“Then you don’t care if his life is spoiled and his poor body rooted up and—oh, my God almighty!”

Adam’s brain raced, trying to find words for his feeling. “I don’t have to care.”

“No, you don’t,” Charles said bitterly. “Not if you didn’t love him, you don’t. You can help kick him in the face.”

Adam knew that his brother was no longer dangerous. There was no jealousy to drive him. The whole weight of his father was on him, but it was his father and no one could take his father away from him.

“How will you feel, walking in town, after everyone knows?” Charles demanded. “How will you face anybody?”

“I told you I don’t care. I don’t have to care because I don’t believe it.”

“You don’t believe what?”

“I don’t believe he stole any money. I believe in the war he did just what he said he did and was just where he said he was.”

“But the proof—how about the discharge?”

“You haven’t any proof that he stole. You just made that up because you don’t know where the money came from.”

“His army papers—”

“They could be wrong,” Adam said. “I believe they are wrong. I believe in my father.”

“I don’t see how you can.”

Adam said, “Let me tell you. The proofs that God does not exist are very strong, but in lots of people they are not as strong as the feeling that He does.”

“But you said you did not love our father. How can you have faith in him if you didn’t love him?”

“Maybe that’s the reason,” Adam said slowly, feeling his way. “Maybe if I had loved him I would have been jealous of him. You were. Maybe—maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure—never sure of her because you aren’t sure of yourself? I can see it pretty clearly. I can see how you loved him and what it did to you. I did not love him. Maybe he loved me. He tested me and hurt me and punished me and finally he sent me out like a sacrifice, maybe to make up for something. But he did not love you, and so he had faith in you. Maybe—why, maybe it’s a kind of reverse.”

Charles stared at him. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“I’m trying to,” said Adam. “It’s a new thought to me. I feel good. I feel better maybe than I have ever felt in my whole life. I’ve got rid of something. Maybe sometime I’ll get what you have, but I haven’t got it now.”

“I don’t understand,” Charles said again.

“Can you see that I don’t think our father was a thief? I don’t believe he was a liar.”

“But the papers—”

“I won’t look at the papers. Papers are no match at all for my faith in my father.”

Charles was breathing heavily. “Then you would take the money?”

“Of course.”

“Even if he stole it?”

“He did not steal it. He couldn’t have stolen it.”

“I don’t understand,” said Charles.

“You don’t? Well, it does seem that maybe this might be the secret of the whole thing. Look, I’ve never mentioned this—do you remember when you beat me up just before I went away?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember later? You came back with a hatchet to kill me.”

“I don’t remember very well. I must have been crazy.”

“I didn’t know then, but I know now—you were fighting for your love.”

“Love?”

“Yes,” said Adam. “We’ll use the money well. Maybe we’ll stay here. Maybe we’ll go away—maybe to California. We’ll have to see what we’ll do. And of course we must set up a monument to our father—a big one.”

“I couldn’t ever go away from here,” said Charles.

“Well, let’s see how it goes, There’s no hurry. We’ll feel it out.”

Chapter 8

1

I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see, misshapen and horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies; some are born with no arms, no legs, some with three arms, some with tails or mouths in odd places. They are accidents and no one’s fault, as used to be thought. Once they were considered the visible punishment for concealed sins.

And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience. A man who loses his arms in an accident has a great struggle to adjust himself to the lack, but one born without arms suffers only from people who find him strange. Having never had arms, he cannot miss them. Sometimes when we are little we imagine how it would be to have wings, but there is no reason to suppose it is the same feeling birds have. No, to a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.