“So? Awkward that for society.”
We talked for some time longer, when I called my appointment to mind, and tearing myself away from my kind friends sallied forth into the street. It was not easy to refuse the ex-commissioner’s invitation to dinner in view of Burnett’s dismal parlour at Stepney. Still I was not a little interested in his guest, and anxious, so far as was possible, to keep Burnett himself out of mischief. Hitherto he had been a mere theorist with a very kindly side, and there seemed no reason why, with care, he should not remain one. But he required, so I thought, watching. With these thoughts uppermost in my mind I hailed a hansom, and ordered the driver to drop me in the East End in a road running hard by the anarchist’s house.
I can recall my entrance into that parlour most vividly. Burnett had let me in with his usual caution. Whisking off my coat I followed him to the parlour. There was a bright fire burning in the grate, and the gleam of the flames—the only light in the room—lit up a whisky-bottle and some glasses on the table, and ever and anon revealed the rude prints on the walls and the rough deal shelves heaped with books. Everything smelt of the practical. In the place of the Louis XIV. furniture of the Northertons’ only a wooden table and some three or four deal chairs met the eye, the sole article rejoicing in a cushion being a rudely-carved sofa in the corner. The single window, I noticed, was carefully curtained and barred. Stepping toward the mantelpiece Burnett struck a match, and proceeded to light a couple of candles which crowned that dusty eminence.
I then saw to my surprise that we were not alone. On a chair by the left-hand corner of the fire sat an elderly man apparently of the higher artisan class. His face was most unprepossessing. There was a bull-dog’s obstinacy and attachment about it, but the eyes were unspeakably wicked and the mouth hard and cruel. I diagnosed it at once as that of a man whose past was best unread, whose hand had in dark by-ways been persistently raised against his fellowmen. It takes time to analyze this impression, but originally it seized me in a moment. I was prejudiced, accordingly, at the outset, but judge of my astonishment and disgust when Burnett cried, “Here, Schwartz, is my old pal Stanley.” It was the shameless miscreant known as the shadow of Hartmann!
Coldly enough I took the proffered hand. So this was the fanatic supposed to be long ago dead. One felt like abetting a murderer.
“Stanley seems startled,” laughed Burnett. “He is not much accustomed to high life. Come, man, acknowledge you had a surprise.”
The meeting was half of my seeking, and decency after all forbade openly expressed dislike. Besides, Schwartz was in practice only what Burnett was in theory, and what possibly even I and other moderates might become at a pinch.
“I confess,” I replied, “I was taken somewhat aback. It is seldom the sea gives up its dead, and one does not meet celebrities like Herr Schwartz every day.”
Schwartz laughed grimly. I could see he was pleasantly tickled. Monstrous conceits sprout from the shedding of blood. He seemed to chuckle that he, outcast and rebel, had hurled so many of his fellows into nothingness. If this was the man, what of the master?