Harz finished the touch he was putting on the canvas, before he answered: “Roman Catholic, I suppose; I was baptised in that Church.”
“I didn't mean that. Do you believe in a future life?”
“Christian,” murmured Greta, who was plaiting blades of grass, “shall always want to know what people think about a future life; that is so funny!”
“How can I tell?” said Harz; “I've never really thought of it—never had the time.”
“How can you help thinking?” Christian said: “I have to—it seems to me so awful that we might come to an end.”
She closed her book, and it slipped off her lap. She went on: “There must be a future life, we're so incomplete. What's the good of your work, for instance? What's the use of developing if you have to stop?”
“I don't know,” answered Harz. “I don't much care. All I know is, I've got to work.”
“But why?”
“For happiness—the real happiness is fighting—the rest is nothing. If you have finished a thing, does it ever satisfy you? You look forward to the next thing at once; to wait is wretched!”
Christian clasped her hands behind her neck; sunlight flickered through the leaves on to the bosom of her dress.