A murmur arose in the meeting, and a voice in opposition called out loudly.  “The fellow is a Jesuit.”  “Parson’s talk,” cried another from the corner of the room.  Wilhelm took no notice of the interruption, but went on.

“Why do you object to the owners of property?  On account of their idleness?  That is not just.  Many of them work much harder than all of you, and bear a weight of responsibility which would kill most of you.  But suppose we grant that many rich people waste their lives doing nothing.  Instead of envying these unhappy people, I pity them from the bottom of my heart.  I would prefer death a thousand times to life without duty and work.”

The murmur grew stronger and more threatening.

“I wish,” cried Wilhelm, raising his voice, “I wish I were rich and powerful.  Then I would invite those who scorn my words now, to live quite idly for a year or six months.  I would take care that no employment was possible for them, that their days and weeks should be quite empty.  Then they would see how soon they would raise imploring hands to those who had condemned them to idleness.  Neither guards nor walls would keep them to the softly-cushioned golden-caged prison of indolence, they would fly as if for their lives, and go back to the place where their work was, which they had previously thought like hell.”

“Let us see if we would,” cried some with contemptuous laughter.

“In what has the rich man the advantage of you?  He lives better, you say.  He can procure more enjoyments for himself.  Are you sure that these so-called enjoyments bring happiness?  Your healthy hunger makes your bread and cheese taste better than the rich dishes at noblemen’s tables, and the suffering which fills every life is more bitter in the western villa than in the workingman’s back room, because there they have more leisure to endure it in, and every fiber of the soul has its own torture.”

“What do you get for defending the rich man?” called a voice from the hall.

“I am telling you the penalty of property.  You must be just in everything.  Granted that the rich man is a criminal; granted his idleness is an offense to your activity; granted that his roast meat and wine make your potatoes taste insipid; it is in the order of things that you should envy him.  But what comes out of this envy?  Let us admit that you could carry through anything you undertook.  The rich man would be plundered and even killed, and his treasures divided between you.  We forget that the rich man is human; we deny him the mercy which the poor man claims from his fellowmen; we take up the position that to reduce a rich man to beggary is not the same injustice as to profit by the work of a poor man; we enjoy the idea of the rich man, hungry and shivering, when at the same time the hungry shivering poor man has become our pretext for robbing the other.  Do you believe that you would then have improved your lot in life?  Do you think