became knotted; wrinkles corrugated his
forehead; but he did not stir. Gregor wanted to die.

Gregor pointed with trembling hand toward the brown litter on the table.
"To destroy. You shattered a soul there. You tore mine apart when
you did it. For what? To better humanity? No; to rend something, to
obliterate something that was beautiful. Demolition. Go on. You will
tear and rend until exhaustion comes, then some citizen king, some
headstrong Napoleon, will step in. The French Revolution taught you
nothing. You play 'The Marseillaise' in the Neva Prospekt and miss the
significance of that song. Liberty? You choose license. Equality? You
deny it in your acts. Fraternity? You slaughter your brothers."

"Be silent!" roared Karlov, wavering.

But Gregor continued with a new-found hope. He saw that his jeers
were wearing down the other's control. Perhaps the weak side was the
political. Karlov was a fanatic. There might yet be death in those
straining fingers.

"To seize by confiscation, without justice, indiscriminately all that
the group efficient laboriously constructed. I enter your house, kill
your family and steal your silver. Are your acts fundamentally different
from mine? Remember, I am speaking from the point of view as three
quarters of Russia see it, and all the other civilized nations. There
may be something magnificent in that soviet constitution of yours; but
you have deluged it in blood and folly. Ostensibly you are dividing up
the great estates, but actually you are parcelling them out and charging
rent. You will not own anything. The state shall own all the property.
What will be the patriotism of the man who has nothing? Why defend
something that is only his government's, not his own? You are legalizing
women as cows. The sense of motherhood will vanish when a woman may not
select her mate. What is the greatest thing in the world? The human need
of possession. To own something, however little. The spur of creative
genius. Human beings will never be equal except in lawful privileges.
The skillful will outpace the unskillful; the thrifty will take from
the improvident; genius will overtop mediocrity. And you will change all
this with a scrape of your bloody pen!"

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? Ha