ess, as I said just now, because you can only
see the way you MUST go instead of a hundred and fifty ways you MIGHT.
In darkness your soul is something like your own; in daylight, lamplight,
moonlight, never."
Nedda's spirit gave a jump; he seemed almost at last to be going to talk
about the things she wanted, above all, to find out. Her cheeks went
hot, she clenched her hands and said resolutely:
"Mr. Cuthcott, do you believe in God?"
Mr. Cuthcott made a queer, deep little noise; it was not a laugh,
however, and it seemed as if he knew she could not bear him to look at
her just then.
"H'm!" he said. "Every one does that--according to their natures. Some
call God IT, some HIM, some HER, nowadays--that's all. You might as well
ask--do I believe that I'm alive?"
"Yes," said Nedda, "but which do YOU call God?"
As she asked that, he gave a wriggle, and it flashed through her: 'He
must think me an awful enfant terrible!' His face peered round at her,
queer and pale and puffy, with nice, straight eyes; and she added
hastily:
"It isn't a fair question, is it? Only you talked about darkness, and
the only way--so I thought--"
"Quite a fair question. My answer is, of course: 'All three'; but the
point is rather: Does one wish to make even an attempt to define God to
oneself? Frankly, I don't! I'm content to feel that there is in one
some kind of instinct toward perfection that one will still feel, I hope,
when the lights are going out; some kind of honour forbidding one to let
go and give up. That's all I've got; I really don't know that I want
more."
Nedda clasped her hands.
"I like that," she said; "only--what is perfection, Mr. Cuthcott?"
Again he emitted that deep little sound.
"Ah!" he repeated, "what is perfection? Awkward, that--isn't it?"
"Is it"--Nedda rushed the words out--"is it always to be sacrificing
yourself, or is it--is it always to be--to be expressing yourself?"
"To some--one; to some--the other; to some--half one, half the other."
"But which is it to me?"
"Ah! that you've got to find out for yourself. There's a sort of
metronome inside us--wonderful, sell-adjusting little machine; most
delicate bit of mechanism in the world--people call it conscience--that
records the proper beat of our tempos. I guess that's all we have to go
by."
Nedda said breathlessly:
"Yes; and it's frightfully hard, isn't it?"
"Exactly," Mr. Cuthcott answered. "That's why people de
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