He had sown the revolutionary seed in these outcasts of the Church, drowsing in the atmosphere of two centuries ago. He had thought to help on the revolution of the future by forming men, but on awaking from his dreams he found only common criminals. What a terrible mistake! His ideas had only tended to destruction. In removing from the dulled brains the prejudices of ignorance, and the superstitions of the slave, he had only succeeded in making them daring for evil. Selfishness was the only passion vibrating in them. They had only learnt that they were wretched and ought not to be so. The fate of their companions in misfortune, of the greater part of humanity, wretched and sad, had no interest for them. If they could get out of their present state, bettering themselves in whatever way they could, they cared very little if the world went on just as it did before; that tears, and pain and hunger should reign below, in order to ensure the comfort of those above. He had sown his thoughts in them hoping to accelerate the harvest, but like all those forced and artificial cultivations, that grow with astonishing rapidity only to give rotten fruit, the result of his propaganda was moral corruption. Men in the end, like all of them! The human wild beast, seeking his own welfare at the cost of his fellow, perpetuating the disorders of pain for the majority, as long as he can enjoy plenty during the few years of his life. Ah! Where could he meet with that superior being, ennobled by the worship of reason, doing good without hope of reward, sacrificing everything for human solidarity, that man-God who would glorify the future!
"Come along, Gabriel," continued the bell-ringer. "Do not let us lose time it is only a few minutes' work; and then—flight!"
"No," said Luna firmly, coming out of his reverie, "you shall not do this; you ought not to do it. It is a robbery you suggest to me, and my pain is great, seeing that you reckoned on me; others rob from fatal instinct or from corruption of soul, you have come to it because I tried to enlighten you, because I tried to open your minds to the truth. Oh! it is horrible, most horrible!"
"What is the use of all these objections, Gabriel? Is it not a bit of wood? Whom do we harm by taking its jewels? Do not the rich rob, and everyone who possesses anything? Why should we not imitate them?"
"For this very reason, because what you propose doing is a suggestion of evil, because it perpetuates once more that system of violence and disorder which is the root of all misery. Why do you hate the rich, if what they do in sweating the poor is just the same as what you are doing in taking possession of a thing for yourselves—understand me well—for yourselves—and not for all. The robbery does not scare me, for I do not believe in ownership nor in the sanctity of things, but for this very reason I detest this appropriation to yourselves and I oppose it. Why do you wish to possess all this? You say it is to remedy your poverty. That is not true. It is to be rich, to enter into the privileged group, to be three individual men of that detested minority which desires to enjoy prosperity by enslaving humanity. If all the poor of Toledo were now shouting outside the doors of the Cathedral, rebellious and emboldened, I would open the way for them, I would point out those jewels that you covet, and I would say, 'Possess yourselves of those, they are so many drops of sweat and blood wrung from your ancestors; they represent the servile work on the land of the lords, the brutal plundering of the king's cavaliers, so that magnates and kings may cover with jewels those idols which can open to them the gates of heaven. These things do not belong to you because you happen to be the most daring; they belong to all, as do all the riches of the earth. For men to lay their hands on everything existing in the world would be a holy work, the redeeming revolution of the future. To possess yourselves of some portion of what by moral right is not yours, would only be for you a crime against the laws of the land, for me it would be a crime against the disinherited, the only masters of the existing——"
"Silence, Gabriel," said the bell-ringer harshly; "if I let you, you would go on talking till dawn. I do not understand you, nor do I wish to. We came to do you a good turn, and you treat us to a sermon. We wish to see you as rich as ourselves, and you answer us by talking of others, of a lot of people that you don't know, of that humanity who never gave you a scrap of bread when you wandered like a dog. I must treat you as I did in our youth when we were campaigning. I have always loved you and I admire your talents, but we must really treat you like a child. Come along, Gabriel! Hold your tongue, and follow us! We will lead you to happiness! Forward, companions!" The Tato and the shoemaker stood up, walking towards the railings of the high altar, the Tato seized one of its gates, and half opened it.
"No!" shouted Gabriel with energy. "Stop! Mariano, you do not know what you are doing. You believe your happiness will be accomplished when you have possessed yourselves of those jewels. But afterwards? Your families remain here. Tato, think of your mother. Mariano, you and the shoemaker have wives—you have children."
"Bah!" said the bell-ringer. "They will come and join us when we are in safety far away. Money can do everything—the thing is to get it."
"And your children? Shall they be told their fathers were thieves!"
"Bah! they will be rich in other countries. Their history will not be worse than that of other rich men's sons."