“Yes, the upper classes are just as tolerant as the common people were before they rose: it’s an outcome of culture. Sometimes they’re almost too tolerant; you can’t quite vouch for their words. When there’s something they don’t like, they always get out of it by looking at it from an artistic point of view.”
“How do you mean?”
“As a display, as if you were acting for their entertainment. ‘It’s splendidly done,’ they say, when you’ve laid bare a little of the boundless misery. ‘It’s quite Russian. Of course it’s not real at all, at any rate not here at home.’ But you always make a mark on some one or other, and little by little the food after all becomes bitter to their taste, I think. Perhaps some day I shall be lucky enough to write in such a way about the poor that no one can leave them out. But you yourself—what’s your attitude toward matters? Are you disappointed?”
“Yes, to some extent. In prison, in my great need, I left the fulfilment of the time of prosperity to you others. All the same, a great change has taken place.”
“And you’re pleased with it?”
“Everything has become dearer,” said Pelle slowly, “and unemployment seems on the way to become permanent.”
Morten nodded. “That’s the answer capital gives,” he said. “It multiplies every rise in wages by two, and puts it back on the workmen again. The poor man can’t stand very many victories of that kind.”
“Almost the worst thing about it is the development of snobbery. It seems to me that our good working classes are being split up into two— the higher professions, which will be taken up into the upper classes; and the proletariat, which will be left behind. The whole thing has been planned on too small a scale for it to get very far.”
“You’ve been out and seen something of the world, Pelle,” said Morten significantly. “You must teach others now.”
“I don’t understand myself,” answered Pelle evasively, “and I’ve been in prison. But what about you?”