and Karlov resumed his pacing. After a
while Gregor looked up.

"Private vengeance. You begin your rule with private vengeance."

"The vengeance of a people. All the breed. Did France stop at Louis? Do
we tear up the roots of the poisonous toadstool that killed someone we
loved and leave the other toadstools thriving?"

"To cure the world of all its ills by tearing up the toadstools and the
flowers together--do you call that justice? The proletariat shall have
everything, and he begins by killing off noble and bourgeoisie and
dividing up the loot! Even with his oppression the noble had a right to
live. The bourgeoisie must die because of his benefactions to a people.
The world for the proletariat, and damnation for the rest!"

"Let each become one of us," cried Karlov, hoarsely. "We give them that
right."

"You lie! You have done nothing but assassinate them when they
surrendered. But tell me, have not you, Lenine, and Trotzky overlooked
something?"

"What?" Karlov was vaguely grateful for this diversion. The lust to kill
was still upon him and he was fighting it. He must remember that Gregor
wished to die. "What have we overlooked?"

"Human nature. Can you tear it apart and reconstruct it, as you would a
clock? What of creative genius in this proletariat millennium of yours?"

"The state will carefully mother that."

Gregor laughed sardonically. "Will there be creative genius under your
rule? Will you not suffocate it by taking away the air that energizes
it--ambition? You will have all the present marvels of invention to
start with, but will you ever go beyond? Have you read history and
observed the inexorable? I doubt it. What is progress? A series of
almost imperceptible steps."

"Which capitalism has always obstructed," flung back Karlov.

"Which capitalism has always made possible. Curb it, yes; but abolish
it, as you have done in unhappy Russia! Why do you starve there?
Poor fool, because you have assassinated those forces which created
food--that is to say, put it where you could get it. Three quarters of
Russia are against you. You read nothing in that? The efficient and the
inefficient, they shall lie down together as the lion and the ass,
to paraphrase. They shall become equal because you say so. What is,
fundamentally, this Bolshevism? The revolt of the inefficient. The
mantle of horror that was Germany's you have torn from her shoulders and
thrown upon yours. Fools!"

The anarch's huge fists