The ordeal over, I had the luxury of a tête-à-tête with my fiancée, and excellent use I made of the limited time at my disposal. I was very fond of Lena, who was not only a charmingly pretty girl, but, thank goodness! sympathized most cordially with the bulk of my political opinions. She never of course mixed with the peculiar circles I frequented, but dearly loved to follow my reports of the movements which they represented. The only person remotely connected with them she knew was Mrs. Hartmann, to whose house I had brought her in the hope that the old lady might find a friend. Lena was often to be seen in the little parlour at Islington, and knew probably more about the poor widow’s troubles than any one else. As her parents gave her complete freedom of action, she had plenty of opportunities for cultivating the acquaintance. After our private confidences had been duly exchanged, the conversation naturally drifted to this topic. I was anxious to know about the old lady’s welfare, and casually mentioned the rumour which concerned her son. “Had it reached her ears?”
LENA WANTS ME.
“I am sure I don’t know,” said Lena; “she seemed in marvellously good spirits when I saw her last, but she made no allusion whatever to the subject. How could she, when you come to think of it? It is all very well rejoicing over a prodigal son’s return, but this son was a fiend, and would be much better lying quiet at the bottom of the sea, where people imagined him.”
“But you forget, dear, that he was her only son, and always good to her.”
“That’s true, but look at the blood on his hands. By the bye, Mrs. Hartmann once told me the whole story. Hartmann, you know, was educated for the profession of an engineer, and was always looked on as a prodigy of intellectual vigour. Whatever he did he did well, and as he came into a considerable fortune when of age, a brilliant career was predicted for him. Mrs. Hartmann says that at that time she never knew he had any other interests than those of his calling, but it appears from later discoveries that when twenty-three years of age he made the acquaintance of a German exile, one Schwartz, a miscreant of notorious opinions and character. This man gradually inspired him with a hatred of the whole fabric of society, and the end of it was that he became an anarchist. That Hartmann was deeply in earnest seems perfectly clear. He sacrificed to his aim, position, comfort, reputation, his studies—in short, everything. He regarded civilization as rotten from top to foundation, and the present human race as ‘only fit for fuel.’ Schwartz was a pessimist, and his pupil became one of an even deeper dye.”
“But what was his ultimate aim?”
“He thought, like some eighteenth-century writers, that man must revert to simpler conditions of life and make a new start. He hoped, so his mother says, that his example would fire the minds of others, and so topple over the very pedestals of governments and law. It was absurd, he held, for a few men to war against society, but, he added, the affection he laboured under was catching. He trusted that one day London and the great cities of Europe would lie in ruins.”
“But,” I interposed, “this is fanaticism, or rather madness. It is a disease bred by an effete form of civilization. Is this all the wily anarchist plotted for?”
“Well, it’s a pretty large ‘all,’ is it not? By the way, he had one persistent craze, the belief in some invention which was one day to place society at his mercy.”