Page:Twilight of the Souls (1917).djvu/166

158 leaves its sofa. . . . Lord, my dear chap, there's blood sticking to everything; the world is nothing but mean selfishness and hypocrisy; there's war, injustice and all sorts of rottenness; and we know it's there and we condemn it and we feel pity for everything that is trampled underfoot and sucked dry. . . . And what do we do? Nothing. I do just as little as the great powers do. The Tsar does nothing; there's not a government, not an individual that does a thing. You don't do anything either. . . . Meanwhile, there is war, there is injustice, not only in South Africa, but everywhere, Gerrit, everywhere: you've only to go outside and you'll come upon injustice in the Hoogstraat; you've only to go travelling and get black with grime and dirt. . . and you'll find injustice everywhere. . . . And, meanwhile, that idea is stirring in this filthy world of ours: the idea of pity. . . . And, just as I am powerless, everything and everybody is powerless. . . . Then am I not right to withdraw from the whole business into my room. . . and to stay on my sofa? . . ."

He went on talking; and at last Gerrit got up, glad that he had been to see Paul and that Paul had talked as usual, long-winded though he might have been. But he was hardly gone, before Paul rose from his sofa. He flung open the shutters, to air the room of Gerrit's smoke; he rang the bell, to have the ash cleared away; he put the chairs