Free Ceremony of the Innocent by Taylor Caldwell Page B

control it to a certain extent, but we cannot obliterate our nature, and the weaknesses of our nature. We can only have compassion—when it is deserved. And a sense of humor, which you lack, my boy. Humor makes life tolerable. There is no mention of it in the Bible, but I am pretty sure that Christ laughed frequently and joked and told interesting stories. After all, He was a Jew in the flesh, and Jews are famous for their wry jokes.”
    Francis did not believe in any Deity, and he did not believe in Christ. But something in him was offended by his father’s speech. It threatened his concept of the grim perfectibility of man. Once he said meaningly to his father, “There is a new spirit growing in the world,” to which Walter had replied, “If it is what I think it is, then may God have mercy on our souls.”
    On another occasion, in order to conciliate his beloved son, Walter had said, “My boy, there is enough room in this world for both of us.” He had looked pleadingly at Francis, but Francis had shut his face and had tightened his lips and had not replied. Consequently, and in increasing exasperation, Walter had begun to oppose any ideas of Francis’, some of which he privately agreed were worthy. Such as my son would choke the theories which are probable, he would think, and set men like myself obdurately against what we know ourselves to be good. That is disastrous to everybody.
    Today, on extra urging, Francis went with his father for a drive through the country. Francis was not interested in farms and fields and the exuberance of nature in flower and fruit and grain. He was an urban man, which Walter regretted. There were too many urban men in the world these days. They were bored by the obvious; they thought labor demeaning. Worse still, they thought it unnecessary, and an affront to something they called “the dignity of man.” More and more, father and son were finding speech between them—honest and deep-hearted speech and self-revelation—impossible. Francis blamed his father. Walter was “old.” He had no concept of the “new world.” In his turn, Walter thought his son’s ideas resembled a bowl of lusty oatmeal and milk prematurely rancid, and poisonous. Ah, well, he would think, when Francis becomes older he will find that there are laws to contain impossible dreams, the laws of God and nature. The only idea which has splendor is the bountiful mercy of God—and we surely need it in these days!
    Mrs. Jardin said to Ellen, in the kitchen: “Now we’ll go upstairs to do the bedrooms. The Missus makes her own bed, but there are the three others. Here is the mop and duster and the broom and the pail. Don’t stare at them. You know what they’re for, don’t you?”
    Ellen had been permitted the scraps from Francis’ plate; she had devoured them with swift avidity, relishing every crumb. She had had a cup of coffee, which she thought delectable. She was surfeited, she was also sleepy, and it was only eight o’clock. “If you didn’t romp around all night,” said Mrs. Jardin with severity, “and behaved yourself like a Christian, you wouldn’t be so heavy-eyed.” As Ellen did not understand this, she could only accompany Mrs. Jardin in silence to the upper stories. Mrs. Jardin was a perfectionist for everybody but herself, something which would have interested Walter Porter, ironically.
    The many bedrooms upstairs were as vast as the rooms below, but were so weightily populated with dark and corpulent furniture that they gave the impression of being thrust together in a small space, and even overlapping. As on the lower floor the light here was dun and shrouded, the air stifling. Every window was filled with shirred gray silk blinds, as well as lace curtains and dark-blue velvet draperies; the shutters were half closed. But here and there a ruddy needle of sunlight pierced a crevice at the choked windows and darted across a rug, or a wider bar made the edge of a mahogany arm redly