“You refer to my old days. Yes, you are right. I was then a pessimist, and despaired of everything around me.”
“And you became an anarchist——”
“To revenge myself on the race which produced and then wearied me. I had no tutor but Schwartz, a faithful fellow, but a mere iconoclast. Our idea was simple enough. We were to raze, raze, raze, and let the future look to itself. Our mistake was in dreaming even of moderate success. Immunity from the police was impossible. But those wasted days are past.”
He smiled ironically and bent his gaze on the wall, devouring, as it seemed, some specially pleasurable object. Following its direction, I became aware of a splendid sketch of the Attila, which constituted the sole æsthetic appanage of this singular sanctum. What a contrast it must have awakened between his present power and the abjectness of the fugitive of ten years back!
“One more question. How do you propose to conquer, now you have the Attila?”
“I cannot say much as yet. But, understand, the day when the first bomb falls will witness outbreaks in every great city in Europe. We have some 12,000 adherents in London, many more in Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere—they will stir the tumult below. London is my objective to start with. During the tempests of bombs, the anarchists below will fire the streets in all directions, rouse up the populace, and let loose pandemonium upon earth. In the confusion due to our attack, order and precautions will be impossible.”
“You horrify me. And the object?”
“Is, as I repeat, to wreck civilization. If you are interested, Brandt will probably attract you. He lectures to-morrow on the upper deck. We are Rousseaus who advocate a return to a simpler life.”
“But how is the new order to take shape? How educe system from chaos?”
“We want no more ‘systems,’ or ‘constitutions’—we shall have anarchy. Men will effect all by voluntary association, and abjure the foulness of the modern wage-slavery and city-mechanisms.”