," rejoined the sick man, after
a pause. "I have been mistaken, but, because I have been mistaken,
will that God deny liberty to a people and yet save many who are much
worse criminals than I am? What is my mistake compared to the crimes
of our rulers? Why has that God to give more heed to my iniquity than
to the cries of so many innocents? Why has He not stricken me down
and then made the people triumph? Why does He let so many worthy and
just ones suffer and look complacently upon their tortures?"

"The just and the worthy must suffer in order that their ideas may be
known and extended! You must shake or shatter the vase to spread its
perfume, you must smite the rock to get the spark! There is something
providential in the persecutions of tyrants, Senor Simoun!"

"I knew it," murmured the sick man, "and therefore I encouraged
the tyranny."

"Yes, my friend, but more corrupt influences than anything else
were spread. You fostered the social rottenness without sowing an
idea. From this fermentation of vices loathing alone could spring,
and if anything were born overnight it would be at best a mushroom,
for mushrooms only can spring spontaneously from filth. True it
is that the vices of the government are fatal to it, they cause
its death, but they kill also the society in whose bosom they are
developed. An immoral government presupposes a demoralized people,
a conscienceless administration, greedy and servile citizens in the
settled parts, outlaws and brigands in the mountains. Like master,
like slave! Like government, like country!"

A brief pause ensued, broken at length by the sick man's voice. "Then,
what can be done?"

"Suffer and work!"

"Suffer--work!" echoed the sick man bitterly. "Ah, it's easy to say
that, when you are not suffering, when the work is rewarded. If your
God demands such great sacrifices from man, man who can scarcely
count upon the present and doubts the future, if you had seen what
I have, the miserable, the wretched, suffering unspeakable tortures
for crimes they have not committed, murdered to cover up the faults
and incapacity of others, poor fathers of families torn from their
homes to work to no purpose upon highways that are destroyed each day
and seem only to serve for sinking families into want. Ah, to suffer,
to work, is the will of God! Convince them that their murder is their
salvation, that their work is the prosperity of the home! To suffer,
to work! What God is that?"

"