Birth of Our Power by Victor Serge Richard Greeman Page B

more or less anarchist discussion groups. Doctrines that border on dreams, burning dreams ready to become acts because men of energy live by them (and because at bottom they are no more than simple truths raised to the level of myths by minds too richly primitive to operate on theories). It is true that at the call of a union of about a hundred comrades, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of workers would be there, in the street, at our side. It is true that, for more than ten years, the government has not succeeded in building a new prison in this city. The boys in the building trades don’t go in for that kind of work. When the government tried to bring in workers from the provinces it only took a few explanations and a few bloody noses to inculcate the feeling of proletarian duty in them.
    Dario, I don’t know whether we will win. I don’t know if we will do any better than they did at Cartagena or Alcoy. It is perfectly possible, Dario, that we will all be shot at the end of this business. I am uncertain of today and I am uncertain of ourselves. Only yesterday you were carrying loads in the harbor yourself. Bent under your burden, your elastic step carried you over the rickety planks laid out from the
quai
to the loading deck of a freighter. The dark oily waters sent you back the reflected image of a giant slave, hideous from the front, your face encrusted with bitter grime, bowed under an Atlas’ burden. Your dripping body was ablaze in a flash of sunlight. I, myself, was wearing chains. A literary expression, Dario, for only numbers are worn nowadays, but they are just as heavy to bear. Our old Ribas from the Committee was selling detachable collars in Valencia. Portez spent his time grinding up stones in mechanical molds or drilling holes in steel cogwheels. Miro, with his feline agility and rippling muscles, what was he doing? Oiling machines in a cellar in Gracia. The truth is that we are slaves. Will we take this city? Just look at it, this splendid city, look at these lights, these flames, listen to these magnificent noises—automobiles, streetcars, music, voices, bird songs, and footsteps, footsteps and the indiscernible rustle of silks and satins—to take this city with these hands, our hands, is it possible?
    You would certainly laugh, Dario, if I spoke to you aloud like this. I would read in your crafty eye an ironical thought which you would not voice. You distrust intellectuals, especially those who have tasted the poisons of Paris. And you are right to do so. You would say, opening your broad hairy-backed hands, so fraternal and steady: “As for me, I feel able to take everything. Everything.” Thus we feel we are immortal until the moment when we no longer feel anything. And life goes on after our little droplet has returned to the ocean. Here my confidence meets yours. Tomorrow is full of greatness. We will not have brought this victory to ripeness in vain. This city will be taken, if not by our hands, at least by others like ours, but stronger. Stronger perhaps for having been better hardened, thanks to our very weakness. If we are beaten, other men, infinitely different from us, infinitely like us, will walk, on a similar evening, in ten years, in twenty years (how long is really without importance) down this
rambla,
meditating on the same victory. Perhaps they will think about our blood. Even now I think I see them and I am thinking about their blood, which will flow too. But they will take the city.
    â€œThe citadel,” said Dario … “We will take the citadel from within.”

NINE
The Killer
    IT HAPPENED THAT AN APPARENTLY TRIFLING EVENT CROSSED OUR PATH AND stirred up the human tide of the city in a very different manner. Fervent multitudes stood night and day in the boulevard in front of the windows of the hotel where Benito was staying. His appearances on the balcony were greeted with joyful ovations. His automobile was constantly blocked by a dense