Read A Burnt Out Case for Free Online Page B

do, one has a lot of time to think things over. I’m a good Catholic, I hope, but that doesn’t prevent me from having spiritual problems. A lot of people take their religion lightly, but I had six years when I was a young man with the Jesuits. If a novice master had been less unfair you wouldn’t have found me here. I gathered from that article in Time that you are a Catholic too.’
    ‘I’ve retired,’ Querry said for the second time.
    ‘Oh come now, one hardly retires from that .’
    The gecko on the wall leapt at the moth, missed and lay motionless again, the tiny paws spread on the wall like ferns.
    ‘To tell you the truth,’ Rycker said, ‘I find those fathers at the leproserie an unsatisfactory lot. They are more interested in electricity and building than in questions of faith. Ever since I heard you were here I’ve looked forward to a conversation with an intellectual Catholic.’
    ‘I wouldn’t call myself that.’
    ‘In the long years I’ve been out here I’ve been thrown back on my own thoughts. Some men can manage, I suppose, with clock-golf. I can’t. I’ve read a great deal on the subject of love.’
    ‘Love?’
    ‘The love of God. Agape not Eros.’
    ‘I’m not qualified to talk about that.’
    ‘You underrate yourself,’ Rycker replied. He went to the sideboard and fetched a tray of liqueurs, disturbing the gecko who disappeared behind a reproduction of some primitive Flight into Egypt . ‘A glass of Cointreau,’ Rycker said, ‘or would you prefer a Van Der Hum?’ Beyond the veranda Querry saw a thin figure in a gold-leafed dress move towards the river. Perhaps out of doors the moths had lost their terror.
    ‘In the seminary I formed the habit of thinking more than most men,’ Rycker said. ‘A faith like ours, when profoundly understood, sets us many problems. For instance – no, it’s not a mere instance, I’m jumping to the heart of what really troubles me, I don’t believe my wife understands the true nature of Christian marriage.’
    Out in the darkness there was a plop-plop-plop. She must be throwing small pieces of wood into the river.
    ‘It sometimes seems to me,’ Rycker said, ‘that she’s ignorant of almost everything. I find myself wondering whether the nuns taught her at all. You saw for yourself – she doesn’t even cross herself at meals when I say grace. Ignorance, you know, beyond a certain point might even invalidate a marriage in canon law. That’s one of the matters I have tried in vain to discuss with the fathers. They would much prefer to talk about turbines. Now you are here . . .’
    ‘I’m not competent to discuss it,’ Querry said. In the moments of silence he could hear the river flooding down.
    ‘At least you listen. The fathers would already have started talking about the new well they propose to dig. A well, Querry, a well against a human soul.’ He drank down his Van Der Hum and poured himself another. ‘They don’t realize . . . just suppose that we weren’t properly married, she could leave me at any time, Querry.’
    ‘It’s easy to leave what you call a proper marriage, too.’
    ‘No, no. It’s much more difficult. There are social pressures – particularly here.’
    ‘If she loves you . . .’
    ‘That’s no protection. We are men of the world, Querry, you and I. A love like that doesn’t last. I tried to teach her the importance of loving God. Because if she loved Him, she wouldn’t want to offend Him, would she? And that would be some security. I have tried to get her to pray, but I don’t think she knows any prayers except the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria . What prayers do you use, Querry?’
    ‘None – except occasionally, from habit, in a moment of danger.’ He added sadly, ‘Then I pray for a brown teddy bear.’
    ‘You are joking, I know that, but this is very serious. Have another Cointreau?’
    ‘What’s really worrying you, Rycker? A man?’
    The girl came back into the light of the lamp