BOOK I - THE ADVENT
CHAPTER
I
I
Oliver Brand, the new member for Croydon (4), sat
in his study, looking out of the window over the top of his typewriter.
His house stood
facing northwards at the extreme end of a spur of the Surrey Hills, now cut and
tunnelled out of all recognition; only to a Communist the view was an
inspiriting one. Immediately below the wide windows the embanked ground fell
away rapidly for perhaps a hundred feet, ending in a high wall, and beyond that
the world and works of men were triumphant as far as eye could see. Two vast
tracks like streaked race-courses, each not less than a quarter of a mile in
width, and sunk twenty feet below the surface of the ground, swept up to a
meeting a mile ahead at the huge junction. Of those, that on his left was the
First Trunk road to Brighton, inscribed in capital letters in the Railroad
Guide, that to the right the Second Trunk to the Tunbridge and Hastings
district. Each was divided length-ways by a cement wall, on one side of which,
on steel rails, ran the electric trams, and on the other lay the motor-track
itself again divided into three, on which ran, first the Government coaches at
a speed of one hundred and fifty miles an hour, second the private motors at
not more than sixty, third the cheap Government line at thirty, with stations
every five miles. This was further bordered by a road confined to pedestrians,
cyclists and ordinary cars on which no vehicle was allowed to move at more than
twelve miles an hour.
Beyond these
great tracks lay an immense plain of house-roofs, with short towers here and
there marking public buildings, from the Caterham district on the left to
Croydon in front, all clear and bright in smokeless air; and far away to the
west and north showed the low suburban hills against the April sky.
There was
surprisingly little sound, considering the pressure of the population; and,
with the exception of the buzz of the steel rails as a train fled north or
south, and the occasional sweet chord of the great motors as they neared or
left the junction, there was little to be heard in this study except a smooth,
soothing murmur that filled the air like the murmur of bees in a garden.
Oliver loved
every hint of human life - all busy sights and sounds - and was listening now,
smiling faintly to himself as he stared out into the clear air. Then he set his
lips, laid his fingers on the keys once more, and went on speech-constructing.
* * * * *
He was very fortunate in the situation of his
house. It stood in an angle of one of those huge spider-webs with which the
country was covered, and for his purposes was all that he could expect. It was
close enough to London to be extremely cheap, for all wealthy persons had
retired at least a hundred miles from the throbbing heart of England; and yet
it was as quiet as he could wish. He was within ten minutes of Westminster on
the one side, and twenty minutes of the sea on the other, and his constituency
lay before him like a raised map. Further, since the great London termini were
but ten minutes away, there were at his disposal the First Trunk lines to every
big town in England. For a politician of no great means, who was asked to speak
at Edinburgh on one evening and in Marseilles on the next, he was as well
placed as any man in Europe.
He was a
pleasant-looking man, not much over thirty years old; black wire-haired,
clean-shaven, thin, virile, magnetic, blue-eyed and white-skinned; and he
appeared this day extremely content with himself and the world. His lips moved
slightly as he worked, his eyes enlarged and diminished with excitement, and
more than once he paused and stared out again, smiling and flushed.
Then a door
opened; a middle-aged man came nervously in with a bundle of papers, laid them
down on the table without a word, and turned to go out. Oliver lifted his hand
for attention, snapped a lever, and spoke.
"Well, Mr.
Phillips?" he said.
"There is
news from the East, sir," said the secretary.
Oliver shot a
glance sideways, and laid his hand on the bundle.
"Any
complete message?" he asked.
"No, sir; it
is interrupted again. Mr. Felsenburgh's name is mentioned."
Oliver did not
seem to hear; he lifted the flimsy printed sheets with a sudden movement, and began
turning them.
"The fourth
from the top, Mr. Brand," said the secretary.
Oliver jerked his
head impatiently, and the other went out as if at a signal.
The fourth sheet
from the top, printed in red on green, seemed to absorb Oliver's attention
altogether, for he read it through two or three times, leaning back motionless
in his chair. Then he sighed, and stared again through the window.
