Morning light burst through the lace curtains. George rose up slowly and looked to the empty bed and the small room. “I suppose that’s the way it happens in this city,” he said. It saddened him that there was not at least a morning adieu, the chance to change the schedule for the day or for his life. Now he was just another man who had stumbled into the Folies-Bergère.
He didn’t hurry to get dressed, hoping that Aline’s absence might be temporary. But once his shirt was buttoned and his topcoat on, there seemed little to do except leave. He went down the stairs, through the cobbled courtyard and into the busy street. He crossed the street to take a good look at the building where he’d spent the night. It was a brave imitation of the sturdy apartment houses of the Faubourg St-Germain, only falling into decay. He looked around and realized that Aline had taken him through a maze in the darkness and he was lost. He found a café, ordered some breakfast and with directions from the waiter, he made his way back to the HôtelBoncoeur.
There was an envelope waiting for him at the hotel’s front desk. He opened it in his room. There were the notes from Conrad on his previous filing and a letter Conrad had forwarded from Emma.
Atholstan House
Atholstan House
Sherbrooke Street
Montréal, Québec.
Dearest George,
It has been so long since we have heard from you, dear Brother. I do hope you are all right. The last news we had was a telegram from Monsieur Bresson telling us you were in Paris pursuing a story. Do tell me everything. You must make an effort to write more often. It’s not as if I can walk down the hallway and bang on your door. I miss that.
I am doing well here in Montréal. I am in the employ of the editor and publisher of The Daily Star and residing in his sybarite mansion which he calls Atholstan House. Mr.Graham has kindly given me my own room on the second floor overlooking Sherbrooke Street. From my bay windows I watch the constant bustle that plays out all day and night on the street and beyond – hansom cabs, men smoking cigars, bleary-eyed students trudging to McGill campus, and all the women are in crinoline as if they are going to a party, every single day. People cluster at the entrance of the Carlton Hotel hailing hansoms, the hearty ones make their way to the museum and on Sundays there is a church for everyone, including the Unitarians, and I can hear the blends of organ music. This is utterly unlike the only street in Lennox where everyone is dressed in work clothes and their hands are covered in their labours.
In the evenings here, Mr.Graham is host to a steady parade of fellow journalists, writers, artists and actors, men and women, who drink and argue until the morning hours. I don’t know how Mr. Graham does it. Through these people I have been introduced to a very different world from the one I knew. Things are far more complex than I had ever imagined.
Now that school is over for the summer, I spend the rest of my time at The Daily Star. Mr. Graham has been very encouraging of my work, exposing me to all aspects of the operations of the newspaper. Of late I have been researching reports on the smallpox epidemic. Over 800 people have died this month and the end seems nowhere in sight. Immunizations are being done on a massive scale across the city and those who refuse are warned they could face prison. I am also doing proof reading, copy editing and I have made quite an impression with my “Notes from Windsor Station” column. I often work late into the night but that is not much different from our days at The Sentinel, is it. So many nights we had, so many.
Father does keep me up-to-date and he sends me the weekly edition. It’s a fine newspaper Father has created. He found another journalist to replace you. Jason Darrah is his name. Arrived from Ireland a few months ago and fancies himself a novelist. Father is prepared to put up with that pretense for the moment as long as he does his job. Peter is very busy reporting the many circuit court cases as well as the criminal trials in the Sherbrooke Courthouse. Andrew is now helping Cal with the typesetting and Father has brought on another apprentice to help Raleigh. The Sentinel is thriving. I often wonder if we should have stayed. Maybe not you as you always had your eyes set elsewhere. But sometimes I do think about going back, helping Father and Leah, who works as hard as he does. I suppose we are not to think about our pasts, they are the fancies of childhood and not to be journeyed back. Peter once told me of the excitement he felt with being a part of such as new enterprise as The Sentinel. Perhaps that is what I miss.
Have you become a spy? If you have, for whom? Are you going to incite a war? Are you searching for Isadore? How could you find her in such as large city as Paris? If you are a spy, should we write in code, don’t you think? Isn’t that how it is done?
Please try to keep in touch more, George. Father won’t say it but I know he worries about you, as we all do. Do write and if you are a spy, make it be for the Americans. I hear they are so much better at it.
Your loving sister,
Emma.
