“The proletariat. The lowest in the human scale--and therefore the most helpless. They shall rule, say you. My poor Russia! Beaten and robbed for centuries, and now betrayed by a handful of madmen--with brains atrophied on one side! You are a fool, Boris. Your feet are in strange quicksands and your head among chimeras. You write some words on a piece of paper, and lo! you say they are facts. Without first proving your theories correct you would ram them down the throat of the world. The world rejects you.” “Wait and see, damned bourgeoisie!” thundered Karlov, not alive to the fact that he was being baited. “Bourgeoisie? Yes, I am of the middle class; the rogue on top and the fool below. I see. The rogue and the fool cannot combine unless the bourgeoisie is obliterated. Go on. I am interested.” “Under the soviet the government shall be everything.” “As it was in Prussia.” Karlov ignored this. “The individual shall never again become rich by exploiting the poor.” Karlov strove to speak calmly. Gregor's willingness to discuss the aims of the proletariat confused him. He suspected some ulterior purpose behind this apparent amiability. He must hold down his fury until this purpose was in the open. “Well, that is good,” Gregor admitted. “But somehow it sounds ancient on my ear. Was there not a revolution in France?” “Fool, it is the world that is revolting!” Karlov paused. “And no man in the future shall see his sister or his daughter made into a loose woman without redress.” “Your proletariat's sister and daughter. But the daughter of the noble and the daughter of the bourgeoisie--fair game!” Sometimes there enters a man's head what might be called a sick idea; when the vitality is at low ebb and the future holds nothing. Thus there was a grim and sick idea behind Gregor's gibes. It was in his mind to die. All the things he had loved had been destroyed. So then, to goad this madman into a physical frenzy. Once those gorilla-like hands reached out for him Stefani Gregor's neck would break. “Be still, fiddler! You know what I mean. There will be no upper class, which is idleness and wastefulness; no middle class, the usurers, the gamblers of necessities, the war makers. One great body of equals shall issue forth. All shall labour.” “For what?” “The common good.” “Your Lenine offered peace, bread, and work for the overthrow of Kerensky. What you have given--murder and famine and idleness. Can there be common good that is based upon the blood of innocents? Did Ivan ever harm a soul? Have I?” “You!” Karlov trembled. “You--with your damned green stones! Did you not lure Anna to dishonour with the promise to show her the drums, the sight of which would make all her dreams come true? A child, with a fairy story in her head!” “You speak of Anna! If you hadn't been spouting your twaddle in taverns you would have had time to instruct Anna against guilelessness and superstition.”