“But it’s just the spirituality that is so admirable in it!” she protested.
“Not for me, it isn’t. What appeals to me about it is the human, natural, unspiritual part. Tells you to do this and that, instead of thinking this and that. It’s what you do, not what you feel, that counts there. I’ve never thought Christ cared whether people believed in Him or not. My idea is that He sort of had an idea that He’d help people by a few practical ideas on how to make the world a decent place to live in. If you behave in this way, He says, you can all be more or less happy. You see,” he went on, “I’m a Socialist.”
“Oh, mercy!” said Claudine, rather shocked.
“Yes, I’m a Socialist. And the way I see it, to be a good Socialist, you’ve got to be either an atheist or a Christian. If you’re an atheist, and you think this world is all there’s going to be, then you feel so d—— doggone sorry for the people who aren’t getting anything out of it, that you’d do all you possibly could to help them. I used to be an atheist. I was working in a factory when I was about eighteen, and when I’d see those kids starting in—boys, children really—and knew they’d never get even a fair living out of a whole life’s work, I guess I was a kind of Anarchist too. I thought the best thing they could do was to grab what they could, to try to wipe out the—hogs that kept all the good things away from them. But then, one day, I thought I’d read the New Testament, along with a lot of other stuff I had in hand. And, Gosh!... it was like a—a lamp being lighted in a dark room. Right away I felt that it was right. That He’d got hold of the right idea of how to run the world. I’d always hated the idea that we were a lot of fighting animals, all struggling to get food. Evolution didn’t suit me altogether. It was too darned unfair to the beginners, you know, the cave men and those fellows who just opened the way for us. Well, I thought after I’d read about Christ, this living’s just a job, and here’s the way to do it. And after it’s done, we’ll get a rest. We need it. Why, hang it all! Even a baby a year old has had a hard life, trying to get adjusted.... I don’t believe in all this stuff about a whole lot of future lives, and keeping on developing. No, sir! This life is enough; it’s hard enough, and we learn enough. I guess we deserve peace after this, and I guess we’ll get it. Is this where you always stay?”
“Yes,” said Claudine. “But I wish you’d sit down and talk a little. I like to hear you.”
“I talk too much,” he said, seriously. “Somehow I’m always so full of stuff I want to say that I kind of spill over. And—d’ye know—somehow it seems—valuable—the stuff I want to say. Not particularly because it’s me, but because it’s—human nature.”
“It’s really very interesting,” said Claudine, blandly.
He laughed.
“Do you know,” he went on, “ten years ago the idea of anyone like you—a lady—saying she liked to hear me, even agreeing to listen to me—would have seemed like a pipe dream. I used to think that if I ever got a chance to talk to your sort, I’d give ’em a piece of my mind. But when I got to know more about ’em, why, I saw nothing could be done that way. No, sir; you can’t make people understand by talking. They’ve got to see—and feel. If you ever saw or felt what life was really like, you wouldn’t be satisfied to—”
He stopped abruptly.