George wrote a long letter to Emma recounting his travels over the last few months and mailed it next morning. He also sent a separate package containing the paintings to his apartment in Geneva. He set out across Le Pont de L’Europe down Rue de Rome and approached the plaza in front of GareSt.Lazare. Among the crowd of people coming out of the station his eyes locked on one woman: she wore a cloak with fur at the hem and cuffs, a broad-brimmed hat with a veil; she was attractive and elegant. He looked at her obliquely, saw her open her eyes wide and raise her gloved hand to her mouth. Was she trying to hide her face? For reasons he could not understand George allowed himself to consider that this might be Isadore. He has done this before – the faces of strangers striving to become intimate. Is it possible, he wondered, that we respond instinctually to those of the same blood? The woman came closer. It became a game for him now, holding up a few steps, pacing slower, shifting a little to the left, straight towards her, eyes downcast, shifting back to the right, picking up his pace, faster now to get past her. In that moment he could not recall if his mother ever looked him in the eye. More vivid were his memories of Leah bathing him, reading books to him, teaching him languages while his mother retreated into her room for days and weeks on end.
On the platform at Gare St-Lazare, several locomotives huffed steam, sunlight pouring down through the canopy of glass. George looked up to the rafters lined with hundreds pigeons seemingly deaf to the constant din. Columns of blue smoke curled into the sunlight. A conductor blew his whistle. The pigeons rose as one, streaming out from under the glass roof in a great beating of wings, wheeling, banking, swooping, turning, a black wave rising to the blue sky beyond. George did not move. The locomotive hissed, smoke billowed from its stack, energy rumbled from the engine, the wheels strained for motion. The conductor blew his whistle louder. George did not move. The conductor gestured madly for George to get on the train. “Of course,” said George. “Solferino.” He turned, ran down the platform and out of the station.
He quickly made his way to rue de Chazelles. Crossing Parc de Monceau, he saw Lady Liberty unchanged, still resolute and shrouded in scaffolding. When he turned the corner onto rue de Chazelles, he saw him sitting on a bench smoking a pipe near the front of Madame Boche’s hospice. Maurice looked up and smiled at George.
“You were both at Solferino,” said George. “He would’ve confided in you.”
“He does not wish to be found, Monsieur.”
“I don’t want to harm him. I want to tell the world about him.”
Maurice lifted the pants on his left leg to reveal a wooden stump and peg. “I lay in the battlefield for two days. I prayed for death. I couldn’t crawl to a bayonet to finish myself off. There were scores of men dying in different languages. At night, the screaming was loudest. But as the hours passed, there were fewer of them. An Austrian doctor came, looked at my uniform, and walked away. On the third day, they came for what was left of us. They thought I was dead so they threw me into a wagon of corpses. They realized what they’d done so they tossed me into another wagon. I passed out. When I woke up, Dunant was treating what remained of my leg. There must have been a hundred of us in this field hospital at the back of a warehouse. It stank of rotten potatoes and death. He did everything he could to keep us alive. He never slept…never rested. There were a few old women from the village who helped. Gangrene set in. When the doctor finally came, he plied me with whiskey but it didn’t do much good. Dunant held me in his arms, whispering to me, ‘You will live, you will live’. White pain strangled my body. He held me like a father holds his son. So here I am, what is left of me. I lost my leg and I lost my mind but I owe Dunant my life.”
“People should know this story, Maurice.”
“You know, sometimes when I’m lying in bed I feel my leg, when I reach to touch it, it’s not there. It’s like having a phantom leg.”
Maurice looked up to the face of Lady Liberty. What had he seen in her? What lost woman did she represent to him? A lover who would have nothing more to do with him because he was a cripple? A brother who could not stand the sight of weakness? A mother? Yes, there may have been a mother, and a father, who were both ashamed. He would rather pass his time here at the feet of a woman who would not look down to him. He could watch as she was assembled, smoothed, riveted, polished, while never casting judgement upon those who gathered at her feet. She would only look to the horizon in anticipation of what was to come.
George saw Maurice lost in his memories. He thanked Maurice, wished him good luck and headed off down the street.
“Monsieur,” Maurice called out. George turned back to him. “Heiden.”
“Switzerland?”
Maurice nodded. George returned to him and took his hand into his. “Be true to him, that’s all I ask.” George promised.
Stepping off the train at the Heiden Station a few days later, George was surrounded on three sides by the Appenzell Alps and the sweet aroma of Lake Constance shimmering in the distance. He walked into the village. The light, he thought, familiar in its sharpness, would have drawn Dunant here like a creature instinctively finding its natural habitat.
