—Liesl, are we going to go over all that again in the depths of this mountain? I want to get out. If you want to know, I’m scared. Now look: I’m sorry I haven’t been respectful enough about your discovery. I’m sure it means a lot in the world of archaeology, or ethnology, or whatever it may be. The men around here worshipped bears. Good. Now let’s go.

—Not just the men around here. The men of a great part of the world. There are such caves as this all over Europe and Asia, and they have found some in America. How far is Hudson Bay from where you live?

—A thousand miles, more or less.

—They worshipped the bear there, between the great ice ages.

—Does it matter, now?

—Yes, I think it matters now. What do we worship today?

—Is this the place or the time to go into that?

—Where better? We share the great mysteries with these people. We stand where men once came to terms with the facts of death and mortality and continuance. How long ago, do you suppose?

—I haven’t any idea.

—It was certainly not less than seventy-five thousand years ago; possibly much, much more. They worshipped the bear and felt themselves better and greater because they had done so. Compared with this place the Sistine Chapel is of yesterday. But the purpose of both places is the same. Men sacrificed and ate of the noblest thing they could conceive, hoping to share in its virtue.

—Yes, yes: I read The Golden Bough when I was young.

—Yes, yes; and you misunderstood what you read because you accepted its rationalist tone instead of understanding its facts. Does this place give you no sense of the greatness and indomitability and spiritual splendour of man? Man is a noble animal, Davey. Not a good animal; a noble animal.

—You distinguish between the two?

—Yes, you—you lawyer, I do.

—Liesl, we mustn’t quarrel. Not here. Let’s get out and I’ll argue all you please. If you want to split morality—some sort of accepted code—off from the highest values we have, I’ll promise you a long wrangle. I am, as you say, a lawyer. But for the love of God let’s get back to the light.

—For the love of God? Is not God to be found in the darkness? Well, you mighty lover of the light and the law, away we go.

But then, to my astonishment, Liesl flung herself on the ground, face down before the skulls of the bears, and for perhaps three minutes I stood in the discomfort we always feel when somebody nearby is praying and we are not. But what form could her prayers be taking? This was worse—much worse—than Dr Johanna’s Comedy Company of the Psyche. What sort of people had I fallen among on this Swiss journey?

When she rose she was grinning and the charm I had learned to see in her terrible face was quite gone.