Chapter XVI
In the Mountains
It was noon at the Hut in Bear Valley. Rudolf Marek sat curled up on the veranda; he looked at a newspaper, but he soon folded it up again, and gazed out over the far-stretching chain of the Giant Mountains. Stillness, a vast and crystalline stillness, lay upon the mountains, and the man curled up in the chair straightened himself and took a deep breath.
Then the tiny figure of a man appeared from below making towards the Hut.
"How pure the air is here!" thought Marek on his veranda. "Here, Heaven be praised, the Absolute is still latent, it still lies under a spell, hidden in everything, in these mountains and forests, in the sweet grass and the blue sky. Here it does not rush about all over the place, waking terror or working magic; it simply dwells in all matter, a God deeply and quietly present, not even breathing, only in silence watching over all. . . ." Marek clasped his hands in a mute prayer of thankfulness. "Dear God, how pure the air is here!"
The man who had come up from below stopped under the veranda.
"Well, Marek, so I've found you at last!"
Marek looked up, not greatly pleased. The man who stood before him was G. H. Bondy.
"So I've found you at last!" Bondy said again.
"Come along up, then," said Marek, with obvious reluctance. "What the deuce has brought you here? Heavens, man, you do look queer!"
G. H. Bondy did indeed look sunken and yellow; he had gone very grey about the temples, and lines of weariness made dark shadows around his eyes. He seated himself without a word beside Marek and squeezed his hands together between his knees.
"Come now, what's wrong with you?" Marek pressed him after a painful silence.
Bondy raised his arms.
"I'm going to retire, old man. You see, it's got me too . . . me!"
"What, religion?" shouted Marek, recoiling as though from a leper.
Bondy nodded. Was it not a tear of shame that trembled on his lashes? Marek whistled softly. "What—it's got you now? My poor old fellow!"
"No," cried Bondy quickly, wiping his eyes. "Don't think I'm not all right at present; I've got under, you might say, Rudy, I've beaten it. But, do you know, when it came over me, it was the very happiest moment of my life. You have no idea, Rudy, what tremendous will-power it takes to shake that off."
"I can well believe it," said Marek gravely. "And tell me, what sort of . . . er . . . symptoms did you have?"
"Love for my neighbour," Bondy whispered. "Man, I was frantic with love. I would never have believed it possible to feel anything like it."
There was silence for a moment.
"So, then, you've . . ." Marek began.
"I've thrown it off. Rather like a fox that gnaws its own leg off when it's caught in a trap. But I'm still confoundedly weak after the struggle. An utter wreck, Rudy. As if I'd have typhoid. That's why I've come here, to pick up again, you see. . . . Is it all clear up here?"
"Quite clear; not a single trace of it so far. You can only sense it . . . in Nature and everything; but then one could do that before—one always could, in the mountains."
Bondy kept a gloomy silence. "Well, and what do you make of it all?" he said absently, after a while. "Have you any notion up here of what's going on down below?"
"I get the papers. Even from the papers one can to a certain extent deduce what is happening. Of course these journalists distort everything; still, anyone who can read. . . . I say, Bondy, are things really so awful?"
G. H. Bondy shook his head.
"A lot worse than you think. Simply desperate. Listen," he whispered brokenly. "He's everywhere by now. I think that . . . that He's got a definite plan."
"A plan?" cried Marek, leaping to his feet.
"Don't shout so. He has some kind of plan, my friend. And He's going about it deuced cleverly. Tell me, Marek, what is the greatest power in the world?"
"England," said Marek without hesitation.
"Not at all. Industry is the greatest power in the world. And the so-called 'proletariat' are likewise the greatest power in the world. Do you see the scheme now?"
"No, I don't see it at all."
"He has got control of them both. He has both industry and the masses in His power. So everything is in His grasp. Everything goes to show that He is thinking of world-supremacy. That's how things are, Marek."
Marek sat down. "Wait a bit, Bondy," he said. "I've been thinking a good deal about it up here in the mountains. I've been following up everything and comparing the signs. I tell you, Bondy, I don't even give a thought to anything else. I certainly don't know what He is aiming at, but I do know this, Bondy, that He's following no particular plan. He doesn't know Himself what He wants and how to get it. Possibly He wants to do something big, but doesn't know how to set about it. I'll tell you something, Bondy. So far He's only a force of Nature. Politically, He's a fearful ignoramus. In the matter of economics He's a simple savage. After all, He ought to have submitted to the Church; she has had experience. . . . You know, He sometimes strikes me as being so childish. . . ."
