“I came from a democratic age. And I find an aristocratic tyranny!”
“Well,—but you are the chief tyrant.”
Graham shook his head.
“Well,” said Ostrog, “take the general question. It is the way that change has always travelled. Aristocracy, the prevalence of the best—the suffering and extinction of the unfit, and so to better things.”
“But aristocracy! those people I met—”
“Oh! not those!” said Ostrog. “But for the most part they go to their death. Vice and pleasure! They have no children. That sort of stuff will die out. If the world keeps to one road, that is, if there is no turning back. An easy road to excess, convenient Euthanasia for the pleasure seekers singed in the flame, that is the way to improve the race!”
“Pleasant extinction,” said Graham. “Yet—.” He thought for an instant. “There is that other thing—the Crowd, the great mass of poor men. Will that die out? That will not die out. And it suffers, its suffering is a force that even you—”
Ostrog moved impatiently, and when he spoke, he spoke rather less evenly than before.
“Don’t you trouble about these things,” he said. “Everything will be settled in a few days now. The Crowd is a huge foolish beast. What if it does not die out? Even if it does not die, it can still be tamed and driven. I have no sympathy with servile men. You heard those people shouting and singing two nights ago. They were taught that song. If you had taken any man there in cold blood and asked why he shouted, he could not have told you. They think they are shouting for you, that they are loyal and devoted to you. Just then they were ready to slaughter the Council. To-day—they are already murmuring against those who have overthrown the Council.”
“No, no,” said Graham. “They shouted because their lives were dreary, without joy or pride, and because in me—in me—they hoped.”