Do you think I would trouble to undeceive them and do you think they would understand if I told them the truth?
I don’t want your money; I have no use for it.”
Her voice grew tender. “It’s sweet of you to offer it.
You’re a dear creature, but such a kid.
Do you know that what you’re suggesting is a crime which might easily land you in prison?”
“Oh well.”
“You didn’t believe what I told you the other day?”
“I’m beginning to think it’s very hard to know what to believe in this world.
After all, I was nothing to you, there was no reason for you to tell me the truth if you didn’t want to.
And those men this morning and the address they gave you to send money to.
You can’t be surprised if I put two and two together.”
“I’m glad if I can send Robert money so that he can buy himself cigarettes and a little food.
But what I told you was true.
I don’t want him to escape.
He sinned and he must suffer.”
“I can’t bear the thought of your going back to that horrible place.
I know you a little now; it’s awful to think of you of all people leading that life.”
“But I told you; I must atone; I must do for him what he hasn’t the strength to do for himself.”
“But it’s crazy.
It’s so morbid.
It’s senseless.
I might understand, though even then I’d think it outrageously wrong-headed, if you believed in a cruel god who exacted vengeance and who was prepared to take your suffering, well, in part-payment for the wrong Robert had done, but you told me you don’t believe in God.”
“You can’t argue with feeling.
Of course it’s unreasonable, but reason has nothing to do with it.
I don’t believe in the god of the Christians who gave his son in order to save mankind.
That’s a myth.
But why should it have arisen if it didn’t express some deep-seated intuition in men?
I don’t know what I believe, because it’s instinctive, and how can you describe an instinct with words?
I have an instinct that the power that rules us, human beings, animals and things, is a dark and cruel power and that everything has to be paid for, a power that demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and that though we may writhe and squirm we have to submit, for the power is ourselves.”
Charley made a vague gesture of discouragement.
He felt as if he were trying to talk with someone whose language he could not understand.
“How long are you going on at the Serail?”
“I don’t know.
Until I have done my share.
Until the time comes when I feel in my bones that Robert is liberated not from his prison, but from his sin.
At one time I used to address envelopes.
There are hundreds and hundreds of them and you think you’ll never get them all done, you scribble and scribble interminably, and for a long time there seem to be as many to do as there ever were, and then suddenly, when you least expect it, you find you’ve done the last one.
It’s such a curious sensation.”
“And then, will you go out to join Robert?”
“If he wants me.”
“Of course he’ll want you,” said Charley.
She gave him a look of infinite sadness.
“I don’t know.”
“How can you doubt it?
He loves you.
After all, think what your love must mean to him.”
“You heard what those men said to-day.
He’s gay, he’s got a soft billet, he’s making the best of things.
He was bound to.
That’s what he’s like.