"I think," she said, "I think all good women know, Shane. Men are so complete, so welded. Mind and body seem to be themselves; the body and mind function so that one doesn't see that there is anything within that directs them. They are compact. But a woman is diffuse, Shane. Her mind is not a man's mind; it is a thing she can use when she wants to and then forget.... When women sit and think, you know, they aren't thinking. They are feeling, Shane. It comes like a little wind. There may be a place by the sea-shore, sparse heather and sandy dunes, and the little waves come chiming, and the curlew calls. And you sit. And a very strange peace comes to you, so that in a low soft voice you sing a verse of song.... Or it may come on the cold winds of winter, through the ascetic trees.... But women are always cognizant of God.... Even bad women, Shane, who mistake the Unknown God for the true.... And a woman is very much apart from her body. It is just a nuisance at times, or at times a thing of beauty, or at times a thing one expresses something with, something that is too deep for words, as with a violin. And to some it is a curse.... But a body is always apart from one, and a mind is, too.... Shane, you have seen very beautiful old women.... Women with a beauty that is like a flame that does not burn, that have a light within them somewhere ... that is not of the mind or of the body ... that is of these things worn thin so that they themselves show.... See, heart?" "But Granya, why must a man find out, and a woman know?" "Shane of my heart, because it is necessary to women that they may live. A man can live without knowing God, as blind men live without ever seeing the moon. For they have minds, Shane, pursuits--the amassing of money, the little light of fame, that is only a vanity--not real.... But Shane, no matter how hard a man has to work, a woman has more terrible things.... There is no man on earth can understand the bearing of children.... And there is no man, were he to think of it, try to know, but would rather die than submit to what he thinks that terror.... And yet, Shane, it is not so much.... After a little agony, when one goes into the dark, olive valley, and strength seems to go from you in great waves, until you are robbed of strength as a man may be robbed of blood.... Then one goes out of one's self and gets it.... The beauty in the face of young mothers, of brides. That is not body or mind, Shane, that is their selves. This was the Eleusinian mystery, Shane, that women know that God lives, and that they cannot die.... "See, Shane, the stars are out. The dew is falling. And on the morrow you must be afoot early. Shall we go in?" * * * * * Once, before Alan Oge was born, a wave of panic swept over him, and he caught her hand and looked at her: "What is it, Shane?" "If--if you should die--" "I shall not die, Shane. I know. I shall not die." "But how do you know?"