"The nationalization of land is our ultimate object, therefore distant. In the meantime we want to get the people into our camp, so we use such means as will lead to that end. We cannot give the land, but the people themselves can take it."
"The most you can accomplish is to get them to take it. Assume that in Rzeslewo the husbandmen, tenants, and hired hands seize the land and divide it between them. What follows? Do you not see the clashes, the knouting, the courts and sanguinary executions which will overtake them?"
"Do you not believe that this would be water for our mill? The more there is of that, the sooner our end will be attained."
"And so I guessed rightly," said Gronski, recalling his statement to Ladislaus and Dolhanski that the summoning of the police would be playing into the hands of the agitators.
Laskowicz wanted to ask what Gronski had guessed rightly, but the latter forestalled him and continued:
"There is another singular thing. If misfortune overtakes any one of you, whether imprisonment, deportation, or death, then we, that is, the people who do not belong to your ranks, the people against whom you have declared war to the death, say: 'Too bad! such zeal! what a pity--such misguided sacrifice! how deplorable,--such a young head!' and we grieve for you. But you do not regret those people whose defenders you proclaim yourself to be. You arrange industrial strikes and pull the string until it breaks and later, when the manufacturers tie it again it becomes shorter than ever before. Already thousands are dying of starvation. And now you want an agricultural strike, after which bread becomes dearer and scarcer. Who suffers by this? Again the people. Truly at times it is impossible to resist the thought that you love your doctrines more than the people."
To this Laskowicz answered in a harsh, hollow voice:
"That is war. There must be sacrifices."
Gronski involuntarily looked at him and, seeing his eyes set so closely to each other, thought:
"No! Such eyes really can only look straight ahead and are incapable of taking in a wider horizon."