LITMIR.BIZ

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      Well, who brought the mad communistic experiments of the Absolute to a halt? Who did not lose his head amid the epidemic of righteousness? Who withstood the disastrous tide of superabundance and saved us from destruction without sparing our persons or our purses?

      Who is the man so strong and tall

      Whose daily labour feeds us all?

      The farmer!

      XVI

      IN THE MOUNTAINS

      It was noon at the Hut in Bear Valley. Rudolf Marek sat curled up on the veranda; he looked at a newspaper, but he soon folded it up again, and gazed out over the far-stretching chain of the Giant Mountains. Stillness, a vast and crystalline stillness, lay upon the mountains, and the man curled up in the chair straightened himself and took a deep breath.

      Then the tiny figure of a man appeared from below, making towards the Hut.

      “How pure the air is here!” thought Marek on his veranda. “Here, Heaven be praised, the Absolute is still latent, it still lies under a spell, hidden in everything, in these mountains and forests, in the sweet grass and the blue sky. Here it does not rush about all over the place, waking terror or working magic; it simply dwells in all matter, a God deeply and quietly present, not even breathing, only in silence watching over all . . .” Marek clasped his hands in a mute prayer of thankfulness. “Dear God, how pure the air is here!”

      The man who had come up from below stopped under the veranda.

      “Well, Marek, so I’ve found you at last!”

      Marek looked up, not greatly pleased. The man who stood before him was G. H. Bondy.

      “So I’ve found you at last!” Bondy said again.

      “Come along up, then,” said Marek, with obvious reluctance. “What the deuce has brought you here? Heavens, man, you do look queer!”

      G. H. Bondy did indeed look sunken and yellow; he had gone very grey about the temples, and lines of weariness made dark shadows around his eyes. He seated himself without a word beside Marek and squeezed his hands together between his knees.

      “Come now, what’s wrong with you?” Marek pressed him after a painful silence.

      Bondy raised his arms.

      “I’m going to retire, old man. You see, it’s got me too . . . me!”

      “What, religion?” shouted Marek, recoiling as though from a leper.

      Bondy nodded. Was it not a tear of shame that trembled on his lashes? Marek whistled softly. “What—it’s got you now? My poor old fellow!”

      “No,” cried Bondy quickly, wiping his eyes. “Don’t think I’m not all right at present; I’ve got it under, you might say, Rudy, I’ve beaten it. But, do you know, when it came over me, it was the very happiest moment of my life. You have no idea, Rudy, what tremendous will-power it takes to shake that off.”

      “I can well believe it,” said Marek gravely. “And tell me, what sort of . . . er . . . symptoms did you have?”

      “Love for my neighbour,” Bondy whispered. “Man, I was frantic with love. I would never have believed it possible to feel anything like it.”

      There was silence for a moment.

      “So, then, you’ve . . .” Marek began.

      “I’ve thrown it off. Rather like a fox that gnaws its own leg off when it’s caught in a trap. But I’m still confoundedly weak after the struggle. An utter wreck, Rudy. As if I’d had typhoid. That’s why I’ve come here, to pick up again, you see. . . . Is it all clear up here?”

      “Quite clear; not a single trace of it so far. You can only sense it . . . in Nature and everything; but then one could do that before—one always could, in the mountains.”

      Bondy kept a gloomy silence. “Well, and what do you make of it all?” he said absently, after a while. “Have you any notion up here of what’s going on down below there?”

      “I get the papers. Even from the papers one can to a certain extent deduce what is happening. Of course these journalists distort everything; still, anyone who can read . . . I say, Bondy, are things really so awful?”

      G. H. Bondy shook his head.

      “A lot worse than you think. Simply desperate. Listen,” he whispered brokenly. “He’s everywhere by now. I think that . . . that He’s got a definite plan.”

      “A plan?” cried Marek, leaping to his feet.

      “Don’t shout so. He has some kind of plan, my friend. And He’s going about it deuced cleverly. Tell me, Marek, what is the greatest power in the world?”

      “England,” said Marek without hesitation.

      “Not at all. Industry is the greatest power in the world. And the so-called ‘proletariat’ are likewise the greatest power in the world. Do you see the scheme now?”

      “No, I don’t see it at all.”

      “He has got control of them both. He has both industry and the masses in His power. So everything is in His grasp. Everything goes to show that He is thinking of world-supremacy. That’s how things are, Marek.”

      Marek sat down. “Wait a bit, Bondy,” he said. “I’ve been thinking a good deal about it up here in the mountains. I’ve been following up everything and comparing the signs. I tell you, Bondy, I don’t even give a thought to anything else. I certainly don’t know what He is aiming at, but I do know this, Bondy, that He’s following no particular plan. He doesn’t know Himself what He wants and how to get it. Possibly He wants to do something big, but doesn’t know how to set about it. I’ll tell you something, Bondy. So far He’s only a force of Nature. Politically, He’s a fearful ignoramus. In the matter of economics He’s a simple savage. After all, He ought to have submitted to the Church; she has had experience. . . . You know, He sometimes strikes me as being so childish. . . .”

      “Don’t you believe it, Rudy,” G. H. Bondy returned heavily. “He knows what He wants. That’s why He plunged into large-scale industry. He is far more up to date than we ever thought.”

      “That is only His play,” urged Marek. “He only wants something to occupy Himself with. Don’t you see, there’s a sort of godlike boyishness about it. Wait, I know what you want to say. As a worker He is tremendous. It is simply amazing what He can bring off. But, Bondy, it is so senseless that there can’t be any plan in it.”

      “The most senseless things in history were systematically prosecuted plans,” declared G. H. Bondy.

      “My dear Bondy,” said Marek quickly. “Look at all the papers I have here. I follow up every step He takes. I tell you that there isn’t a scrap of consistency about them. They’re all merely the improvisations of omnipotence. He performs tremendous tricks, but at random, disconnectedly, confusedly. His activity isn’t organized a scrap. He came into the world altogether too unprepared. That’s where His weakness lies. He impresses me, but I see His weak points. He is not a good organizer, and perhaps never has been. He has flashes of genius, but He is unsystematic. I’m surprised that you haven’t got the better of Him, Bondy, a wideawake fellow like you.”

      “You can’t do anything with Him,” Bondy asserted. “He attacks you in your innermost soul, and you’re done for. When He can’t convince you by reason, He sends miraculous enlightenment upon you. You know what He did with Saul.”

      “You are running away from Him,” said Marek, “but I am running after Him, and I’m close at His heels. I know a bit about Him already, enough to get out a warrant for Him! Description: infinite, invisible, and formless. Place of residence: everywhere in the vicinity of atomic motors. Occupation: mystical Communism.

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