Then once more
the door opened, and a tall girl came in.
"Well, my
dear?" she observed.
Oliver shook his
head, with compressed lips.
"Nothing
definite," he said. "Even less than usual. Listen."
He took up the
green sheet and began to read aloud as the girl sat down in a window-seat on
his left.
She was a very
charming-looking creature, tall and slender, with serious, ardent grey eyes,
firm red lips, and a beautiful carriage of head and shoulders. She had walked
slowly across the room as Oliver took up the paper, and now sat back in her
brown dress in a very graceful and stately attitude. She seemed to listen with a
deliberate kind of patience; but her eyes flickered with interest.
"'Irkutsk—April
fourteen—Yesterday—as—usual—But—rumoured—
defection—from—Sufi—party—Troops—continue—gathering—
Felsenburgh—addressed—Buddhist—crowd—Attempt—on—Llama—last— Friday—work—of—Anarchists—Felsenburgh—leaving—for—Moscow—as
—arranged—he….' There—that is absolutely all," ended Oliver dispiritedly.
"It's interrupted as usual."
The girl began to
swing a foot.
"I don't
understand in the least," she said. "Who is Felsenburgh, after all?"
"My dear
child, that is what all the world is asking. Nothing is known except that he
was included in the American deputation at the last moment. The Herald
published his life last week; but it has been contradicted. It is certain that
he is quite a young man, and that he has been quite obscure until now."
"Well, he is
not obscure now," observed the girl.
"I know; it
seems as if he were running the whole thing. One never hears a word of the
others. It's lucky he's on the right side."
"And what do
you think?"
Oliver turned
vacant eyes again out of the window.
"I think it
is touch and go," he said. "The only remarkable thing is that here
hardly anybody seems to realise it. It's too big for the imagination, I
suppose. There is no doubt that the East has been preparing for a descent on
Europe for these last five years. They have only been checked by America; and
this is one last attempt to stop them. But why Felsenburgh should come to the
front—-" he broke off. "He must be a good linguist, at any rate. This
is at least the fifth crowd he has addressed; perhaps he is just the American
interpreter. Christ! I wonder who he is."
"Has he any
other name?"
"Julian, I
believe. One message said so."
"How did
this come through?"
Oliver shook his
head.
"Private
enterprise," he said. "The European agencies have stopped work. Every
telegraph station is guarded night and day. There are lines of volors strung
out on every frontier. The Empire means to settle this business without
us."
"And if it
goes wrong?"
"My dear
Mabel - if hell breaks loose -" he threw out his hands deprecatingly.
"And what is
the Government doing?"
"Working
night and day; so is the rest of Europe. It'll be Armageddon with a vengeance
if it comes to war."
"What chance
do you see?"
"I see two
chances," said Oliver slowly: "one, that they may be afraid of
America, and may hold their hands from sheer fear; the other that they may be
induced to hold their hands from charity; if only they can be made to
understand that co-operation is the one hope of the world. But those damned
religions of theirs -"
The girl sighed,
and looked out again on to the wide plain of house-roofs below the window.
