“A man who accepts the kind of help you speak of from people he cannot be grateful to is decidedly a plebeian, it seems to me.”
“Oh, but can’t you understand that one does such a thing when one knows one has talent—perhaps genius—that craves to be developed? It seems to me that you, who call yourself a democrat, should not speak like that about lower-class individuals.”
“A man who respects his talent does not want to see it prostituted. As to being a democrat—social democracy is the craving for justice, and justice claims that men of his type should be subjugated, pressed down to the very bottom of the community, chained and forgotten. The real, legitimate lower class must be thoroughly subdued.”
“A most peculiar socialism,” laughed Hjerrild.
“There is no other for grown-up people. I don’t take into account those blue-eyed, childish souls who believe that everybody is good and that all evil is the fault of the community. If every one were good, the community would be a paradise, but the vulgar souls spoil it. You find them in every grade of life. If they are masters, they are cruel and brutal; if they are servants, they are servile and cringing—and stupid. I have found them among the socialists too, for that matter—well, Hermann calls himself a socialist. If they find hands stretched out to lift them up, they grasp them—and stamp on them afterwards. If they see a troop marching past, they join it to get part of the booty, but loyalty and fellowship they have none. They laugh secretly at the aim, the ideal, and they hate justice, for they know that if it were to prevail they would come off badly.
“All those who are afraid of justice I call legitimately lower-class, and they should be fought without mercy. If they have any power with the poor and weak, they frighten and tyrannize them till they too become the same. If they are poor and weak themselves, they give up the struggle, and make their way by begging and flattering—or plundering if they have an opportunity.
“No, the ideal is a community governed by upper-class individuals, for they never fight for themselves; they know their own endless resources, and they give with open hands to those who are poorer. They endeavour to bring light and air to every possibility for good and beauty in the inferior souls—those who are neither this nor that; good when they can afford it, bad when the proletariat forces them to be so. The power should be in the hands of those who feel the responsibility for every good impulse that is killed.”
“You are wrong about Hans Hermann,” said Cesca quietly. “It was not for his own sake alone that he rebelled against social injustice. He, too, spoke of the good impulses that were wasted. When we walked about in the east end and saw the pale little children, he said he would like to set fire to the ugly, sad, crowded barracks where they lived.”
“Mere talk. If the rent had been paid to him....”
“For shame, Gunnar!” said Cesca impetuously.