is face in the soft hair about her neck.

"Dear God, I love you." And in that moment he could not bear to hear
his son cry, because he knew that he was nothing more, and never would
be, than the helpless creature beside them.

As his wife rose to nurse the child he recovered himself, and like Ara,
continued the thought.

SUCH IS THE LOT OF HUMANITY. And who nourished and protected them, the
children who had grown? Was there a God, or was Man truly alone in his
walk through the world of flesh? In all that he had lived through
these past months, he could not begin to answer that question. There
had to be something---he had only his own experience to go
by---because..... As close as he had come to death and despair, they
had never been able to completely overwhelm him. But had he, and Ara,
survived because of something outside, or inside? And was that
something God? Was God internal, some invisible undercurrent of Life
and Nature, or external, some being or beings who watched it all from
without? And where to find the answers? If there was an answer.

He remembered the words to Johann Schiller's 'Ode to Joy,' set to
angelic chorus by Beethoven. "For surely, beyond the stars there
dwells a loving father. Seek Him there, beyond the stars." And this
seemed particularly relevant and true, until he remembered that
Schiller had been unmade by the hands of men.

And he remembered the horror of Dracus, which had made him see, and
feel, all others.

And these continual barriers to faith and serenity were just what was
so maddening. How could one believe in anything after knowing the rape
of war? Or disbelieve after finding his wife (and himself) still alive
against such odds? No matter how much of life one experienced, no
matter how much knowledge he acquired or how 'wise' he became---he
wondered seriously if such a word held any real meaning---there was
always one more piece of information to take in, one more tragedy to
rationalize, and try to find some reason for. And until this new,
confounded fact was taken in and digested, it upset and unraveled all
the others, and would not let a man with half a conscience rest.

Through this long chain of reasoning, and especially this last thought,
he finally unearthed what was bothering him, and poisoning the
recuperative peace that he should have been experiencing. He started
to rebel against what he found there, but knew he would be unable.

What was troublin