Now he glanced at me and I saw pure terror in his eyes. He was beginning to understand at last, though he still was not convinced that it was not all a dream.
I took him to enormous laboratories where scientists were testing and theorizing and working with fabulous equipment. His interest came alive again. “On what are they working?” he asked.
“Rubbish,” I said. “All their experiments are successful. There are no disputations of ideas. Whatever they invent out of their theories, or prove, is of no consequence. It leads to nothing. There is no excitement about a possible mistake.”
“Why, then, do they work with such absorption?”
“What else can they do? They were never concerned, in their mortal lives, with their fellowmen as souls with emotions.”
I took him to my endless libraries, whose walls were tenanted by the damned’s millions of books. “Here you will find every philosophy ever tendered by man on any planet,” I said. “Here you will find literature as old as time, and history, and conjecture. And you will discover that it means nothing.”
“I could spend eternity just browsing here!” he protested.
“You will,” I promised him. “And you will be no wiser than before. You will read only perversion and filth and detestation of all that lives, and egoism and blasphemy and the total ignorance which is the true evil. Machiavelli was a child in comparison with the doings of men who lived on other planets. And you will read poetry that has no heaviness, no slightest disharmony; every canto and phrase is perfect. My writers continue to write, and their works are lined here. No one reads them any longer but the newcomers like yourself.”
“No one reads for enlightenment?”
I laughed. “They have all the enlightenment, forever, in hell,” I said. “They cannot expand their native powers, which were given them at conception. Only in Heaven is intelligence expanded and challenged. Here is fulfillment. Was that not your dream?”
“I am still dreaming,” he said. “I am dreaming of Heaven, in which, of course, I do not believe.”
“Excellent,” I said. “However, one day you will believe, and will realize there is no hope for you. For, you see, no one wins in hell, and no one loses. All are equal in prizes.”
“Then, there is no reward for excellence?”
“No.”
“If there is no abrasion of ideas, there is no competition.”
“True. Is that not delightful? Let me enlighten you a little. Nothing in hell reaches a conclusion, for all is concluded. But would you not call that really Heaven?”
“It is not fair!” he ejaculated.
“But it is most fair. Why should one soul dare to aspire above another? Did you think this was Heaven?”
He stood still in my softly lighted libraries. Then he said, with shamed hesitation, “When I was a child I heard that you were the father of lies.”
“Nonsense. Prove it. You see only truth about you here: My truth, which you loved on Terra, and which is rejected by very few.”
I led him to my great observatories, full of astronomical instruments and telescopes. He became excited then, gazing about him with eager pleasure as he saw the astronomers with their eyes fixed and intent. “Here is objective truth!” he said.
“Speak to them,” I suggested.
He approached one who was gazing through a monster telescope. He said, “I, too, am an astronomer. Can you see the stars from this—place—where there is only light and no darkness?”
The scientist turned to him and said, “Yes. We can see all the universes in eternity, and understand them. Nothing is hidden or left to conjecture.”
“Can you see the red spot of Jupiter clearly, and the deserts of Mars and the rings of Saturn and the hot clouds of Venus?”
The astronomer was puzzled, and he smiled vaguely. “What are these of which you speak?”
Michel Edgor became furiously impatient. “Do you call yourself an astronomer? I speak of our solar system.”
“And what solar system is that?”
He was confounded. “Ours,” he said at last.
“And where is yours?”
He threw up his hands. “You are no scientist! Or you are joking with me.”
The astronomer turned to me, frowning. “Majesty, who is this ignorance?”
“He is a soul,” I said, “from a tiny little planet about an insignificant sun in the far borders of a galaxy called the Milky Way, of which you have never heard, for it is of the least importance.”
The astronomer looked at Michel Edgor with curiosity. “Then he, too, is of no importance? Yes. What a piteous creature!”
Michel Edgor looked at him umbrageously. “Are you trying to imply that you are a man of an inhabited planet of some other universe? That is ridiculous. There are no other planets like ours, and no other civilized races.”
