“Father was a happy man: he had a place to go to, from this desecrated world. Father was a strong man: he had his God. Where is our God, Cornelia?”
He sprang up. His eyes flashed. Deep anger was with his hands above his head. He sank down once more, and dropped his cigarette.
“We have no gods,” he said. “We have lost the old one. We have won no new ones.”
He smiled with the same hard half-parted lips. “I am not sure that we were so very wise. All the searing and desecrating vision that Father gave us of this reality was mere preparation for his Faith. He and his kind helped desecrate the world in order to enjoy their heaven. Without his heaven, is this reality he gave us altogether truth? Where are we with it? What is an abortion in relation with a life that is fully born? We rebelled; we left him and his blows and his hell and his God. We took with us the corroding poison of his blood. Were we not fools, Cornelia?”
“But, Tom, what else could we have done?”
“Nothing, of course.”
“Then, perhaps——”
“Be brave and honest, for once! A little more like father. His souls in hell could also not have done otherwise....”
“Tom! I won’t believe....”
He cut her short. “Very well, then: what will you believe?”