BOOK TWENTY-THREE: THE CONVERSION OF HELL

 

 

I

 

One day, Viviane was sowing fields of narcissi and wild strawberries on the edge of the forest. A rustling in the leaves became audible, and she shivered to see emerging from a clump of oaks the being that she had already seen once before. He was disguised, at the moment, as an old prince, who seemed to have gone astray while hunting. In one hand he held a heavy pike, and in the other a spindle.

She would have liked to run away, but she did not have time. She called Merlin’s name, but speech expired on her lips.

“Is this beautiful golden spindle yours?” said the stranger, as he approached. “I found it over there in the valley, under that weeping ash-tree.”

“Thank you, Monseigneur, it’s mine.”

“Where am I, my beautiful child?”

“In Merlin’s tomb.”

“It seems to me, Mignonne, that I’ve met you once or twice in the moonlight, at Oberon’s court.”

“I beg your pardon, Seigneur,” said Viviane, not daring to contradict the stranger overtly.

“Was it in the company of Titania or Morgane, then?”

“Neither. I’ve only seen a court in the home of my godmother, Diana of Sicily.”

“That’s it! I have it!” exclaimed Beelzebub. “But what does it matter? So young, so beautiful, and already in a tomb?”

“This tomb is Merlin’s.”

“Look at yourself, my beauty, in the mirror of this lake. Have you never seen yourself?”

“A hundred times,” Viviane replied.

“It’s a throne you need, not a sepulcher. Follow me, both of you; I’ll make you both kings.”

“We’re kings here, Seigneur.”

“Well, then, you’ll be gods!”

At these words, Viviane took the stranger for some prince who had gone mad, and fled like a hind toward Merlin.

The king of Hell followed her, clicking his teeth, and talking to himself: “It’s one last proof. What does it mean? I’m no longer obeyed by my own. My gaze would no long even fascinate a kobold’s Eve or the fiancée of a gnome in the paradise of the fays. So, gee-up to my son’s house! I’m old. Who respects old age? I no longer create; I no longer invent. I imitate; I copy. All that I’ve just said I said, word for word and a hundred times better, in Eden, at the beginning of things. And how I was obeyed then, at the slightest glance, without talking! There’s nothing sadder than an old disenchanted demon. Mocked today all the way to the sepulcher, and doubtless by the earthworms. Come on, it’s too much! Hell is on the way out!”

 

II

 

As soon as Viviane had rejoined Merlin and shown him the stranger who was trailing after her, the Enchanter exclaimed: “It’s my father! Something told me it wouldn’t be long before he appeared. Oh, how curbed and changed he is! Pity grips me on seeing him so defeated. Can I refuse him my threshold? Let’s go down and see what he wants.”

“Oh, my son,” said the Ancestor, “it’s true, then, that you haven’t disowned me? You’re the sole being nowadays who looks at me kindly...”

“Let’s forget how we parted, Father,” Merlin said. “The tomb has enlightened me. I see things with more impartiality today.”

“Good! I no longer hold a grudge, my son, and don’t have anything against you. Just play your harp for me a little, as long as it doesn’t resemble David’s melodies. If you knew how long it’s been since I heard music! Good! More! Play that tune again! Truly, I’m getting better listening to it.”

Although there was perhaps a little irony in those last words, the good Merlin did not fail to draw the best chords from his instrument, principally the most touching he could find.

Let’s give him that pleasure, he thought. He’s so unhappy.

“I’m thirsty,” said the father of the damned. “No one, thus far, has wanted to give me a glass of water.”

Immediately, Viviane went to draw fresh water from the edge of the torrent, and presented it to her guest in a bronze urn. He slaked his thirst with a feverish ardor. After that she went to prepare a meal like those customarily prepared for the Feast of the Dead. Merlin and his father were left alone.

“Is it true, then, my son, that one can be happy?” asked the master of Hell.

“As you see, Father.”

“Indeed! But assuredly, you’re the only happy being in creation. I’ve traveled it in its entirety; I’ve found no one but you who praises your fate.”

“Mine is felicity itself.”

“You’ll make me jealous, my son. How, then, do you conserve this inalterable repose? Undoubtedly, my son, you owe it, in great measure, to being retrenched from the mass of the living. It’s so long since I’ve slept, my poor Merlin! Sleep! Oh, what bliss! I’d give an empire for an hour’s sleep. It’s those infernal insomnias that have hollowed out my cheeks, you see. Give me a herb to help me sleep. I alone, in the entire universe, am always awake. The gods often sleep.”

