This conclusion once reached by the revolutionists, it was
but one step to a declaration that the intellectuals must fall, and
not a very long step. The pride of the working class already showed
itself in articles and speeches, while waiting for the moment when,
as in Russia, it could pass to action; and it demanded that the
intellectuals should submit servilely to the proletarian leaders. It
was even remarkable how some of the intellectuals were among the most
eager in demanding this lowering of the position of their group. One
would have thought that they did not wish it to be supposed that they
belonged to it. Perhaps they had forgotten that they did.
Moreau, however, had not forgotten it; he was all the more bitter in
repudiating this class, whose shirt of Nessus still clung to his skin,
and it made him extremely violent.
He now began to display singularly aggressive sentiments towards
Clerambault; during a discussion he would interrupt him rudely, with
a kind of sarcastic and bitter irritation. It almost seemed as if he
meant to wound him.
Clerambault did not take offence; he rather felt great pity for
Moreau; he knew what he suffered, and he could imagine the bitterness
of a young life spoiled like his. Patience and resignation, the moral
nourishment on which stomachs fifty years old subsist, were not suited
to his youth.
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