Messiah

'I don't doubt that. But how to break the habits of several thousand years.'

'I suppose there are ways. Look what Cave is doing. Of course making death popular is not so difficult since, finally, people want it to be nice: they do the real work or, rather, their terror does. In place of superstition, which they've nearly outgrown, he offers them madness.'

'Now really, Clarissa…'

'I don't disapprove. I'm all for him, as you know. To make death preferable to life is of course utter folly though a perfectly logical reaction for these poor bewildered savages who, having lost their old superstitions, are absolutely terrified at the prospect of nothing. They want to perpetuate their little personalities forever into space and time and now they've begun to realize the folly of that (who, after all, are they? are we? in creation?) they will follow desperately the first man who pulls the sting of death and Cave is that man, as I knew he would be.'

'And after Cave?'

'I will not say what I see. I'm on the side of change, however, which makes me in perfect harmony with life.' Clarissa chuckled. A fish leaped grayly in the still river; out in the channel a barge glided by, the muffled noise of its engines like slow heartbeats.

'But you think it good for people to follow Cave? you think what he says is right?'

'Nothing is good. Nothing is right. But though Cave is wrong, it is a new wrong and so it is better than the old; in any case, he will keep the people amused and boredom, finally, is the one monster the race will never conquer… the monster which will devour us in time. But now we're off the track. Mother love exists because we believe it exists. Believe it does not exist and it won't. That, I fear, is the general condition of 'the unchanging human heart.' Make these young girls feel that having babies is a patriotic duty as well as healthful therapy and they'll go through it blithely enough, without ever giving a second thought to the child they leave behind in the government nursery.'

'But to get them to that state of acceptance…'

'Is the problem. I'm sure it will be solved in a few generations.'

'You think I'm right to propose it?'

'Of course. It will happen anyway.'

'Yet I'm disturbed at the thought of all that power in the hands of the state: they can make the children believe anything; they can impose the most terrible tyranny; they can blind at birth so that none might ever see anything again but what a few rulers, as ignorant as they, finally, will want them to see. There'll be a time when all people are nearly alike.'

'Which is precisely the ideal society. No mysteries, no romantics, no discussions, no persecutions because there's no one to persecute. When all have received the same conditioning, it will be like…'

'Insects.'

'Who have existed longer than ourselves and will outlast our race by many comfortable millennia.'

'Is existence everything?'

'There is nothing else.'

'Then likeness is the aim of human society?'

'Call it harmony. You think of yourself only as you are now dropped into the midst of a society of dull conformists. That's where you make your mistake. You'll not live to see it for, if you did, you would be someone else, a part of it. No one of your disposition could possibly happen in such a society. There would be no rebellion against sameness because difference would not, in any important sense, exist, even as a proposition. You think: how terrible! but think again how wonderful it would be to belong to the pack, to the tribe, to the race, without guilt or anxiety or division.'

'I cannot imagine it.'

'No more can they imagine you.'

'This will happen?'

'Yes, and you will have been a part of it.'

'Through Cave?'

'Partly, yes. There will be others after him. His work in the future will be distorted by others, but that's to be expected.'

'I don't like your future, Clarissa.'

'Nor does it like you, my dear. The idea of someone who is gloomy and at odds with society, bitter and angry, separate from others… I shouldn't wonder but that you yourself might really be used as a perfect example of the old evil days.'

'Virtue dies?'

'Virtue becomes the property of the race.'

'Imagination is forbidden?'

'No, only channeled for the good of all.'

'And this is a desirable world? the future you describe?'

'Desirable for whom? For you, no. For me, not really. For the people in it? Well, yes and no. They will not question their estate but they will suffer from a collective boredom which… but my lips are sealed. Your tea was delicious though the bread was not quite fresh; but then bachelors never keep house properly. I've gone on much too long; do forget everything I've said. I'm indiscreet. I can't help it.'

She rose, a cloud of gray suspended above the porch. I walked her across the lawn to the driveway where her car was parked. The breeze had, for the moment, died and the heat prickled me unpleasantly; my temples itched as the sweat started.

'Go on with it,' she said as she got into her car. 'You may as well be on the side of the future as against it. Not that it much matters anyway. When your adorable President Jefferson was in Paris he said…' But the noise of the car starting drowned the body of her anecdote. I caught only the end: 'That harmony was preferable. We were all amused; I was the only one who realized that he was serious.'

Dust swirled and Clarissa was gone down the drive at a great speed, keeping, I noticed, to the wrong side of the road. I hoped this was an omen.

5

I got through an unusually sultry July without much interference from either Cave or the world. Paul paid me a quick visit to get the manuscript of the dialogues and I was reminded of those accounts of the progresses made by monarchs in other days, or rather of great ministers, for his party occupied four large cars which gleamed side by side in my driveway like glossy beasts while their contents, Paul and fourteen assistants, all strange to me save Stokharin, wandered disconsolately about the lawn until their departure.

Paul, though brisk, was cordial. 'Trouble all over the map but b-i-g t-r-o-u-b-l-e,' he spelled it out with relish, size was important, I knew, to a publicist, even to one turned evangelist.

'Is Cave disturbed by it?'

'Doesn't pay any attention. Haven't seen him but Iris keeps me posted. By the way, we're hiring a plane the first week in August to go see him, Stokharin and me. Want to come along?'

I didn't but I said I would. I had no intention of being left out of anything: there was my work still to do.

'I'll let you know details. This is hot stuff?' He waved the sheaf of papers I'd given him.

'Real hot,' I said but my irony was too pale, only primary colors caught Paul's eye.

'I hope so. Got any new stunts?'

I told him, briefly, about my thoughts on marriage or rather Cave's thoughts. The literary device was for me to ask him certain questions and for him to answer them or, at least, to ask pointed questions in his turn. Cheerfully, I had committed Cave to my own point of view and I was somewhat nervous about his reaction, not to mention the others. So far, only Clarissa knew and her approval was pleasant but perhaps frivolous: it carried little weight, I knew, with the rest.

Paul whistled. 'You got us a tall order. I'm not sure we'll be able to handle that problem yet, if ever.'

'I've done it carefully,' I began.