The situation was
indeed as serious as it could be. That huge Empire, consisting of a federalism
of States under the Son of Heaven (made possible by the merging of the Japanese
and Chinese dynasties and the fall of Russia), had been consolidating its
forces and learning its own power during the last thirty-five years, ever
since, in fact, it had laid its lean yellow hands upon Australia and India. While
the rest of the world had learned the folly of war, ever since the fall of the
Russian republic under the combined attack of the yellow races, the last had
grasped its possibilities. It seemed now as if the civilisation of the last
century was to be swept back once more into chaos. It was not that the mob of
the East cared very greatly; it was their rulers who had begun to stretch
themselves after an almost eternal lethargy, and it was hard to imagine how
they could be checked at this point. There was a touch of grimness too in the
rumour that religious fanaticism was behind the movement, and that the patient
East proposed at last to proselytise by the modern equivalents of fire and
sword those who had laid aside for the most part all religious beliefs except
that in Humanity. To Oliver it was simply maddening. As he looked from his
window and saw that vast limit of London laid peaceably before him, as his
imagination ran out over Europe and saw everywhere that steady triumph of
common sense and fact over the wild fairy-stories of Christianity, it seemed
intolerable that there should be even a possibility that all this should be
swept back again into the barbarous turmoil of sects and dogmas; for no less
than this would be the result if the East laid hands on Europe. Even
Catholicism would revive, he told himself, that strange faith that had blazed
so often as persecution had been dashed to quench it; and, of all forms of
faith, to Oliver's mind Catholicism was the most grotesque and enslaving. And
the prospect of all this honestly troubled him, far more than the thought of
the physical catastrophe and bloodshed that would fall on Europe with the
advent of the East. There was but one hope on the religious side, as he had
told Mabel a dozen times, and that was that the Quietistic Pantheism which for
the last century had made such giant strides in East and West alike, among
Mohammedans, Buddhists, Hindus, Confucianists and the rest, should avail to
check the supernatural frenzy that inspired their exoteric brethren. Pantheism,
he understood, was what he held himself; for him "God" was the
developing sum of created life, and impersonal Unity was the essence of His
being; competition then was the great heresy that set men one against another
and delayed all progress; for, to his mind, progress lay in the merging of the
individual in the family, of the family in the commonwealth, of the
commonwealth in the continent, and of the continent in the world. Finally, the
world itself at any moment was no more than the mood of impersonal life. It
was, in fact, the Catholic idea with the supernatural left out, a union of
earthly fortunes, an abandonment of individualism on the one side, and of
supernaturalism on the other. It was treason to appeal from God Immanent to God
Transcendent; there was no God transcendent; God, so far as He could be known,
was man.
Yet these two,
husband and wife after a fashion - for they had entered into that terminable
contract now recognised explicitly by the State - these two were very far from
sharing in the usual heavy dulness of mere materialists. The world, for them,
beat with one ardent life blossoming in flower and beast and man, a torrent of
beautiful vigour flowing from a deep source and irrigating all that moved or
felt. Its romance was the more appreciable because it was comprehensible to the
minds that sprang from it; there were mysteries in it, but mysteries that
enticed rather than baffled, for they unfolded new glories with every discovery
that man could make; even inanimate objects, the fossil, the electric current,
the far-off stars, these were dust thrown off by the Spirit of the World -
fragrant with His Presence and eloquent of His Nature. For example, the
announcement made by Klein, the astronomer, twenty years before, that the
inhabitation of certain planets had become a certified fact - how vastly this
had altered men's views of themselves. But the one condition of progress and
the building of Jerusalem, on the planet that happened to be men's dwelling
place, was peace, not the sword which Christ brought or that which Mahomet
wielded; but peace that arose from, not passed, understanding; the peace that
sprang from a knowledge that man was all and was able to develop himself only
by sympathy with his fellows. To Oliver and his wife, then, the last century
seemed like a revelation; little by little the old superstitions had died, and
the new light broadened; the Spirit of the World had roused Himself, the sun
had dawned in the west; and now with horror and loathing they had seen the
clouds gather once more in the quarter whence all superstition had had its
birth.
* * * * *
Mabel got up presently and came across to her
husband.
"My
dear," she said, "you must not be downhearted. It all may pass as it
passed before. It is a great thing that they are listening to America at all.
And this Mr. Felsenburgh seems to be on the right side."
Oliver took her
hand and kissed it.
II
Oliver seemed
altogether depressed at breakfast, half an hour later. His mother, an old lady
of nearly eighty, who never appeared till noon, seemed to see it at once, for
after a look or two at him and a word, she subsided into silence behind her
plate.