“Be tolerant with him,” I said to the astronomer. “He is, indeed, an ignorant soul. Do not be offended.”
“I am not offended, Majesty. But you must admit that some souls are beyond toleration.”
“You forget. We tolerate everything and everyone here. Tolerance is part of the climate of hell.”
Michel Edgor had listened to this exchange in stupefaction. Then he said, “You are trying to denigrate and ridicule me, I who was one of the most important and respected astronomers on earth.”
The astronomer was gentle with him. “I know nothing of your earth, soul. I never heard of it. I have never seen it with my instruments. You are a child in knowledge. Come. Look through this telescope.”
I knew what he would see: endless inhabited universes, each murmurous with life of its own, and uncountable planets and whirling suns of every color exploding and dying and giving birth to worlds. He adjusted the instrument, and looked, and was silent and rigid as he observed. Then he turned away at last, and sagged.
“I do not believe it,” he said. “It is not possible.”
“You will believe it, eventually,” I told him. “But it will not help you. You will be inspired to worship, but you will not be capable of worshiping.”
Will he? That is my dread.
He began to weep and the tears ran down his face. The other astronomers instantly gathered about him, to drink his tears, and he shrank from them in horror. The tears of those who finally confront truth are the elixir of my damned.
I had not done with him, for as he is intelligent he will become one of my assistants in the tedious education of the stupid men of Terra. Nothing so delights the informed damned as telling the newly come of their eternal hell. As we left the observatories and he put up his hand to guard his eyes from my infernal light, he said, as if musing, “If there is evil—”
“But what is evil?” I asked him. “The thwarted, the unsatisfied impulse, the suppression of a desire or an instinct. Is that not what you believed? Here are no thwarted, no unsatisfied, no condemned instincts. You are-fortunate to attain everything you wished. This is not possible with the blessed.”
“I still believe I am dreaming, and that I shall awake.”
“Consider. If, in truth, you will awake in your bed at Terra, what would be your conclusions about this ‘dream’?”
He paused. “I might become a different man with a different philosophy.”
I laughed. “How uncomfortable that would be, and what derision you would encounter! Rejoice, then, that this fate is denied you. You are safe—with me.”
He glanced at me strangely, and I instantly hated him, for I knew he was thinking. Secret thought in hell is very dangerous. I am omnipotent here, but still I do not always know the thoughts of my damned, though Our Father knows all the thoughts of His blessed. This is pure discrimination—against me, and is distinctly undemocratic. I have created a completely democratic realm, but the damned are not always satisfied with their state.
When the Christ was on Terra He said to those who appealed to Him on a dispute with secular law: “I am no divider of men.” In short, His Kingdom was not of Te
rra, and His concern was not with the laws of men. But I am a divider of men; I inspire riots and revolts and rebellions against the law of men and God. I believe I am more just. Shall men be supine, and think only of their lives in eternity? Is that mercy? After all, men are concerned only with their flesh and their appetites—and who should deny them? Not I!
I showed him many more wonders, but he was listless and too thoughtful. Finally I brought him to the Hell of the Wicked Children, whom men, when disturbed by them, call poltergeists.
“But there are no evil children,” he said. “There are only evil parents, or stupid ones, or neglectful, or ignorant, or not informed about child psychology.”
“There is surely the Hell of the Wicked Children,” I told him, and led him there. It is a vast place, full of toys and devilish instruments of self-torture and the torture of others who are weaker. It is a place of malignance and delighted cruelty and destruction and all abominations, far worse, in my opinion, than some of my other hells. Here the evil children play and devise and plot the dismay of others on their former worlds. Children are more inventive than adults, for their imaginations have not been dulled by experience. It is true that they are more gross and violent, but is that not to be admired in an atmosphere of tepidity?