As he finished speaking he wiped away the burning sweat that was streaming over his brow. In the meantime, little Formose, who had been frightened at first, gradually drew nearer. In his hands he was carrying a small nest of birds of paradise; he put them in the Ancestor’s hands. The Ancestor accepted them; he had a momentary temptation to stifle them, but—a singular thing!—he dared not do it. He returned them to the child with a smile like that of a Cyclops who has just discovered a warblers’ nest in the depths of the woods.

“This is your son!” he said.

“Yes,” replied Merlin.

“He resembles his grandfather. Certainly, these family joys aren’t to be disdained. When I was very small, I had hair like him, that beautiful red-tinted golden blond. Does he already like poking the fire, and making a toy out of a witch’s broom?”

“He’d do nothing else if I let him.”

“Good! I recognize my blood there. Why oppose him?”

“Why don’t you come, Father, and share this family life with us? If you want, we can live together?”

With that, the good Merlin, with an expansion that did more honor to his heart than his perspicacity, waxed lyrical on the subject of the merits of the family. It alone soothed all ills; it even tamed monsters. Cacus, Polyphemus and Caliban had yielded to its gentleness. What has prevented the demon from doing likewise? Far from humans, his hatreds would calm down. Forgetting the wickedness of creatures, he would forget his wrath, for, undoubtedly, the evil that he had done or tried to do was only an exaggeration of good.

There was such a great desire on Merlin to be reconciled with his father that he permitted himself this sophism: “After all,” he concluded, “why not try a little of our kind of life, Father? You won’t have any shortage of space here. If you want, you’ll have the whole of that great wood of fig-trees to hide your meditations. A family, your own, who will be devoted to you all the time—wouldn’t that soothe your chagrins?”

“Since you’re taking that tone, I’ll talk to you as to my true son. Know, then, that the life I’ve freely embraced is beginning to weigh upon me. But keep my secret. Don’t say anything to the tomb; it’s too full of echoes. Who knows that better than you?”

“That’s the truth, Father, Go on.”

The chief of darkness resumed, lowering his vice: “Is it certain that no one’s listening to us here? Death is curious—where is she?”

“Far from here.”

“I was afraid that she might be listening to us.162 It’s just that no being, great or small, celestial or infernal, can boast of having surprised my secret on my lips. Not one even suspects what I’m going to tell you. All of them believe me triumphant; all of them would swear that I’m as hard as rock, and I’ve certainly done nothing to dissuade them. Before all, let’s preserve honor. But you, my son, know that the rock has been worn away by the water drops that fall eternally from the vault of heaven; know than beneath this tanned mask there is—how shall I put it?—a soul, yes, in truth, a pitiable soul that cries and laments. Finally, to say everything, I’m bored, my son. I no longer sense within me that masculine resolution, that rigid will, which once composed a kind of infernal happiness for me. Something has withered inside me. I doubt, I totter, my son. A little more, and I’ll succumb.”

“I’ve always thought that it would finish like that.”

“Even in Hell, my child, I have more than one disgust to swallow. Beneath that royalty, which seems so absolute, there are miseries that only I know.”

“What?” Merlin put in, timidly. “I thought that in the abyss, at least, everything went as you wish.”

“Not at all, not at all. Make no mistake, my son. If you’re to succeed me some day, I owe you the naked truth. Once, I reigned in the midst of fallen archangels; their sins had some grandeur; at least pride was satisfied. Energetic, aristocratic souls, which had refused to bend the knee, I could reign over them without any misalliance. Today they’ve unearthed, I don’t know where, vices so servile, crimes so petty and leprous, that they even disgust me. No more trace of the old pride that made Hell a worthy rival of Heaven. No! Not one among them dares raise his head any longer. Not one has the courage to bear his sins. The wretches! They deny themselves! They’ve become hypocrites, they practice, my dear! I can no longer take a step in that simpering, degenerate Hell without hearing their oremus, for they also speak Latin. They’ve learned to strike their breasts, kneel and chant; they oblige the serpent to intone the Gloria. What do I know? They’ve become a hundred times more devout, more wheedling, than anyone in Heaven. Yes! That hypocritical Hell is more odious to me than Eden. I wasn’t made to reign over cowards.”

“Father, your words fill me with joy. Your crown has become too heavy. Perhaps it would be wise to renounce your reign.”

