Dialogues With the Devil

by Taylor Caldwell

  I, too, have listened to the bold women op Terra and felt my own alarm, where you feel only gratification. They are far worse than their men, whom they have made timid. They do not desire sexual fulfillment for what it was intended, the coming together of profound love between a man and a woman, and the creation of children. No, they insistently proclaim, and in loud and emphatic voices, that they desire sexual experience to enlarge, they say, or develop, their personalities. Their meager, wan, colorless personalities, sunless and juiceless! They do not care for sexual encounters even for the pleasure of them, for there is little substance in them to feel pleasure. (Alas, I am writing almost as you write.) No, sensuality is something to be pursued grimly to “enhance the life experiment and examination.” What a most dreary goal! Moreover, they are incapable of the examination of anything, even their own small emotions, and a true experiment would appall them.

  But even among these odd and curiously sexless creatures there do live true women, who are aghast at their sisters, though you would dispute the thought. You dismiss virtue as negligible and of no consequence. On the other hand, the vice on Terra seems to me to be particularly pallid and of no originality. Perhaps therein lies the real danger for Terra. Her vice creates apathy or aimless violence. Even the sturdy and unimaginative Romans had more liveliness than the present races, and Greece surpassed them all. Still, there are a multitude of good women in Terra, in hidden places of prayer, in the hospitals, and in the harsh cities. They do not scream for “the full and meaningful and gracious life,” as their less intelligent sisters do, for they know that the business of living on that sad little world is in the main sheer drudgery and weary days, with few episodes of bliss and few prolonged excitements. Life, they acknowledge to themselves, is composed of constant little burdens and anxieties and toil and grief and monotonously vanquished hope. They find meaning in their faith, in the carrying of their daily lot, in their service and their love, and they discover graciousness in the wayside flower or in the first rays of the sun on cold brick or stone. They are the true and gentle adventurers, who make of Terra a frequently tolerable planet even for their abandoned and ugly sisters. The merciful love of Mary hovers over such women, for she knows their intrepid character in the face of humdrum living and depressing events. They do their duty, and that is their crown, as faith is their glory. They pray for the peace of simple days, while their trousered sisters’ stride the streets and bellow. Even the most depraved of Roman women had some beauty, but these do not. Alas, again, I appear to be echoing your own words!

  Yes, I well remember your seduction of Mercury and Venus, and what transpired upon them. Those were days of grief to us—and I suspect, days of grief to you. They were so lovely, far more lovely than Terra. But man and you together destroyed them. In the hours as we count them, and not as men’s eons, they will fall into the sun and be consumed.

  I have heard men on Terra jeer at the “conspiratorial theory of history.” Yet all their history has been conspiracy—between you and them. What other history could there be? Events do no fall upon men; men create them through their governments and their politicians. Terror does not descend upon them from the skies, out of a nothingness. They plot it, themselves. Are not wars always conspired in secret and loosed upon the people with noble slogans, so that they will agree to fight, and die, and not complain? What nation can ever justly claim that it fought a holy war or a war of liberation? History refutes such fantasies. Wars are inevitably fought out of self-imposed fear, hatred, greed for riches, conquest, man-made exultation, or madness. Yet, there has never been a nation on Terra which did not shout that its cause was glorious and just, and that it actually fought for peace and not for war, for liberty and not for slavery. They have cried this through the ages, and they cry it still, and there lies the seed of their universal death. It is you who give them the heroic words that lead to destruction; it is you who arm them. But they deny your existence which, as you have once said, was your greatest triumph among men. Ah, destroyer of men, will they never recognize you for what you are?

  My brothers tell me that you are watching Heaven closely of late, to observe our comings and goings. What is it that you fear, or what is it that arouses your curiosity, much more intense than usual? I, too, once saw your shadow fall on the shining battlements of Heaven, and I pondered. Forgive the analogy, but you appear as a great snuffing dog at a shut door, who suspects and dimly snarls, and wonders. I know what it is that you fear, and you know that I know, and you would have me betray some secret in an unguarded moment. If there is some secret, Lucifer, I shall not tell you. Nor could I, for not even the archangels know.

  But I will write of other things, and one is most sorrowful. I have seen your final triumph on Lencia, that mighty and spectacular planet for which I once had such hopes. The race was particularly intelligent and graceful, and inclined to peace. In truth, Lencia had had only one war in her long history, and the very thought of it inspired execrations. Her cities were white and clean, for her universal climate was warm, beneath the benign rays of Betelgeuse, brightest star in the constellation of Orion. Though variable, blazing more fiercely at times than at others, and multiple, his light is golden-scarlet and vivid and fructifying. His kiss can be fierce as well as gentle, and so Our Father created special clouds for those occasions in order to protect the forty daughters of that sun, and their multitude of moons. And Lencia was the largest of those daughters, unfortunate planet, dying child of her father!

