The day before, Johannes would have wilted. Not so to-day. He seated himself, and thought of what Wistik had said—"Act!"
"I will not wait any longer," he began again. "I have waited too long already."
"The big priest has had you in hand, has he not?" said Van Lieverlee, with a little more interest.
"Yes," replied Johannes; "did you know it? What do you think of him?"
Van Lieverlee gaped, nodded, and said: "A knowing one! Just let him alone. Biceps! you know—biceps! All physique and intellectuality. Representative of his entire organization. Can't help respecting it, Johannes. How those fellows can thunder at the masses! One can't help taking off his hat to them. The whole lot of the Reformed aren't in it with them! Theirs is only half-work; they are irresolute in everything they give or take; krita-krita, as we say in Sanscrit. Whether you do good or do ill, aways do it wholly, not by halves; otherwise you yourself become the dupe. If you would keep the people down, hold them down completely. To establish a church, and at the same time talk of liberty of conscience, as do the Protestants—that is stuff and nonsense —nothing comes of it. You may see that from the results. Every dozen Protestants have their own church with its own dogmas, with its own little faith which alone can save, and with its little coterie of the elect! No, compared with them the Roman Church is at least a respectable piece of work—a formidable concern."
"Do you believe in it?" asked Johannes.
Van Lieverlee shrugged his shoulders.
"I shall have to think it over a while longer. If I think it agreeable to believe in it, then I shall do so. But it will be in the genuine old Church, with Adam and Eve, and the sun which circles around the earth; not in that modernized, up-to-date Church, altered according to the advancement of science—with electric light and the doctrine of heredity. How disgusting! No, I must have the church of Dante, with a real hell full of fire and brimstone, right here under our earth, and Galileo inside of it."
"But I did not come to inquire about that," said Johannes, sticking to his point. "I am not content, and you ought to help me. What I have heard in the Pleiades, and from Father Canisius does not satisfy me. I am sure, also, that it is not in this way I shall find my friend again; and now I am determined to find him."
"Where, then, do you wish to look for him?"