'No, for there is no Future, nor ever will be. The Past but eternally prolongs itself to the Present. Heaven or hell is the road we tread, and must retrace when we come to the brink of the abyss where Time drops sheer into nothingness. Joy or woe, then, to him the returning wanderer, according as he hath provisioned his way. So shall he starve, or travel in content, or meet with weary retributions. O, in providence, hold thy hand, thinking on this, whenever thy hand is tempted!'
Galeazzo was amazed, discomfited. This unorthodoxy was the last to accommodate itself to his principles of conduct. The Future to him was always an unmortgaged reversion, sufficient to pay off all debts to conscience and leave a handsome residue for income. He could only exclaim, again, like one aghast: 'No Future?'
'Nay,' said Bembo, smiling, 'what is the heresy to reason or religion? To foresee the issues of to-day were, for Omniscience, to suppress all strains but the angels'. What irony to accept worship from the foredoomed! What insensate folly wantonly to multiply the devil's recruits! O Galeazzo, there is no Future for God or Men? Hope shudders at the inexorable word: Evil presumes on it: it is the lodestone to all dogmatism; the bogey, the weapon of the unversed Churchman; the very bait to acquisition and self-greed. Be what, returning, ye would find yourselves—no lovelier ambition. See, we walk with Christ, the human God and comrade, I have but this hour left him bathing his tired feet in the brook. He will follow anon; and all the pretty birds and insects and wildflowers he watched while resting will have suggested to him a thousand tales and reflections gathered of an ancient lore. He can be full of wonder too, but wiser by many moons than we. There is no Future. God possesses the Past.'
The Duke sprang to his feet, and went up and down once or twice. This view of a self-retaliatory entity—of a returning body condemned by natural laws to retraverse every point of its upward flight—disturbed him horribly. He desired no responsibility in things done and gone. Eternity, timely propitiated, was his golden chance. He stopped and looked at Bembo, at once inexpressibly cringing and crafty.
'Bernardino,' murmured he: 'I can never get it out of my head that whenever thou sayest God thou meanest gods. The gods possess the past?—why, one would fancy somehow it ran glibber than the other.'
Bembo sighed.
'Well, why not? Nature, and Love, and the Holy Ghost—Tria juncta in Uno—why not gods?'
The Duke pressed his hand to his forehead; then ran and clasped the boy about the shoulders.
'Adorable little wisdom,' he cried: 'take my conscience, and record on it what thou wilt!'
'To-morrow,' said Bembo, with a happy smile: 'when its tablets are sponged and clean.'