George did not have that much time. Conrad had read his notes, the opening paragraphs of his article and while Dunant had still not been located, he found the story of the search and its illusive protagonist to be compelling, worth the expense of another train ticket. But if his article was to be published, George had to find its elusive subject.
A stranger on the street directed George to the local hospice. Unless Dunant had come into a fortune in the past three days, a hospice was the logical place to start. It was a three-storey building located off a public square, nestled within a copse of trees. The building was pure white, immaculately clean with each window of the upper floors framed by green shutters. George rang the front door bell and a few moments later a concierge appeared. George asked if Henri Dunant lived here. The concierge looked George up and down as if he was analyzing an autopsy specimen, and after several uncomfortable seconds the concierge finally said, “I’m sorry, he has left.”
George was at least glad his hunch was correct. “For the day?”
“No, for much more than a day,” he said as he began closing the door.
George stepped forward, raising his hand to hold the door back. “I am with Die Ostschweizand I must know where I can find Monsieur Dunant.”
The concierge raised his eyebrows. “If you do not step away, sir, I will call the police who, are nearby.” George looked over his shoulder and saw a police station. In that instant the door slammed shut.
He walked down the street and found a park from which he saw the crystal blue water of Lake Constance in the distance. Where was he to look now? He was finding it difficult to rationalize his search for a man who clearly did not want to be exposed to the public. Yet George could not easily accept that a man like Dunant who had made such a significant contribution to the evolution of humanistic thinking could be lost to the dust of history. His mind then began to wander to Aline and the last time he had seen her. Before he had taken the train to Heiden, he had gone to the Folies-Bergère. Aline embraced him and her eyes swelled up with joy. She said she was sorry for having left him in the morning but she had to leave for a modeling assignment for one of the Impressionist artists. When he told her where he was going, she said: “This is becoming more than an assignment for you, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.” He promised to telegraph her as soon as he found out anything. She kissed him.
“My, my,” said Degas, sitting at his usual seat at the end of the bar. “You have betrayed me, Aline.”
“Silence, Edgar,” she said.
She kissed him again and he still felt it.
A sailboat floated by on the lake. “I understand you have been looking for me, Monsieur Lloyd-Craig,” came a voice from behind George. He turned quickly, thinking this was a dream. But there he was, rather formidable, tall in his dark cloak, white cuffs over his wrists, a box-like smoking cap crowning his brow, a fine white beard spread in cloud wisps around his chin. Stormy intense eyes considered George. The skin on his face was darkened, leathery, not tanned from the sun but weathered by the wind. For the moment, all the questions George had planned to ask dropped from his mind.
“I am very sorry to have caused you so many difficulties,” said Henri Dunant, in a refined voice. “I had not counted on your perseverance. Come, let us walk together.”
Henri led the way out of the park towards a path in a marching stride. George did not detect any weakness or a loss of self-awareness in him, rather a focus on the path ahead, alacrity to everything around him. He stopped at a public fountain for some water and continued walking as if he had a destination in mind – a person to visit, a meal to be eaten, an appointment to be kept. It took all of George’s energy to keep up to Henri’s tireless pace. It was clear that the last ten years of his life had been spent perfecting this discipline which now took them down a gentle slope of hay grass, pasture, rocky outcrops, through to the valley floor and the shores of Lake Constance.
“I know what you are going to ask me,” Dunant finally said. “I read newspapers, including yours. The wonderful thing about Paris is that there are a dozen newspapers all of which end up abandoned in cafés or libraries, where I spend much of my time. You might say keeping in touch with old friends,” he said with a wry smile.
“You slept under a bridge in the middle of winter?” George asked.
“Yes, in this cloak.” Henri turned away and began another march. They continued along the shoreline of the lake, Henri letting the water lap over his boots. “I know nothing about business or finance. Never did. The companies were a family inheritance that my older brother was supposed to manage but he was smart – he became a doctor. I went to see the Emperor to have him sign a document for the water rights to one of our properties in Algeria. I arrived in Solferino in a carriage. I stepped into another world of 40,000 dead or dying men. Battlefields? What did I know of battlefields? My body went numb. Men with gaping wounds, some cut in half, others riddled with bullets, and hundreds more crying for help…for their loved ones. The wonderful work of God in the guidance of bullets. I heard more mothers’ names that day than I had ever thought existed. The ground was red. Everything went dark.”