“Well done!” cried the king of Hell. “You’ve anticipated my thought. For a long time, dearest, I’ve been thinking about abdicating, but to your advantage. I’m old and tired. You, Merlin, are still young enough to repair and rehabilitate Hell. If I’ve held on to that royalty it has been, on my honor, to leave it to you. Do you think that I’ve been working for myself? Get away! On my word, I’ve done nothing except for you. ‘He’ll succeed me,’ I said to myself. ‘He’ll honor his old father. I’ll give him good advice from the depths of my retreat.’ Those, my son, are the projects with which I sustained my ennui. Come on, Merlin—I’ll leave you the empire! Only assure me of an honorable retreat, appropriate to one who had carried the scepter of the abyss.”

“Thank you, but my tastes are too different.”

“You’ll allow yourself to be guided by my advice. It’s no longer necessary to imagine the government as too difficult. They’re so limited, no stupid in their vile debaucheries. They catch themselves so easily in their cowardly nets. Provided that you oppress them, they’ll believe you to be a genius. Lying and more lying—that’s the whole secret. My long career has taught me that the crudest, grossest lie, is that which best suits their coarse nature. It seems that that’s the element best adapted to their organs. They savor it with delight; it’s their nectar and their ambrosia.”

“One thing disturbs me in what you’re saying, Father.”

“What’s that?”

“Can souls of mud by immortal?”

“Why not? We have mud in Hell, too, and it’s indelible. Don’t worry, my son! You’ll carry it off marvelously. Succeed me.”

“No, Father. That’s not my vocation. I can’t accept that crown; I’d lose it.”

“Well, my dear, that’s what takes away all my courage. So long as I saw before me the future of my son, of my race, of my dynasty, I devoured all difficulties. But if I can no longer have an heir of my blood, what point is there is so much eternal labor in the abyss? I, too, wouldn’t be sorry to breathe for a while on the edge of a spring. I’m weary of that eternal exile. Yes, if I could hide this white head in forgetfulness! Ignorant of demons and humans—the difference is trivial—if I could only be ignored by them!”

“It seems to me that it would be more dignified, Father, to publish your change of life to the face of the worlds.”

Those imprudent words awoke Satan’s genius with a start. His eyes threw off flames. He replied, roaring: “Gently! You’re going too quickly, Merlin. Can you think that? Belie myself? Me? Confess that I was mistaken! What remain to us, to demons, is character. Take that away, and we’re no longer anything. Between the two of us, I can recognize a few errors, but to deny myself, to belie my past, to bury myself stupidly in a ridiculous contrition—don’t ask that of me!”

Have you ever, while walking in the Bernese Alps, come across a dry stone wall on the edge of a field of barley, which is smiling at you at harvest time? It confines a meadow of about two arpents, strewn with primroses, gentians, scabiouses, anemones, in which a dairy cow is ruminating, half-hidden in the flowers. From there, a pretty path attracts you, winding under stands of maples, dwarf oaks and sorb-trees, carpeted with myrtles, whose little fruits, bitter but refreshing pierce the silvered emerald of the moss like black pupils.

Stop!

If you take one step more, the abyss is there! It opens. The gaping earth disappears beneath your feet. The vertical galleries of the gulf overhang, from stage to stage, and the pale walls of rock plunge vertically into the edifice of the void. To the cavernous sound of the seething of the Aar, which trickles invisibly, your gaze is lost in a blue-tinted crevasse, without finding anywhere to stop. Your knees tremble as in a dream. For you have had the vision of infernal regions. Can you not retain yourself by means of your hands, clenched on that young branchless larch lying on the ground? But it’s uprooted. You recoil in horror, crawling, over the damp edge of the precipice.

Thus, beneath his father’s complaisant smile, Merlin discovered the genius of Hell. He saw that, by virtue of an excess of zeal, he had lacked prudence; and, backtracking on what had escaped him, he resumed in these terms:

“After all, Father, there’s no need to publish indiscreetly your change of life, if it suits you, for example, to imitate ours. Here, in this walled enclosure, far from the gazes of the curious, you could make a hermitage, and the universe would know nothing about it.”

“Bah! You’re mistaken, O sagest of enchanters. I’m too important a mechanism in the arrangement of things to disappear without the worlds knowing and talking about it among themselves. Know a little more, great dreamer, about these worlds that you claim to enchant. They curse me because of my sins, they say. Fundamentally, each of those sins is imposed. They see them as a proof of cunning. If I mended my ways, those same people who stone me today with their maledictions would accuse me of weakness. If I persist, they execrate me; if I change, they scorn me. That, my dear, is the difficulty.

