Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/108

104 the same song on your lips, and it sets my teeth on edge.

115. Have I not said openly that bread cannot be bought at any price, that it can only be bought with labor, because its value cannot be fixed by human reason? In certain cases it can be given and received gratis. But you have arrived at such a result that in certain cities of Russia a loaf of bread costs no more than a piece of dried muck.

What ignominy! I shudder at the remembrance of this injury that we have received.

But for you, rich men, there is no better bargain than bread. All is for the best. This is what you call law.

116 Ah, have pity on us, O you of the upper classes! Do not destroy my words! If they are illegal, let my body perish, but let my work rest among the archives where you preserve what is most important to the State. Among the future generations one man may be found sufficiently just to publish it, I would perish gladly, if only my work may give to the millions of laborers who will come after me one great joy, and that they may obtain from it some solace in their labors!

117. Notwithstanding your close studying from infancy to extreme old age, consider what is the distance that separates you from the ignorant laborer: it is but one step only! A man of elevated position, a functionary of but one degree inferior to yourself, and a man of our