Youth and Egolatry Part 26

"As a regular?"

"Yes."

"As a Conservative?"

"Yes."

I thought a moment and said: "No, I can never be a Conservative, however it might suit my interest to be so. Try as hard as I might, I should never succeed."

"That is the only way in which we can make you deputy."

"Well, it cannot be helped! I must resign myself then to amount to nothing."

Thanking the Minister for his kindness. Azorin and I walked out of the Ministry of the Interior.

SOCIALISTS

As for Socialists, I have never cared to have anything to do with them.

One of the most offensive things about Socialists, which is more offensive than their pedantry, than their charlatanry, than their hypocrisy, is their inquisitorial instinct for prying into other people's lives. Whether Pablo Iglesias travels first or third cla.s.s, has been for years one of the princ.i.p.al topics of dispute between Socialists and their opponents.

Fifteen years ago I was in Tangier, where I had been sent by the _Globo_, and, upon my return, a newspaper man who had socialistic ideas, reproached me:

"You talk a great deal about the working man, but I see you were living in the best hotel in Tangier."

I answered: "In the first place, I have never spoken of the workingman with any fervour. Furthermore, I am not such a slave as to be too cowardly to take what life offers as it comes, as you are. I take what I can that I want, and when I do not take it, it is because I cannot get it."

LOVE OF THE WORKINGMAN

To gush over the workingman is one of the commonplaces of the day which is utterly false and hypocritical. Just as in the 18th century sympathy was with the simple hearted citizen, so today we talk about the workingman. The term workingman can never be anything but a grammatical common denominator. Among workingmen, as among the bourgeoisie, there are all sorts of people. It is perfectly true that there are certain characteristics, certain defects, which may be exaggerated in a given cla.s.s, because of its special environment and culture. The difference in Spanish cities between the labouring man and the bourgeoisie is not very great. We frequently see the workingman leap the barrier into the bourgeoisie, and then disclose himself as a unique flower of knavery, extortion and misdirected ingenuity. Deep down in the hearts of our revolutionists, I do not believe that there is any real enthusiasm for the workingman.

When the bookshop of Fernando Fe was still fin the Carrera de San Jeronimo, I once heard Blasco Ibanez say with the cheapness that is his distinguis.h.i.+ng trait, laughing meanwhile ostentatiously, that a republic in Spain would mean the rule of shoemakers and of the sc.u.m of the streets.

THE CONVENTIONALIST BARRIOVERO

Barriovero, a conventionalist, according to Grandmontagne--yes, and how keen the scent of this American for such matters!--attended the opening of a radical club in the Calle del Principe with a party of friends. We were all drinking champagne. Like other revolutionists and parvenus generally, Lerroux is a victim of the superst.i.tion of champagne.

"Aha, suppose those workingmen should see us drinking champagne!"

suggested some one.

"What of it?" asked another.

"I only wish for my part," Barriovero interrupted with a show of sentiment, "that the workingman could learn to drink champagne."

"Learn to drink it?" I burst out, "I see no difficulty about that. He could drink champagne as well as anything else."

"Not at all," said Barriovero the conventionalist, very gravely. "He has the superst.i.tion of the peasant; he thinks he must leave enough wine to cover the bottom of the gla.s.s."

I doubt whether this observation will attract the attention of any future Plutarch, although it might very well do so, as it expresses most I clearly the distinction which exists in the minds of our revolutionists between the workingman and the young gentleman.

ANARCHISTS

I have had a number of acquaintances among anarchists. Some of them are dead; the majority of the others have changed their ideas. It is apparent nowadays that the anarchism of Reclus and Kropotkin is out of date, and entirely a thing of the past. The same tendencies will reappear under other forms, and present new aspects. Among anarchists, I have known Elysee Reclus, whom I met in the editorial offices of a publication called _L'Humanite Nouvelle_, which was issued in Paris in the Rue des Saints-Peres. I have also met Sebastien Faure during a ma.s.s meeting organized in the interests of one Guerin, who had taken refuge in a house in the Rue de Chabrol some eighteen or twenty years ago. I have had relations with Malatesta and Tarrida del Marmol. As a matter of fact, both these anarchists escorted me one afternoon from Islington, where Malatesta lived, to the door of the St. James Club, one of the most aristocratic retreats in London, where I had an appointment to meet a diplomat.

As for active anarchists, I have known a number, two or three of whom have been dynamiters.

THE MORALITY OF THE ALTERNATING PARTY SYSTEM

The only difference between the morality of the Liberal party and that of the Conservative party is one of clothes. Among Conservatives the most primitive clout seems to be slightly more ample, but not noticeably so.

The preoccupations of both are purely with matters of style. The only distinction is that the Conservatives make off with a great deal at once, while the Liberals take less, but do it often.

This is in harmony with the law of mechanics according to which what is gained in force is lost in velocity and what is gained in intensity is lost in expansion. After all, no doubt morality in politics should be a negligible quant.i.ty. Honest, upright men who hearken only to the voice of conscience, never get on in politics, neither are they ever practical, nor good for anything.

To succeed in politics, a certain facility is necessary, to which must be added ambition and a thirst for glory. The last is the most innocent of the three.

ON OBEYING THE LAW

It is safe, it seems to me, to a.s.sume the following axioms: First, to obey the law is in no sense to attain justice; second, it is not possible to obey the law strictly, thoroughly, in any country in the world.

That obeying the law has nothing to do with justice is indisputable, and this is especially true in the political sphere, in which it is easy to point to a rebel, such as Martinez Campos, who has been elevated to the plane of a great man and who has been immortalized by a statue upon his death, and then to a rebel such as Sanchez Moya, who Was merely shot.

The only difference between the men was in the results attained, and in the manner of their exit.

Hence I say that Lerroux was not only base, but obtuse and absurdly wanting in human feeling and revolutionary sympathy, when he concurred in the execution of the stoker of the "Numancia."