“Set down the fiery crown, you say? That’s easy; but it’s necessary to envisage the consequences. Let’s think it through. If I reenter the host of beings, as a simple homunculus, do you think that there is one among them who would not come to reproach me for his fall or his crime? Yes, there would not be a single man or reptile who, seeing my disarmed, would not assassinate me with his bravado. They’re such cowards?

“Certainly I have pride enough to scorn their insults. Perhaps it would dignify my character to offer myself, disarmed, to their mockery. It would not be devoid of grandeur to say: ‘Here is the king of Hell. He has taken off his crown himself, out of ennui. Come to your damnation; run, perverse race; he was weary of your obsequiousness; so much servitude wearied him He wants to test your fury. Once again, come! He’s is here, unmasked and bare-breasted, exposed to your vengeance.’

“How’s that Merlin? What do you think of a speech like that, addressed to creation? Would it not be a brilliant theatrical gesture? Would it not be glorious to rid myself thus of a royalty of which, believe me, I’ve exhausted all the ostentation? Come on, quickly—your opinion?”

“Undoubtedly, that would be true grandeur.”

“And I would find thus a glory that I have conspicuously lacked?”

“Precisely, Father; let’s profit from this fortunate moment when pure light has entered into your genius. Let’s finish it.”

“Finish it, my dear Merlin? That’s what unbearable to me. You’re in too much of a hurry today, as always. And then, my dear, there’s another difficulty. If I reconcile myself with the universe; if, in addition, I take that great humiliating step, who, I beg you, will believe my word? Can’t you hear in advance the sniggering of all the beings who will pursue me—me, a poor night-bird, harried by the birds of the day? Who will want to believe in my sincerity? ‘It’s a new hypocrisy! Now he’s old, he’s become a hermit!’ You know how they talk.

“In that immensity of worlds, beings creatures, angels, humans, demons and fays, can you find me one single individual who will want to trust me, even for a moment? Even you, Merlin, with all your ingenuity, which I’ve mocked so many rimes—come on! Would you entrust little Formose there to me for a single minute? Would you confide his education to me for the blink of an eye?”

Merlin’s only response was to call his child. He lifted him from the ground and put him in Satan’s arms.

“This is your grandfather,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”

The child did not know whether he ought to laugh or cry, and it was a terrible thing to see that ingenuous infant in the arms of the king of Hell. Even I accuse Merlin here of having given too precious a pledge, but he always made the error of overconfidence.

At least he was not mistaken on this occasion.

“Good,” said Satan, putting down the child, who was no longer afraid. “That’s something I would never have believed possible, either on your part or mine. The temptation was great; the proof was strong. Perhaps today won’t be a waste of time. That’s your Abrahamic sacrifice; here, take back your Isaac.”

And with that, he drew away, very pensively. Sitting on the summit of a rock that overlooked the region, he lost himself in meditation on what he had just seen and heard.

 

III

 

“Abdicate!” said the king of Hell to himself, shaking his head. “Certainly, I’m capable of it, since no one but me could replace me…and who would dare? I can be tranquil. Poor pygmies, I know their measure. None of them would retain that empire of evil for an hour, which I’ve contained, conserved and magnified until today. I alone was able to govern it. If I disappeared even for a moment, I’d bequeath them a beautiful chaos, the chaos of Hell...

“To defy creation, when the smallest and most insignificant of insects would be able to rise against me without peril—that would be my pride! I would sit down on this same rock. I would summon all beings around me, ready to settle my account with each of them. Sulla, Diocletian—those are examples with which I can authorize myself. I too could cultivate in peace my garden of Salone;163 I could live here with my lettuces. Am I not like them, having drained the cup a hundred times over? Does a single illusion remain to me? Do I not know that darkness has limits and that one wearies of everything, even Hell?

“It’s certain that I no longer feel the confidence in myself that sustained me in my youth. Shall I wait until I’m vanquished, or should I take away from defeat the opportunity to strike me? Which is the cleverer?”

As he was speaking to himself in that fashion, his foot detached a block of stone, which rolled into the gulf. The abyss responded with a roar. At the same time, Merlin appeared by his side.

“Be careful of falling, Father. This place is one of the most unreliable. Let’s go sit under that clump of trees instead.”

“Listen,” replied the Ancestor, leaning on his son’s arm. “You’re a great enchanter. I think, in truth, that you’ve ensorcelled me.”

Soon, they found themselves far from the edge of the precipice, in a more rural location. The funeral herds were grazing tranquilly. Their guardian, the centaur, was on watch lying in the grass, from which he raised his venerable head.

