GERMINAL
He was indignant at being accused of wishing to bring everything to confusion out of ambition; he struck his chest, protesting his brotherly feelings.
Suddenly he stopped before Souvarine and exclaimed:
"Do you know, if I thought I should cost a drop of blood to a friend, I would go off at once to America!"
The engine-man shrugged his shoulders, and a smile again came on his lips.
"Oh! blood!" he murmured. "What does that matter? The earth has need of it."
Étienne, growing calm, took a chair, and put his elbows on the other side of the table. This fair face, with the dreamy eyes, which sometimes grew savage with its clear blush, disturbed him, and exercised a singular power over his will. In spite of his comrade's silence, conquered even by that silence, he felt himself gradually absorbed.
"Well," he asked, "what would you do in my place? Am I not right to act as I do? Isn't it best for us to join this association?"
Souvarine, after having slowly ejected a jet of smoke replied by his favourite word:
"Oh, foolery! but meanwhile it's always so. Besides, their International will soon begin to move. He has taken it up."
"Who, then?"
"He!"
He had pronounced this word in a whisper, with religious fervour, casting a glance towards the east. He was speaking of the master, Bakounine the destroyer.
"He alone can give the thunderclap," he went on, "while your learned men, with their evolution, are mere cowards. Before three years are passed, the International, beneath his orders, will crush the old world."
Étienne pricked up his ears in attention. He was burning to gain knowledge, to understand this worship of destruction, regarding which the engine-man only uttered occasional obscure words, as though he kept certain mysteries to himself.
"Well, but explain to me. What is your aim?"
"To destroy everything. No more nations, no more governments, no more property, neither God nor worship."
"I quite understand. Only what will that lead you to?"
[216]