"Don't you believe it, Rudy," G. H. Bondy returned heavily. "He knows what He wants. That's why He plunged into large-scale industry. He is far more up to date than we ever thought."
"That is only His play," urged Marek. "He only wants something to occupy Himself with. Don't you see, there's a sort of god-like boyishness about it. Wait, I know what you want to say. As a worker He is tremendous. It is simply amazing what He can bring off. But, Bondy, it is so senseless that there can't be any plan in it."
"The most senseless things in history were systematically prosecuted plans," declared G. H. Bondy.
"My dear Bondy," said Marek quickly. "Look at all the papers I have here. I follow up every step He takes. I tell you that there isn't a scrap of consistency about them. They're all merely the improvisations of omnipotence. He performs tremendous tricks, but at random, disconnectedly, confusedly. His activity isn't organized a scrap. He came into the world altogether too unprepared. That's where His weakness lies. He impresses me, but I see His weak points. He is not a good organizer, and perhaps never has been. He has flashes of genius, but He is unsystematic. I'm surprised that you haven't got the better of Him, Bondy, a wide-awake fellow like you."
"You can't do anything with Him," Bondy asserted. "He attacks you in your innermost soul, and you're done for. When He can't convince you by reason, He sends miraculous enlightenment upon you. You know what He did with Saul."
"You are running away from Him," said Marek, "but I am running after Him, and I'm close at His heels. I know a bit about Him already, enough to get out a warrant for Him! Description: infinite, invisible, and formless. Place of residence: everywhere in the vicinity of atomic motors. Occupation: mystical Communism. Crimes for which He is wanted: alienation of private property, illegal practice of medicine, offences against the Public Assemblies Act, interference with officials in the execution of their duty, and so forth. Distinguishing marks: omnipotence. In short, have Him arrested."
"You're making fun of it," sighed G. H. Bondy. "Don't do it. He has beaten us."
"Not yet!" cried Marek. "Look here, Bondy. He doesn't know how to govern yet. He has got into a fearful muddle with His new undertakings. For instance, He has gone in for over-production instead of first building up a miraculous railway system. Now He's in the mire Himself—what He produces has no value. That miraculous profusion of everything was a fearful fiasco. In the second place, He turned the brains of the authorities with His mysticism and upset the whole machinery of Government, which otherwise He could now be using to maintain order. You can make revolutions anywhere else you like, but not in the Government offices; even if the world's to be brought to an end, the thing to do is to destroy the universe first and take the Government offices afterwards. That's how it is, Bondy. And in the third place, like the crudest of doctrinaire Communists, He has done away with the currency and thereby with one stroke paralysed the circulation of commodities. He did not know that the laws of the market are stronger than the laws of God. He did not know that production without trade is utterly senseless. He knew nothing whatever. He behaved like . . . like a . . . well, to put it shortly, as if He would destroy with one hand what He made with the other. Here we have miraculous profusion, and along with it disastrous shortage. He is all-powerful, yet He's achieved only chaos. I believe that He once did really create the laws of Nature, the primordial lizards, the mountains, and anything else you like. But business, Bondy, our modern industry and commerce, that I swear He did not create, for He simply doesn't know a thing about it. No, Bondy, industry and commerce are not of God."
"Hold on," said G. H. Bondy. "I know that the consequences of His acts are calamitous . . . immeasurable. . . . But what can we do about it?"
"For the time being, nothing. My dear Bondy, I just study and compare. It is a second Babel. Here, for instance, you have the Roman Catholic publications expressing the suspicion that 'the confusions of these times of religious excitement are being deliberately organized with Satanic subtlety by the Freemasons.' The Nationalist Press blames the Jews, the Socialists of the Right blame those of the Left, the Agrarian party attacks the Liberals; it's killing. And mind you, we're not really in the whirlpool yet. In my opinion, the whole thing is only just beginning to get into a tangle. Come here, Bondy, I want to tell you something."
"Well?"
"Do you think that He . . . you know what I mean . . . that He's the only one there is?"
"I don't know," replied Bondy. "And is it of any special importance?"
"Immense importance," Marek answered. "Come closer, Bondy, and prick up your ears."