Chapter Eight.
A tall, lean man of about sixty years of age, of dignified appearance, came out of a house in Fitzjohn’s Avenue, Hampstead, and walked slowly in the direction of the station at Swiss Cottage.
He was a very aristocratic-looking person; you might have taken him for a retired ambassador, except for the fact that retired ambassadors do not live in the neighbourhood of Finchley Road. At the first glance you might have thought he was an Englishman, with his clear complexion, his short, pointed beard. A closer inspection revealed the distinguishing traits of the foreigner. But even then you would have been inclined to put him down as a Frenchman, rather than a Spaniard.
Ferdinand Contraras, such was his name, was one of the principal leaders of the world-wide anarchist movement. A man of learning and education, he had worked it out to his own satisfaction that anarchy was the cure for all social evils. A man of considerable wealth, he had devoted the greater portion of his possessions to the spreading of this particular propaganda. His zeal in the great cause burnt him with a consuming fire.
One is confronted with these anomalies in all countries—men of family and refinement, reaching out sincere hands to the proletariat, and welcoming them into a common brotherhood.
Mirabeau led the French Revolution in its first steps, an aristocrat of the first water. Tolstoi, equally an aristocrat, preached very subversive doctrines.
Ferdinand Contraras, from conviction, sentimentality, or some other equally compelling motives, hated his own order, and devoted himself heart and soul to the service of the masses as against the classes. He had spent much more than half his very considerable fortune on the necessary propaganda of his principles. From the house in Fitzjohn’s Avenue he, in conjunction with a few other enthusiastic spirits, controlled the policy which was directed to upset an old and effete world and construct a new and perfect one on the ruins of the old.
He waited outside the station for quite five minutes, tapping his stick impatiently the while. He was, by temperament, a very impatient and autocratic person, like most people who aspire to sovereign power.
The burly and imposing figure of Luçue appeared through the gloom of the station. The two men shook hands. Contraras grumbled a little.