The tyranny of convention, of observance, of taboo, of folkways, ends. And into the brain of all living beings will be born the perfect comprehension of their own indestructible divinity.
Part of this she ventured to say to Ilse Westgard one day, when they had met for luncheon in a modest tea-room on Forty-third Street.
But Ilse, always inclined toward militancy, did not entirely agree with Palla.
“To embody in one’s daily life the principles of one’s living faith is scarcely sufficient,” she said. “Good is a force, not an inert condition. So is evil. And we should not sit still while evil moves.”
“Example is not inertia,” protested Palla.
“Example, alone, is sterile, I think,” said the ex-girl-soldier of the Battalion of Death, buttering a crescent. She ate it with the delightful appetite of flawless health, and poured out more chocolate.
“For instance, dear,” she went on, “the forces of evil––of degeneration, ignorance, envy, ferocity, are gathering like a tornado in Russia. Virtuous example, sucking its thumbs and minding its own business, will be torn to fragments when the storm breaks.”
“The Bolsheviki?”
“The Reds. The Terrorists, I mean. You know as well as I do what they really are––merely looters skulking through the smoke of a world in flames––buzzards on the carcass of a civilisation dead. But, Palla, they do not sit still and suck their thumbs and say, ‘I am a Terrorist. Behold me and be converted.’ No, indeed! 142 They are moving, always in motion, preoccupied by their hellish designs.”