When Barrington got round to the back of the platform, he found the man with the scarred face standing alone and gloomily silent in the shadow. Barrington gave him one of the Socialist leaflets, which he took, and after glancing at it, put it in his coat pocket without making any remark.
“I hope you’ll excuse me for asking, but were you not formerly a Socialist?” said Barrington.
Even in the semi-darkness Barrington saw the other man flush deeply and then become very pale, and the unsightly scar upon his forehead showed with ghastly distinctiveness.
“I am still a Socialist: no man who has once been a Socialist can ever cease to be one.”
“You seem to have accomplished that impossibility, to judge by the work you are at present engaged in. You must have changed your opinions since you were here last.”
“No one who has been a Socialist can ever cease to be one. It is impossible for a man who has once acquired knowledge ever to relinquish it. A Socialist is one who understands the causes of the misery and degradation we see all around us; who knows the only remedy, and knows that that remedy—the state of society that will be called Socialism—must eventually be adopted; is the only alternative to the extermination of the majority of the working people; but it does not follow that everyone who has sense enough to acquire that amount of knowledge, must, in addition, be willing to sacrifice himself in order to help to bring that state of society into being. When I first acquired that knowledge,” he continued, bitterly, “I was eager to tell the good news to others. I sacrificed my time, my money, and my health in order that I might teach others what I had learned myself. I did it willingly and happily, because I thought they would be glad to hear, and that they were worth the sacrifices I made for their sakes. But I know better now.”
“Even if you no longer believe in working for Socialism, there’s no need to work AGAINST it. If you are not disposed to sacrifice yourself in order to do good to others, you might at least refrain from doing evil. If you don’t want to help to bring about a better state of affairs, there’s no reason why you should help to perpetuate the present system.”
The other man laughed bitterly. “Oh yes, there is, and a very good reason too.”
“I don’t think you could show me a reason,” said Barrington.
The man with the scar laughed again, the same unpleasant, mirthless laugh, and thrusting his hand into his trouser pocket drew it out again full of silver coins, amongst which one or two gold pieces glittered.