Chapter Thirteen.
The great anarchical association of which Ferdinand Contraras was the leading spirit did not differ greatly in essential features from those tyrannical and effete institutions which it was striving to supersede.
There was still the wide gulf between the classes, bridged over speciously by the fact that they addressed each other as “comrade,” waiving all distinctive titles.
The chief addressed the educated young fisherman as Somoza shortly, which was natural. And, on the other hand, Somoza addressed him, though always very respectfully, as Contraras, which would not have been at all natural, under ordinary circumstances.
Still, Somoza did not slap him on the back, or take liberties, as he would have done with an elderly fisherman in his own rank of life. The gulf of class could not quite be crossed by dropping titles, and calling each other comrade.
And then there was the question of wealth. Contraras, in spite of his numerous donations to the cause, was still rich; so was Jaques. Zorrilta was moderately well-off. Alvedero and Luçue were poor. The sharing out had not begun yet. Luçue, as we know, lived in humble lodgings in Soho, which galled him somewhat, as he was fond of comfort and the flesh-pots.
Contraras, after a brief sojourn at Fonterrabia had come back to Madrid, where he had many friends in his own sphere of life. Although not of noble birth himself, he had married a woman, a member of a family poor but boasting of the proudest blood of Spain in its veins.
At Madrid he had engaged a suite of rooms at the Ritz Hotel in the Plaza de Canovas, near the Prado Museum. Democrat and anarchist as he was in theory, the man delighted in displaying a certain amount of ostentation, whether at home or abroad.
A little aware of his weakness in this direction, he consoled himself by the thought that in doing this he was throwing dust in the eyes of people of his own class—that he could more successfully carry on his propaganda, because nobody would ever suspect him of seeking to overthrow the régime under which he had prospered so exceedingly.