Karlov's body began to rock and sway like an angry bear's; but still he
held his ground. Gregor wanted to die, to cheat him.
"What of power?" went on his baiter. "Capitalism of might. Lenine and
Trotzky; are they--have they been--honest? Has Russia actually voted
them into office? They sit in the seats of the mighty by the capitalism
of force. For the capitalism of money, which is progress physical and
moral, you substitute the capitalism of force, which is terror. You
speak of yourselves as internationalists. Bats, that is the judgment
day of God--internationalism! For only on the judgment day will nations
become a single people."
A short silence. Gregor was beginning to grow weak. Presently he picked
up the thread of his diatribe.
"I have lived in England, France, Italy, and here. I am competent to
draw comparisons. Where you went to distill poison I went to absorb
facts. And I found that here in this great democracy is the true idea.
But you will not read the lesson."
Sweat began to drop from Karlov's beetling eyebrows.
"You will fail miserably here. Why? Because the Americans are the
greatest of individual property owners. The sense of possession is
satisfied. And woe to the fool who suggests they surrender this. Little
wooden houses, thousands and thousands of them, with a small plot of
ground in the rear where a man in the springtime may dig his hands into
the soil and say gratefully to God, 'Mine, mine!' I, too, am a Russ. I
thought in the beginning that you would take this country as an example,
a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Wrongs? Yes.
But day by day these wrongs are being righted. No lesson in this for
Trotzky, a beer-hall orator like yourself. Ten million men drafted to
carry arms. Did they revolt? Shoulder to shoulder the selected millions
marched to the great ships, shoulder to shoulder they pressed toward the
Rhine. No lesson in that!
"Capitalism, seeking to save its loans, you rant! Capitalism of blood
and money that asked only for simple justice to mankind. The ideal of a
great people--a mixture of all bloods, even German! No lessons in these
tremendous happenings! And you babble about your damned proletariat who
represents the dregs of Russia. What is he? The inefficient, whining
that the other man has the luck, so kill him! Russia, the kindly
ox, fallen among wolves! You cannot tear down the keystone of
civilization--which took seven thousand years to construct--insert it
upside down, and expect the arch to stand. You have your chance to prove
your theories. Prove them in Petrograd and Moscow, and you will not have
to go forth with the torch. And what is this torch but the hidden fear
that you may be wrong?... To wreck the world before you are found out!
You are idiots, and you have turned Russia into a madhouse! Spawns from
the dung-heap!"