The artist paused before the open window and stood looking out upon the dusk of the little scented garden. A faint reflected glimmer from some far-away lamp dimly illuminated one side of his face, silhouetting his striking profile sharply against a ground of blackness.
"If you mean," he began, slowly, "that I should have some opinions, then I will tell you what they are.
"I believe neither in tariff nor trade. Currency nor coin. Traffic nor toil. I believe in nothing—but the absolute freedom of every living being. Freedom!—freedom from the curse of creeds, the blight of bigotry, and the leprosy of the law. Freedom to go and to come, to live and to die. Life without loathing, love without bondage. To live in some sunlit valley, where the bud is ever bursting into flower, the flower fading to fruit, and the fruit ripening to sustenance. The untouched bosom of Nature would yield enough for her children had not the curse of greed been implanted in their bosoms."
Goetze had turned away from the window and was again striding up and down the floor in the dark.
"A beautiful poem, Julian," said the other, dreamily; "but a sort of delightful barbarism, I'm afraid."
"Barbarism? No! A higher, purer intellectuality than we have ever yet known—a civilization that knows not the curse of avarice nor the miseries of crime—the weariness of wealth nor the pangs of poverty. The garden of Eden is still about us, but we have torn up the flowers, and desecrated it with the lust of gain. Man was never driven out of that garden. Greed was planted in his heart and he destroyed it."
"Come," he continued, suddenly changing the subject, "I have made you tired and hungry; let us go out, somewhere, to supper."
"Thanks," said the other, laughing; "I supposed a man in your condition had no need of bodily sustenance. You are comfortably situated here, Julian," he added, as they passed out into the street.
"Yes, it is quiet here—no bother with servants nor landladies. Once a week my washerwoman comes and stays to put my establishment in order; the rest of the time I am disturbed only by my sitters."
"You forget me."