THE TERRACE
665
She was probably thinking that the doctor was
also
slightly in–
sane.
"What can nature's ideal be?" she insisted.
Arner was growing weary, feeling that Matilda was push–
log him to confused and brilliant fields in which he feared he
might lose his way. Oh, those faces where intelligence slumbern,
how they can stir up ours at times! But he maintained a
caIrn
exterior.
"I
don't know what nature's ideal is," he said. "Only a
man of genius could
~agine
that. And
I
am just an
homo
vulgaris."
...
.
She laughed and this encouraged Arner to continue along
the same line:
"An
homo simplicisimus."
Now she was shaking her head:
"That's not true. No one is sincere when he says something
Fke that: Neither are you."
The attorney thought: "Here we have an intelligCIlt
opinion." And she went on with her inquisitiveness: .
"You believe that nature expects so much of me?"
"That's what I dare to assume, seeing the reactions
im–
posed upon you by nature. Nature does not protest with other
Women. Just assume that if the men who can destroy this world
have already been born" (he was referring to the specialists in
nuclear physics), "the world may not want to die and is waiting
for those who could save it. One of those men could be born any
day. And he will have to be born to some woman. I only want
to make it clear to you that, for all these reasons, your case is a
state of natural tension rather than a disease. You understand.
Men. now .exist who · can disintegrate matter, who are already
speculating With
anti~matter.
Creation may need 'other men who
can reintegrate it, formin·g higher syntheses. The :world caruiot
standstill, passively. It must go on evolving or die: Andwecah't
forget that the man who may save us
will be
;born
to a womaI1.
