“For the inventive spirit of man there is no Utopia: there is only a Not-yet. I have made up my mind to venture the path. I must take it—yes, I must take it! I do not know the way yet, but I shall find it because I must find it....” “Wherever you wish, Mr. Freder—I shall go with you....” “Thank you,” said Freder, reaching out his hand. He felt it seized and clasped in a vice-like grip. “You know, Mr. Freder, don’t you—” said the strangled voice of Josaphat, “that everything belongs to you—everything that I am and have.... It is not much, for I have lived like a madman.... But for to-day, and to-morrow and the day after to-morrow....” Freder shook his head without losing hold of Josaphat’s hand. “No, no!” he said, a torrent of red flowing over his face. “One does not begin new ways like that.... We must try to find other ways.... It will not be easy. Slim knows his business.” “Perhaps Slim could be won over to you ...” said Josaphat, hesitatingly. “For—strange though it may sound, he loves you....” “Slim loves all his victims. Which does not prevent him, as the most considerate and kindly of executioners, from laying them before my father’s feet. He is the born tool, but the tool of the strongest. He would never make himself the tool of the weaker one, for he would thus humiliate himself. And you have just told me, Josaphat, how much stronger my father is than I....” “If you were to confide yourself to one of your friends....” “I have no friends, Josaphat.” Josaphat wanted to contradict, but he stopped himself. Freder turned his eyes towards him. He straightened himself up and smiled—the other’s hand still in his. “I have no friends, Josaphat, and, what weighs still more, I have no friend. I had play-fellows—sport-fellows—but friends? A friend? No, Josaphat! Can one confide oneself to somebody of whom one knows nothing but how his laughter sounds?” He saw the eyes of the other fixed upon him, discerned the ardour in them and the pain and the truth. “Yes,” he said with a worried smile. “I should like to confide myself to you.... I must confide myself to you, Josaphat.... I must call you ‘Friend’ and ‘Brother’ ... for I need a man who will go with me in trust and confidence to the world’s end. Will you be that man?” “Yes.” “Yes—?” He came to him and laid his hands upon his shoulders. He looked closely into his face. He shook him. “You say: ‘Yes—!’ Do you know what that means—for you and for me? What a last plummet-drop that is—what a last anchorage? I hardly know you—I wanted to help you—I cannot even help you now, because I am poorer now than you are—but, perhaps, that is all to the good.... Joh Fredersen’s son can, perhaps, be betrayed—but I, Josaphat? A man who has nothing but a will and an object? It cannot be worth while to betray him—eh, Josaphat?” “May God kill me as one kills a mangy dog....”