He saw the multitudes of my children in that region, all absorbed with schemes of evil, all gloating with the desire to destroy and alarm and confuse. They are very active. You have noticed, Michael, how active are the wicked, how relentlessly energetic, how tireless. There are no tears in my Hell of the Wicked Children, no repinings, no sad withdrawals. Here is the only applause on invention of some new deviltry. Here is envy of one more intelligent in the devising of an originality. This Hell is not democratic, for here they compete for the accomplishment of terror. They perfect their methods of hurling objects, of barking like dogs, of slamming doors in quiet houses, of howling like werewolves, of casting obscene shadows, of making vile gestures. As they never had any philosophy except the one of confounding adults and inflicting pain on their peers, they are very simple and uncomplicated. I like them the best of my inhabitants. They are truly human.
Michel Edgor looked upon their beautiful and contorted and gay faces, and he recoiled. They surged upon him, plucking at his garments, stamping on his feet, thrusting their fingers into his eyes, squealing, taunting, giggling. He pushed them off, and they gathered again and pinched him or bit him, and he felt the pain and the loathing of them.
“I know you deny sin,” I said to him, as he vainly fended off their fiendishness. “But these know all about sin. One could say they invented it. All have been Confirmed in the various ways of their former worlds. Those not yet Confirmed do not come here, for God—pardon me—does not attribute sin to the un-Confirmed. He holds them as saints, incapable of sin. Is that not absurd? I am much more realistic. I would bring man here on his birth.”
I directed him to the illusions I have invented for this place: Mirages of animals and birds, for the tormenting of the children. He saw them tear the mirages apart and their delight in the delusion of bleeding and agony. He shuddered. “I was never one of these,” he said.
“Ah, yes, you were. You gave your unfortunate mother much sorrow. In Heaven, she prayed for you. But it was all in vain. You possessed your own will. You were never disobedient as a child. However, you agonized your mother with your concealed smiles at her piety, and your soft derision of her teachings. She labored over you, teaching you the precepts of God, giving you all her devotion, for your father died before you were born. You were all she had. She sacrificed her necessities so you could be educated. She believed that you would be a good man.”
He faltered, “Does she know? Now?”
This was dangerous territory. I did not want him to think of his mother’s prayers in Heaven. I led him away, and he was happy to go with me. I was relieved. Can the prayers of mothers in Heaven help to rescue their children in Hell? This is a thought which continually enrages me, for I have seen some of my more esteemed disappear. I remember the time He descended here—for what reason? We looked at each other, and He smiled. He has said that the “fire is everlasting.” But what of those who truly repent? Will you answer me? I know that repentance is impossible in hell—
You will not answer these urgent questions, and this I know.
Your brother, Lucifer
Greetings to my brother, Lucifer, who seems to be losing his temper, which was never of the most patient at its best:
I have indeed laid your complaint of interference before Our Father, and He has said to me, “Remind My son, Lucifer, of the eternal laws of Propulsion and Repulsion. When he enticed the multitudes to declare loudly that I am dead, that was Propulsion, and Propulsion does inevitably, by its very motion, invite Repulsion. As the planets swing in their orbits, by My law, so is a thrust followed by a recoil. He has known this from the beginning. If the lukewarm and indifferent of Terra are asking themselves suddenly anxious and alerted questions, My son, Lucifer himself, caused that reaction though I admit it was not his desire or intention. I rejoice that the indifferent are at last shaken and that they gaze at the skies in sharp inquiry—and I thank My son for giving Me the opportunity to answer. He has created a stir on unfortunate Terra which I have not seen for centuries.”
You will discern that Our Father is pleased. Again, the laws of Propulsion and Repulsion have operated, for the loss of Lencia, though grievous to Him, is more easily borne in the light of what you have unwittingly loosed on Terra. Millions of men are repeating your words, “God is dead!” and the next moment they say to themselves, “Is He, indeed?” That very question leads to infinite possibilities, and you can be certain that Our Father will take every advantage of the situation you created!
