“What sort of religion?”

“Oh, ours or the Swiss—nobody knows which. It’s so as there’ll be only one religion, they say.”

“Well, we used to have only one religion before.”

“But other places had a different one, aunt. They say there was orders from above that there must be only one.”

“What sort of orders? Where from?”

“Nobody knows. They say there were once machines that had religion inside of them. It was hidden in a sort of long boiler.”

“And what were the boilers for?”

“Nobody knows. Just a sort of boilers. And they say that God appeared to people to make them believe. There was a lot in those days, aunt, that didn’t believe. One has to believe in something; what’s the use? If people had only believed, God wouldn’t have appeared to them. So it was only their godlessness that made Him come into the world, see, aunt?”

“Well, yes, but what did this awful war begin for?”

“Nobody knows. People say that the Chinese or the Turks began it. They say that they brought their own God with them in those boilers. They’re supposed to be terrible religious, the Turks and the Chinese. And so they wanted us to believe the way they did.”

“But why should we?”

“That’s it, nobody knows. If you ask me, the Prussians started it. And the Swedes, too.”

“Lord, Lord!” lamented Mrs. Prouzova. “And the prices things are now! Fifteen hundred for a candle!”

“And what I say,” maintained old Blahous, “is the Jews started the war so as to make money out of it. That’s what I say.”

“We could do with some rain,” observed Mrs. Blahous. “The potatoes are far too small. Like nuts.”

“It’s my belief,” Blahous went on, “that people just invented that about the Lord God, so as to have someone to blame things on. That was all made up. They wanted a war and they wanted an excuse. It was all a put-up job.”

“Who did it, then?”

“Nobody knows. What I say is, it was all fixed up with the Pope and the Jews and the whole lot of them. Those . . . those . . . Kalburators!” shouted Grandfather Blahous, in great excitement. “I’d like to say it to their faces! Why, did anybody need a new Lord God? The old one was good enough for us country people. There was just enough of Him, and He was good, and honest and upright. He didn’t show himself to anybody, but we had peace instead. . . .”

“What are you asking for your eggs, Prouzova?”

“I’m getting two thousand each at present.”

“They say they’re asking three in Trutnov.”