“Once again,” said Satan, “I’m not insensible to this rustic life. Come to get back to it after such devouring days—that’s the question. Let’s see—what’s your doctrine? Your church? Your Credo? Speak frankly. To what church do you want to convert me?”

Merlin had not expected that question. He had only prepared a certain number of scenes, of encounters, of pictures of life in the fields, on which he was counting to bring peace back to Satan’s burning soul. He hoped that the sacred freshness of his sepulcher would insinuate itself into the heart of the leader of the wretched. When he heard him ask such a direct question, his embarrassment was visible. Without giving himself time to reflect, he replied a trifle inconsiderately: “The surest means would be to make your peace with Heaven.”

“Very nice! That’s rather vague. Which Heaven do you mean? There are so many kinds!”

“But…the Heaven from which you fell,” Merlin went on, increasingly troubled.

“Say Paradise then, if you dare!” his father replied, in a thunderous voice.

“Yes, Paradise.”

At these words, Satan got up, with a gaze in which the pride of ancient days reappeared unalloyed. “Very good, wise Merlin! That’s all of your science? I suspected as much, my dear. The catechism, isn’t it? Life has taught you nothing, nor the tomb. Still bogged down and bewitched by dreams. Well, so be it. Remain buried alive forever in your plastered mummeries.”

And he made as if to leave.

“Know, then,” he added, turning round, “that centuries of centuries can accumulate on your father’s head, but he will never be reconciled with the angels; they’ve been too superb. I’ll even tell you that I respire here a vague odor of figs, which reminds me of Adam and Eve in Eden—and that resemblance alone, even if it were only a fantasy, would make me flee to the other extremity of the world. Would you be their imitator, by chance? Adieu, Merlin. If that’s what you have to say to me, it’s all over.”

Often, on a beautiful day in April, the joy of those who had hoped for a better season in suddenly deceived. Over a blue, limpid sky one first sees a grayish mist extend. Slowly, quietly, snow covers the embalmed ground. Everything that had blossomed prematurely is gripped by an icy hand. The reddening buds of the wild plum tree are crowned with a down of frost. The cups of the anemones fill to the brim with snowflakes and hailstones, instead of the dew they were expecting. The surprised birds, who had sensed the breath of spring, taken back to yesterday, try to sing to disarm the old winter—but in vain. After a few hesitant notes, they are constrained to remain silent. How they regret then having quit too soon their leafy houses beneath a more indulgent sky.

It was thus that Merlin repented, for the second time, of having hoped too soon for his father’s conversion. He regretted his premature joy and felt vanquished by one more powerful than himself. Before renouncing his greatest hope, however, he made a supreme effort.

“Wait, Father! There’s some misunderstanding here, I assure you. You know that in youth, one brings too absolute a judgment to everything. Let’s reread the Bible together with a calmer mind. I swear in advance that you’ll savor its beauties. A mind as great and just as yours can’t allow itself to be governed by an ill-considered hatred.”

“Ill-considered! Don’t ask anything that’s incompatible with my dignity. I’ll never consent to another blow. Since you’ve reminded me of the accursed days, all the ancient evil has reawakened in me.”

Seeing his father hardening, already blocking his ears, Merlin hazarded to say: “You might at least convert to philosophy.”

At that suggestion, Satan softened slightly, and muttered between his teeth: “I’ve always thought that it might be possible to reach an understanding on that terrain. Go on, then—talk! Explain yourself.”

“My dear Father, have you read The Philosophy of Nature by the celebrated doctor and enchanter Benedict?”164

“Yes, I scanned it one evening, by the light of my furnaces. I’m talking about the first edition, because I’m told that the second is completely changed since the author became a counselor.”

“And how did it seem to you? It proves that God began by being the Devil.”

“I liked that very passage; it was good. On that basis, I can, without dishonor, reconcile myself with philosophy. I couldn’t with the Church, without letting myself down.” In a more bitter tone, striking the earth with his foot, he went on: “Tell me, my son, between us, do you know the great Pan, with the hairy heart and a club-foot like mine. It’s him I’d rather deal with, not his people. Go find him. After you, he’s the only one I can trust.”

“It’s a long time since I saw him last, Father. I’ve heard that he’s dead.”

“Dead! Great Pan! Get away! He’ll bury both of us.”

Merlin, with a foresight that marked his wisdom better than words would have done, had composed an abstract of the principal philosophies of nature. He had written that book on a beautiful virgin parchment, embellished with drawings depicting intermingled flowers and birds in almost infinite number. Taking the volume from beneath his cloak, he offered it to his father.

