“Who can tell? What is the good of saying, ‘Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath day,’ when a man lives where he does not know the days? What is the good of saying, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ when a man has no heart to rob, and there is nothing to steal? But a man should have a heart, an eye for justice. It is good for him to make his commandments against that wherein he is a fool or has a devil. Justice,—that is the thing.”
“‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour’?” asked Fawdor softly.
“Yes, like that. But a man must put it in his own words, and keep the law which he makes. Then life does not give a bad taste in the mouth.”
“What commandments have you made for yourself, Pierre?”
The slumbering fire in Pierre’s face leaped up. He felt for an instant as his father, a chevalier of France, might have felt if a peasant had presumed to finger the orders upon his breast. It touched his native pride, so little shown in anything else. But he knew the spirit behind the question, and the meaning justified the man. “Thou shalt think with the minds of twelve men, and the heart of one woman,” he said, and paused.
“Justice and mercy,” murmured the voice from the bed.
“Thou shalt keep the faith of food and blanket.” Again Pierre paused.
“And a man shall have no cause to fear his friend,” said the voice again.
The pause was longer this time, and Pierre’s cold, handsome face took on a kind of softness before he said, “Remember the sorrow of thine own wife.”
“It is a good commandment,” said the sick man, “to make all women safe whether they be true—or foolish.”