the grate.

“Yes! I had the time to think things out a little,” he added

without emphasis. “Society has given me plenty of time for

meditation.”

On the other side of the fireplace, in the horse-hair arm-chair

where Mrs Verloc’s mother was generally privileged to sit, Karl

Yundt giggled grimly, with a faint black grimace of a toothless

mouth. The terrorist, as he called himself, was old and bald, with

a narrow, snow-white wisp of a goatee hanging limply from his chin.

An extraordinary expression of underhand malevolence survived in

his extinguished eyes. When he rose painfully the thrusting

forward of a skinny groping hand deformed by gouty swellings

suggested the effort of a moribund murderer summoning all his

remaining strength for a last stab. He leaned on a thick stick,

which trembled under his other hand.

“I have always dreamed,” he mouthed fiercely, “of a band of men

absolute in their resolve to discard all scruples in the choice of

means, strong enough to give themselves frankly the name of

destroyers, and free from the taint of that resigned pessimism

which rots the world. No pity for anything on earth, including

themselves, and death enlisted for good and all in the service of

humanity – that’s what I would have liked to see.”

His little bald head quivered, imparting a comical vibration to the

wisp of white goatee. His enunciation would have been almost

totally unintelligible to a stranger. His worn-out passion,

resembling in its impotent fierceness the excitement of a senile

sensualist, was badly served by a dried throat and toothless gums

which seemed to catch the tip of his tongue. Mr Verloc,

established in the corner of the sofa at the other end of the room,

emitted two hearty grunts of assent.

The old terrorist turned slowly his head on his skinny neck from

side to side.

“And I could never get as many as three such men together. So much

for your rotten pessimism,” he snarled at Michaelis, who uncrossed

his thick legs, similar to bolsters, and slid his feet abruptly

under his chair in sign of exasperation.

He a pessimist! Preposterous! He cried out that the charge was

outrageous. He was so far from pessimism that he saw already the

end of all private property coming along logically, unavoidably, by

the mere development of its inherent viciousness. The possessors

of property had not only to face the awakened proletariat, but they

had also to fight amongst themselves. Yes. Struggle, warfare, was

the condition of private ownership. It was fatal. Ah! he did not