Henri suddenly broke off and walked along the shore. George caught up to him and they continued walking. George saw that Henri’s face had become grim, his eyes moist, the world shut out.
It was sundown when they returned to Heiden. Henri stopped at a street corner. “There is an inn down this street where you’ll find a room for the night. I will return to the hospice. Tomorrow we will continue our talk.”
“You won’t walk off somewhere?” asked George.
Dunant looked at him, bemused. “I might. I suppose it’s a chance you’ll have to take. Isn’t that what journalists do?” and he walked away.
George was exhausted, eager for a good night’s rest and time to prepare questions for the next day. He slept soundly, waking to a dull, rainy morning. He looked out the window – the hills were shrouded in mist. On the street below he saw Dunant in his cloak, seemingly impervious to the steady rain. In his furtive manner, Dunant resembled a spy as if he were stalking an enemy agent. He would know of spies from his days in the corridors of bureaucratic power. George had read archived newspaper accounts that Dunant was suspected of being a spy by those who thought his ideas of humanistic responsibility to be madness.
George grabbed his coat and hat, hurried from the room and met Dunant on the street. They set off up another pathway to the hills. After exchanging a few pleasantries they walked in silence for the rest of the day, along the crest to the village of Walzenhausen, continuing on through the hills until George had lost all sense of where they were. Dunant, on the other hand, strode determinedly, confident of where he was going, depositing George at the same spot near the inn at sundown. George allowed Dunant his silence, realizing that this was how he had spent much of the past ten years and that he would break it only when he was ready.
The walking continued the following day and for several days after that. This is what walking does, George thought: one loses one’s sense of place and time. The weather cleared, the sun shone brightly. George was getting impatient but he felt it best not to force Dunant into anything, not to badger him with questions. He observed Dunant closely and saw in him what he had seen in Compeau, the man who had attacked Aline; and in Maurice of rue de Chazelles: eyes which were glaring and dark. The eyes of most people dance amidst their surroundings, picking out, taking in, aware; but those of Compeau, Maurice, and Dunant, and of the men he had seen under Pont Solferino were of a different ilk. Their eyes were fixed straight ahead, never seeming to be bothered with superfluous detail. What they had seen had changed them irrevocably, altering the substance of their bodies, the flow of blood through their veins and the manner in which their brains record reality, at the same time unleashing demons in the night, where sleep is the hour between the dog and the wolf. There was a spirit of serenity around people who face the possibility of death every day. George had seen it before when he had spoken to coal miners. Something of that harsh reality made the contemplation of mortality calmly endurable.
In the aftermath of Solferino, Dunant somehow had the wit to collect himself. He organized conferences, met with kings and generals, signed international treaties, wrote a best-selling book, experienced great art, witnessed the construction of the world’s largest man-made sculpture, and conceived of one of the most original ideas in the history of human affairs. And so now, he walks.
Finally, sometime during the fifth or sixth day, Dunant broke his silence as though resuming a conversation of only moments ago.
“I went to Berlin in 1863 and met with King Wilhelm of Prussia. He was to be a signatory to the Geneva Convention of the Red Cross. In private, he told me of Bismarck’s plan to carry Prussia to the peak of conquest and his attempts to thwart him. He has not succeeded. There are many calamitous days to come. The weapons of destruction being created will wreak havoc upon soldier and civilian alike.”
“There are peace activists who say that the Red Cross should be working to prevent such calamities rather than patching up the soldiers only to fight again,” said George.
Dunant stared intently ahead. “Yes, I founded an organization not devoted to peace. Why if we let it run amok, the Red Cross can single-handedly start the next war. That is one of my curses. I am bankrupt. I am therefore irresponsible. I am a spy. I am an agent provocateur. I grew weary of it all. Is it any wonder that I wander?”
Dunant glared at George, turned quickly and marched up the hill. George now feared he might lose him. George caught up to him. “I’m sorry, Monsieur Dunant. I wasn’t going to ask you about…”
“Of course you were. About not being married? You’re a journalist. I may be isolated from the world but I’m more than familiar with its ways. You asked me about the Degas’ paintings. That means you were in Marescot’s shop which means you saw Madame Boche which means you met my cousin Aline which also means you met Maurice, the only person in Paris who knows where I am. Write whatever you want, Monsieur. I’ve read it all,” and Dunant was gone over the crest of the hill. George knew this time it would be best not to follow him. He returned to the inn and passed a sleepless night fearing that his work had gone up in smoke. At the first glimmer of sunrise he looked out the window and was relieved.
