Ilse Westgard smiled and patted Palla’s cheeks: “All roads lead ultimately to God,” she said, “and yours is a direct route though you do not know it.”
“I tell you I have nothing in common with the God you mean,” flashed out the girl.
Brisson, though interested, kept one grey eye on duty, ever hopeful of wolves. It was snowing hard now–a perfect geography scene, lacking only the wolves; but the étape was only half finished. There might be hope.
The rather amazing conversation in the sleigh also appealed to him, arousing all his instincts of a veteran newspaper man, as well as his deathless curiosity–that perpetual flame which alone makes any intelligence vital.
Also, his passion for all documents–those sewed under his underclothes, as well as these two specimens of human documents–were now keeping his lively interest in life unimpaired.
“Loss of faith,” he said to Palla, and inclined toward further debate, “must be a very serious thing for any woman, I imagine.”
“I haven’t lost faith in love,” she said, smilingly aware that he was encouraging discussion.
“But you say you have lost faith in spiritual love–”
“I did not say so. I did not mean the other kind of love when I said that love is sufficient religion for me.”
“But spiritual love means Deity–”
“It does not! Can you imagine the all-powerful father watching his child die, horribly–and never lifting a finger! Is that love? Is that power? Is that Deity?”
“To penetrate the Divine mind and its motives for not intervening is impossible for us–”
“That is priest’s prattle! Also, I care nothing now about Divine motives. Motives are human, not divine. So is policy. That is why the present Pope is unworthy of respect. He let his flock die. He deserted his Cardinal. He let the hun go unrebuked. He betrayed Christ. I care nothing about any mind weak enough, politic enough, powerless enough, to ignore love for motives!
“One loves, or one does not love. Loving is giving–” The girl sat up in the sleigh and the thickening snowflakes drove into her flushed face. “Loving is giving,” she repeated, “–giving life to love; giving up life for love–giving! giving! always giving!–always forgiving! That is love! That is the only God!–the indestructible, divine God within each one of us!”
Brisson appraised her with keen and scholarly eyes. “Yet,” he said pleasantly, “you do not forgive God for the death of your friend. Don’t you practise your faith?”
The girl seemed nonplussed; then a brighter tint stained her cheeks under the ragged sheepskin cap.
“Forgive God!” she cried. “If there really existed that sort of God, what would be the use of forgiving what He does? He’d only do it again. That is His record!” she added fiercely, “–indifference to human agony, utter silence amid lamentations, stone deaf, stone dumb, motionless. It is not in me to fawn and lick the feet of such an image. No! It is not in me to believe it alive, either. And I do not! But I know that love lives: and if there be any gods at all, it must be that they are without number, and that their substance is of that immortality born inside us, and which we call love! Otherwise, to me, now, symbols, signs, saints, rituals, vows–these things, in my mind, are all scrapped together as junk. Only, in me, the warm faith remains–that within me there lives a god of sorts–perhaps that immortal essence called a soul–and that its only name is love. And it has given us only one law to live by–the Law of Love!”
Brisson’s cigar had gone out. He examined it attentively and found it would be worth relighting when opportunity offered.
Then he smiled amiably at Palla Dumont:
“What you say is very interesting,” he remarked. But he was too polite to add that it had been equally interesting to numberless generations through the many, many centuries during which it all had been said before, in various ways and by many, many people.
Lying back in his furs reflectively, and deriving a rather cold satisfaction from his cigar butt, he let his mind wander back through the history of theocracy and of mundane philosophy, mildly amused to recognize an ancient theory resurrected and made passionately original once more on the red lips of this young girl.
But the Law of Love is not destined to be solved so easily; nor had it ever been solved in centuries dead by Egyptian, Mongol, or Greek–by priest or princess, prophet or singer, or by any vestal or acolyte of love, sacred or profane.
No philosophy had solved the problem of human woe; no theory convinced. And Brisson, searching leisurely the forgotten corridors of treasured lore, became interested to realise that in all the history of time only the deeds and example of one man had invested the human theory of divinity with any real vitality–and that, oddly enough, what this girl preached–what she demanded of divinity–had been both preached and practised by that one man alone–Jesus Christ.
Turning involuntarily toward Palla, he said: “Can’t you believe in Him, either?”
She said: “He was one of the Gods. But He was no more divine than any in whom love lives. Had He been more so, then He would still intervene to-day! He is powerless. He lets things happen. And we ourselves must make it up to the world by love. There is no other divinity to intervene except only our own hearts.”
But that was not, as the young girl supposed, her fixed faith, definite, ripened, unshakable. It was a phase already in process of fading into other phases, each less stable, less definite, and more dangerous than the other, leaving her and her ardent mind and heart always unconsciously drifting toward the simple, primitive and natural goal for which all healthy bodies are created and destined–the instinct of the human being to protect and perpetuate the race by the great Law of Love.
Brisson’s not unkindly cynicism had left his lips edged with a slight smile. Presently he leaned back beside Estridge and said in a low voice:
“Purely pathological. Ardent religious instinct astray and running wild in consequence of nervous dislocations due to shock. Merely over-storage of superb physical energy. Intellectual and spiritual wires overcrowded. Too many volts… That girl ought to have been married early. Only a lot of children can keep her properly occupied. Only outlet for her kind. Interesting case. Contrast to the Swedish girl. Fine, handsome, normal animal that. She could pick me up between thumb and finger. Great girl, Estridge.”
“She is really beautiful,” whispered Estridge, glancing at Ilse.
“Yes. So is Mont Blanc. That sort of beauty–the super-sort. But it’s the other who is pathologically interesting because her wires are crossed and there’s a short circuit somewhere. Who comes in contact with her had better look out.”
“She’s wonderfully attractive.”
“She is. But if she doesn’t disentangle her wires and straighten out she’ll burn out… What’s that ahead? A wolf!”
It was the rest house at the end of the étape–a tiny, distant speck on the snowy plain.
Brisson leaned over and caught Palla’s eye. Both smiled.
“Well,” he said, “for a girl who doesn’t believe in anything, you seem cheerful enough.”
“I am cheerful because I do believe in everything and in everybody.”
Brisson laughed: “You shouldn’t,” he said. “Great mistake. Trust in God and believe nobody–that’s the idea. Then get married and close your eyes and see what God will send you!”
The girl threw back her pretty head and laughed.
“Marriage and priests are of no consequence,” she said, “but I adore little children!”
CHAPTER II
They were a weary, half-starved and travel-stained quartette when the Red Guards stopped them for the last time in Russia and passed them through, warning them that the White Guards would