But then they all say, "Hush, hush!" and "Fie, Damoiselle!" as if I had said something very wicked and shocking. They say the good God will be very angry. Why is the good God angry when we want to know?
I wonder why men and women were ever made at all. I wonder why _I_ was made. Did the good God want me for something, that He took the pains to make me? Oh, can nobody tell me why the good God wanted me?
He must be good, for He made all so beautiful. And He might have made things ugly. But then, sometimes, He lets such dreadful things happen. Are there not earthquakes and thunderstorms? And why does He let nice people die? Could not--well, I suppose that is wicked. No, it isn't! I may as well say it as think it.--Would it not have done as well if Alix had died, and my mother had lived? It would have been so much nicer! And what difference would it have made in Heaven--I hope Alix would have gone there--where they have all the angels, and all the saints? Surely they could have spared my mother--better than I can.
Well, I suppose--as Alix says when she wants one to be quiet--"it is no use talking." Things are so, and I cannot change them. And all my tears will not give me Guy back. I must try to think of the neuvaine[#] which he has promised to offer for me at the Holy Sepulchre, and hope that he won't be taken prisoner, and that he will be made a Count, and--well, and try to reconcile myself to that beautiful lady who is to have Guy instead of me. Oh dear me!
Now, there is another thing that puzzles me. (Every thing puzzles me in this world. I wish there had been another to which I could have gone, where things would not have puzzled me.) If God be everywhere--as Father Eudes says--why should prayers offered at the Holy Sepulchre be of more value than prayers offered in my bedchamber? I cannot see any reason, unless it were that God[#] loves the Holy Land so very much, because He lived and died there, that He is oftener there than anywhere else, and so there is a better chance of getting Him to hear. But how then can He be everywhere?
[#] In using this one of the Divine Names, a mediæval Romanist almost always meant to indicate the Second Person of the Trinity only.
Why will people--wise people, I mean--not try to answer such questions? Marguerite only says, "Hush, then, my Damoiselle!" Alix says, "Oh, do be quiet! When will you give over being so silly?" And Monseigneur pats me on the head, and answers, "Why should my cabbage trouble her pretty little head? Those are matters for doctors of the schools, little one. Go thou and call the minstrels, or bind some smart ribbons in thine hair; that is more fit for such maidens as thou."