CHAPTER XIX. OSTROG'S POINT OF VIEW
Graham found Ostrog waiting to give a formal account of his day'sstewardship. On previous occasions he had passed over this ceremony asspeedily as possible, in order to resume his aerial experiences, but nowhe began to ask quick short questions. He was very anxious to takeup his empire forthwith. Ostrog brought flattering reports of thedevelopment of affairs abroad. In Paris and Berlin, Graham perceivedthat he was saying, there had been trouble, not organised resistanceindeed, but insubordinate proceedings. "After all these years," saidOstrog, when Graham pressed enquiries, "the Commune has lifted its headagain. That is the real nature of the struggle, to be explicit." Butorder had been restored in these cities. Graham, the more deliberatelyjudicial for the stirring emotions he felt, asked if there had beenany fighting. "A little," said Ostrog. "In one quarter only. But theSenegalese division of our African agricultural police--the ConsolidatedAfrican Companies have a very well drilled police--was ready, and sowere the aeroplanes. We expected a little trouble in the continentalcities, and in America. But things are very quiet in America. They aresatisfied with the overthrow of the Council. For the time."
"Why should you expect trouble?" asked Graham abruptly.
"There is a lot of discontent--social discontent."
"The Labour Company?"
"You are learning," said Ostrog with a touch of surprise. "Yes. It ischiefly the discontent with the Labour Company. It was that discontentsupplied the motive force of this overthrow--that and your awakening."
"Yes?"
Ostrog smiled. He became explicit. "We had to stir up their discontent,we had to revive the old ideals of universal happiness--all menequal--all men happy--no luxury that everyone may not share--ideas thathave slumbered for two hundred years. You know that? We had to revivethese ideals, impossible as they are--in order to overthrow the Council.And now--"
"Well?"
"Our revolution is accomplished, and the Council is overthrown, andpeople whom we have stirred up remain surging. There was scarcelyenough fighting... We made promises, of course. It is extraordinary howviolently and rapidly this vague out-of-date humanitarianism has revivedand spread. We who sowed the seed even, have been astonished. In Paris,as I say--we have had to call in a little external help."
"And here?"
"There is trouble. Multitudes will not go back to work. There is ageneral strike. Half the factories are empty and the people are swarmingin the Ways. They are talking of a Commune. Men in silk and satin havebeen insulted in the streets. The blue canvas is expecting all sorts ofthings from you.... Of course there is no need for you to trouble. Weare setting the Babble Machines to work with counter suggestions in thecause of law and order. We must keep the grip tight; that is all."
Graham thought. He perceived a way of asserting himself. But he spokewith restraint.
"Even to the pitch of bringing a negro police," he said.
"They are useful," said Ostrog. "They are fine loyal brutes, with nowash of ideas in their heads--such as our rabble has. The Councilshould have had them as police of the Ways, and things might havebeen different. Of course, there is nothing to fear except rioting andwreckage. You can manage your own wings now, and you can soar away toCapri if there is any smoke or fuss. We have the pull of all the greatthings; the aeronauts are privileged and rich, the closest trades unionin the world, and so are the engineers of the wind vanes. We have theair, and the mastery of the air is the mastery of the earth. No one ofany ability is organising against us. They have no leaders--only thesectional leaders of the secret society we organised before your veryopportune awakening. Mere busy bodies and sentimentalists they are andbitterly jealous of each other. None of them is man enough for acentral figure. The only trouble will be a disorganised upheaval. Tobe frank--that may happen. But it won't interrupt your aeronautics. Thedays when the People could make revolutions are past."
"I suppose they are," said Graham. "I suppose they are." He mused. "Thisworld of yours has been full of surprises to me. In the old days wedreamt of a wonderful democratic life, of a time when all men would beequal and happy."
Ostrog looked at him steadfastly. "The day of democracy is past," hesaid. "Past for ever. That day began with the bowmen of Crecy, it endedwhen marching infantry, when common men in masses ceased to win thebattles of the world, when costly cannon, great ironclads, and strategicrailways became the means of power. To-day is the day of wealth. Wealthnow is power as it never was power before--it commands earth and sea andsky. All power is for those who can handle wealth.... You must acceptfacts, and these are facts. The world for the Crowd! The Crowd as Ruler!Even in your days that creed had been tried and condemned. To-day it hasonly one believer--a multiplex, silly one--the mall in the Crowd."
Graham did not answer immediately. He stood lost in sombrepreoccupations.
"No," said Ostrog. "The day of the common man is past. On the opencountryside one man is as good as another, or nearly as good. Theearlier aristocracy had a precarious tenure of strength and audacity.They were tempered--tempered. There were insurrections, duels, riots.The first real aristocracy, the first permanent aristocracy, came inwith castles and armour, and vanished before the musket and bow. Butthis is the second aristocracy. The real one. Those days of gunpowderand democracy were only an eddy in the stream. The common man now is ahelpless unit. In these days we have this great machine of the city, andan organisation complex beyond his understanding."
"Yet," said Graham, "there is something resists, something you areholding down--something that stirs and presses."
"You will see," said Ostrog, with a forced smile that would brush thesedifficult questions aside. "I have not roused the force to destroymyself--trust me."
"I wonder," said Graham.
Ostrog stared.
"Must the world go this way?" said Graham, with his emotions at thespeaking point. "Must it indeed go in this way? Have all our hopes beenvain?"
"What do you mean?" said Ostrog. "Hopes?"
"I came from a democratic age. And I find an aristocratic tyranny!"
"Well,--but you are the chief tyrant."
Graham shook his head.
