Messiah

those who attended meetings, simultaneously exacting an oath of allegiance to the Constitution and the Flag which ended with that powerful invocation which a recent president's speech writer had, in a moment of inspiration, struck off to the delight of his employer and nation: 'In a true democracy there is no place for any disagreement on truly great issues.' It is a comment on those years, now happily become history, that only a few ever considered the meaning of this resolution, proving of course that words are never a familiar province to the great mass which prefers recognizable pictures to even the most apposite prose. Iris and I repeated dutifully in the presence of the policeman and an American flag, the various national sentiments. We were then allowed to go back to the anteroom and to Mr. Dormer who himself led us into the chapel.

Several dozen people were already there, perfectly ordinary-looking men and women, better dressed perhaps than the average. The chapel was a nonsectarian one which managed to combine a number of decorative influences with a blandness quite remarkable in its success at not really representing anything while suggesting, at the same time, everything. The presence of a dead body, a man carefully painted and wearing a blue serge suit, gently smiling in an ebony casket behind a bank of flowers at the chapel's end, did not detract as much as one might have supposed from the occasion's importance. After the first uneasiness, it was quite possible to accept the anonymous dead man as a part of the decor. There was even, in later years, an attempt made by a group of Cavite enthusiasts to insist upon the presence of an embalmed corpse at every service but fortunately the more practical elements among the Cavites prevailed, though not without an ugly quarrel and harsh words.

John Cave's entrance followed our own by a few minutes and it is with difficulty that I recall what it was that I felt on seeing him for the first time. Though my recollections are well-known to all (at least they were well-known, although now I am less certain, having seen Butler's Testament so strangely altered), I must record here that I cannot, after so many years, so much history, recall in any emotional detail my first reaction to this man who was to be the world's, as well as my own, peculiar nemesis.

But, concentrating fiercely, emptying my mind of later knowledge, I can still see him as he walked down the aisle of the chapel, a small man who moved with some grace. He was younger than I'd expected or, rather, younger-looking, with short straight hair, light brown in color, a lean regular face which would not have been noticed in a crowd unless one had got close enough to see the expression of the eyes: the large silver eyes with black lashes like a thick line drawn on the pale skin, focusing attention to them, to the congenitally small pupils which glittered like the points of black needles, betraying the will and the ambition which the impassive, gentle face belied… but I am speaking with future knowledge now: I did not that evening think of ambition or will in terms of John Cave. I was merely curious, intrigued by the situation, by the intensity of Iris, by the serene corpse behind the banks of hothouse flowers, by the thirty or forty men and women who sat close to the front of the chapel, listening intently to Cave as he talked.

At first I paid little attention to what was being said, more interested in observing the audience, the room and the appearance of the speaker. Immediately after his undramatic entrance he had moved to the front of the chapel and sat down on a gilt chair to the right of the coffin; there was a faint whisper of interest at his appearance: newcomers like myself were being given last-minute instruction by the habitues who had brought them there. Cave sat easily on the gilt chair, his eyes upon the floor, his small hands, bony and white, folded in his lap, a smile on his narrow lips: he could not have looked more ineffectual, more ordinary. His opening words by no means altered this first impression.

The voice, as he spoke, was good, though he tended to mumble at the beginning, his eyes still on the floor, his hands in his lap, motionless. So quietly did he begin that he had spoken for several seconds before many of the audience were aware that he had begun. His accent was the national one, learned doubtless from the radio and the movies: a neutral pronunciation without any strong regional overtone. The popular if short-lived legend of the next decade that he had begun his mission as a backwoods revivalist was certainly untrue. Not until he had talked for several minutes, did I begin to listen to the sense rather than to the tone of his voice. I cannot render precisely what he said but the message that night was not much different from the subsequent ones which are known to all. It was, finally, the manner which created the response, not the words themselves, though the words were interesting enough, especially when heard for the first time. His voice, as I have said, faltered unsurely at the beginning and he left sentences unfinished, a trick which I later discovered was deliberate for he had been born a remarkable actor, an instinctive rhetorician. What most struck me that first evening was the purest artifice of his performance. The voice, especially when he came to his climax, was sharp and clear while his hands stirred like separate living creatures and the eyes, those splendid unique eyes, were abruptly revealed to us in the faint light, displayed at that crucial moment which had been as carefully constructed as any work of architecture or of music: the instant of communication.

Against my will and judgment and inclination, I found myself absorbed by the man, not able to move or to react. The same magic which was always to affect me, even when later I knew him only too well, held me fixed to my chair as the words, supported by the clear voice, came in a resonant line from him to me alone, to each of us alone, separate from the others… and both restless mass and fast-breathing particular were together his.

The moment itself lasted only a second in actual time; it came suddenly, without warning: one was riven; then it was over and he left the chapel, left us chilled and weak, staring foolishly at the gilt chair where he had been.

It was some minutes before we were able to take up our usual selves again.

Iris looked at me. I smiled weakly and cleared my throat: I was conscious that I ached all over. I glanced at my watch and saw that he had spoken to us for an hour and a half during which time I had not moved. I stretched painfully and stood up. Others did the same: we had shared an experience and it was the first time in my life that I knew what it was like to be the same as others, my heart's beat no longer individual, erratic, but held for at least this one interval of time in concert with those of strangers. It was a new, disquieting experience: to be no longer an observer, a remote intelligence… for ninety minutes to have been a part of the whole.

Iris walked with me to the anteroom where we stood for a moment watching the others who had also gathered here to talk in low voices, their expressions bewildered.

She did not have to ask me what I thought. I told her immediately, in my own way, impressed but less than reverent. 'I see what you mean. I see what it is that holds you, fascinates you but I still wonder what it is really all about.'

'You saw. You heard.'

'I saw an ordinary man. I heard a sermon which was interesting, although I might be less impressed if I read it to myself…' Deliberately I tried to throw it all away, that instant of belief, that paralysis of will, that sense of mysteries revealed in a dazzle of light. But as I talked, I realized that I was not really dismissing it, that I could not alter the experience even though I might dismiss the man and mock the text: something had happened and I told her what I thought it was.

'It is not truth, Iris, but hypnosis.'

She nodded. 'I've often thought that. Especially at first when I was conscious of his mannerisms, when I could see, as only a woman can perhaps, that this was just a man; yet something does happen when you listen to him, when you get to know him. You must find that out for yourself; and you will. It may not prove to be anything which has to do with him. There's something in oneself which stirs and comes alive at his touch, through his agency.' She spoke quickly, excitedly. I felt the passion with which she was charged. But suddenly it was too much for me. I was bewildered and annoyed; I wanted to get away.

'Don't you want to meet him?'

I shook my head. 'Another time maybe, but not now. Shall I take you back?'

'No. I'll get a ride in to Santa Monica. I may even stay over for the night. He'll be here a week.'

I wondered again if she might have a personal interest in Cave: though I doubted it, anything was possible.

She walked me back to the car, past the lighted chapel, over the summery lawn, down the dark street whose solid prosaicness helped to dispel somewhat the madness of the hour before.

We made a date to meet later on in the week. She would tell Cave about me and I would meet him. I interrupted her then. 'What did he say, Iris? What did he say tonight?'

Her answer was as direct and as plain as my question.

'That it is good to die.'