It was a pleasant
little room in which they sat, immediately behind Oliver's own, and was
furnished, according to universal custom, in light green. Its windows looked
out upon a strip of garden at the back, and the high creeper-grown wall that
separated that domain from the next. The furniture, too, was of the usual sort;
a sensible round table stood in the middle, with three tall arm-chairs, with
the proper angles and rests, drawn up to it; and the centre of it, resting
apparently on a broad round column, held the dishes. It was thirty years now
since the practice of placing the dining-room above the kitchen, and of raising
and lowering the courses by hydraulic power into the centre of the
dining-table, had become universal in the houses of the well-to-do. The floor
consisted entirely of the asbestos cork preparation invented in America,
noiseless, clean, and pleasant to both foot and eye.
Mabel broke the
silence.
"And your
speech to-morrow?" she asked, taking up her fork.
Oliver brightened
a little, and began to discourse.
It seemed that
Birmingham was beginning to fret. They were crying out once more for free trade
with America: European facilities were not enough, and it was Oliver's business
to keep them quiet. It was useless, he proposed to tell them, to agitate until
the Eastern business was settled: they must not bother the Government with such
details just now. He was to tell them, too, that the Government was wholly on
their side; that it was bound to come soon.
"They are
pig-headed," he added fiercely; "pig-headed and selfish; they are
like children who cry for food ten minutes before dinner-time: it is bound to
come if they will wait a little."
"And you
will tell them so?"
"That they
are pig-headed? Certainly."
Mabel looked at
her husband with a pleased twinkle in her eyes. She knew perfectly well that
his popularity rested largely on his outspokenness: folks liked to be scolded
and abused by a genial bold man who danced and gesticulated in a magnetic fury;
she liked it herself.
"How shall
you go?" she asked.
"Volor. I
shall catch the eighteen o'clock at Blackfriars; the meeting is at nineteen,
and I shall be back at twenty-one."
He addressed
himself vigorously to his entree, and his mother looked up with a patient,
old-woman smile.
Mabel began to
drum her fingers softly on the damask.
"Please make
haste, my dear," she said; "I have to be at Brighton at three."
Oliver gulped his
last mouthful, pushed his plate over the line, glanced to see if all plates
were there, and then put his hand beneath the table.
Instantly,
without a sound, the centre-piece vanished, and the three waited unconcernedly
while the clink of dishes came from beneath.
Old Mrs. Brand
was a hale-looking old lady, rosy and wrinkled, with the mantilla head-dress of
fifty years ago; but she, too, looked a little depressed this morning. The
entree was not very successful, she thought; the new food-stuff was not up to
the old, it was a trifle gritty: she would see about it afterwards. There was a
clink, a soft sound like a push, and the centre-piece snapped into its place,
bearing an admirable imitation of a roasted fowl.
Oliver and his
wife were alone again for a minute or two after breakfast before Mabel started
down the path to catch the 14-1/2 o'clock 4th grade sub-trunk line to the
junction.
"What's the
matter with mother?" he said.
"Oh! it's
the food-stuff again: she's never got accustomed to it; she says it doesn't
suit her."
"Nothing
else?"
"No, my
dear, I am sure of it. She hasn't said a word lately."
Oliver watched
his wife go down the path, reassured. He had been a little troubled once or
twice lately by an odd word or two that his mother had let fall. She had been
brought up a Christian for a few years, and it seemed to him sometimes as if it
had left a taint. There was an old "Garden of the Soul" that she
liked to keep by her, though she always protested with an appearance of scorn
that it was nothing but nonsense. Still, Oliver would have preferred that she
had burned it: superstition was a desperate thing for retaining life, and, as
the brain weakened, might conceivably reassert itself. Christianity was both wild
and dull, he told himself, wild because of its obvious grotesqueness and
impossibility, and dull because it was so utterly apart from the exhilarating
stream of human life; it crept dustily about still, he knew, in little dark
churches here and there; it screamed with hysterical sentimentality in
Westminster Cathedral which he had once entered and looked upon with a kind of
disgusted fury; it gabbled strange, false words to the incompetent and the old
and the half-witted. But it would be too dreadful if his own mother ever looked
upon it again with favour.
