Marius put his hand out and touched my shoulder. I realized suddenly that he was truly on the verge of losing his self-control.
When he spoke his voice was tremulous and lustrous with feeling.
He hated the storm inside himself and he was overcome by my sorrow. I knew this plainly enough. It gave me no satisfaction at all.
"You despise me now, and perhaps you're right. I knew you would weep, but in a very profound way, I misjudged you. I didn't realize something about you. Perhaps I never have. "
"What's that, Master," I said with acidic drama.
"You loved them selflessly," he whispered. "For all their strange faults, and wild evil, they were not compromised for you. You loved them perhaps more respectfully than I. . . than I ever loved you. "
He seemed so amazed.
I could only nod. I wasn't so sure he was right. My need for them had never been tested, but I didn't want to tell him so.
"Armand," he said. "You know you can stay here as long as you like. "
"Good, because I just might," I said. "They love it, and I'm weary. So thank you very much for that. "
"But one thing more," he went on, "and I mean this with all my heart. "
"What is it, Master?" I said.
David stood by, and I was happy for that, for it seemed to act as a certain curb upon my tears.
"I honestly don't know the answer to this, and I ask you in humility," Marius said. "When you saw the Veil, what was it you really saw? Oh, I don't mean was it Christ, or was it God, or was it a miracle. What I mean is this. There was the face of a being, drenched in blood, who had given birth to a religion guilty of more wars and more cruelty than any creed the world has ever known. Don't be angry with me, please, just explain to me. What was it you saw? Was it only a magnificent reminder of the ikons you once painted? Or was it truly something drenched in love and not in blood? Tell me. If it was love and not blood, I would honestly like to know. "
"You ask an old and simple question," I said, "and from where I stand you don't really know a thing. You wonder how He could have been my Lord, given this world as you describe it, and knowing what you know of the Gospels and the Testaments printed in His name. You wonder how I could have believed all that because you don't believe it, isn't that so?"
He nodded. "Yes, I do wonder. Because I know you. And I know that faith is something which you simply do not have. "
I was startled. But instantly I knew he was right.
I smiled. I felt a sort of tragic thrilling happiness suddenly.
"Well, I see what you mean," I said. "And I'll tell you my answer. I saw Christ. A kind of bloody light. A personality, a human, a presence that I felt I knew. And He wasn't the Lord God Father Almighty and He wasn't the maker of the universe and the whole world. And He wasn't the Savior or the Redeemer for sins inscribed on my soul before I was born. He wasn't the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, and He wasn't the Theologian expounding from the Holy Mount. He wasn't those things for me. Maybe for others, but not forme. "
"But who was He, then, Armand?" David asked. "I have your story, full of marvels and suffering, yet I don't know. What was the concept of the Lord when you spoke the word?"
"Lord," I repeated it. "It doesn't mean what you think. It's spoken with too much intimacy and too much warmth. It's like a secret and sacred name. Lord. " I paused, and then continued:
"He is the Lord, yes, but only because He is the symbol of something infinitely more accessible, something infinitely more meaningful than a ruler or king or lord can ever be. "
Again, I hesitated, wanting to find the right words since they were so sincere.
"He was . . . my brother" I said. "Yes. That is what He was, my brother, and the symbol of all brothers, and that is why He was the Lord, and that is why His core is simply love. You scorn it. You look askance at what I say. But you don't grasp the complexity of what He was. It's easy to feel, perhaps, but not so easy to really see. He was another man like me. And maybe for many of us, millions upon millions, that's all He's ever been! We're all somebody's sons and daughters and He was somebody's son. He was human, whether He was God or not, and He was suffering and He was doing it for things He thought were purely and universally good. And that meant that His blood might as well have been my blood too. Why, it had to be. And maybe that is the very source of His magnificance for thinkers such as me. You said I had no faith. I don't. Not in titles or in legends or in hierarchies made by other beings like ourselves. He didn't make a hierarchy, not really. He was the very thing. I saw in Him magnificence for simple reasons. There was flesh and blood to what He was! And it could be bread and wine to feed the whole Earth. You don't get it. You can't. Too many lies about Him swim in your ken. I saw Him before I heard so much about Him. I saw Him when I looked at the ikons in my house, and when I painted Him long before I even knew all His names. I can't get Him out of my head. I never have. I never will. "
I had no more to say.
They were very amazed but not particularly respecting, pondering the words in all the wrong ways, perhaps, I couldn't absolutely know. It didn't matter what they felt anyway. It wasn't really so good that they had asked me or that I had tried so hard to tell them my truth. I saw the old ikon in my mind, the one my Mother had brought to me in the snow. Incarnation. Impossible to explain in their philosophy. I wondered. Perhaps the horror of my own life was that, no matter what I did or where I went, I always understood. Incarnation. A kind of bloody light.
I wanted to be left alone by them now.
Sybelle was waiting, which was of far greater importance, and I went to take her in my arms.
For many hours we talked together, Sybelle and Benji and me, and finally Pandora, who was very distraught but would say nothing of it, came to talk casually and gaily with us too. Marius joined us and also David.
We were gathered in a circle on the grass under the stars. For the young ones, I put on the bravest of faces and we spoke of beautiful things, and places we would wander, and wonders which Marius and Pandora had seen, and we argued now and then amiably about trivial things.