The latter received it complaisantly, and from that moment on, not a day passed when you would not have been able to encounter him on the edge of a precipice, his eyes fixed on one of the pages of the volume. He only closed it to meditate; when, by chance, he opened his mouth, it was always to cry: “No, no, no!” until he ran out of breath.

Then Hell shivered, and many demons said: “What is our leader thinking about, then? Truly, he reads too much. He’ll betray us too, you’ll see.”

Meanwhile, darkness enveloped him and shadows marched by his side. Like an immense, confused, nameless crowd pressing around a traveler at the gate of a city, the shadows hampered him at every step. From that multitude, a confused murmur emerged:

“Where is he going?”

“What does he want?”

“He’s stopping!”

“Is he deaf?”

“Is he going to disown us?”

“He’s going away.”

“He’s coming back.”

“Let’s crawl toward him.”

“Let’s darken his heart.”

“This way!”

“No, further on!”

“There he is!”

“Leave me alone,” said their king.

“What, leave you!” replied the darkness, in chorus. “Are we not your counselors? Your soul, you know, is made in our image, your thoughts are full of us. O King, you borrowed almost everything from us. We live in a crowd in the utmost depths of your heart. How, then, can we separate ourselves from you? Thanks to our faithful troop, whom you torture, you’ve never seen the horror of that abyss. Oh, if you had looked it in the face, like us, would you be able to live there?”

“Leave me alone,” the sovereign of the darkness replied, again. “Go away! Let me gaze just once, alone with it, into the depths of the gulf.”

At these words, the flocks of shadows withdrew. They fled heavily, confusedly, crawling, looking back continually, because they still hoped that their master might recall them. He did nothing of the sort.

For the first time, he saw, without a veil, face to face, the abyss in which he lived. He was frightened by it.

 

IV

 

“Come back, Merlin, come back! I’m afraid!” howled the king of Hell.

Merlin ran to his father. He found him foaming, mouth agape, trembling in every limb.

“The darkness knows where I am, my son. Its shadows will denounce me. Do you now a place more deserted than this one? I’ll retire to it.”

“There is none, except for the abbey of Prester John.”

“Precisely. A hundred times over, I’ve had the desire to cloister myself there for a season. Only prejudice has stopped me.”

The conclusion was that Satan would go to make his retreat far from evil tongues, in the abbey that he was obstinate in calling a Pantheon. During that time, the worlds would lose track of him. He would finally be able to realize the project of solitude that had become dearer to him every day.

Satan left. He went to ring at the door of the monastery, to which the most opposed roads led. He was received without ceremony, without astonishment, as was the custom with regard to all pilgrims. In addition, there was no sordid haste. No one even asked him who his god was. He was taken to a cell where everything had been prepared for him in advance.

“You’re doubtless the pilgrim that Merlin told me to expect a long time ago?” said Prester John.

“The same.”

“That’s sufficient, my brother. Go in.”

Without adding anything, Prester John bowed and withdrew.

Left alone, Merlin’s father opened the window. Half way down the mountain, a waterfall made a chamois leap to reach the opposite bank. Its noise, deadened by the narrow funnel, faded into a dull, stifled sound at the foot of rocks stacked up into towers, ruins and black peaks, overlaid with a network of snowfields that had not yet melted.

“How cool this place is!” said the pilgrim of Hell, filling his lungs with the humid balsamic breath of the valley. “Above all, what tolerance! Merlin didn’t deceive me.”

The next day, and the following days, he was astonished to live as he wished in the abbey without anyone ever asking him what he thought, much less what he believed. It was dispute that had exasperated him most of all. His ancient arguments with the angels and the seraphim had irritated him to the point that he had thrown himself into the most opposed opinions. As Heaven had thundered, he had roared in Hell, and that eternal dispute had resulted in embittering him to the point of denaturing him. Left to himself, far from the world, when he saw that he was unknown in this place where no one opposed him, he could not help reflecting; and as he had a powerful intelligence, that first reflection had an immense influence on the projects he formed. Every day he felt his hatred decrease, as the opportunities to exercise it were increasingly lacking.

Certainly, he did not become an ideal of virtue, abnegation and sanctity. I would be wrong to say so. But his humor became gradually milder; that is undeniable.

In any case, he thought, I’m given space here. People don’t take much notice of my existence, it’s true, but at least they don’t contest with me. Have I ever demanded anything else?

