ath itself. It seemed to him he was
on the point of sweeping triumphantly away all the illusory mysteries of
existence. It was simplicity itself.

"I hope you see now the folly--the utter folly of wickedness," he began
in a dull, solemn manner. "You must respect the conditions of your life
or lose all it can give you. All! Everything!"

He waved his arm once, and three exact replicas of his face, of his
clothes, of his dull severity, of his solemn grief, repeated the wide
gesture that in its comprehensive sweep indicated an infinity of moral
sweetness, embraced the walls, the hangings, the whole house, all the
crowd of houses outside, all the flimsy and inscrutable graves of the
living, with their doors numbered like the doors of prison-cells, and as
impenetrable as the granite of tombstones.

"Yes! Restraint, duty, fidelity--unswerving fidelity to what is expected
of you. This--only this--secures the reward, the peace. Everything else
we should labour to subdue--to destroy. It's misfortune; it's disease.
It is terrible--terrible. We must not know anything about it--we
needn't. It is our duty to ourselves--to others. You do not live all
alone in the world--and if you have no respect for the dignity of life,
others have. Life is a serious matter. If you don't conform to the
highest standards you are no one--it's a kind of death. Didn't this
occur to you? You've only to look round you to see the truth of what I
am saying. Did you live without noticing anything, without understanding
anything? From a child you had examples before your eyes--you could see
daily the beauty, the blessings of morality, of principles. . . ."

His voice rose and fell pompously in a strange chant. His eyes were
still, his stare exalted and sullen; his face was set, was hard, was
woodenly exulting over the grim inspiration that secretly possessed him,
seethed within him, lifted him up into a stealthy frenzy of belief. Now
and then he would stretch out his right arm over her head, as it were,
and he spoke down at that sinner from a height, and with a sense of
avenging virtue, with a profound and pure joy as though he could
from his steep pinnacle see every weighty word strike and hurt like a
punishing stone.

"Rigid principles--adherence to what is right," he finished after a
pause.

"What is right?" she said, distinctly, without uncovering her face.

"Your mind is diseased!" he cried, upright and austere. "Such a question
is rot--utter rot