the future there be no brothers murdered or mothers driven to
madness. Resignation is not always a virtue; it is a crime when it
encourages tyrants: there are no despots where there are no slaves! Man
is in his own nature so wicked that he always abuses complaisance. I
thought as you do, and you know what my fate was. Those who caused
your misfortunes are watching you day and night, they suspect that
you are only biding your time, they take your eagerness to learn,
your love of study, your very complaisance, for burning desires for
revenge. The day they can get rid of you they will do with you as
they did with me, and they will not let you grow to manhood, because
they fear and hate you!"

"Hate me? Still hate me after the wrong they have done me?" asked
the youth in surprise.

Simoun burst into a laugh. "'It is natural for man to hate those
whom he has wronged,' said Tacitus, confirming the _quos laeserunt et
oderunt_ of Seneca. When you wish to gauge the evil or the good that
one people has done to another, you have only to observe whether
it hates or loves. Thus is explained the reason why many who have
enriched themselves here in the high offices they have filled, on
their return to the Peninsula relieve themselves by slanders and
insults against those who have been their victims. _Proprium humani
ingenii est odisse quern laeseris!"_

"But if the world is large, if one leaves them to the peaceful
enjoyment of power, if I ask only to be allowed to work, to live--"

"And to rear meek-natured sons to send them afterwards to submit to
the yoke," continued Simoun, cruelly mimicking Basilio's tone. "A fine