Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [116]
“This is what we would like them to think, yes. They would not squander money on us, otherwise, I suppose. That said, the shortest jokes are the best, and since we left the city, we’re now officially traitors to our employers.”
“But you do not help your fellow anarchists either.”
“In a way, we do. But not necessarily in the way they would like. Maybe it’s because of the airship, but we have a more elevated point of view on what anarchist agitation should be.”
“Do you know someone called Mougrabin, by the way?” interrupted Gabriel, who, when not struggling with the cutlery, was thinking that the more he looked at Hardenberg, the more the young anarchist resembled a Mougrabin without disguise or makeup.
“Ah, Mikhail Mikhailovitch! A very sympathetic fellow indeed, but once again, one of those typical anarcho-masochists. Don’t misunderstand me,” Hardenberg kept on, now visibly warming up to his own ideas, “I have nothing against direct action, provided it’s, well, directed. I’m not one to shy away from political assassination as a principle. Some people are clearly evildoers, and you all know as well as I do that the world would be a better place without them, if only for the five minutes before others equally malevolent or even possibly worse replaced them.”
“There is nothing I like as much as a good riot, and an insurrection is a thing of beauty—before it is crushed, that is. But revolutions are another matter. For one thing, they are very complicated, frail mechanisms that demand conditions which are nearly impossible to meet. But even if they succeed, there are two major drawbacks to them.
“The first one, theoretical as it is, is that as soon as anarchism starts imposing itself on others, it is not anarchism anymore, but exactly what anarchism is fighting against. So, as the saying goes, “your work once done, to retire is the way of Heaven.” The second one, sadly much more concrete, is that the outcome of any revolution is that the anarchists will end up being shot by both sides. Not because they will stand in anyone’s way to power, but because they will stand between everyone and the very idea of power. It happens every time.”
“So, there is no future for anarchism?”
“In a sense, that is a correct conclusion, Mr. Orsini. But it does not mean there is no anarchism. It just means that it only exists in the present, at very precise spots, for, alas, only a few people at the same time and in ways as yet undefined. It could be, for instance, happening now and here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who was it who wrote of the True Community? And what is the true community? Certainly not race or class, but people from all walks of life suddenly thrown together by persecution and forced to invent a new life, with whatever comes into their hands. What were the chances we’d all come together today? This is the stuff utopias are made of, as long as they last.”
“It’s a seductive theory,” admitted Brentford, politely, still surprised at the mention of A Blast on the Barren Land. “But it is the city I want to save. Not throw a party for myself and a few friends.”
But Hardenberg continued unabashed, his wide eyes hardened and dense with enthusiasm.
“But what else is a city, really? No, seriously. We agree with you: who needs a utopia when one already lives in one? New Venice is a city made to fulfil all appetites. It is in itself a fulfilled appetite, or a dream come true, if you prefer. One of these pieces of paradise that are strewn all over the earth. We are well aware of that.
“You see, Mr. Orsini, after years of sailing in the Ariel, we have come to see things differently than we did at ground level. Seen from above, the world is a most interesting piece of hieroglyphic scripture. You can very easily decipher where the style gets clogged or remains fluid, where freedom recedes and where it keeps on thriving. It dawned on us that this was a way that we could help a little, you know, like an acupuncturist’s needle. Smoothing out sore muscles here and there, undoing painful