Sometimes, it must be admitted, at the fall of dusk, and especially during the night, the appetite for darkness came back to him with an inexpressible violence. He tossed and turned furiously in his bed. The solitude that he had desired so much weighed upon him now. He would have liked to fill the universe again. He was afraid of being forgotten, and was already accusing the world of ingratitude. Then he summoned the darkness. Immediately, its shadows pressed around him, and conversations took place between them and him that woke the brothers of the abbey with a start.

“What’s wrong, Brother?” they said, gathering at the door. “Are you having a bad dream? We’ll sit up with you if you like.”

“It’s up to me to keep vigil,” said Prester John. He sat down then at the pilgrim’s bedside and waited with him until dawn appeared.

As soon as the bells began to ring, a frisson gripped the new brother. He was close to yielding to the desire to plunge himself back into Hell.

“I’d only have to want it! I’d find myself on the throne of darkness again. I’d reign again…but over whom?”

That last thought calmed him down. The assurance of being able to grip the world again, whenever he wanted to, took away the desire to do it.

Certainly, it was a terrible things for him to hear, every morning, the prayers of the monks. His entire being shivered; but as their antiphons mingled with the verses of the Koran, the Zend-Avesta and the Vedas, he breathed more easily. The Mohammedans consoled him for the Christians, the Parsees for the Mohammedans, the Brahmins for the Parsees. Each religion gave him relief from the others. Deep down, his old personal hatred of Jehovah was soothed. He delighted in the enjoyment of seeing that he had so many rivals.

“As long as he doesn’t rule alone, without division and without trouble, I’m content,” he murmured.

That sentiment was not the best; it was the lassitude of evil rather than the love of good.

He was seen more than once fishing in the torrent with a net or a line, with the other brothers, so much had peace become welcome to him day by day. He also cultivated a little garden enclosed by horns, which he filled with lettuces. More often than not, his hood was pushed back from his face. He spoke rarely, with discretion, only when he was asked a question, which almost never happened.

One day, he had the whim of celebrating his funeral. He lay down in a coffin and the inhabitants of the abbey filed past him in procession, singing the mass for the dead; after which he sat up and said: “Fortunate are those who can die.”

Another day, in the cloister, as darkness was falling, he was walking with Prester John.

“Excuse me, Father,” he said. “Are you not great Pan? It’s strange how you resemble him.”

“What folly, my brother! You think too much. Be careful; you’ll catch a fever.”

“Show me your feet under the robe, that I might kiss them.”

“No, my brother; that’s excessive humility.”

 

V

 

In the corner of the tomb there was an obscure, misty place cluttered with pale creepers and nocturnal flowers, where Merlin felt more buried than anywhere else. At first he only approached it with horror, but, having familiarized him with the vapors of the sepulcher, he visited that place every time he wanted to collect himself more intimately in death.

In spite of his frequent retreats into that place, he had never noticed a vast, massive door, as if intended for a giant, so narrowly sealed was it into the living rock. One evening, however, he saw it, and a dazzling light insinuating itself through the crack at the height of the vault. When he had pushed the door, it opened of its own accord, noisily, as if thunder were rumbling over its hinges, and he found himself in the realm of the Lightning.

He called out and asked: “Who is living so close to me in my tomb?”

A voice emerged from the bowels of the earth, replying: “ME! I’m the hidden god. When you passed over the earth, I was in the clouds. I was on the heights of Lebanon while you were in the valley. I was seated on the ecliptic when you contemplated the stars. Now that you’re in the tomb, I live beyond death.”

Merlin fell prostrate to the ground. He veiled his eyes and cried out: “Spare me, Lord. Don’t trample the worm. I’ve searched for you among the living, but among too many other thoughts, and I only glimpsed you from afar, in the twilight, obliquely, when your mantle was trailing in the clouds. Often, your voice called to me. ‘Come back, come back!’ said the echo. But I closed my ears, fearing that you were setting an ambush for me. And the hypocrite who always had your name in his mouth caused me to flee far away from you. Finally, I discover you alone in the depths of the sepulcher. It’s not too late, Lord.”

God replied: “It’s now in the sepulcher that I please myself, and there isn’t one where I’m not resident. The universe is profaned; I’ve withdrawn from it. I no longer reside outside in the tottering heavens, nor on human lips. I’ve renounced all the tents deployed at the entrance to the desert and the pavilions erected in the clouds. But everywhere there’s something secret, I live in its greatest secrecy; if there were one more remote than death. I’d like to reside there.”

Thus Merlin learned that he had become the host of the Eternal, and he conversed with him, without dreading the noise of drowsy thunder. A sacred familiarity had banished terror. It was no longer the formidable voice of the Elohim. It was, beside subterranean springs, the murmur of the hidden God, which let its secret escape into the wisest ear of all.

