Ledoux was a “Red.” He had been born and bred a “Red”; it was his natural colour. He had an infinite capacity for hating anything and everything that smelt a little sweeter than himself. He called all clean, good-natured, orderly people “capitalists” or “bourgeois.” He hated anyone who worked hard, or who was thrifty. He hated all peasants, especially those peasants who owned land.
That chance gossip with old Cordonnier had given Bibi an idea, and in the bitter darkness of these summer days he sat there like a spider spinning a web. He listened to these roughs talking “communism.” Ledoux was an orator; he made speeches—malignant, violent speeches that were very pleasant to discontented men who preferred the new humanitarian theories to the merciless facts of life. Ledoux had all the old clap-trap dogmas, and Crapaud—who was his dog—yapped applause.
“The workers create everything with their hands. All capitalists are thieves. Everything should belong to the workers.”
He had the usual sentimental view of the noble workman joyfully pouring forth sweat for the sake of all the other workers in the world.
“Never will you see such labour—such wonderful things done, such a mass of riches for everybody.”
Bibi listened to Ledoux. He was one great silent sneer, but he never let Ledoux know that he was sneering. At night, when the men had gone off and the buvette was shut up, he and Barbe would discuss Ledoux and roar with laughter. Barbe was a mimic. She knew exactly what life was, and what men are, and that Ledoux would have been much less of a fool if he had not been so repulsive to women.
“What nonsense!” she said; “that fellow has never been allowed to kiss a pretty girl. I should say that women don’t like him—so he is one of the mangy dogs with a sore head.”
She had placed her finger on the inflamed core of Lazare Ledoux’s discontent. He had failed to get what he had thirsted for in life, and his red eyes had blazed. He preached love, love of the people who were like himself—and he was the very essence of hatred. The blood of his ideals was envy.
It is easy for a bad man to understand the nonsensical malignity of such a theorist’s dogmatism. Good-natured people are apt to be moved by the fanatic’s enthusiasm, his burning words, his apparent altruism. He offers freedom, noble and more spacious lives. He talks of the “children of to-morrow.” And Bibi, rogue that he was, laughed at Ledoux, and his laughter was justified.
“Voilà!” he said; “give these gentlemen their food and their wine and other people’s houses—and then ask them to sweat for the good of humanity! How much work will they do? Precious little. They will loaf about and talk all day, and make the shopkeepers clean the streets. . . .”