For I had been miraculously lifted over them
and set safely down on the other side, where it was all plain walking.
Unhappily, these blissful intervals would not last long. A
recollection of something I had heard or read would come back to
startle me out of the confident happy mood; reason would revive as
from a benumbed or hypnotized condition, and the mocking voice would
be heard telling me that I had been under a delusion. Once more I
would abhor and shudder at the black phantom, and when the thought of
annihilation was most insistent, I would often recall the bitter,
poignant words about death and immortality spoken to me about two
years before by an old gaucho landowner who had been our neighbour in
my former home.
He was a rough, rather stern-looking man, with a mass of silver-white
hair and grey eyes; a gaucho in his dress and primitive way of life,
the owner of a little land and a few animals-the small remnant of the
estancia which had once belonged to his people. But he was a vigorous
old man, who spent half of his day on horseback, looking after the
animals, his only living. One day he was at our house, and coming out
to where I was doing something in the grounds, he sat down on a bench
and called me to him. I went gladly enough, thinking that he had some
interesting bird news to give me. He remained silent for some time,
smoking a cigar, and staring at the sky as if watching the smoke
vanish in the air. At length he opened fire.
"Look," he said, "you are only a boy, but you can tell me something I
don't know. Your parents read books, and you listen to their
conversation and learn things. We are Roman Catholics, and you are
Protestants. We call you heretics and say that for such there is no
salvation. Now I want you to tell me what is the difference between
our religion and yours."
I explained the matter as well as I knew how, and added, somewhat
maliciously, that the main difference was his religion was a corrupt
form of Christianity and ours a pure one.
This had no effect on him; he went on smoking and staring at the sky
as if he hadn't heard me. Then he began again: "Now I know. These
differences are nothing to me, and though I was curious to know what
they were, they are not worth talking about, because, as I know, all
religions are false."
"What did he mean - how did he know?" I asked, very much surprised.
"The priests tell us," he replied, "that we must believe and live a
religious life in this world to be saved.