  From the beginning, even after their fall, the men of Lencia were sincerely concerned with the welfare of their fellows, and this is the reason that Lencia had only one war. As the race was intellectual, though clouded by you, her artists and scientists and architects and engineers designed the most elegant cities I have ever seen, free of filth and pollution. They tended the yellow and crimson and violet countryside with meticulous care, not only for its fruit but to preserve its beauty. Their great pointed mountains flamed with the light of the sun, like torches held to Heaven, and they were the color of bright blood. The seas appeared to be of liquid nacre, fugitive with soft color, and her rivers were brilliant purple. Though the earth was mined for its metals and its oils and its minerals, no scars were permitted to remain, but were screened by lavender trees like huge sprays of feathers, in which grew globed fruits of gold or ivory.

  There were no evil spots of gloom or misery or ugliness or decay on Lencia, for the men were industrious and had pride and were revolted by any slight hideousness. All must be harmonious, serene, pleasant to the eye and to the ear, the touch and the taste. The centuries came and departed on Lencia’s long orbit about her father, and children were born only when desired, for the men of Lencia were prudent and disciplined themselves. It was hard to believe that Lencia had, in the far past, fallen, for all was so beautiful and melodious, and men were involved in each other.

  That was your opportunity. Out of calm you create fury; out of order you create chaos. Yes, it is true that you can do these things only with the anxious and eager participation of man, but still I grieve.

  When Lencia fell her sisters were forbidden to visit her, and she was alone among her family, for, fallen, she could corrupt them. Still, it took you many centuries to fulfill your wrath against that great and delightful planet. You did it through the very virtue of the men of Lencia, who still remembered Our Father and did not totally reject Him. But when virtue is carried to excess it becomes an evil thing, and mortally dangerous.

  As fallen men are invariably prideful and wish to exalt themselves, you whispered to the more intelligent men of Lencia that they should rule her absolutely, for her own good. It was they who should design her destiny, and control all other men. Lencia had no kings, no emperors; she had only republics, ruled by men who were as just as their fallen nature would allow. But now you inspired a few men with the lust for power, yet they did not call it that. They called it “working, for the common weal, and the expansion of justice for all.” They had immense de
signs, but it was you who invented them. Though Lencia was clean and her air pure, there were still times when the hot light of Betelgeuse heated the cities uncomfortably, and burned the countryside and drained the rivers, though always they were rescued by the clouds of Our Father Who sent rain. But this, said the lusters of Lencia, was a crude and an entirely natural solution. They would control the climate, through the work and designs of their scientists and engineers—but first they must control the people, who might overthrow the plans of their masters-to-be if prematurely informed of them.

  The people of Lencia had always been free. They assumed freedom to be a normal state of affairs, and were never troubled at any dream of loss. It was as natural as the air they breathed, and their rulers never spoke of “liberty.” It was there. But men of pride come to hate liberty for all—and you told them it was unnatural that their lesser fellows should enjoy what they enjoyed, and with such complacency. Too, humbler men needed their destiny planned for them, instead of living placidly and industriously through their years in a casual fashion. “To what heights can Lencia not aspire, if her future is controlled and ordered!” you said to the men of pride. “And who is worthier to control her than you, great of intellect, seeking only the welfare of your world and your brothers? How they will honor you and bow before you, calling you saviours and heroes and benefactors, and rejoicing in your thrones!”

  Fallen men love thrones. It is their ecstasy. Pomp and circumstance are their ultimate desires. Power is their dream. So, they conspired together—with you. Certainly, they had rejected the idea of your existence, but you were the more potent for that. You aroused no suspicion. You gave the lusters of Lencia a slogan for the enslavement of their planet: The Great Destiny. What men are not thrilled at the thought of a unique destiny? The people listened. When the lusters came together the people were notified that mighty schemes were in the process of discussion, and hints were given of incomparable events. The people were excited, and not in the least afraid, though unseen by them I walked among them, whispering warnings. Very few became uneasy, and even those lacked the words to express their unease, for they knew nothing but the climate of freedom. I told them in the dimly anxious midnight that vile, not good, events were about to transpire, and that they should shout the alarm and voice their mistrust. But they lacked the words, and you were careful that they should not hear them at all.

  The first act of the destroyers of Lencia was to design and bring to actuality a method to free the cities from the “vagaries of nature.” The five billion inhabitants nodded wisely, though never before had they considered nature their enemy. But it was their benefactors who had spoken, had they not, and did they not know more than the man in the street? So the scientists spun vast domes of a glassy material to enclose the cities and “protect” them both from rain, and from the heat of the sun. The people watched their transparent prison rise over their heads and their tall white buildings, and smiled with satisfaction. When the storms did come, and the occasional fierce heat, they laughed with pleasure. For now, under the domes there was a constant flow of cool dry air, and the children could play untouched by rain, unscorched by heat, and unthreatened by lightning. Each man could come and go without casting a thoughtful eye on the sky. The climate was controlled.

  Only those who tilled the land and tended the animals lived outside those domes, and as they were not many—the men of Lencia having invented machines which almost worked the land by themselves—the destroyers did not fear the few beyond the cities. They knew that men of the earth are by nature unsuspecting and peaceful, and not easily dismayed or aroused.