Oliver himself,
ever since he could remember, had been violently opposed to the concessions to
Rome and Ireland. It was intolerable that these two places should be definitely
yielded up to this foolish, treacherous nonsense: they were hot-beds of
sedition; plague-spots on the face of humanity. He had never agreed with those
who said that it was better that all the poison of the West should be gathered
rather than dispersed. But, at any rate, there it was. Rome had been given up
wholly to that old man in white in exchange for all the parish churches and
cathedrals of Italy, and it was understood that mediaeval darkness reigned
there supreme; and Ireland, after receiving Home Rule thirty years before, had
declared for Catholicism, and opened her arms to Individualism in its most
virulent form. England had laughed and assented, for she was saved from a
quantity of agitation by the immediate departure of half her Catholic
population for that island, and had, consistently with her Communist-colonial
policy, granted every facility for Individualism to reduce itself there ad
absurdum. All kinds of funny things were happening there: Oliver had read with
a bitter amusement of new appearances there, of a Woman in Blue and shrines
raised where her feet had rested; but he was scarcely amused at Rome, for the
movement to Turin of the Italian Government had deprived the Republic of quite
a quantity of sentimental prestige, and had haloed the old religious nonsense
with all the meretriciousness of historical association. However, it obviously
could not last much longer: the world was beginning to understand at last.
He stood a moment
or two at the door after his wife had gone, drinking in reassurance from that
glorious vision of solid sense that spread itself before his eyes: the endless
house-roofs; the high glass vaults of the public baths and gymnasiums; the pinnacled
schools where Citizenship was taught each morning; the spider-like cranes and
scaffoldings that rose here and there; and even the few pricking spires did not
disconcert him. There it stretched away into the grey haze of London, really
beautiful, this vast hive of men and women who had learned at least the primary
lesson of the gospel that there was no God but man, no priest but the
politician, no prophet but the schoolmaster.
Then he went back
once more to his speech-constructing.
* * * * *
Mabel, too, was a little thoughtful as she sat with
her paper on her lap, spinning down the broad line to Brighton. This Eastern
news was more disconcerting to her than she allowed her husband to see; yet it
seemed incredible that there could be any real danger of invasion. This Western
life was so sensible and peaceful; folks had their feet at last upon the rock,
and it was unthinkable that they could ever be forced back on to the mud-flats:
it was contrary to the whole law of development. Yet she could not but recognise
that catastrophe seemed one of nature's methods...
She sat very
quiet, glancing once or twice at the meagre little scrap of news, and read the
leading article upon it: that too seemed significant of dismay. A couple of men
were talking in the half-compartment beyond on the same subject; one described
the Government engineering works that he had visited, the breathless haste that
dominated them; the other put in interrogations and questions. There was not
much comfort there. There were no windows through which she could look; on the
main lines the speed was too great for the eyes; the long compartment flooded
with soft light bounded her horizon. She stared at the moulded white ceiling,
the delicious oak-framed paintings, the deep spring-seats, the mellow globes
overhead that poured out radiance, at a mother and child diagonally opposite
her. Then the great chord sounded; the faint vibration increased ever so
slightly; and an instant later the automatic doors ran back, and she stepped
out on to the platform of Brighton station.
As she went down
the steps leading to the station square she noticed a priest going before her.
He seemed a very upright and sturdy old man, for though his hair was white he
walked steadily and strongly. At the foot of the steps he stopped and half
turned, and then, to her surprise, she saw that his face was that of a young
man, fine-featured and strong, with black eyebrows and very bright grey eyes.
Then she passed on and began to cross the square in the direction of her aunt's
house.
Then without the
slightest warning, except one shrill hoot from overhead, a number of things
happened.
