Read The Clowns of God for Free Online Page B

in any case, on borrowed time. He breathed a silent prayer for wisdom of the tongue and began softly and tenderly to reason with her.
    “Believe me, little one, I understand how you feel, both of you. Your mother understands, too, but in a different way, because she knows how a woman can be hurt, and how the consequences can be longer for her than for a man. She fights with you because she loves you and she’s afraid for you. You see, whatever mess the world’s in and I’ve been sitting here reading how much more horrible it may get! you’ve had the experience of loving and being loved. Not the whole experience, yet, but some of it; so you do know what loving’s about: giving and taking and caring and never grabbing the whole cake for yourself. Now you’re beginning the next chapter with your Franz, and only the pair of you can write it, together. If you botch it, the best your mother and I can do is dry your tears and hold your hand until you’re ready to begin living again. We can’t tell you how to arrange your emotional lives, or even your sexual lives. All we can tell you is that if you waste your hearts and waste that special joy that makes sex so wonderful, it’s something you can’t renew. You can find other experiences, other joys, too, but never again that first, special, very exclusive ecstasy that makes this whole confusion of living and dying worthwhile. What more can I say, little one? Go to Paris with your Franz. Learn your loving together. As for tomorrow? How’s your Latin?”
    She gave him a tearful smile.
    “You know it’s always been terrible.”
    “Try this.
    “Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere.” Old Horace wrote it.”
    “It still means nothing.”
    “It’s very simple.
    “Forbear to ask what tomorrow may bring.” If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.”
    “O Papa!” She threw her arms round his neck and kissed him.
    “I love you so much! You’ve made me very happy.”
    “Go to bed, little one,” said Carl Mendelius softly.
    “I’ve still got an hour’s work ahead of me.”
    “You work too hard, Papa.”
    He gave her a small admonitory pat on the cheek and quoted lightly: “A father without work means a daughter without a dowry. Good night, my love. Golden dreams!”
    When the door closed behind her, he felt the prickling of unbidden tears tears for all the youthful hope in her, and all her threatened innocence. He blew his nose violently, picked up his spectacles and settled back to his reading of Jean Marie’s apocalypse.
    It is clear that in the days of universal calamity the traditional structures of society will not survive. There will be a ferocious struggle for the simplest needs of life food, water, fuel and shelter. Authority will be usurped by the strong and the cruel. Large urban societies will fragment themselves into tribal groups, each hostile to the other.
    Rural areas will be subject to pillage. The human person will be as much a prey as the beasts whom we now slaughter for food. Reason will be so clouded that man will resort for solace to the crudest and most violent forms of magic. It will be hard even for those founded most strongly in the Promise of the Lord, to sustain their faith and continue to give witness, as they must do, even to the end.
    How then must Christians comport themselves in these days of trial and terror?
    Since they will no longer be able to maintain themselves as large groups, they must divide themselves into small communities, each capable of sustaining itself by the exercise of a common faith and a true mutual charity. Their Christian witness must be given by spreading that charity outwards to those who are not of the faith, by aiding the distressed, by sharing even their most meagre means with those who are most deprived. When the priestly hierarchy can no longer function, they will elect to themselves ministers and teachers who will maintain the Word in its integrity, and