  To “protect” the people from disease, said the destroyers, they must never again leave the cities for the countryside, which teemed with “deathly bacteria.” They would live far longer lives, and their children would not die, as often as they did, of illnesses which were “preventable.” Above all, they must consider their children, who were of the largest consequence to Lencia. The people amiably nodded. Their cities held all the amusements necessary for them, and the streets were lined with trees and there were magnificent parks and gardens filled with flowers where they could sit in leisure and peace—under the glassy domes. The people did not even start or ponder when guards appeared at the borders of the domes, and bronze doors were inserted in new, white high walls on which the domes rested.

  So, the people were prisoners. But like all prisoners they exalted their jailers, and honored them for the “welfare” which they had brought to the citizens of Lencia, in sedulous love for their health and their lives. Each enormous city had its ten men—the Counselors—and above these powerful ten was the Master, the most profound humanity—lover of them all. When their rulers left the cities it was only on “missions concerned with agriculture, and the greater productivity of the land.” The people did not know that their jailers had beautiful palaces in the quiet countryside, where they gathered together to plot further against the innocent, and to enjoy themselves in the free air, and to indulge themselves in new strange vices which you demonstrated to them.

  It was so all over Lencia, for destroyers are of one mind. The ships of commerce came to harbors empty of all but those who unloaded and loaded them. The rivers no longer were red with sails of pleasure-seekers, except for the rulers. “It is good; it is charming; it is as it should be,” said the jailers. “We alone deserve liberty. We are the Elect, and our children shall marry only among themselves and inherit what we have built for them, and be masters and kings in their turn. And, in turn, the people will bow before our sons and our daughters and obey them meekly, as their fathers do now to us. We shall keep our blood pure from the grossness of our slaves, and we shall be another race, unstained by any weakness of the body or fault of the mind, and in time our very lineaments will be far different from the faces of those we rule.”

  Liberty is loved only when it is lost. The few on Lencia who had felt uneasy from the beginning, but had had no words, now shouted forth that the world had been betrayed, that freedom was dead, and that the people, if they were to survive as men and not as chained animals, must rise in their might, overthrow their masters and rid themselves of the sterile domes of their happy imprisonment. They must be at liberty to come and go as they willed, and not at the command of the Elect.

  But it was too late. The shouters for freedom were seized and quietly killed, for their rulers were always alert for such as these. Their names were given in infamy to the people. They would withhold Lencia’s Great Destiny from her. Were not the children safer and did not their numbers increase, and was there not only comfort and quiet and sanctuary and happiness in the cities, and had not disease almost disappeared? Did any pant in the heat, or fear the storms any longer? “It is true,” said the people. “The shouters were our enemies.” Only their families mourned them, but in fear they did not speak.

  Now the rulers moved faster and faster. The people must not be on the streets—for their own good—after a certain hour. There were to be no more elections, even of the Ten, for the supremely wise Masters would choose them. It was a saving of money. There would be no disputations about new laws and so no confusion among the citizens. All would be decided, and planned, for their welfare, in the secret places of the planet. As all must work for the Great Destiny each man’s work would be assigned him for life, and he could not leave it. Wiser ones than he would choose what he should do for the benefit of all. The wise desired only peace and plenty, progress and contentment for their people, and they knew best. There would be Councils where the mates of men and women would be chosen for them, “for genetic reasons to improve the race.” Marriage would not be permitted without the sanction of the rulers, and the number of children would be decided for each family. The people were a little uncertain about this, and whispered among themselves. They did not know that it was the rulers’ intention to permit only the naturally docile and meek and less intelligent among the masses to breed, so that their own positions and the positions of their child
ren would be forever secured.

  It needed only a quarter of a century for slavery to be entirely imposed on Lencia. Though I walked among the people in various guises and exhorted them, they were numb and staring at the finality of their fate, which they had brought upon themselves—with your conspiracy. You told them that they were truly free, for nothing menaced them, and that their future had been designed for them and they need have no uncertainties or doubts. They had only to accept their Great Destiny with full hearts of gratitude to enjoy long lives of happiness and work and occasional pleasure. Did not the Masters love them?

  Two centuries went by, and it was as the Masters had planned. Their own children did not resemble the children of the people any longer, for their mating had been carefully arranged by their parents to enhance desirable qualities of beauty, strength and intelligence and health. They did not speak the language of the people. In fact, they saw the people only when passing in their closed vehicles to their beauteous estates outside the walls, and they regarded them as animals born only to serve them—which was quite true. And the quality of the people of Lencia declined, and their natures became more simple and brutish, and they had little need of any education, and they died earlier than their Masters for they had been bred out of weakness so that not too many of them would be born, or survive. The Masters had decided on the desirable number, of people that Lencia should maintain.

  The people were safe. Dutifully, almost silently, they obeyed, and never knew the sweetness of rain or the excitement of storm, and never left their home cities and did not know of the rest of the world—which was as enslaved as themselves. They labored, and enjoyed little of the fruits of their labor; they knew no art. Their entombed cities were antiseptic, and so they never caught the fragrance of winds or felt the heat of the fructifying sun. They were well-kept and comfortable beasts of burden, and that was their punishment. Liberty is the Law of God, and it had been heinously violated.