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Title: Rewarding merits
Author: Ricardo Flores Magón
Date: 1916
Language: en
Topics: fiction, prison, religion
Source: Retrieved on April 8th, 2009 from http://www.waste.org/~roadrunner/writing/magon/ENArticles/merits.html
Notes: Translated from Spanish by Mitchell Cowen Verter. From “Regeneration” number 216. January 29, 1916.

Ricardo Flores Magón

Rewarding merits

The prison and the temple chat secretly, like two cronies who are tied

together more by the nooses of crime that those of friendship. From the

citadel escapes the stench of rotting cattle. From the temple emerges a

fume laden with dismay, saturated with swooning, like the mouth of a

cave in whose darkness all the debilitated grovel and all the impotent

wring their arms.

“I abhor the people,” says the citadel, yawning. “However, I bestow my

consideration and respect to the worthy, distinguished people whose

interests I shield. Each time the honorable guardian of order brings me

a new guest, I shiver with emotion. My satisfaction climaxes when I feel

more and more criminals stirring within my stone belly.”

There is a pause. Through the bars can be heard jangles of shackles,

murmurs of protests, cracks of horsewhips, bullying voices of authority

amid the wheezing of harassed beasts, all of the horrible noises that

form the horrible music of the prison.

“Great is your mission, my friend the prison,” says the temple. “I

reverently bow my towers before you. I also feel satisfied to be the

shield of distinguished people. Whereas you enchain the body of the

criminal, I break the will of the people. I castrate their energy.

Whereas you lift up a wall of stone between the hand of the poor and the

treasures of the rich, I invent the fires of hell, putting them between

the cupidity of the miserably poor and gold of the bourgeoisie.”

There is a pause. Through the windows and the doors enter the aromas of

incense and the fetid perspiration of the clustered cattle. From the

blue space emerges sounds of sobbing, of supplications, a vile racket

created by all the debilitated people and all the penitents, the abject

music of the submissive and the defeated.

“As long as I remain standing, the master sleeps tranquilly,” the prison

says.

“While there are knees that touch my tiles, the master’s power will

remain standing,” says the temple.

There is a pause. The prison and the temple appear to meditate: the

first, satisfied for enchaining the body; the second, content for

enchaining consciousness; both of them, proud of their merits.

In the corner of a small cave, some dynamite overhears their

conversation, powerfully restraining its forces so that it does not

explode from indignation.

“Wait!” it says to itself, “wait, monuments of barbarism, for the bold

hand that will unleash the blast from my bosom will arrive sooner than

you think. In the belly of Misery convulses the fetus of Rebellion.

Wait! Wait for the fruit of centuries of exploitation and tyranny; the

black phalanxes of men consume the last swallows of bitterness and

sadness; the glass of patience overflows; some more drops, and all the

indignations will overflow, all the angers will leap out of their jail

cells, all the audacities will transgress their limits. Wait, somber

edifices, cellars of agony, for in the great calendar of human suffering

flares, with colors of fire and blood, a red date, a new July 14 for all

the Bastilles, those of the body and those of consciousness. The cattle

are standing up, converting themselves into men. Soon the sun will stop

toasting the backs of the herd to illuminate the fronts of free men....

Wait! You will remain standing only as long as I stay in this corner.”