The Iron Heel. Jack London

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СКАЧАТЬ been born in the working class, though he was a descendant of the old line of Everhards that for over two hundred years had lived in America.¹ At ten years of age he had gone to work in the mills, and later he served his apprenticeship and became a horseshoer. He was self-educated, had taught himself German and French, and at that time was earning a meagre living by translating scientific and philosophical works for a struggling socialist publishing house in Chicago. Also, his earnings were added to by the royalties from the small sales of his own economic and philosophic works.

      This much I learned of him before I went to bed, and I lay long awake, listening in memory to the sound of his voice. I grew frightened at my thoughts. He was so unlike the men of my own class, so alien and so strong. His masterfulness delighted me and terrified me, for my fancies wantonly roved until I found myself considering him as a lover, as a husband. I had always heard that the strength of men was an irresistible attraction to women; but he was too strong. “No! no!” I cried out. “It is impossible, absurd!” And on the morrow I awoke to find in myself a longing to see him again. I wanted to see him mastering men in discussion, the war-note in his voice; to see him, in all his certitude and strength, shattering their complacency, shaking them out of their ruts of thinking. What if he did swashbuckle? To use his own phrase, “it worked,” it produced effects. And, besides, his swashbuckling was a fine thing to see. It stirred one like the onset of battle.

      Several days passed during which I read Ernest’s books, borrowed from my father. His written word was as his spoken word, clear and convincing. It was its absolute simplicity that convinced even while one continued to doubt. He had the gift of lucidity. He was the perfect expositor. Yet, in spite of his style, there was much that I did not like. He laid too great stress on what he called the class struggle, the antagonism between labor and capital, the conflict of interest.

      Father reported with glee Dr. Hammerfield’s judgment of Ernest, which was to the effect that he was “an insolent young puppy, made bumptious by a little and very inadequate learning.” Also, Dr. Hammerfield declined to meet Ernest again.

      But Bishop Morehouse turned out to have become interested in Ernest, and was anxious for another meeting. “A strong young man,” he said; “and very much alive, very much alive. But he is too sure, too sure.”

Ernest came one afternoon with father. The Bishop had already arrived, and we were having tea on the veranda. Ernest’s continued presence in Berkeley, by the way, was accounted for by the fact that he was taking special courses in biology at the university, and also that he was hard at work on a new book entitled “Philosophy and Revolution.” ²

      The veranda seemed suddenly to have become small when Ernest arrived. Not that he was so very large—he stood only five feet nine inches; but that he seemed to radiate an atmosphere of largeness. As he stopped to meet me, he betrayed a certain slight awkwardness that was strangely at variance with his bold-looking eyes and his firm, sure hand that clasped for a moment in greeting. And in that moment his eyes were just as steady and sure. There seemed a question in them this time, and as before he looked at me over long.

      “I have been reading your ‘Working-class Philosophy,’” I said, and his eyes lighted in a pleased way.

      “Of course,” he answered, “you took into consideration the audience to which it was addressed.”

      “I did, and it is because I did that I have a quarrel with you,” I challenged.

      “I, too, have a quarrel with you, Mr. Everhard,” Bishop Morehouse said.

      Ernest shrugged his shoulders whimsically and accepted a cup of tea.

      The Bishop bowed and gave me precedence.

      “You foment class hatred,” I said. “I consider it wrong and criminal to appeal to all that is narrow and brutal in the working class. Class hatred is anti-social, and, it seems to me, anti-socialistic.”

      “Not guilty,” he answered. “Class hatred is neither in the text nor in the spirit of anything I have ever written.”

      “Oh!” I cried reproachfully, and reached for his book and opened it.

      He sipped his tea and smiled at me while I ran over the pages.

      “Page one hundred and thirty-two,” I read aloud: “‘The class struggle, therefore, presents itself in the present stage of social development between the wage-paying and the wage-paid classes.’”

      I looked at him triumphantly.

      “No mention there of class hatred,” he smiled back.

      “But,” I answered, “you say ‘class struggle.’”

      “A different thing from class hatred,” he replied. “And, believe me, we foment no hatred. We say that the class struggle is a law of social development. We are not responsible for it. We do not make the class struggle. We merely explain it, as Newton explained gravitation. We explain the nature of the conflict of interest that produces the class struggle.”

      “But there should be no conflict of interest!” I cried.

      “I agree with you heartily,” he answered. “That is what we socialists are trying to bring about,—the abolition of the conflict of interest. Pardon me. Let me read an extract.” He took his book and turned back several pages. “Page one hundred and twenty-six: ‘The cycle of class struggles which began with the dissolution of rude, tribal communism and the rise of private property will end with the passing of private property in the means of social existence.’”

      “But I disagree with you,” the Bishop interposed, his pale, ascetic face betraying by a faint glow the intensity of his feelings. “Your premise is wrong. There is no such thing as a conflict of interest between labor and capital—or, rather, there ought not to be.”

      “Thank you,” Ernest said gravely. “By that last statement you have given me back my premise.”

      “But why should there be a conflict?” the Bishop demanded warmly.

      Ernest shrugged his shoulders. “Because we are so made, I guess.”

      “But we are not so made!” cried the other.

      “Are you discussing the ideal man?” Ernest asked, “—unselfish and godlike, and so few in numbers as to be practically non-existent, or are you discussing the common and ordinary average man?”

      “The common and ordinary man,” was the answer.

      “Who is weak and fallible, prone to error?”

      Bishop Morehouse nodded.

      “And petty and selfish?”

      Again he nodded.

      “Watch out!” Ernest warned. “I said ‘selfish.’”

      “The average man IS selfish,” the Bishop affirmed valiantly.

      “Wants all he can get?”

      “Wants all he can get—true but deplorable.”

      “Then I’ve got you.” Ernest’s jaw snapped like a trap. “Let me show СКАЧАТЬ