"Well, how do you like it?" asked the man of the broad shoulders.
"Not so badly," replied the tall one.
"But do you think this people will ever dare venture upon a revolution?"
"Why not?"
"Look at these stupid faces, listen to these miserable jokes with which they try to drown their instinct of the grave nature of the situation, and the painful feeling of their own insignificance. See how the people, at the very hour when they hear liberty and justice eloquently discussed, still have time and relish for panem et circenses, and you see enough to smother the last spark of hope that these men will ever talk of freedom, much less fight for it."
"You are still a pessimist, Berger! and in spite of the golden sunlight which at last shines once more after so many dark years of your life."
"It is this very sunlight which fills my heart with such impatience. During the gray winter days we think it quite natural that the trees raise their bare branches to the sky; but when the first balmy air of spring plays around us, and the sky is blue once more, we long to see the green ocean of leaves twittering and rustling in the breeze; and above all, when the winter has been so long and so hard that it has taken all our strength from us, and we have no right to hope to live into summer!"
"The dead travel fast! You have seen that in Paris."
"At that moment a man approached them who had for some time looked at the two gentlemen as if he did not quite trust his own eyes, and said to Berger,
"Is this really you, professor?"