Henri’s mood was less intense and he walked in a more leisurely pace. “Did Maurice tell you of his phantom leg?”
“Yes, he mentioned it.”
“You lose many things in a war. Lives. Legs. I have a phantom mind. It’s the mind I had before Solferino, the one that made it possible to walk through my world. But I lost that mind there. Sometimes when I’m lying down I think I can feel it, my old mind, but when I reach out to touch it, it’s not there and I am left with this lame one, the one that limps around in my skull.”
“You had enough of a mind left to conceive the idea of the neutrality of the Red Cross, the idea that doctors and nurses under its flag would treat any soldier regardless of nationality. That was a master stroke, sir.”
“At Solferino I saw doctors walking away from dying soldiers simply because they were in the uniform of another country. They couldn’t see them as human, only as the enemy. If you look into the eyes of an enemy, you will see a human being who should not suffer. Once we come around to that way of thinking, it becomes possible to stop the slaughter in the first place. You can’t be an enemy one moment and a human being the next. The people who serve under the flag of the Red Cross are the true advocates of peace. Each life they save increases the possibility of a new way of thinking.”
Henri was silent for the rest of their walk that day and they parted in silence. George slept fitfully that night and in the morning crawled out of bed to look out the window. Henri was not there. The past week of hard walking had taken its toll on George and while he was eager to continue exploring Henri’s mind, he was thankful for a day of rest and time to write up his notes. The next morning Henri was still not waitng. George rested for a second day, using the time to begin writing the article.
The third morning without Henri’s presence was another matter. George immediately set out for the hospice and knocked on the front door. The concierge opened the door, his expression still dour. He leaned back to the hallway table and handed George an envelope. The door slammed shut.
The envelope was addressed to George in a clear, elegant script.
10 May 1885
‘Dear George,
By the time you read this I will be in the midst of another wandering. Please do not bother Maurice or anyone else – no one knows where I am going. How could they when I don’t myself. I appreciate your professional responsibilities and I admire your tenacity. You have seen all of my world, you have enough now. Write what you must but be honest.
You asked me why I liked the art works in Marescot’s shop – Monet, Cassatt, Renoir. It might interest you to know that Aline’s friend who is always sitting at the end of the bar in Folies-Bergère is one of them – Edgar Degas. We have not heard the last of them. Their paintings inspire a new vision of seeing the world in ways it has never been considered before. Their art will change the world. That is why I admire their paintings.
I trust we will have the opportunity to walk together once again. I cannot promise I will say anything.
Peace be with you,
Henri
George strode down the street to the park and looked out to the hills surrounding the village. Dunant was somewhere out there walking with his demons. He had come from an austere Geneva family, had turned his life to the service of humankind, and in a manner had become a pariah even unto himself, given to living in boarding houses or under bridges. This man had touched George in ways he did not fully understand – he only knew it had happened because he felt altered in his own ways of thinking. Years ago back in Lennox when he had first read Dunant’s memoir of Solferino, it came across as a brilliant idea. But now he had met the idea in the flesh and that changed everything. In the writing of this profile, George decided he would cross the line from being a journalist but to becoming an advocate for Dunant. George believed he could do both.
He was prepared for Conrad’s questions and likely objections but he suspected otherwise. He had read many of Conrad’s articles on the old soldiers from the many European wars: men broken by hideous nightmares, unable to endure the morning light or the company of others. This is the war wound that has no name but which is as tangible as losing one’s legs; that the destruction of minds is not abstract, that it is real and can be seen and is measurable. The paintings in Paris had jarred George’s eyes and his time with Dunant had flipped his moral centre. Taking one last look at the mountains, he imaged Henri somewhere in there, and considered he might never see him again.
He boarded a train back to Geneva and wrote the Dunant story the following day in his office at Die Ostschweiz. Conrad made several suggestions, all designed to increase the exposure of the article and published it the following week. The impact was immediate. He and Conrad received requests from newspapers and magazines throughout Europe to reprint the article. George, however, insisted that he wanted the first syndication of the article to be in The Sentinel, out of Lennox, Canada.
