“There I don’t follow you,” said Levison.  “Suppose you were in Russia now—­”

“I watch it I’m not.”

“But you’re in Italy, which isn’t far off.  Supposing a socialist revolution takes place all around you.  Won’t that force the problem on you?—­It is every man’s problem,” persisted Levison.

“Not mine,” said Lilly.

“How shall you escape it?” said Levison.

“Because to me it is no problem.  To Bolsh or not to Bolsh, as far as my mind goes, presents no problem.  Not any more than to be or not to be.  To be or not to be is simply no problem—­”

“No, I quite agree, that since you are already existing, and since death is ultimately inevitable, to be or not to be is no sound problem,” said Levison.  “But the parallel isn’t true of socialism.  That is not a problem of existence, but of a certain mode of existence which centuries of thought and action on the part of Europe have now made logically inevitable for Europe.  And therefore there is a problem.  There is more than a problem, there is a dilemma.  Either we must go to the logical conclusion—­or—­”

“Somewhere else,” said Lilly.

“Yes—­yes.  Precisely!  But where ELSE?  That’s the one half of the problem:  supposing you do not agree to a logical progression in human social activity.  Because after all, human society through the course of ages only enacts, spasmodically but still inevitably, the logical development of a given idea.”

“Well, then, I tell you.—­The idea and the ideal has for me gone dead—­ dead as carrion—­”

“Which idea, which ideal precisely?”

“The ideal of love, the ideal that it is better to give than to receive, the ideal of liberty, the ideal of the brotherhood of man, the ideal of the sanctity of human life, the ideal of what we call goodness, charity, benevolence, public spirited-ness, the ideal of sacrifice for a cause, the ideal of unity and unanimity—­all the lot—­all the whole beehive of ideals—­has all got the modern bee-disease, and gone putrid, stinking.—­And when the ideal is dead and putrid, the logical sequence is only stink.—­Which, for me, is the truth concerning the ideal of good, peaceful, loving humanity and its logical sequence in socialism and equality, equal opportunity or whatever you like.—­But this time he stinketh—­and I’m sorry for any Christus who brings him to life again, to stink livingly for another thirty years:  the beastly Lazarus of our idealism.”

“That may be true for you—­”

“But it’s true for nobody else,” said Lilly.  “All the worse for them.  Let them die of the bee-disease.”

“Not only that,” persisted Levison, “but what is your alternative?  Is it merely nihilism?”

“My alternative,” said Lilly, “is an alternative for no one but myself, so I’ll keep my mouth shut about it.”

“That isn’t fair.”

“I tell you, the ideal of fairness stinks with the rest.—­I have no obligation to say what I think.”