"Well," said Ostrog, "take the general question. It is the way thatchange has always travelled. Aristocracy, the prevalence of thebest--the suffering and extinction of the unfit, and so to betterthings."
"But aristocracy! those people I met--"
"Oh! not those!" said Ostrog. "But for the most part they go to theirdeath. Vice and pleasure! They have no children. That sort of stuff willdie out. If the world keeps to one road, that is, if there is no turningback. An easy road to excess, convenient Euthanasia for the pleasureseekers singed in the flame, that is the way to improve the race!"
"Pleasant extinction," said Graham. "Yet--." He thought for an instant."There is that other thing--the Crowd, the great mass of poor men. Willthat die out? That will not die out. And it suffers, its suffering is aforce that even you--"
Ostrog moved impatiently, and when he spoke, he spoke rather less evenlythan before.
"Don't you trouble about these things," he said. "Everything will besettled in a few days now. The Crowd is a huge foolish beast. What ifit does not die out? Even if it does not die, it can still be tamedand driven. I have no sympathy with servile men. You heard those peopleshouting and singing two nights ago. They were taught that song. If youhad taken any man there in cold blood and asked why he shouted, he couldnot have told you. They think they are shouting for you, that they areloyal and devoted to you. Just then they were ready to slaughter theCouncil. To-day--they are already murmuring against those who haveoverthrown the Council."
"No, no," said Graham. "They shouted because their lives were dreary,without joy or pride, and because in me--in me--they hoped."
"And what was their hope? What is their hope? What right have they tohope? They work ill and they want the reward of those who work well. Thehope of mankind--what is it? That some day the Over-man may come,that some day the inferio
r, the weak and the bestial may be subdued oreliminated. Subdued if not eliminated. The world is no place for thebad, the stupid, the enervated. Their duty--it's a fine duty too!--is todie. The death of the failure! That is the path by which the beast roseto manhood, by which man goes on to higher things."
Ostrog took a pace, seemed to think, and turned on Graham. "I canimagine how this great world state of ours seems to a VictorianEnglishman. You regret all the old forms of representativegovernment--their spectres still haunt the world, the voting councilsand parliaments and all that eighteenth century tomfoolery You feelmoved against our Pleasure Cities. I might have thought of that,--hadI not been busy. But you will learn better. The people are mad withenvy--they would be in sympathy with you. Even in the streets now, theyclamour to destroy the Pleasure Cities. But the Pleasure Cities are theexcretory organs of the State, attractive places that year after yeardraw together all that is weak and vicious, all that is lascivious andlazy, all the easy roguery of the world, to a graceful destruction. Theygo there, they have their time, they die childless, all the pretty sillylascivious women die childless, and mankind is the better. If the peoplewere sane they would not envy the rich their way of death. And you wouldemancipate the silly brainless workers that we have enslaved, and try tomake their lives easy and pleasant again. Just as they have sunk to whatthey are fit for." He smiled a smile that irritated Graham oddly. "Youwill learn better. I know those ideas; in my boyhood I read your Shelleyand dreamt of Liberty. There is no liberty, save wisdom and selfcontrol. Liberty is within--not without. It is each man's own affair.Suppose--which is impossible--that these swarming yelping fools in blueget the upper hand of us, what then? They will only fall to othermasters. So long as there are sheep Nature will insist on beasts ofprey. It would mean but a few hundred years' delay. The coming of thearistocrat is fatal and assured. The end will be the Over-man--for allthe mad protests of humanity. Let them revolt, let them win and kill meand my like. Others will arise--other masters. The end will be thesame."
"I wonder," said Graham doggedly.
For a moment he stood downcast.
"But I must see these things for myself," he said, suddenly assuminga tone of confident mastery. "Only by seeing can I understand. I mustlearn. That is what I want to tell you, Ostrog. I do not want to be Kingin a Pleasure City; that is not my, pleasure. I have spent enough timewith aeronautics--and those other things. I must learn how people livenow, how the common life has developed. Then I shall understand thesethings better. I must learn how common people live--the labour peoplemore especially--how they work, marry, bear children, die--"
"You get that from our realistic novelists," suggested Ostrog, suddenlypreoccupied.
"I want reality," said Graham, "not realism."
"There are difficulties," said Ostrog, and thought.
"On the whole perhaps--
"I did not expect--.
"I had thought--. And yet, perhaps--. You say you want to go through theWays of the city and see the common people."
Suddenly he came to some conclusion. "You would need to go disguised,"he said. "The city is intensely excited, and the discovery of yourpresence among them might create a fearful tumult. Still this wish ofyours to go into this city--this idea of yours--. Yes, now I think thething over it seems to me not altogether--. It can be contrived. If youwould really find an interest in that! You are, of course, Master. Youcan go soon if you like. A disguise for this excursion Asano will beable to manage. He would go with you. After all it is not a bad idea ofyours."
"You will not want to consult me in any matter?" asked Graham suddenly,struck by an odd suspicion.
"Oh, dear no! No! I think you may trust affairs to me for a time, at anyrate," said Ostrog, smiling. "Even if we differ--"
Graham glanced; at him sharply.
"There is no fighting likely to happen soon?" he asked abruptly.
"Certainly not."
"I have been thinking about these negroes. I don't believe the peopleintend any hostility to me, and, after all, I am the Master. I do notwant any negroes brought to London. It is an archaic prejudice perhaps,but I have peculiar feelings about Europeans and the subject races. Evenabout Paris--"
Ostrog stood watching him from under his drooping brows. "I am notbringing negroes to London," he said slowly. "But if--"
"You are not to bring armed negroes to London, whatever happens," saidGraham. "In that matter I am quite decided."
Ostrog, after a pause, decided not to speak, and bowed deferentially.