"Don't bother, it isn't worth it," he whispered in Tuta's ear. "You see he is playing the fool again, the crazy saint!"
"I am not such a fool as Tuta thinks," the king went on. "I know there will be no peace on earth for a long time to come. There will be endless war, and the longer it goes on the fiercer it will be: 'all will be killing each other' as the ancient prophecy says. There has been a flood of water—there is going to be one of blood. But even so, even so, let men know that there has been in the world a man who said 'peace'!"
He suddenly turned to Merira.
"What do you think, Merira? Why do you smile?"
"I think, sire, that what you say is good, but it is not all. God is not only peace...."
He spoke slowly, with an effort, as though thinking of something else.—
"But also what?" the king said to help him.
"Also war."
"What are you saying, my friend? War is not of God, but of the devil."
"Yes, of God, too. Two sides of the triangle meet at one point: day and night, mercy and wrath, peace and war, Son and Father—all the opposites are in God...."