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"Everyone gave their approval. A hut was prepared for us. Peopleran hither and thither gathering the finest skins and furs for us, andthe softest chewed leather, and we were ushered into this place insilence, and I lay back down on the fur beneath me, the skin of amountain goat, long and soft.
" 'God, what do you want me to do!' I asked aloud. There cameno answer. There was only the silence and the darkness in the hut,and then the arms of a Daughter of Men around me, luscious andloving and full of tenderness and passion, that mystery, thatcombination, that purely living miracle, tenderness and lust rolling androlling into one."Memnoch stopped. He seemed exhausted suddenly. He rose andagain walked to the bank of the sea. He stood in the soft sand andpebbles. I saw the outline of his wings flash for a moment, perhapsexactly the way the woman had seen it, and then he was merely thelarge figure, with his shoulders hunched as he stood with his back tome, his face apparently buried in his hands.
"Memnoch, what happened!" I said. "Surely God didn't leave youthere! What did you do? What happened the next morning when youwoke up?"He gave a sigh and turned around finally. He walked slowly backto the boulder, and sat down again.
"By morning, I had known her a half dozen times and lay halfdead, and that in itself was another lesson. But I had no thoughtwhatsoever on what I might do. While she'd slept, I had prayed toGod, I had prayed to Michael and to the other angels. I had prayedand prayed, asking what I should do.
"Can you guess who answered me?" he asked.
"The souls in Sheol," I said.
"Yes, precisely! Those are the spirits who answered. How couldyou know? Those are the spirits梩he strongest souls of Sheol whoheard my prayers to the Creator and heard the impetus and essenceof my cries and my excuses and my pleas for mercy and forgivenessand understanding梙eard all of it, absorbed it, drank it up, as theydid the spiritual yearnings of their human and living children. And bythe time the sun rose, by the time all the men of the group had startedto gather, I knew one thing only:
"Whatever happened to me, whatever was the will of God, thesouls of Sheol would never be the same! They had learnt too muchfrom the voice of this Angel fallen into Matter who had thoughtlesslycried to Heaven and to God.
"Of course the full impact didn't hit me. I didn't sit there reasoningit out. The strongest souls had had their first glimpse of Paradise.
They knew now of a Light which made an Angel weep and beg indesperation, because he was afraid he would never see that Lightagain. I didn't think of it. No.
"God had left me here. That is what I thought. God had left me. Iwent out into the crowd. The encampment was overflowing. In fact,men and women were coming from all the nearby encampments tosee me.
"And we had to leave the enclosure and go out into the open, intoone of the fields. Look down to the right, where the land slopes? Yousee down there where the field spreads out and the water turns....""Yes.""That's where we gathered. And it was soon clear that all of thesemen and women were expecting something of me, that I speak, that Iwork marvels, that I sprout wings, something, but what I didn'tknow. As for Lilia, she clung to me as ever, enticing and beautiful,and filled with vague wonder.
"Together we climbed onto that rock ... you see there, the bouldersleft there by the glaciers millions of years ago. There. Weclimbed up and she sat down and I stood before these people, andthen I looked to Heaven and I opened my arms.
"With all my heart, I begged God to forgive me, to take me back,to climax this intrusion with my merciful disappearance, that is, to letme take my angelic shape, invisible, and rise. I willed it, I pictured it,I tried in every conceivable way to assume my former nature. Noluck.
"In the heavens above I saw what men saw. I saw the blue of thesky, and the willowy white clouds blowing eastward, and I saw thefaint daytime moon. The sun hurt my shoulders. It hurt the top of myhead. And something became known to me then in all its horror: thatI was probably going to die in this body! That I had forfeited myimmortality! God had made me mortal and turned his back.
"I thought this over a long time. I'd suspected it from the firstmoment, but now with the haste of a man I became convinced of it.
And in me a deep anger rose. I looked at all these men and women. Ithought of God's words to me, to go with those I had chosen, withthe flesh I preferred to Heaven. And a decision came into my head.
"If this was to be my finish, if I was to die in this mortal body as allmen die, if some days or weeks or even years were left tome梬hatever this body could hope to survive amid the perils oflife梩hen Imust do with it the very finest thing that I knew. I mustoffer to Godmy finest. I must go out like an Angel, if going out iswhat I had to do!" 'I love you, my Lord,' I said aloud. And I rackedmy brain for the greatest acts I could perform.
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