Next morning he was up betimes; and the prospects of Humanity looked
more glorious than ever. He gathered some of the finest pats from the
butter-tree, and some fresh French rolls from the bread-tree. He
discovered a cow close at hand, that allowed him at once to milk it; and
a little roast pig ran up to him out of the underwood, and fawning on
him with its trotters, said, 'Come, eat me.'
The Professor vivisected it before Virginia's door, that its automatic
noise, which the vulgar call cries of pain, might awaken her; and he
then set it in a hot dish on the table.
'It has come! it has come!' he shouted, rapturously, as Virginia entered
the room, this time in a blue silk dressing-gown, embroidered with
flowers of gold.
'What has come?' said Virginia, pettishly, for she was suffering from a
terrible headache, and the Professor's loud voice annoyed her. 'You
don't mean to say that we are rescued, are we?'
'Yes,' answered Paul, solemnly; 'we are rescued. We are rescued from all
the pains and imperfections of a world that has not learnt how to
conform to the laws of matter, and is but imperfectly acquainted with
the science of sociology. It is therefore inevitable that, the evils of
existence being thus removed, we shall both be solemnly, stupendously,
and unspeakably happy.'
'Nonsense!' said Virginia, snappishly, who thought the Professor was
joking.
'It is not nonsense,' said the Professor, 'It is deducible from the
teachings of John Stuart Mill, of Auguste Comte, of Mr. Frederic
Harrison, and of all the exact thinkers who have cast off superstition,
and who adore Humanity.'
Virginia meanwhile ate _paté de foie gras_, of which she was
passionately fond; and, growing a little less sullen, she at last
admitted that they were lucky in having at least the necessaries of life
left to them. 'But as for happiness--there is nothing to do here, there
is no church to go to, and you don't seem to care a bit for my
dressing-gown. What have we got to make us happy?'
'Humanity,' replied the Professor eagerly,--'Humanity, that divine
entity, which is necessarily capable of everything that is fine and
invaluable, and is the object of indescribable emotion to all exact
thinkers. And what is Humanity?' he went on more earnestly; 'you and I
are Humanity--you and I are that august existence. You already are all
the world to me; and I very soon shall be all the world to you. Adored
being, it will be my mission and my glory to compel you to live for me.
And then, as modern philosophy can demonstrate, we shall both of us be
significantly and unspeakably happy.'
For a few moments Virginia merely stared at Paul. Suddenly she turned
quite pale, her lips quivered, and exclaiming, 'How dare you!--and I,
too, the wife of a bishop!' she left the room in hysterics.
The Professor could make nothing of this. Though he had dissected many
dead women, he knew very little of the hearts of live ones. A sense of
shyness overpowered him, and he felt embarrassed, he could not tell
why, at being thus left alone with Virginia. He lit a cigar and went
out. Here was a to-do indeed, he thought. How would progress be possible
if one half of Humanity misunderstood the other?
He was thus musing, when suddenly a voice startled him; and in another
moment a man came rushing up to him, with every demonstration of joy.
'Oh, my dear master! oh, emancipator of the human intellect! and is it
indeed you? Thank God!----I beg pardon for my unspeakable blasphemy--I
mean, thank circumstances over which I have no control.'
It was one of the three curates, whom Paul had supposed drowned, but who
now related how he had managed to swim ashore, despite the extreme
length of his black clerical coat. 'These rags of superstition,' he
said, 'did their best to drown me. But I survive in spite of them, to
covet truth and to reject error. Thanks to your glorious teaching,' he
went on, looking reverentially into the Professor's face, 'the very
notion of an Almighty Father makes me laugh consumedly, it is so absurd
and so immoral. Science, through your instrumentality, has opened my
eyes. I am now an exact thinker.'
'Do you believe, said Paul, 'in solemn, significant, and unspeakably
happy Humanity?
'I do,' said the curate, fervently. 'Whenever I think of Humanity, I
groan and moan to myself out of sheer solemnity.'
'Then two thirds of Humanity,' said the Professor, 'are thoroughly
enlightened. Progress will now go on smoothly.'
At this moment Virginia came out, having rapidly recovered composure at
the sound of a new man's voice.
'You here--you, too!' exclaimed the curate. 'How solemn, how
significant! This is truly Providential----I mean this has truly
happened through conformity to the laws of matter.'
'Well,' said Virginia, 'since we have a clergyman amongst us, we shall
perhaps be able to get on.'