decree authority; they hide the light. They are
men, defending their interests as men; they are rulers defending their
sway.

It has to be! You shall _not_ know! A terrible memory shudders
through me; and I catch a confused glimpse of people who, for the needs
of their common cause, uphold, with their promises and thunder, the mad
unhappiness which lies heavy on the multitudes.

* * * * * *

Footsteps are climbing towards me. Marie appears, dressed in gray.
She comes to look for me. In the distance I saw that her cheeks were
brightened and rejuvenated by the wind. Close by I see that her
eyelids are worn, like silk. She finds me sunk in reflection. She
looks at me, like a frail and frightened mother; and this solicitude
which she brings me is enough by itself to calm and comfort me.

I point out to her the dressed-up commotion below us, and make some
bitter remark on the folly of these people who vainly gather in the
church, and go to pray there, to talk all alone. Some of them believe;
and the rest say to them, "I do the same as you."

Marie does not argue the basis of religion. "Ah," she says, "I've
never thought clearly about it, never. They've always spoken of God to
me, and I've always believed in Him. But--I don't know. I only know
one thing," she adds, her blue eyes looking at me, "and that is that
there must be delusion. The people must have religion, so as to put up
with the hardships of life, the sacrifices----"

She goes on again at once, more emphatically, "There must be religion
for the unhappy, so that they won't give way. It may be foolishness,
but if you take that away from them, what have they left?"

The gentle woman--the normal woman of settled habits--whom I had left
here repeats, "There must be illusion." She sticks to this idea, she
insists, she is taking the side of the unhappy. Perhaps she talks like
that for her own sake, and perhaps only because she is compassionate
for me.

I said in vain, "No--there must never be delusion, never fallacies.
There should be no more lies. We shall not know then where we're
going."

She persists and makes signs of dissent.

I say no more, tired. But I do not lower my gaze before the
all-powerful surroundings of circumstance. My eyes are pitiless, and
cannot help descrying the false God and the false priests everywhere.

We go down the footpath and return in silence. But it seems to me that
the