"Nay, if there be no soul, what can become of it?" put in Damoiselle Melisende.
"Pure foy!" cried the Baron. "I concern myself about nothing of that sort. Holy Church teaches that the soul survives the body, and it were unseemly to gainsay her teaching. But—ha! what know I?"
"For me," said Messire Renaud, a little grandiloquently, "I believe that death is simply the dissolution of that which seems, and leaves only the pure essence of that which is. The modicum of spirit—of that essence—which I call my soul, will then be absorbed into the great soul of the Universe—the Unknowable, the Unknown."
"We have a name for that, Messire," said Guy reverently. "We call it—God."
"Precisely," answered Messire Renaud. "You—we—holy Church—personify this Unknowable Essence, which is the fountain of all essence. The parable—for a parable it is—is most beautiful. But It—He—name it as you will—is none the less the Unknown and the Unknowable."
"The boy must have a fever, and the delirium is on him," said the Baron. "Get a leech, lad. Let out a little of that hot blood which mystifies thy foolish brains."
There was silence for a minute, and it was broken by the low, quiet voice of Lady Judith, who sat next to the Lady Queen, with a spindle in her hand.
"'And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee.'" She added no more.
"Beautiful words, truly," responded Messire Renaud. "But you will permit me to observe, Lady, that they are—like all similar phrases—symbolical. The soul that has risen the nearest to this ineffable Essence—that is most free from the shell of that which seems—may, in a certain typical sense, be said to 'know' this Essence. Now there never was a soul more free from the seeming than that of Him whom we call our Lord. Accordingly, He tells us that—employing one of the loveliest of all types—He 'knew the Father.' It is perfectly charming, to an enlightened mind, to recognise the force, the beauty, the hidden meaning, of these exquisite types."
"Lad, what is the length of thine ears?" growled the Baron. "What crouched ass crammed all this nonsense into thee? 'Enlightened mind'—'exquisite types'—'charming symbolism'! I am not at all sure that I understand thee, thou exquisite gander! But if I do, what thou meanest, put in plain language, is simply that there is no God. Eh?"