He said the laborer must learn to hate his enemy, and not let himself be deluded by oily-tongued preachers of peace who were paid by the rich; for then he would surely remain in his misery. And yet, in the end, they must certainly have a share of the pleasure—they who had heretofore always come out of the little end of the horn.
All that Dr. Felbeck said was listened to with avidity. The listeners grew more and more attentive, and the speaker more and more vehement. There were frequent outbursts of laughter from the audience, and the hall trembled with the stamping of feet and the clapping of hands. Sometimes there was cheering to the echo. And when the speaker ended—with a fiery, well-turned clause in which all were urged to join the International Social Democratic Labor-Party—Grand Army of Laborers—there followed such an uproar that Johannes lost all sense of sight and hearing.
His duty done, the speaker sat down, yet he looked around with some anxiety at the succeeding speakers.
Again the hammer sounded: "Would any one like to add a few words?"
Three—four—hands went up.
"Hakkema has the Boor."
"Oh, indeed!" said Jan. "Now for a Punch-and-Judy session!"
Hakkema was a small, stocky man, with long hair combed straight back to his neck. His voice was rough and harsh from much speaking, and as he spoke he dropped his head back, in such a way that his shaggy beard stuck out in front. He began very softly, almost hesitatingly—apparently to flatter the former speaker. But very speedily the audience observed—what every one had expected—that he was deriding him. His deep voice grew steadily louder and rougher, and his jokes tarter and tougher. Part of the audience, carried away, and agog for fresh taunts, burst out in loud, insulting laughter, while another part enlivened itself by hissing and whistling, and by shouts of derision.
The irony chiefly concerned the fact that the former speaker termed himself a proletarian, while at the same time he owned a villa at Driebergen, and had a son preparing to be a lawyer. Of course, he appeared to be quite disinterested and would fight for the people, if only the people would be so good as to send him to the House of Representatives, with a salary of forty guldens a week. Certainly, if the King should make Dr. Felbeck Minister to-morrow, with a salary of eight thousand guldens, Dr. Felbeck would accept it out of sheer self-sacrificing devotion to the people. And then the laborer could demand audience of Dr. Felbeck, and ask why the portion on the table of the laborer should still remain so small, and also when the general national distribution would begin.
After a half-hour of such talk, the speaker ended with a stimulating appeal for a purified class struggle in which no little lords among the proletarians should be tolerated, and in which—pointing at Dr. Felbeck, who, smiling scornfully, sat sharpening a lead-pencil—the wolves in sheeps' clothing should be restrained; a struggle in which war should be declared, not only against all tyranny, all coercion, but also against the despotism of party; a struggle in which there should be strife until men had a free society where each might take what he pleased, without lords, without bosses, without safety-boxes, without gods, and without laws.