– 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