Part 53 (1/2)
Teddy laughed sheepishly, as if he had ventured to peer into secrets which were none of his business.
”I'll tell you the way G.o.d seems to me-it's all come to me while I've been in there.” He nodded toward the cells. ”I don't seem to get him as a great big man, the way the chaplain says he is. He's all right, the chaplain, only he don't seem to know anything about G.o.d. He can gas away to beat the band about law, and society, and the good of the community, and h.e.l.l to pay when you don't respect them; but when it comes to G.o.d-it's nix.”
”Well, what do you make out for yourself?”
”I haven't made it out exactly. It's as if some great big hand had pulled aside a curtain-but it's a curtain that I didn't know was there.
See?”
”Yes, I see. And what does it show you?”
”That's the funny part of it. I can't tell you what it shows me. I don't exactly see it; I only know-mind you, I'm just telling you how it seems to me-I only know that it's G.o.d.”
”But I suppose, if you know that it's G.o.d, you have an idea of what it's like?”
”Ye-es; it's like-like a country into which I'm traveling-not with my body-see?-but with my _self_. No,” he corrected, ”that's not it. It isn't a country; it's more like a life. Oh, shucks! I haven't got it straight yet. Now look! This is the way it is. Suppose that everything we see was alive-that these chairs were alive, and the walls, and the table-that every blamed thing we ever touch or use was alive, and had a voice. See?” Bob nodded that he saw. ”Now, suppose every voice was trying to make you understand things. The table would say, 'This is the way G.o.d wants you to work'; and the chair, 'This is the way G.o.d wants you to rest'; and the walls, 'This is the way G.o.d stands round you and backs you up.' Everything would be helping you then, instead of putting itself dead against you the way we have it here.”
”I get the idea; but would that be G.o.d?”
Over this question the boy's face brooded thoughtfully.
”It mightn't be G.o.d in the way that you're you and I'm me. It would be more like a way of _knowing_ G.o.d. It's like my case in the courts. It's set down as 'The People against Edward S. Follett.' But I don't see the People; I only feel what they do to me. It's something like that. I don't see G.o.d; but I kind of feel-” He broke with another apologetic laugh. ”Oh, I guess it's all wrong. Gussie'd call me a gump. It just kind of gets you; that's all. It makes me feel as if I was moving on into something-but I guess I'm not.”
The pensive silence that followed was broken by Bob's saying:
”That's what I mean by instinct.”
Teddy resumed as if he hadn't heard. ”When I wake up in the night-and waking up in the night in that place, with snores and groans and guys talking in their sleep and having nightmares, is some stunt, believe _me_-but when I do, it's just as if I had great big arms round me, and some one was saying: 'All right, Teddy, I'm holding you. Keep a stiff upper lip. I'll make it as easy as I can for you and everyone else. I'm just drawing you-drawing you-drawing you-a wee little bit at a time-over here, where you'll get your big chance.' What's more, Bob,” he went on, as if he touched on the heart of his interest, ”it says it'll take care of Flynn and his wife and his poor little kiddies, and do the things-”
Once more he broke off with his uneasy laugh. ”Ah, what's the use? You think I'm a quitter, don't you?”
”Why should I think that?”
”Oh, I don't know. I talk like a quitter. But it isn't that. If I could still do anything for ma and the girls-”
”I'm looking after them, old boy.”
”So there you are. What'd be the good of my staying?” He added, between clenched teeth, ”G.o.d, how I'd hate to go back!”
”Back into the world?”
He spoke as if to himself: ”You see-that day-the day the thing happened-and they came and caught me-and did all those things to me-and I saw Flynn lying by the road-it was-it was a kind of sickener. If putting me out of the way is the thing in the wind, it was done right there and then. Right there and then I seem to have begun-moving on.” He drew a long breath. ”And I'd rather keep moving, Bob-no matter to where-no matter to what-than turn back again to face a bunch of men.”
CHAPTER XXVII
Teddy was not called on to face a bunch of men till going to the courtroom for his trial. Dressed long before the hour in a new dark-blue suit, fresh linen, and a dark-blue tie, his prison pallor, a little like that of death, put him out of the list of the active and free. As he sat on the edge of his bunk, somber with dread, he was nevertheless obliged to find suitable jocosities with which to answer the good-luck wishes that came slithering along the walls from the neighboring cells. It was half past nine before two guards whom he had never seen before, stalwart fellows well over six feet, came to the door and unlocked it.
”Ready, Follett? Time's come.”
Springing to his feet, he found handcuffs slipped round his wrists before he was aware of what was being done. It was an unexpected indignity. He had never been handcuffed before.