“No, in Russia. There are a few foreign cloistered orders there.... But I had a tragic awakening....” She bent her head and quoted softly, “‘For the former things have passed away.’”
The orange ice was melting; she stirred it idly, watching it dissolve.
“No,” she said, “I had utterly misunderstood the scheme of things. Divinity is not a sad, a solemn, a solitary autocrat demanding selfish tribute, blind allegiance, inexorable self-abasement. It is not an insecure tyrant offering bribery for the cringing, frightened servitude demanded.”
She looked up smilingly at the man: “Nor, within us, is there any soul in the accepted meaning,––no satellite released at death to revolve around or merge into some super-divinity. No!
“For I believe,––I know––that the body––every one’s body––is inhabited by a complete god, immortal, retaining its divine entity, beholden to no other deity save only itself, and destined to encounter in a divine democracy and through endless futures, unnumbered brother gods––the countless divinities which have possessed and shall possess those tenements of mankind which we call our bodies.... You do not, of course, subscribe to such a faith,” she added, meeting his gaze.
“Well–––” He hesitated. She said:
“Autocracy in heaven is as unthinkable, as unbelievable, and as obnoxious to me as is autocracy on earth. There is no such thing as divine right, here or elsewhere,––no divine prerogatives for tyranny, for punishment, for cruelty.”
“How did you happen to embrace such a faith?” he asked, bewildered.
“I was sick of the scheme of things. Suffering, cruelty, death outraged my common sense. It is not in me to say, ‘Thy will be done,’ to any autocrat, heavenly or earthly. It is not in me to fawn on the hand that strikes me––or that strikes any helpless thing! No! And the scheme of things sickened me, and I nearly died of it–––”