“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“It used to be, and it should be. But nowadays, who knows?”
Miss Prim looked gravely into the old lady’s face.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, that the young should be as naive as human nature permits, child. Young people still walk in a certain innocence, still view the world with wonder and hope. Later on, as time passes, they find things aren’t as they’d imagined and they begin to change, to lose that luminosity, that innocence. Their gaze clouds over and darkens. In one sense it’s very sad, but in another it’s inevitable, because it’s precisely these sorrows that lead to maturity.”
Prudencia took a piece of buttered toast.
“And you think this has changed?”
“Of course it has. You’d have to be a fool or a lunatic not to see it. Young people today extend childhood well beyond the chronologically allotted time. They’re immature and irresponsible at an age when they should no longer be so. But at the same time they lose their simplicity, their innocence and freshness early. Strange as it sounds, they grow old early.”
“Grow old? What an extraordinary idea!”
Lulu sipped her tea and gestured to her guest to cut her a piece of cake.
“Skepticism has always been considered an affliction of maturity, Prudencia, but now that is no longer the case. Those children have grown up unfamiliar with the great ideals that have shaped people for generations and made them strong. They’ve been taught to view them with contempt and, in their place, to substitute something cloying and sentimental that even they quickly find unsatisfying and even repellent. They lose the most valuable thing—I’d say the only truly valuable thing—that youth possesses and maturity does not. It’s terrible to have to say such things, don’t think I don’t know.”
Miss Prim wondered how a woman of ninety-five who spent most of her time lying on an ancient sofa could have developed such acerbic views on the education system and the failings of young people. Before she could say anything, the old lady leaned forward with a shrewd grin on her face.
“You think I’m too old to know the modern world and its problems.”
“Of course not,” she lied.
“Don’t fib, child. You’re partly right, but you must bear one thing in mind. Many different kinds of people pass through here. They like coming to the village. They visit our community as if it were a museum. And I’m very observant, my dear. At my age, there’s not much else to do.”
Miss Prim made as if to protest but the old lady took no notice.
“That’s not enough, though. You can’t rely just on your own experience. The experience of a single human lifetime constitutes a narrow field of study, even a lifetime as long as mine. It’s easy to fool oneself, God knows.”
Lulu paused as if for breath before continuing.
“Because, fundamentally, nothing changes, you know. The huge old mistakes emerge time and again from the depths, like cunning monsters stalking prey. If you could sit at the window and watch human history unfold, do you know what you’d see?”
A little apprehensively, Miss Prim said she did not.
“I’ll tell you. You’d see an immense chain of mistakes repeated over the centuries, that’s what. You’d watch them, arrayed in different garb, hidden behind various masks, concealed beneath a multitude of disguises, but they’d remain the same. No, it’s not easy to become aware of it, of course not. You have to stay alert and keep your eyes open to detect those evil old threats, recurring endlessly. Do you think I’m raving? No, my dear. You can’t see it—most people no longer can—but it’s growing dark, and I sense night falling. Those poor children, what do you think they get in schools?”
She blinked, trying to make sense of the old lady’s speech.
“Knowledge, I suppose.”
Lulu sat up, unexpectedly spry.
“You’re wrong. What they’re getting is sophism—foul, rotten sophism. Sophists have taken over schools and are working hard for their cause.”
“Aren’t you being rather pessimistic?” Miss Prim asked tentatively, glancing surreptitiously at the clock.
Lulu stared at her in silence.
“Pessimistic? Not at all, my dear. What is a gatekeeper to do if not to warn of what she’s seen? Gatekeepers aren’t optimistic or pessimistic, Prudencia. They’re either awake or asleep.”
Prudencia sighed. She couldn’t grasp the full scope of Lulu Thiberville’s ideas. It would take more than an afternoon to plumb the depths of the old lady’s mind. It was as dark and opaque as a cup of hot chocolate, too rich for afternoon tea and cake.
“So you’re bound for Italy,” Lulu abruptly changed the subject as she poured more tea. “What part are you going to?”