“Do you mean to say you want it there instead of Le Monde or The London Times?” said Conrad in a voice that was both insulted and shocked by any other notion. But that was exactly how George wanted it and he won the argument. The Henri Dunant profile appeared in The Sentinel a month later under George Lloyd-Craig’s byline. Shortly after, George received a telegram from his father:
Wonderful work/ stop/ Everyone reading it /stop /Emma sends her love and questions/ stop/ Keep getting yourself into trouble /stop/ love Samuel /stop.
George was visited by the district’s public prosecutor, who asked him several questions about Dunant. A month later, fraud charges against Dunant issued over fifteen years before, were dropped. Some, but not all, of Dunant’s creditors also withdrew their bills. The German Red Cross organized a subscription for ‘a tribute from the German nation’.
A few weeks later a note arrived from Dunant: he was back in Heiden, “Surviving a whirl wind. Please come for a walk.”
When George arrived at the hospice the concierge welcomed him with a slight bow of his head and a smile. This time he escorted George down a hallway where he heard a woman’s strident voice coming from one of the rooms. George came to the doorway of Room 12 to see Dunant being scolded by a tall woman wearing a black chiffon dress. The woman turned to George. “This is the writer?” she demanded in a Russian accent.
Dunant affirmed George’s guilt and introduced him to Countess Maria Fedorovna. She looked at George with sparkling blue eyes, looking down to him as if he was a commoner. George stepped back, half- expecting a blow. Her face was a stunning display of refined lines, high forehead, curved lips and intelligent authority. “You are a brave man, sir, and you have done the world a great service. You must carry on with that service by convincing this stubborn old mule,” flashing her eyes at Dunant, “that he must leave this…this…” looking at the raised eyebrows of the concierge, “this place and inhabit a more hospitable abode more in keeping with his stature.”
“I told you I am very comfortable here, Countess,” said Dunant.
“A rodent would be comfortable here.” She turned back to George. “I implore you, sir. Henri will no longer have to concern himself with money. I am a widow and I want nothing except that he live comfortably.”
“I suspect he is comfortable, Countess,” said George timidly.
“Wonderful. Two stubborn old mules. Please, for me,” she said, kissing George on the cheek and swishing off down the hallway with the concierge in escort.
George stepped into the room. It was perfect simplicity: narrow, sun streaming in, a bed, a chair, a table with several books and notepaper, a view of Lake Constance and no statues covering the sky. George could also see on the table the black box containing the Légiond’honneur medal.
Dunant stood up. “It’s good to see you, my friend. I don’t know if I should thank you, however. My life, as you see,” – gesturing to the Countess – “has been turned somewhat upside down.” He took the gold-plated pocket watch from his vest and snapped it open. “We have some time before the next inquisitor arrives. Come, let us walk.”
They took the pathway they had taken many times before, making their way up to the crest of the hill.
“You know I haven’t read it,” said Dunant with a sly smile.
“So you don’t know if I was honest.”
“From what I’ve been told you were,” said Dunant with a chuckle.
“What does the Countess want you to do?”
“She wants to put me up in her palace outside Moscow. Can you imagine? Me in a palace. It would be an absurd comedy. No, no, I am very content here.”
“Will the Countess withdraw her support if you don’t?”
“She will huff and puff but no. I am a prize. She is a widow. She needs prizes.”
“You have so much more you can do, Henri.”
“And I will. I’ve been offered several projects from the German and French Red Cross.”
“But what about the International Committee?”
“Moynier will never relent nor forgive. It doesn’t matter. The Red Cross is active in twenty-five countries now, including the United States. My work with it done. No. Sometimes there are some places one must call home.”
“Surely you can go back to your family now.”
“No,” he said firmly. “I decided a long time ago that a man must emancipate himself from the influence of family and from the shackles of religious teaching. My life back there is something I cannot see any longer. It is lost to me. My life, my true life, began for me on the fields of Solferino. To live a meaningful life one must cut the cords of family and find one’s own truth not the ones told to you as a child.”
“But had you not been a part of that privileged society you would have never been permitted into the halls of power in the first place,” George reminded him gently.
“Yes, you’re probably right. However, I cannot go back to them. There was a reason why I felt so diminished in their eyes when I lost my fortune. I began to realize that what I had done was foreign to them, that it had no meaning because it didn’t conform. If they could not understand that I was asking everyone to think differently about their fellow man, then they did not understand me. I have learned only two things these past twenty years – help the poor and the wounded, and to pray in private. That is exactly what I intend to do.”
They continued along the crest of the hill, over it and down into a deep valley, strolling together for several hours.
The Ovi 
What a great writer you are Richard.
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