missionaries in secret, but that couldn't offend Mrs. Smythe since appearances would be saved.”
“I'm serious, Hodge.”
“So am I. Enfandin is my only friend.”
“You may be above appearances and considerations of decency but I'm not. If you ever appear in public with him again you can stop coming here. Because I won't have anything more to do with you.”
“But Tirzah…” I began helplessly, overwhelmed by the impossibility of coping with irrelevancies and inconsistencies of her stand. “But Tirzah…”
“No,” she said firmly, “you'll simply have to grow up, Hodge, and stop such childish exhibitions. Only friend indeed! Why I suppose if he appeared here right this minute, you'd talk to him.”
“Well naturally. You'd hardly expect me to—”
“But I do. That's exactly what I'd expect. You to act like a civilized man.”
I wasn't angry. I couldn't be angry with her. “If that's civilization then I guess I don't want to be civilized.”
I detected astonishment in her voice. “You mean, actually mean, you intend to keep on acting this way?”
Grandfather Backmaker must have been a stubborn man; I had my mother's word I possessed no Hodgins traits. “Tirzah, what would you think of me if I turned on my only friend, the only thoroughly kind and understanding friend I've ever had, just because Mrs. Smythe has different notions of propriety than I have?”
“I'd think you were beginning to understand things at last.”
“I'm sorry, Tirzah.”
“I mean it, Hodge, you know. I'll never see you again.”
“If you'd only listen to my side—”
“You mean if I would only become a crank like you. But I don't want to be a crank or a martyr. I don't want to change the world. I'm normal.”
“Tirzah—”
“Good-bye, Hodge.”
She walked away. I had the irrational feeling that if I called after her she might come back. Or at least stand still and wait to hear what I had to say. I kept my mouth obstinately closed; Enfandin had been right, the responsibility was mine. There were things I would not give up.
My heroic mood must have lasted fully fifteen minutes. Then I hurried through the little park and across the street to the Smythe house. There were lights in the upper floors, but the basement, as always, was dark. I dared not knock or ring the bell; her admonitions were too firmly impressed on my mind. Instead, in a turmoil of emotions, I paced the flagged sidewalk until the suspicious eye of a patrolman was attracked; then I fled cravenly.
I couldn't wait for the next day to write a long, chaotic letter begging her to let me talk to her, just to talk to her, for an hour, ten minutes, a minute. I offered to indent, to emigrate, to make a fortune by some inspired means if only she would hear me. I recalled moments together, I told her I loved her, said I would die without her. Having covered several pages with these sentiments I began all over and repeated them. It was dawn when I posted the letter in the pneumatic mail.
Sleepless and tormented, I was of little use to Tyss next day. Would she telegraph? If she answered by pneumatic post her letter might be delivered in the afternoon. Or would she come to the bookstore?
The second day I sent off two more letters and went up to Reservoir Square on the chance she might appear. I watched the house as though my concentration would force her to emerge. On the third day my letters came back, unopened.
There is some catchphrase or other about the elasticity of youth. It is true it was only weeks before my misery abated, and weeks more before I was heart-whole again. But those weeks were long.
The subject of Tirzah did not come up again between Enfandin and me. He must have sensed I had lost her, perhaps he even guessed his connection with the break, but he was too tactful to mention it and I was too sore.
I don't know if the episode precipitated some maturity in me, or if, as a result of grief and anger, I tried to turn my mind away from the easy emotions and shield myself against further hurt. At any rate, whether there was a logical connection or not, it is from this period that I date my resolve to centre my reading on history. Somewhat diffidently I spoke of this to him.
“History? But certainly, Hodge. It is a noble study. But what is history? How is it written? How is it read? Is it a dispassionate chronicle of events scientifically determined and set down in the precise measure of their importance? Is this ever possible? Or is it the transmutation of the ordinary into the celebrated? Or the cunning distortion which gives a clearer picture than accurate blueprints?”
“It seems to me facts are primary and interpretations come after,” I answered. “If we can find out the facts we can form our individual opinions on them.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps. But take what is for me the central fact of all history.” He pointed to the crucifix. “As a Catholic the facts are plain to me; I believe what is written in the Gospels to be literally true: that the Son of Man died for me on that cross. But what were the facts for a contemporary Roman statesman? That an obscure local agitator threatened the stability of an uneasy province and was promptly executed in the approved Roman fashion as a warning to others. And for a contemporary fellow countryman? That no such person existed. You think these facts are mutually exclusive? Yet you know no two people see exactly the same thing; too many honest witnesses have contradicted each other. Even the Gospels must be reconciled.”
“You are saying that truth is relative.”
“Am I? Then I shall have my tongue examined, or my head. Because I mean to say no such thing. Truth is absolute and for all time. But one man cannot envisage all of truth; the best he can do is see a single aspect of the whole. That is why I say to you, be a skeptic, Hodge. Always be the skeptic.”
“Ay?” I was finding the admonition a little difficult to harmonize with his previous confession of faith.
“For the believer skepticism is essential. How else is he to know false gods from true except by doubting both? One of the most pernicious of folk sayings is, 'I could scarcely believe my eyes.' Why should you believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Believe your mind, your intuition, your reason, your feelings if you like—but not your eyes unaided by any of these interpreters. Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination, as easily as the actual scenery. Your eyes will tell you nothing exists but matter—”
“Not my eyes only, but my boss.”
“Ay? What are you saying?” For all his amiability Enfandin enjoyed interruption in middiscourse no more than any other teacher. But in a moment his irritation vanished, and he listened to my description of Tyss's mechanistic creed.
“God have mercy on his soul,” he muttered at last. “Poor creature. He has liberated himself from the superstitions of religion in order to fall into superstition so abject no Christian can conceive it. Imagine to yourself'—he began to pace the floor—'time is circular, man is automaton, we are doomed to repeat the same gestures over and over, forever. Oh, I say to you, Hodge, this is monstrous. The poor man. The poor man.”
I nodded. “Yes. But what is the answer? Limitless space? Limitless time? They are almost as horrifying, because they are inconceivable and awful.” “And why should the inconceivable and awful be horrifying? Is our small human understanding the ultimate measuring stick and guide? But, of course, this is not the answer. The answer is that all—time, space, matter—all is illusion. All but the good God Himself. Nothing is real but Him. We are creatures of His fancy, figments of His imagination… .”
“Then where does free will come in?”
“As a gift, naturally. Or supernaturally. How else? The greatest gift and the greatest responsibility.”
I can't say I was entirely satisfied with his exposition, though it was certainly more to my taste than Tyss's. I returned to the conversation at intervals, both in my thoughts and when I saw him, but in the end I suppose all I really accepted was his admonition to be skeptical, which I doubt I always applied the way he meant me to.
VII. OF CONFEDERATE AGENTS IN 1942
To anyone but the mooncalf I still was in the year of my majority it would have long since occurred with
