LAVINIA.
Then you don’t understand what that meant?
THE CAPTAIN.
It meant that the lion had a cur for his breakfast.
LAVINIA.
It meant more than that, Captain. It meant that a man cannot die for a story and a dream. None of us believed the stories and the dreams more devoutly than poor Spintho; but he could not face the great reality. What he would have called my faith has been oozing away minute by minute whilst I’ve been sitting here, with death coming nearer and nearer, with reality becoming realler and realler, with stories and dreams fading away into nothing.
THE CAPTAIN.
Are you then going to die for nothing?
LAVINIA.
Yes: that is the wonderful thing. It is since all the stories and dreams have gone that I have now no doubt at all that I must die for something greater than dreams or stories.
THE CAPTAIN.
But for what?
LAVINIA.
I don’t know. If it were for anything small enough to know, it would be too small to die for. I think I’m going to die for God. Nothing else is real enough to die for.
THE CAPTAIN.
What is God?
LAVINIA.
When we know that, Captain, we shall be gods ourselves.
THE CAPTAIN.
Lavinia; come down to earth. Burn the incense and marry me.