It is tragic that the very shepherds of Terra are shouting of the Death of God more loudly than their sheep, but this was prophesied, you will remember, by St. Paul, himself, and called the Great Apostasy. The shepherds lead their flocks into darkness and confusion and despair, but the darkness and confusion and despair of a soul is Our Father’s opportunity. The flocks will repudiate their vainglorious shepherds, and call them anathema, but in all truth they should thank them. They have induced the sheep to shake the wool from their grazing eyes and consider the stars. A great and murky fear has come to the flocks who, for centuries, placidly cropped the grass of Terra and never questioned in their souls and never felt the necessity to question. But, you have posed it!
A truly angelic gesture on the part of the great Archangel, Lucifer! Accept our gratitude. We anticipate that more and more millions will be shaken, and that though they had accepted the Idea of Our Father’s existence it was as if animals had vaguely accepted the water they drank without questioning the source, or if the source existed at all. Now they are bewildered, and now they are thinking. Blessed was the day when you received your inspiration! But do not accuse Our Father of inspiring you against your will! He no more interferes with your will than He does with the will of the most insignificant man, and you know that in your heart.
St. John and St. James, the Sons of Thunder, have recently reminded me that when they attempted to induce the Christ to smite fire on the unbelieving towns of Samaria because they rejected Him He refused, and rebuked them. Like you, they now wonder if He regrets that He refrained, and they ask when He will recall His Mercy and strike Terra for her blasphemy and malice. Though saints, they are still men, alas. I recalled to them that they can never foresee the hour which He prophesied, and suggested that rather than hopefully anticipating it they pray for their fellowmen. They were not entirely meek before my suggestion. They are still the Sons of Thunder, and they examine portents with the same eagerness you also examine them, though with entirely different emotions. St. Paul says, “Aha!” before the portents, but he was always an impatient man for all his wisdom. St. Peter smiles benignly; he was always less reckless. He knows that the enslaved lands of Terra hold the thought of Our Father closely and secretly to their
hearts, and that they have seen in the wickedness of men, and the cruelty and darkness, the hope of God. The stars never shine so brightly than in the black hour just before dawn—and the enslaved understand that. In the so-called “free” lands of Terra, unfortunately, Our Father is accepted, or rejected, with less passion. Our Father’s love operates more keenly in an atmosphere of passionate rejection than in an atmosphere of indifference. For it sets men to wondering, and out of wonder comes revelation, and out of revelation comes adoration.
Again, you have asked me sly questions which I cannot, or will not, answer. How persistent you are! But when was evil not persistent and sleepless? We watch the energetic scurryings of the men of wickedness on Terra, and listen to their vehement voices, and knowing that they are flesh we marvel at their tirelessness. They are all the more filled with ardor because of their pretense—though they seem not to know it is pretense—that they work in behalf of their fellows, and would improve their lot. But we know the evil who guides them, do we not? What arrogance, that they assume they know what is best for their brothers. And with what rage do they greet the resistance of those brothers, who know with all their instinct that madness has now assumed the accents of Love! The more they scream of “Working for mankind!” the more suspicion they arouse. The love of men is always suspect, unless it is first based on the love of God. Indeed, the “secular paradise” which the evil prophesy is a reflection of hell. You will heartily agree.
Men have never needed more than their daily bread, a shelter of minimum comfort, and enough clothing to protect their bodies from the assaults of climate. Their bodily demands are very few, and easily satisfied. But the needs of their souls are boundless, and only Our Father can satisfy them. There is no necessity for ornament, for gold, for large possessions, for downy beds, for treasure. These never content, and those who demand them for all of mankind are fools. They have degraded their brothers to the levels of mindless beasts who want only to fill their bellies and oil their skins and satisfy their animal desires. But man, though soothed with the sweet words of the wicked, instinctively rebels against this degradation. He will eat the unearned bread which is given him, and sleep in the soft bed for which he has not worked, and he will cavort in the stupid, mean little pleasures offered him—but a vast uneasiness grows in the silent places of his spirit, and he says to himself, “Is this all the world holds for me?” Invariably, he has asked, and will again ask, that question, and Our Father waits patiently for the asking.