It was his theory that the people needed beauty in order to become healthy and brotherly. Everything that surrounded them, particularly all objects of current use—utensils, furniture, and dwellings—ought to suggest beauty. And belief in the superiority of aristocratic art was imbecile. The greatest, most touching and most human art was that into which most life entered. Moreover, the work that proved immortal and defied the centuries was one that sprang from the multitude and summed up for it an epoch or a civilisation. And it was ever from the people that art flowered forth in order that it might embellish the people themselves and impart to them the perfume and the radiance which were as necessary to their life as was daily bread.

'Ah! here's a peasant reaping, and a woman washing linen. Take that one, my big lassie; and you, my little man, there's one for you. Well, it's over now. Mind you are very good; kiss your mammas and papas for me. Ah! my little lambs, my little chicks, life is beautiful, life is good!'

Ragu had listened motionless and silent, but he was evidently more and more surprised. At last, with a ferocious sneer he exploded: 'Ah! Master Anarchist!' said he, 'so you no longer talk of blowing up the whole show, eh?'

Lange turned sharply and looked at Ragu without recognising him. However, he displayed no anger, but simply began to laugh again: 'Ah! so you know me,' he said, 'though what your name is I can't remember. Well, yes, it's true, I did wish to blow up the whole show. I cried it everywhere, to all the winds of the sky, and I heaped malediction after malediction upon the accursed city, announcing its approaching destruction by iron and fire. I had even resolved to do justice myself and raze Beauclair as by lightning. But things turned out otherwise. Enough justice came to disarm me. The town was purified, and rebuilt, and I can't destroy it now that all I wanted, all I dreamt of, is being realised—isn't that so, Bonnaire; we've made peace, eh?'

Thereupon Lange, the former Anarchist, held out his hand to the ex-Collectivist with whom he had once had such bitter quarrels: 'We were ready to eat one another, were we not, Bonnaire?' he resumed. 'We agreed as to the city of liberty, equity, and cordial understanding which we wished to reach; only we differed as to the best road to follow, and those who thought that they ought to turn to the right were ready to massacre those who showed a desire to turn to the left. But now that we've all reached our destination, it would be too stupid of us to continue quarrelling. Is that not so, Bonnaire? As I said before, peace is made.'

Bonnaire, who had retained the potter's hand in his grasp, pressed and shook it affectionately.

'Yes, yes, Lange,' he replied; 'we did wrong in not coming to an understanding, it was perhaps that which prevented us from making progress. Or perhaps we were all right, since now here we are, hand in hand, willing to admit that at bottom we all wanted the same thing.'

'And if things are not yet altogether such as absolute justice would require,' Lange resumed, 'we can rely on those lads and lassies to continue the work and some day finish it. You hear, my little chicks, my little lambs, love each other well.'

The shouting and laughing was beginning afresh, when Ragu in his brutal fashion intervened once more: 'But I say, you spoilt Anarchist, what about your Barefeet, have you made her your wife, eh?'

Tears started to Lange's eyes. Nearly twenty years previously the tall and beautiful creature whom he had compassionately picked up on the roads, and who had worshipped him like a slave, had died in his arms, the victim of a frightful and mysterious accident. He had spoken of an explosion in one of his kilns, saying that its iron door had been carried away, and had struck Barefeet full in the bosom. But the truth was assuredly different. She had assisted him in his experiments with explosives, and must have been struck down during some attempts to charge those famous little 'stock-pots,' of which he had spoken so complacently, intending to deposit them at the town-hall, the sub-prefecture, the law-courts—in all the places, indeed, where there was any form of authority to be destroyed. For months and for years that tragic death had made Lange's heart bleed, and even nowadays, after the attainment of so much happiness, he still wept for the loss of that gentle yet impassioned woman who, in return for the alms of a piece of bread, had for ever bestowed on him the royal gift of her beauty.