I am not
admitting, understand me, that if the conditions which you suggest did
exist that I would do one whit differently from what I will do if they
remain as they are. I am merely denying your right to put such a
question to me at all. You might just as well judge the shipwrecked
sailors on a raft who eat each other's flesh as you would judge a
sane, healthy man who did such a thing in his own home. Are you going
to condemn men who are ice-locked at the North Pole, or buried in the
heart of Africa, and who have given up all thought of return and are
half mad and wholly without hope, as you would judge ourselves? Are
they to be weighed and balanced as you and I are, sitting here within
the sound of the cabs outside and with a bake-shop around the corner?
What you propose could not exist, could never happen. I could never be
placed where I should have to make such a choice, and you have no
right to ask me what I would do or how I would act under conditions
that are superhuman--you used the word yourself--where all that I have
held to be good and just and true would be obliterated. I would be
unworthy of myself, I would be unworthy of your daughter, if I
considered such a state of things for a moment, or if I placed my
hopes of marrying her on the outcome of such a test, and so, sir,"
said the young man, throwing back his head, "I must refuse to answer
you."
The bishop lowered his hand from before his eyes and sank back wearily
into his chair.
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