These creatures, who move about so uneasily in crowds, are full of fear and full of wickedness, no one trusts the other. They adhere to ideals which have ceased to exist, and they stone everyone who proposes a new one. I feel that there are troubles ahead of us. They will come, believe me, they will come soon! Of course the world won’t be bettered! Whether the workmen kill the manufacturers, or whether the Russians and Germans shoot at one another, it will only be a change of proprietors. But it will not be in vain. It will free the world from the chains of present-day ideals, there will be a clearing away of Stone-Age gods. The world, as it is now, wants to die, it wants to perish, and it will.”

“And what will happen to us then?” I asked.