A great shadow
whirled across the sunlight at her feet, a sound of rending tore the air, and a
noise like a giant's sigh; and, as she stopped bewildered, with a noise like
ten thousand smashed kettles, a huge thing crashed on the rubber pavement
before her, where it lay, filling half the square, writhing long wings on its
upper side that beat and whirled like the flappers of some ghastly extinct monster,
pouring out human screams, and beginning almost instantly to crawl with broken
life.
Mabel scarcely
knew what happened next; but she found herself a moment later forced forward by
some violent pressure from behind, till she stood shaking from head to foot,
with some kind of smashed body of a man moaning and stretching at her feet.
There was a sort of articulate language coming from it; she caught distinctly
the names of Jesus and Mary; then a voice hissed suddenly in her ears:
"Let me
through. I am a priest."
She stood there a
moment longer, dazed by the suddenness of the whole affair, and watched almost
unintelligently the grey-haired young priest on his knees, with his coat torn
open, and a crucifix out; she saw him bend close, wave his hand in a swift
sign, and heard a murmur of a language she did not know. Then he was up again,
holding the crucifix before him, and she saw him begin to move forward into the
midst of the red-flooded pavement, looking this way and that as if for a
signal. Down the steps of the great hospital on her right came figures running
now, hatless, each carrying what looked like an old-fashioned camera. She knew
what those men were, and her heart leaped in relief. They were the ministers of
euthanasia. Then she felt herself taken by the shoulder and pulled back, and
immediately found herself in the front rank of a crowd that was swaying and
crying out, and behind a line of police and civilians who had formed themselves
into a cordon to keep the pressure back.
III
Oliver was in a
panic of terror as his mother, half an hour later, ran in with the news that
one of the Government volors had fallen in the station square at Brighton just
after the 14-1/2 train had discharged its passengers. He knew quite well what
that meant, for he remembered one such accident ten years before, just after
the law forbidding private volors had been passed. It meant that every living
creature in it was killed and probably many more in the place where it fell -
and what then? The message was clear enough; she would certainly be in the
square at that time.
He sent a
desperate wire to her aunt asking for news; and sat, shaking in his chair,
awaiting the answer. His mother sat by him.
"Please God
-" she sobbed out once, and stopped confounded as he turned on her.
But Fate was
merciful, and three minutes before Mr. Phillips toiled up the path with the
answer, Mabel herself came into the room, rather pale and smiling.
"Christ!"
cried Oliver, and gave one huge sob as he sprang up.
She had not a
great deal to tell him. There was no explanation of the disaster published as
yet; it seemed that the wings on one side had simply ceased to work.
She described the
shadow, the hiss of sound, and the crash.
Then she stopped.
"Well, my
dear?" said her husband, still rather white beneath the eyes as he sat
close to her patting her hand.
"There was a
priest there," said Mabel. "I saw him before, at the station."
Oliver gave a
little hysterical snort of laughter.
"He was on
his knees at once," she said, "with his crucifix, even before the
doctors came. My dear, do people really believe all that?"
"Why, they
think they do," said her husband.
"It was all
so - so sudden; and there he was, just as if he had been expecting it all.
Oliver, how can they?"
"Why, people
will believe anything if they begin early enough."
"And the man
seemed to believe it, too - the dying man, I mean. I saw his eyes."
She stopped.
"Well, my
dear?"
"Oliver,
what do you say to people when they are dying?"
"Say! Why,
nothing! What can I say? But I don't think I've ever seen any one die."
"Nor have I
till to-day," said the girl, and shivered a little. "The euthanasia
people were soon at work."
Oliver took her
hand gently.
"My darling,
it must have been frightful. Why, you're trembling still."
"No; but
listen... You know, if I had had anything to say I could have said it too. They
were all just in front of me: I wondered; then I knew I hadn't. I couldn't
possibly have talked about Humanity."
"My dear,
it's all very sad; but you know it doesn't really matter. It's all over."
"And - and
they've just stopped?"
"Why,
yes."
