Bertlef pushed aside his empty cup, got up from the table, and retired to the bathroom, from which Klima first heard the sound of running water and then, after a moment, Bertlef's voice: "Do you think one has the right to put to death a child that has not yet seen the light of day?"

A while ago he had been discomfited by the portrait of the bearded man with the halo. He had remembered Bertlef as a jovial bon vivant, and it would never have occurred to him that the man could be a believer. He

felt a pang of anxiety at the thought that he was going to be getting a lesson in morality and that his sole oasis in this desert of a spa was going to be covered with sand. He replied in a choked voice: "Are you one of those who calls that murder?"

Bertlef delayed answering. When he finally emerged from the bathroom, he was dressed to go out and meticulously combed.

"'Murder' is a word that smacks a little too much of the electric chair," he said. "That is not what I am trying to say. You know, I am convinced that life must be accepted such as it is given to us. That is the real first commandment, prior to the other ten. All events are in the hands of God, and we know nothing about their evolution. I am trying to say that to accept life such as it is given to us is to accept the unforeseeable. And a child is the quintessence of the unforeseeable. A child is unforeseeability itself. You don't know what it will become, what it will bring you, and that is precisely why you must accept it. Otherwise you are only half alive, you are living like a nonswimmer wading near the shore, while the ocean is not really the ocean until you are out of your depth."

The trumpeter pointed out that the child was not his.

"Let us assume that that is so," said Bertlef. "But you in turn should frankly admit that if the child were yours you would be just as persistent in trying to convince Ruzena to have an abortion. You would be doing it for the sake of your wife and of your guilty love for her."