"And the devil is shocked by virtue, too--is that right? How perfectly the closed mind bats them back! It must be marvelous never to be able to wonder what goes on outside your own head. The enviable situation of nearly everybody! And the everlasting chute-the-chutes to hell-on-earth. Here comes our next course, Miss Morals." "Can I have pêches flambeau?" she asked, somewhat later. "I'll join you." "I thought you didn't drink?" "I don't. A brandied bonbon? Peaches with the alcohol mostly burned away? Sherry in the soup? I'm not absolutist, Yvonne--not stuck with it, quite. I don't accidentally swallow the port in my fruit cocktail and then go out and get roaring drunk--excusing myself with the accident of the port. Maybe the sniff of alcohol will fold up the resolution of some reformed drunkards. My own problem--in that case--was different." "What was it, then?" "It's a long and sordid story that I am not going to tell you now." "Do you really understand all these things you're talking about?" I thought that one over. "Mostly," I said, "my mental activity relates to errors in the concepts of other people. Let's say--I've come to understand a good deal--by searching for blunder, by hunting for the sense of what brighter guys have learned. By relating them all." "If God came in here now, what would you ask Him?" It was quite a question and I looked at her with surprise. Her face saddened. "Rol said that to me, once. But what?" What would I ask? I realized, with a strange feeling, that I wouldn't ask anything. No questions. No further privileges. No favors. No additional enlightenment. That last impulse had stayed in my mind for a moment and I had then thought, if you want more enlightenment, the data is there, son. Enlighten yourself. Don't ask, when there's a chance of finding out on your own. Superego? Had my father told me that? Or was that how I felt about life and the world? I felt that way. My father had his faith. So it was not superego. I would say hello to God. What I did not know, what I knew that I did not express, others would learn, others would say. There was a little instant of silence and remoteness around me as I underwent the experience that goes with such realization. A calm. The Crépuscule was a long way off--the sound and sight and smell of a dim restaurant. The trio was playing "Ja-da," I finally realized. Yvonne snapped her fingers in my face and laughed. "If you must daydream, put me in the act." "What part do you want?" "I'm a woman," she said. "And, according to you, I can play only one part. I'll be the sins of your mind. Do your evil for you. Kiss the cashiers and encourage little children to undress each other. Throw stones at cathedral windows--" "It's your life. And your sin-list. Go ahead." "_Your_ list." "You're sticking to _acts_. And mighty compulsive ones, too. All I've done is to give such matters subjective consideration." "The thought is father to the deed."