“I want you to join me,” he muttered almost inaudibly, wrapped in his thoughts.
“Dan, I don’t understand,” she gasped, afraid of his voice.
“How? How?” he muttered. “Why don’t you understand? I want you to join me.”
“Do you mean … to … to … to marry you?”
“Oh rot,” he cried irritably, waking from his halfreverie and turning towards her. “These ridiculous conventions don’t enter my consciousness. Not only have I no respect for them, but they don’t enter my consciousness. You understand the significance of that. My personality is entirely in keeping with my mission in life. For me all these words attain their true values. Marriage, for instance, is truly a capitalist word meaning an arrangement for the protection of property so that legitimate sons could inherit it. So I don’t have to argue with it in my own mind in order to rid myself of a belief in it. Most men have to do that. I am a hundred years before my time. I want to destroy the idea of property. It is my mission. I don’t want to leave property to my children. I don’t want children. They are nothing to me. The perpetuation of my life is in my work, in men’s thoughts, in the fulfillment of my mission. That’s why I want you to join me, because I feel something, an affinity maybe—that’s a wrong word though—between you and myself. I am sure there is a natural relationship, chemical maybe, between the two of us. We are two parts of one whole. I am sure of that. No, damn it all What a ridiculous ideal I don’t want you to join me for the purpose of cohabitation. I have no time to make sentiment a main impulse of my desire to live. Neither have you. I am certain of it. You are governed by other impulses. Maybe you don’t know it. Probably you are afraid to analyze yourself. But I know it. I don’t know it. I feel it. ‘Know’ is not a proper word. It’s out of use. ‘Feel’ is better. It is an outcome of the new consciousness that I am discovering. But I haven’t worked that out fully yet. It’s only embryonic.”
He paused. She started when he stopped. She had not been listening to what he had been saying. She had been arguing with herself. She had not succeeded in settling with her conscience what she had been discussing when he stopped. She bit her lip and started. She was blushing.
“Tell me, Dan,” she whispered, “do you believe in anything? Do you even believe in Communism? Do you feel pity for the working class?”
Gallagher uttered an exclamation of contempt and shrugged his shoulders. He panted as he spoke, such was the rapidity of his words, in an effort to keep pace with the rapidity of his tempestuous thoughts.
“No,” he said, “I believe in nothing fundamentally. And I don’t feel pity. Nothing fundamental that has consciousness capable of being understood by a human being exists, so I don’t believe in anything, since an intelligent person can only believe in something that is fundamental. If I could believe in something fundamental, then the whole superstructure of life would be capable of being comprehended by me. Life would resolve itself into a period of intense contemplation. Action would be impossible. There would be no inducement for action. There would be some definite measurement for explaining everything. Men seek only that which offers no explanation of itself. But wait a minute. I haven’t worked that out fully yet. It’s only in the theoretical stage yet. I have no time.
“But you spoke of pity. Pity? Pity is a ridiculous sensation for a man of my nature. We are incapable of it. A revolutionary is incapable of feeling pity. Listen. The philosophy of a revolutionary is this. Civilization is a process in the development of the human species. I am an atom of the human species, groping in advance, impelled by a force over which neither I nor the human species have any control. I am impelled by the Universal Law to thrust forward the human species from one phase of its development to another. I am at war with the remainder of the species. I am a Christ beating them with rods. I have no mercy. I have no pity. I have no beliefs. I am not master of myself. I am an automaton. I am a revolutionary. And there is no reward for me but the satisfaction of one lust, the lust for the achievement of my mission, for power maybe, but I haven’t worked out that yet. I am not certain that the lust for power is a true impulse, a true … but listen. That can come later. Can you give me an answer now? Will you join me?”
“No … no, Dan. Stop. Listen.” She gasped, holding him back. “Not now. Later on I’ll tell you. On a night like this, with death in the house, how can you talk of … ?”
“Why?” he uttered fiercely. “What night would be better suited for you to join me? Don’t you want to avenge your brother’s death? Don’t you want …”
“Dan, Dan,” she gasped, struggling away as he attempted to seize her in his arms, “don’t touch me or I’ll scream. I’m so excited.”
There was a pause. Their breathing was loud in the silence. A noise came from the kitchen.
“That’s mother going to bed, Dan,” said Mary hurriedly. “You must go, Dan.”
“Will you come to the Court of Inquiry tonight?”
“Dan, I’d rather—”
“You must come, Mary. You must. You—”
“All right, Dan, I’ll come.”
“Good. I’ll come for you. Be ready at one o’clock.”
“All right, I’ll be ready.”
“Be waiting in the parlour here. I’ll knock on the window.”
“All right, Dan. Go now immediately. I’m coming, mother. Good night.”
He bent hurriedly and kissed her lips. Then he stumbled from the room. She waited until the hall door closed
