Clara got up. She lifted the face of her friend and held it between her palms. “I can see much, Fanny. Don’t say a word. I can see much.” Her hands slipped down. They were fists. Slow, deliberate, they beat against her hips. Soon she left.... * * * * * Fanny Dirk opened the windows wide, let out the cigarette smoke, closed them, sat down. --Who is right, Jesus or God? --What do I know of Jesus, what does Harry know? There is a meaning that is God’s in the words of Christ, and I can’t find it out. Who knows it? Leon? It seemed to her that Leon knew. A Jew. He uses neither Love nor Christ ... the unlovely and unChristian Jews. We did not meet in Washington. Yet we had a talk. It seems to me I know what Leon said to me in Washington. What Harry said at home? That is real--yet it seems more like a shadow. Harry? You must not hate Harry. Hard. You dare not. What is there terrible in hate? Others hate ... good healthy people hate. Why can’t you? Why, when hate comes for Harry, do you sicken ... something in you rips, fades, bleeds away? I am pulled out from myself as if my heart from my body. It is easier to hate than to love. You cannot. One hate? O I love this world of little people dragging through pain, mired in it, sinking in pain. O I love you! We are close. Let me hate Harry! You dare not. What has he done? He turned good. He quoted Scripture ... here am I. Edith, Edith--your father killed me quoting the words of Christ. O this is not it. There is something beyond. I am exiled. Did God give me exile? I could have stayed and fought.... Not Harry, God gave me exile. Will you hate God? If Harry because you thought he gave you exile, why not hate God? Why not? Why cannot I hate God? He made the Morass of pain in which the world so pitifully struggles, so pitifully dies! Hate God! Not Harry. You too ... who knows what agony you have lived, what sickly visions you have had, lifting you up. Poor Harry ... if one understands you, Boy.... I understand you, miserable Boy.... Fool! I can’t hate you. God? Hate God?... not if you understand him also. --There was a tree, I see a tree standing upon a mountain side above a quiet lake. And the tree’s roots break out. The tree falls into the water. Downward it groans, crashing and crushing. But in the water does it not lie still? No, it rots. Why does it fall, why does it rot so still when it has fallen? Why does the Hand of God draw it down ... God who has made it grow ... down against its growing, down against a thousand sprouts and seedlings? --I am falling, Fanny. Are you rotten also? Where are you going? O if you pull me down, Lord, I must go. You do not think that I am bad. You know. God, you know everything, you must see my girlhood ... how I pushed up, eager, straight, sunward. You must see my wifehood. You must see my motherhood. I fall. But I have not lost you, God. O it hurts!... Fall, fall.... Why are you nearer, Father, when I fall?