Mabel compressed
her lips a little; then she sighed. She had an agitated sort of meditation in
the train. She knew perfectly that it was sheer nerves; but she could not just
yet shake them off. As she had said, it was the first time she had seen death.
"And that
priest - that priest doesn't think so?"
"My dear,
I'll tell you what he believes. He believes that that man whom he showed the
crucifix to, and said those words over, is alive somewhere, in spite of his
brain being dead: he is not quite sure where; but he is either in a kind of
smelting works being slowly burned; or, if he is very lucky, and that piece of
wood took effect, he is somewhere beyond the clouds, before Three Persons who
are only One although They are Three; that there are quantities of other people
there, a Woman in Blue, a great many others in white with their heads under
their arms, and still more with their heads on one side; and that they've all got
harps and go on singing for ever and ever, and walking about on the clouds, and
liking it very much indeed. He thinks, too, that all these nice people are
perpetually looking down upon the aforesaid smelting-works, and praising the
Three Great Persons for making them. That's what the priest believes. Now you
know it's not likely; that kind of thing may be very nice, but it isn't
true."
Mabel smiled
pleasantly. She had never heard it put so well.
"No, my
dear, you're quite right. That sort of thing isn't true. How can he believe it?
He looked quite intelligent!"
"My dear
girl, if I had told you in your cradle that the moon was green cheese, and had
hammered at you ever since, every day and all day, that it was, you'd very
nearly believe it by now. Why, you know in your heart that the euthanatisers
are the real priests. Of course you do."
Mabel sighed with
satisfaction and stood up.
"Oliver,
you're a most comforting person. I do like you! There! I must go to my room:
I'm all shaky still."
Half across the
room she stopped and put out a shoe.
"Why -"
she began faintly.
There was a
curious rusty-looking splash upon it; and her husband saw her turn white. He
rose abruptly.
"My
dear," he said, "don't be foolish."
She looked at
him, smiled bravely, and went out.
* * * * *
When she was gone, he still sat on a moment where
she had left him. Dear me! how pleased he was! He did not like to think of what
life would have been without her. He had known her since she was twelve - that
was seven years ago-and last year they had gone together to the district
official to make their contract. She had really become very necessary to him.
Of course the world could get on without her, and he supposed that he could
too; but he did not want to have to try. He knew perfectly well, for it was his
creed of human love, that there was between them a double affection, of mind as
well as body; and there was absolutely nothing else: but he loved her quick
intuitions, and to hear his own thought echoed so perfectly. It was like two
flames added together to make a third taller than either: of course one flame
could burn without the other - in fact, one would have to, one day - but
meantime the warmth and light were exhilarating. Yes, he was delighted that she
happened to be clear of the falling volor.
He gave no more
thought to his exposition of the Christian creed; it was a mere commonplace to
him that Catholics believed that kind of thing; it was no more blasphemous to
his mind so to describe it, than it would be to laugh at a Fijian idol with
mother-of-pearl eyes, and a horse-hair wig; it was simply impossible to treat
it seriously. He, too, had wondered once or twice in his life how human beings
could believe such rubbish; but psychology had helped him, and he knew now well
enough that suggestion will do almost anything. And it was this hateful thing
that had so long restrained the euthanasia movement with all its splendid
mercy.
His brows
wrinkled a little as he remembered his mother's exclamation, "Please
God"; then he smiled at the poor old thing and her pathetic childishness,
and turned once more to his table, thinking in spite of himself of his wife's
hesitation as she had seen the splash of blood on her shoe. Blood! Yes; that
was as much a fact as anything else. How was it to be dealt with? Why, by the
glorious creed of Humanity - that splendid God who died and rose again ten
thousand times a day, who had died daily like the old cracked fanatic Saul of
Tarsus, ever since the world began, and who rose again, not once like the
Carpenter's Son, but with every child that came into the world. That was the
answer; and was it not overwhelmingly sufficient?
Mr. Phillips came
in an hour later with another bundle of papers.
"No more
news from the East, sir," he said.
