“At Vysočany. And we’ve increased our share capital. A billion and a half. Our new invention’s getting into the papers. See for yourself,” he added, tipping half a hundredweight of Czech and foreign papers into Marek’s lap, then buried himself in the documents on his desk.
“I haven’t been for a fortnight,” said Marek gloomily.
“Haven’t been where?”
“I haven’t been to my little factory out at Břevnov for a fortnight. I—I daren’t go there. Is anything being done there?”
“Mphm.”
“And what about my Karburator?” asked Marek, controlling his anxiety.
“It’s still running.”
“And what about . . . the other thing?”
The Chief sighed and laid down his pen, “Do you know that we had to have Mixa Street closed?”
“Why?”
“People kept going there to pray. Whole processions of them. The police tried to disperse them, and seven people lost their lives. They let themselves be knocked over like sheep.”
“I feared as much, I feared as much,” muttered Marek in despair.
“We’ve blocked the street with barbed wire,” Bondy went on. “We had to clear the people out of the neighbouring houses—religious manifestations all over them, you know. A commission of the Ministries of Health and Education is occupying them now.”
“I expect,” said Marek with a breath of relief, “that the authorities will prohibit my Karburator.”
“Oh no, they won’t,” said G. H. Bondy. “The Clerical party are making a fearful row about your Karburator, and for that very reason the progressive parties have taken it under their wing. In reality no one knows what it’s all about. It’s evident that you don’t read the papers, man. It’s developed into a quite needless attack upon clericalism, and the Church happens to have a little right on its side in this case. That confounded Bishop informed the Cardinal Archbishop——”
“What Bishop?”
“Oh, some Bishop by the name of Linda, quite a sensible man in other respects. You see, I took him up there as an expert, to inspect the wonder-working Absolute. His inspection lasted a full three hours, and he spent the whole time in the cellar, and . . .”
“He got religion?” burst out Marek.
“Not a bit of it! Perhaps he’s had too long a training with God, or else he’s a more hard-baked atheist than you; I don’t know. But three days later he came to me and told me that from the Catholic standpoint God cannot be brought into the matter, that the Church absolutely rejects and forbids the pantheistic hypothesis as heresy. In short, that this isn’t any legal, duly recognized God, supported by the authority of the Church, and that, as a priest, he must declare it false, perverse, and heretical. He talked very reasonably, did his Reverence.”
“So he wasn’t conscious of any supernatural manifestations down there?”
“He underwent them all: illumination, miraculous powers, ecstasy, everything. He doesn’t deny, either, that these things happen there.”
“Well, then, tell me, how does he explain it?”
“He simply doesn’t. He said that the Church does not explain, but merely prescribes or prohibits. In short, he definitely refused to compromise the Church with any new and untried God. At least, that’s what I understood him to mean. Do you know that I’ve bought that church up on the White Mountain?”
“Why?”
“It’s the nearest one to Břevnov. It cost me three hundred thousand, man. Both in writing and by word of mouth I offered it to the Absolute down in the cellar to induce it to move over there. It’s quite a pretty baroque church; and besides, I expressed my readiness to undertake any necessary alterations. And here’s a queer thing: just a few steps from the church, at No. 457, there was a fine case of ecstasy the night before last—one of our erectors; but in the church itself nothing miraculous happened, nothing whatever. There was even one case right out in Vokovice and two in Košiře, while at the Petřín wireless station there’s practically an epidemic of religion. All the wireless operators on duty up there are sending out ecstatic messages of their own accord, a sort of new gospel to the world at large: God coming down again to the earth to ransom it, and so forth. Just imagine the scandal! Now the progressive papers are going for the Post Office, and the fur’s fairly flying. They’re screaming about Clericalism showing its horns, and rubbish of that kind. Nobody as yet suspects that this has any connection with the Karburator. Marek,” Bondy added in a whisper, “I’ll tell you something, but it’s a dead secret. A week ago it attacked our Minister for War.”
“Whom!” cried Marek.
“Hush, quietly. The Minister for War. He ‘saw the light’ all of a sudden in his villa at Dejvice. The following morning he assembled the garrison of Prague, talked to them about eternal peace, and exhorted the troops to become martyrs. Of course he had to resign at once. The papers stated that his health had suddenly broken down. And that’s how matters stand, my friend.”
“In Dejvice already!” groaned the engineer. “It’s terrible, Bondy, the way it’s spreading.”
“It’s amazing,” said Bondy. “The other day a man shifted his piano from the infected Mixa Street area out to Pankrác. In twenty-four hours the whole house was down with it.”
Here the Chairman was interrupted. A servant entered to announce a caller in the person of Bishop Linda. Marek hurriedly rose to take his leave, but Bondy forced him to resume his seat, saying, “Just sit still and say nothing. The Bishop’s really a charming man.” At that moment the Suffragan Bishop Linda came into the room.
He was a small, jolly person with gold spectacles and a comical mouth puckered up in clerical fashion in pleasant childish folds. Bondy introduced Marek to him as the owner of the ill-omened cellar at Břevnov. The Bishop rubbed his hands with delight while the wrathful engineer spluttered out something about being “delighted to have the honour,” with a dogged expression that said clearly, “Confound you for a canting humbug!” The Bishop pursed his lips and turned quickly to Bondy.
He began briskly, without beating about the bush. “I’ve come to you on a very delicate errand. Very delicate indeed,” he repeated with relish. “We have been discussing your . . . ahem . . . your affair in the Consistory. His Eminence, the Archbishop, wishes to settle this regrettable incident with as little publicity as possible. You understand. This objectionable business about the miracles. Oh, I’m sorry. I have no wish to hurt the feelings of Mr. . . . er . . . the proprietor . . .”
“Please go on,” Marek conceded gruffly.
“Well, then, in a word, the whole scandal. His Eminence declares that from the standpoint of both reason and faith there can be nothing more offensive than this godless and blasphemous perversion ‘of the laws of Nature. . . .”
“I beg your pardon!” Marek broke out disgustedly. “Would you mind leaving the laws of Nature to us? After all, we don’t