Merlin’s guest went on:

“Do you know Behemoth and Leviathan? Did you encounter them on earth? What were they doing? I’m content to have formed them with my hands; they remain faithful to me, celebrating my immutable power.

“Surely Behemoth is amusing himself today in the damp places that I instructed him to inhabit; he won’t want to change them. Is Leviathan thinking about emerging from the depths of the sea, where I placed him with my hand, and wandering in the waterless deserts?

“Have you encountered the wild ox in Armorica? Can he no longer make use of his cloven feet or ruminate, lying down in the oak forest?

“Have you seen the horse insult his flanks and covet the vulture’s wings?

“Have you seen the vulture envying the skinny scales that I gave the crocodile, on the day when I placed him in the river?

“No, they haven’t spoken ill of me when you passed by. If that’s not the case, say so! Speak! Repeat their accusations; I’ll listen to them and do them justice.

“Have you visited the eagle on the mountain? Surely that one hasn’t wearied of chasing his booty, wings outstretched, since the first hour, and he isn’t saying: ‘Why isn’t my prey prepared for me in my shelter, without my having to pursue it and tear it apart with my beak?’

“Speak! Talk! Have you found yourself face to face with the lion, in the early morning, when he quits his lair, mouth bloody? Assuredly that one hasn’t denied me. He’s roared as I taught him to roar; he calls me by my name, as in the days of Moses, in the cave of Horeb.

“Have you encountered the elephant as he moves like a hill of clay? Has he forgotten how to make use of the trunk I gave him to uproot oaks and trample reeds? No! You’ve seen him. He doesn’t criticize me; he remembers my commandment.

“Have you walked in the narrow path of the scarab? Has he looked up at you?  Does he no longer remember his borer, with which to dig in the soil and bark impregnated with morning dew?

“Ephemera—have you conversed with the population of the ephemera? What do they say? Have they complained about me? But no, your eyes weren’t able to see them, because they’re so small. But I can see them from here, with the same magnitude as Leviathan. Not one of them, in retreat in its abysm of pettiness, has spoken ill of the one who made them invisible.

“All of them remember my laws; my speech still resounds in their ears, so well that none of them speaks ill of it or tries to avoid it. I rejoice in having extracted them from nothingness.

“But human beings have not done what I told them to do. They have forgotten my ways. I repent of having created them and of having extended the earth beneath their feet.

“I attached their heads vertically on their shoulders in order that they could look at higher things. Why do they conduct themselves in the manner of the crawling beasts, forgetting to address themselves to the heavens?

“I’ve shaped the arches of their brows in order that they might set the seal of innocence upon it, and they’ve made it the dwelling of pride. I’ve engraved my thought in the membranes of their brain, like a scribe writing on virgin parchment. Why have they erased what I’ve written in the marrow of their bones?

“I’ve put my intelligence on their lips in order that they might expand in joy, and they’ve turned it to jeering and homicide.

“Have I not freed their tongues in order that they might publish the truth? They’ve published lies.

“I’ve given them two eyes that see inside, in order that they might perceive justice; they’ve gazed at iniquity.

“That’s why I repent of ever having given my breath to their nostrils. Why didn’t I consign them to oblivion as soon as they appeared on the face of the earth? Their mouths wouldn’t given birth to lies. Their false promises wouldn’t have been able to soil the aurora, which I made so pure. They wouldn’t have saddened the dusk, by conceiving crime, and the night, by carrying it out. Now, where can I descend to the earth? It’s stained everywhere by Abel’s blood.

“If I descend into the gulf, hypocrisy is already seated there in my place. I’m tired of seeing it deified everywhere instead of what is due to me. I, who made them with my own hands, am thinking about unmaking them.”

Merlin replied: “Before that day comes, Lord, grant me my father’s pardon.”

God continued: “His eternal torment was due to me, and you’re the only one who has dared to plead for him. Only let him repent.”

Then Merlin withdrew, searching his heart to discover how he could complete his father’s conversion. He carried away a radiance on his brow, and said to everything he encountered in his sepulcher: “Oh, how good it is to reside here. The Eternal is my guest.”

 

Enough! Enough, my book! It’s here that it’s necessary to finish. I can’t smile anymore; and what’s the use of talking to a deaf, enemy world that stops its ears? Let’s expel the hope that has amassed in my heart, in spite of me, and wants to burst forth. Let’s put a triple seal here. Let’s shut up...

Yes, if another word escapes me, let it at least be the last!