"I don't know ? I don't know, Elsje. His promptings and suggestions as they proceed clearly from out the original fount are by no means always equally positive and distinct. But I assure you - I would swear it to you, had I not vowed once for all never to swear again - that I shall stop at nothing and spare nothing as soon as his light shall shine clearly and unmistakably for me."
"We Mennonites may never swear either," said Elsje, with pretty pride in her creed, confessed with so little conviction.
"That is good, that is indeed one of the best things the Bible Jesus is said to have taught. Therefore it is surely followed least of all. I not only swear no more - I even dare not promise you anything, for I know myself too little to foretell my future actions."
"You do not promise to be true to me?" asked Elsje with mild disappointment.
"I do better, I assure you of profound love. So profound that I do surely believe it will be true. But what would my faithfulness be to you if love grew weaker? It would become a lie, a feint, wouldn't it?"
"I shall be thankful for all that I get," said Elsje, "and never ask for more than you wish to give me."
I had to laugh when I thought what my acquaintances from the diplomatic world - friends I do not call them, I never had a friend among them - what they would say of a gallant adventure with so much theology at the third meeting.
But you, dear reader, will probably long have comprehended that I draw from the same reservoir, what others keep separated in water and air-tight compartments, and that theology, science, poetry and love to me are not only brothers and sisters, but often merely names and masks for one and the same inward reality. So that you will no doubt allow me to tell yet a few more things that in my amorous theologizing with Elsje, I learned and taught.
You will also probably understand without my remarking it that I did not speak in quite as fluent and succinct Dutch as I have here written down. But I could make myself understood just as well as if it had been thus spoken, because Love served as our interpreter.