Chapter XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

"Come on, let's go down to the local."

So spoke Brissenden, faint from a hemorrhage of half an hour before
- the second hemorrhage in three days. The perennial whiskey glass
was in his hands, and he drained it with shaking fingers.

"What do I want with socialism?" Martin demanded.

"Outsiders are allowed five-minute speeches," the sick man urged.
"Get up and spout. Tell them why you don't want socialism. Tell
them what you think about them and their ghetto ethics. Slam
Nietzsche into them and get walloped for your pains. Make a scrap
of it. It will do them good. Discussion is what they want, and
what you want, too. You see, I'd like to see you a socialist
before I'm gone. It will give you a sanction for your existence.
It is the one thing that will save you in the time of
disappointment that is coming to you."

"I never can puzzle out why you, of all men, are a socialist,"
Martin pondered. "You detest the crowd so. Surely there is
nothing in the canaille to recommend it to your aesthetic soul."
He pointed an accusing finger at the whiskey glass which the other
was refilling. "Socialism doesn't seem to save you."

"I'm very sick," was the answer. "With you it is different. You
have health and much to live for, and you must be handcuffed to
life somehow. As for me, you wonder why I am a socialist. I'll
tell you. It is because Socialism is inevitable; because the
present rotten and irrational system cannot endure; because the day
is past for your man on horseback. The slaves won't stand for it.
They are too many, and willy-nilly they'll drag down the would-be
equestrian before ever he gets astride. You can't get away from
them, and you'll have to swallow the whole slave-morality. It's
not a nice mess, I'll allow. But it's been a-brewing and swallow
it you must. You are antediluvian anyway, with your Nietzsche
ideas. The past is past, and the man who says history repeats
itself is a liar. Of course I don't like the crowd, but what's a
poor chap to do? We can't have the man on horseback, and anything
is preferable to the timid swine that now rule. But come on,
anyway. I'm loaded to the guards now, and if I sit here any
longer, I'll get drunk. And you know the doctor says - damn the
doctor! I'll fool him yet."

It was Sunday night, and they found the small hall packed by the
Oakland socialists, chiefly members of the working class. The
speaker, a clever Jew, won Martin's admiration at the same time
that he aroused his antagonism. The man's stooped and narrow
shoulders and weazened chest proclaimed him the true child of the
crowded ghetto, and strong on Martin was the age-long struggle of
the feeble, wretched slaves against the lordly handful of