You are
right in all you say, and I am sinful. I grant you that freely, and I
will grant also that if I had my due I should be doing penance on my
knees instead of defending my sins to you if indeed I am defending
them. But do you think that our bad deeds are weighed only against the
unattainable perfection of saints' and martyrs' lives, and never at all
against the splendid temptations that are the royal garments of sin?
God is just, and justice weaves a fair judgment. It is not an
unchangeable standard. A learned Greek in Constantinople was telling me
he other day a story of one Procrustes, a terrible highway robber. He
had a bed which he offered to those he took captive, on condition that
they should exactly fit its length; and if a man was too long, the
robber hewed off his feet by so much, but if he was too short, he
stretched him on a rack until he was tall enough. If God were to judge
me as He judges you, by a ruled length of virtue, alike for all and
without allowance for our moral height, God would not be God, but
Procrustes, a robber of souls and a murderer of them."
"You speak very blasphemously," said Beatrix, in a low voice.
"No; I speak justly. You and I both love one man. In you, love is
virtue, in me it is sin. You blame me with right, but you blame me too
much. You tell me that I am beautiful, powerful, the Queen of France,
and it is true. But even you do not tell me that I am happy, for you
know that I am not."
"And therefore you would rob me of all I have, to make your happiness,
when you have so much that I have not! Is that your justice?"
"No," answered Eleanor, almost sadly, "it is not justice.
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