he few years of his
life. Ah! Where could he meet with that superior being, ennobled by
the worship of reason, doing good without hope of reward, sacrificing
everything for human solidarity, that man-God who would glorify the
future!

"Come along, Gabriel," continued the bell-ringer. "Do not let us lose
time it is only a few minutes' work; and then--flight!"

"No," said Luna firmly, coming out of his reverie, "you shall not do
this; you ought not to do it. It is a robbery you suggest to me, and
my pain is great, seeing that you reckoned on me; others rob from
fatal instinct or from corruption of soul, you have come to it because
I tried to enlighten you, because I tried to open your minds to the
truth. Oh! it is horrible, most horrible!"

"What is the use of all these objections, Gabriel? Is it not a bit of
wood? Whom do we harm by taking its jewels? Do not the rich rob, and
everyone who possesses anything? Why should we not imitate them?"

"For this very reason, because what you propose doing is a suggestion
of evil, because it perpetuates once more that system of violence and
disorder which is the root of all misery. Why do you hate the rich,
if what they do in sweating the poor is just the same as what you are
doing in taking possession of a thing for yourselves--understand me
well--for yourselves--and not for all. The robbery does not scare me,
for I do not believe in ownership nor in the sanctity of things, but
for this very reason I detest this appropriation to yourselves and
I oppose it. Why do you wish to possess all this? You say it is to
remedy your poverty. That is not true. It is to be rich, to enter into
the privileged group, to be three individual men of that detested
minority which desires to enjoy prosperity by enslaving humanity. If
all the poor of Toledo were now shouting outside the doors of the
Cathedral, rebellious and emboldened, I would open the way for them, I
would point out those jewels that you covet, and I would say, 'Possess
yourselves of those, they are so many drops of sweat and blood wrung
from your ancestors; they represent the servile work on the land of
the lords, the brutal plundering of the king's cavaliers, so that
magnates and kings may cover with jewels those idols which can open to
them the gates of heaven. These things do not belong to you because
you happen to be the most daring; they belong to all, as do all the
riches of the earth. For men to lay their hands on everything