Part 14 (2/2)

Prayers--no, you taught me to leave them off long ago. At first I was sorry, but I am glad now, for I am sleepy in the evenings.

WISE MAN

Do you believe in G.o.d?

BRIDGET

Oh, a good wife only believes in what her husband tells her.

WISE MAN

But sometimes, when the children are asleep And I am in the school, do you not think About the Martyrs and the saints and the angels, And all the things that you believed in once?

BRIDGET

I think about nothing--sometimes I wonder if the linen is bleaching white, or I go out to see if the crows are picking up the chickens' food.

WISE MAN

My G.o.d,--my G.o.d! I will go out myself.

My pupils said that they would find a man Whose faith I never shook--they may have found him.

Therefore I will go out--but if I go, The gla.s.s will let the sands run out unseen.

I cannot go--I cannot leave the gla.s.s.

Go call my pupils--I can explain all now, Only when all our hold on life is troubled, Only in spiritual terror can the Truth Come through the broken mind--as the pease burst Out of a broken pease-cod.

[_He clutches Bridget as she is going._

Say to them, That Nature would lack all in her most need, Could not the soul find truth as in a flash, Upon the battle-field, or in the midst Of overwhelming waves, and say to them-- But no, they would but answer as I bid.

BRIDGET

You want somebody to get up an argument with.

WISE MAN

Look out and see if there is any one There in the street--I cannot leave the gla.s.s, For somebody might shake it, and the sand If it were shaken might run down on the instant.

BRIDGET

I don't understand a word you are saying. There's a crowd of people talking to your pupils.

WISE MAN

Go out and find if they have found a man Who did not understand me when I taught, Or did not listen.

BRIDGET

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