“But how about them?...”
“I don’t know whether or not they’ve ever done anything wrong; as you will readily understand, that doesn’t concern me one way or the other. But when a man can’t get a real grasp upon anything, when he lacks will power, heart, lofty sentiments, all ideas of justice and equity, then he’s capable of anything. If these fellows had any exceptional talent, they might be of some use and make a career for themselves. But they haven’t. On the other hand, they’ve lost the moral notions of the bourgeois, the pillars that sustain the life of the ordinary man. They live as men who possess the ailments and the vices of genius, but neither the genius’s talent nor soul; they vegetate in an atmosphere of petty intrigues, of base trivialities. They are incapable of carrying anything to completion. There may be a touch of genius in those monsters of Alex’s, in Santillana’s poetry; I don’t say there isn’t. But that’s not enough. A man must carry out what he’s thought up, what he’s felt, and that takes hard, constant, daily toil. It’s just like an infant at birth, and although that comparison is hackneyed, it is exact; the mother bears it in pain, then feeds it from her own breast and tends it until it grows up sound and strong. These fellows want to create a beautiful work of art at a single stroke and all they do is talk and talk.”
Roberto paused for breath, and continued more gently.
“And at that, they have the advantage of being in touch with things; they know one another, they know the newspaper men, and believe me, my friend, the press today is a brutal power. But no, you can’t get into the newspaper game; you’d require seven or eight years of preparation, hunting up friends and recommendations. And in the meantime, what would you earn a living at?”
“But I don’t want to be one of them. I realize well enough that I’m a common workingman.”
“Workingman! Indeed! I only wish you were. Today you’re nothing more than a loafer who has yet to become a workingman: a fellow like me, like all the rest of us who toil for a living. At present, activity is a genuine effort for you; do something; repeat what you do until activity becomes a habit. Convert your static life into a dynamic one. Don’t you understand? I want to impress upon you the need of will power.”
Manuel stared at Roberto dispiritedly; they each spoke a different language.