“And what can it mean that he gave his only begotten son? If he had a son, where was his wife? And is that not idolatry? Where is his wife? No. I’m sorry.
“And the difference is here: Abraham did not kill his son. Their God did. And the difference is ‘God so loved the world,’ where we are not told ‘God loved the world’; we are told to love God.
“And we are not told we should love the world. And perhaps it is the love of the world which leads to murder, where the love of God …
“‘Abracadabra,’” he thought. “‘I create as I speak.’
“It did not ward the plague off. And in Les Misérables, we see it in their chain letter: ‘Little White Paternoster, save me from …’
“‘But if I am to have wisdom I must pass beyond hate,’ one voice said. And the next said, ‘Why?’
“Is it an advance to be told to ‘love our enemies’? Who does so?”
He looked down at his plate.
“And some food goes slowly and some goes fast. But if you leave it on your plate it will rot, and the more complex the organism, the quicker it will rot and the worse it will stink. What does that tell us?” he thought, and, “How many processes were used to stamp this metal tray?” He examined it.
“Only two,” he pronounced, and nodded. “And the name of the maker part of the second.
“No. I lie. For the initial stamping makes one, to gain the shape, and I would not venture to combine it either with the impression to give the depth nor with turning the rim. So say three, and the stamping of the name part of the second. What is business but forethought?”
He mopped up the sauce with his bread. He wiped his hands on a handkerchief taken from the back pocket of his dungarees.
He rose and sighed and moved the small bench back to the wall.
He took the tray and its utensils and placed them on the floor near the bars.
He turned and looked at his books.
There was the Hebrew primer. There was Les Misérables.
There was the Torah, in Hebrew and English. There were three novels by Anthony Trollope. There was the notepaper and, there, the several pencils.
Behind him were the bars.
“Abraham refrained,” he thought. “I’m sorry, but that’s true.”
He picked up a piece of notepaper, folded it double, and used the corner to clean a space between two teeth. Then he sat on his bed.
“Oh, Lord, I’m tired,” he thought.