A young girl came up to me with a greeting. I did not recognize her; I
could not remember her at all, and I said a few words in surprise, and
she laughed. It was one of the Dean's daughters. I had met her the day
we went to the island before, and had invited her to my hut. We talked
together a little.

An hour or so passed by. I was feeling dull, and drank from the wine
poured out for me, and mixed with the others, chatting with them all.
Again I made a mistake here and there: I was on doubtful ground, and
could not tell at the moment how to answer any little civility; now and
then I talked incoherently, or even found nothing at all to say, and
this troubled me. Over by the big rock which we were using as a table
sat the Doctor, gesticulating.

"Soul--what is the soul?" he was saying. The Dean's daughter had accused
him of being a free-thinker--well, and should not a man think freely?
People imagined hell as a sort of house down under the ground, with the
devil as host--or rather as sovereign lord. Then he spoke of the altar
picture in the chapel, a figure of the Christ, with a few Jews and
Jewesses; water into wine--well and good. But Christ had a halo round
His head. And what was a halo? Simply a yellow hoop fixed on three
hairs.

Two of the ladies clasped their hands aghast, but the Doctor extricated
himself, and said jestingly:

"Sounds horrible, doesn't it? I admit it. But if you repeat it and
repeat it again to yourself seven or eight times, and then think it over
a little, it soon sounds easier... Ladies, your very good health!"