"Robert A. Heinlein - If this goes on" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

‚That’s sound doctrine.’
‚God requires nothing of man beyond his strength. Right?’

‚Yes, but-‚
‚Shut up. God commands man to be fruitful. The Prophet Incarnate, being
especially holy, is required to be especially fruitful. That’s the gist of it; you
can pick up the fine points when you study it. In the meantime, if the Prophet
can humble himself to the flesh in order to do his plain duty, who are you to
raise a ruction? Answer me that.’
I could not answer, of course, and we continued our walk in silence. I had to
admit the logic of what he had said and that the conclusions were built up
from the revealed doctrines. The trouble was that I wanted to eject the
conclusions, throw them up as if they had been something poisonous I had
swallowed.
Presently I was consoling myself with the thought that Zeb felt sure that
Judith had not been harmed. I began to feel better, telling myself that Zeb
was right, that it was not my place, most decidedly not my place, to sit in
moral judgment on the Holy Prophet Incarnate.
My mind was just getting round to worrying the thought that my relief over
Judith arose solely from the fact that I had looked on her sinfully, that there
could not possibly be one rule for one holy deaconess, another rule for all the
rest, and I was beginning to be unhappy again-when Zeb stopped suddenly.
‚What was that?’
We hurried to the parapet of the terrace and looked down the wall. The south
wall lies close to the city proper. A crowd of fifty or sixty people was charging
up the slope that led to the Palace walls. Ahead of them, running with head
averted, was a man dressed in a long gabardine. He was headed for the
Sanctuary gate.
Zebadiah looked down and answered himself. ‚That’s what the racket is-
some of the rabble stoning a pariah. He probably was careless enough to be
caught outside the ghetto after five.’ He stared down and shook his head. ‚I
don’t think he is going to make it.’
Zeb’s prediction was realized at once, a large rock caught the man between
the shoulder blades, he stumbled and went down. They were on him at once.
He struggled to his knees, was struck by a dozen stones, went down in a
heap. He gave a broken high-pitched wail, then drew a fold of the gabardine
across his dark eyes and strong Roman nose.
A moment later there was nothing to be seen but a pile of rocks and a
protruding slippered foot. It jerked and was still.
 I turned away, nauseated. Zebediah caught my expression.
‚Why,’ I said defensively, ‚do these pariahs persist in their heresy? They
seem such harmless fellows otherwise.’
He cocked a brow at me. ‚Perhaps it’s not heresy to them. Didn’t you see that
fellow resign himself to his God?’
‚But that is not the true God.’
‚He must have thought otherwise.’
‚But they all know better; we’ve told them often enough.’
He smiled in so irritating a fashion that I blurted out, ‚I don’t understand you,
Zeb-blessed if I do! Ten minutes ago you were introducing me in correct
doctrine; now you seem to be defending heresy. Reconcile that.’