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BOOK VII
But he did not remain there long. Once back in that epistolary island, he wrote interminable letters to Golly. When they began to bore each other, he returned to London and entered the Salvation Army. Crowds flocked to hear him preach. He inveighed against Society and Wickedness as represented in his mind by Golly and her friends, and praised a perfect Christianity represented by himself and HIS friends. A panic of the same remarkable character as the Bishopsgate Street winter took possession of London. Old Moore`s, Zadkiel`s, and Mother Shipton`s prophecies were to be fulfilled at an early and fixed date, with no postponement on account of weather. Suddenly Society, John Drake, and Antichrist generally combined by ousting him from his church, and turning it into a music-hall for Golly! Then John Gale took his last and sublime resolve. His duty as a perfect Christian was to kill Golly! His logic was at once inscrutable, perfect, and--John Galish! With this sublime and lofty purpose, he called upon Golly. The heroic girl saw his purpose in his eye--an eye at once black, murderous, and Christian-like. For an instant she thought it was better to succumb at once and thus end this remarkable attachment. Suddenly through this chaos of Spiritual, Religious, Ecstatic, Super-Egotistic whirl of confused thought, darted a gleam of Common, Ordinary Horse Sense! John Gale saw it illumine her blue eyes, and trembled. God in Mercy! If it came to THAT! "Sit down, John," she said calmly. Then, in her sweet, clear voice, she said: "Did it ever occur to you, dearest, that a more ridiculous, unconvincing, purposeless, insane, God-forsaken idiot than you never existed? That you eclipse the wildest dreams of insanity? That you are a mental and moral `What-is-it?`" "It has occurred to me," he replied simply. "I began life with vast asinine possibilities which fall to the lot of few men; yet I cannot say that I have carried even THEM to a logical conclusion! But YOU, love! YOU, darling! conceived in extravagance, born to impossibility, a challenge to credulity, a problem to the intellect, a `missing word` for all ages,--are you aware of any one as utterly unsympathetic, unreal, and untrue to nature as you are, existing on the face of the earth, or in the waters under the earth?" "You are right, dearest; there are none," she returned with the same calm, level voice. "It is true that I have at times tried to do something real and womanly, and not, you know, merely to complicate a--a"--her voice faltered--"theatrical situation--but I couldn`t! Something impelled me otherwise. Now you know why I became an actress! But even there I fail! THEY are allowed reasoning power off the stage--I have none at any time! I laugh in the wrong place--I do the unnecessary, extravagant thing. Endowed by some strange power with extraordinary attributes, I am supposed to make everybody love me, but I don`t--I satisfy nobody; I convince none! I have no idea what will happen to me next. I am doomed to--I know not what." "And I," he groaned bitterly, "I, in some rare and lucid moments, have had a glimpse of this too. We are in the hands of some inscrutable but awful power. Tell me, Golly, tell me, darling, who is it?" Again that gleam of Common or Ordinary Horse Sense came in her eye. "I have found out who," she whispered. "I have found out who has created us, and made us as puppets in his hands." "Is it the Almighty?" he asked. "No; it is"--she said, with a burst of real laughter--"it is--The `All Caine!" "What! our countryman the Manxman? The only great Novelist? The beloved of Gladstone?" he gasped. "Yes--and he intends to kill YOU--and we`re only to be married at your deathbed!" John Gale arose with a look of stern determination. "I have suffered much and idiotically--but I draw a line at this. I shall kick!" Golly clapped her hands joyfully. "We will!" "And we`ll chuck him." "We will." They were choking with laughter. "And go and get married in a natural, simple way like anybody else-- and try--to do our duty--to God--to each other--and to our fellow- beings--and quit this--damned--nonsense--and in-fer-nal idiocy forever!" "Amen!" PUBLISHER`S NOTE.--"In that supreme work of my life, `The Christian,`" said the gifted novelist to a reporter in speaking of his methods, "I had endowed the characters of Golly and John Gale with such superhuman vitality and absolute reality that--as is well known in the experience of great writers--they became thinking beings, and actually criticised my work, and even INTERFERED and REBELLED to the point of altering my climax and the end!" The present edition gives that ending, which of course is the only real one.
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