|
"That's what it is, isn't it?" I asked fearfully. "It's . . . it's a placewhere you learn to understand what you've done to another being...
where you come to realize the suffering you've inflicted on others!""Yes, and it is terrible. I created it and I run it to make wholeagain the souls of the just and the unjust, those who had suffered andthose who had done cruelty. And the only lesson of that Hell isLove."I was frightened, as frightened as I had been when we went intoJerusalem.
"He loves my souls when they come to Him," said Memnoch.
"And He sees each one as a justification of His Way!"I smiled bitterly.
"War is magnificent to Him, and disease is like the color purple inHis eyes, and self-sacrifice seems to Him a personal magnification ofHis Glory! As if He's ever done it! He tries to overwhelm me withnumbers. In the name of the cross, more injustice has beenperpetrated than for any other single cause or emblem or philosophy orcreed on Earth.
"And I empty Hell so fast, soul by soul, by speaking truth aboutwhat humans suffer and humans know and what humans can do thatmy souls go flooding through His gates.
"And who do you think comes into Hell feeling most cheated?
Most angry and unforgiving? The child who died in a gas chamber inan extermination camp? Or a warrior with blood up to his elbowswho was told that if he exterminated the enemies of the state hewould find his place in Valhalla, Paradise, or Heaven?"I didn't answer. I was quiet, listening to him, watching him.
He sat forward, commanding my attention even more deliberately,and as he did he changed, changed before my eyes from theDevil, goat-legged, cloven-hoofed beast-man, to the angel,Memnoch, Memnoch in his loose and unimportant robe, his fair eyesbeaming at me beneath his golden scowling brows.
"Hell is where I straighten things out that He has made wrong,"he said. "Hell is where I reintroduce a frame of mind that might haveexisted had suffering never destroyed it! Hell is where I teach menand women that they can be better than He is.
"But that's my punishment, Hell梖or arguing with Him, that Imust go there and help the souls to fulfill their cycle as He sees it,that I must live there with them! And that if I don't help them, if Idon't school them, they may be there forever!
"But Hell is not my battlefield.
"The earth is my battlefield. Lestat, I fight Him not in Hell buton Earth. I roam the world seeking to tear down every edifice He haserected to sanctify self-sacrifice and suffering, to sanctify aggressionand cruelty and destruction. I lead men and women from churchesand temples to dance, to sing, to drink, to embrace one another withlicense and love. I do everything I can to show up the lie at the heartof His religions! I try to destroy the lies He's allowed to grow as theUniverse Unfolds Itself.
"He is the only one who can enjoy suffering with impunity! Andthat's because He's God and He doesn't know what it means and Henever has known. He's created beings more conscientious and lovingthan Himself. And the final victory over all human evil will comeonly when He is dethroned, once and for all, demystified, ignored,repudiated, thrown aside, and men and women seek for the good andthe just and the ethical and the loving in each other and for all.""They're trying to do that, Memnoch! They are!" I said. "That'swhat they mean when they say they hate Him. That's what Dorameant when she said 'Ask Him why He allows all this!' When shemade her hands into fists!""I know. Now, do you want to help me fight Him and his Cross ornot?
"Will you go with me from Earth to Heaven to that filthy Hell ofpainful recognition, filthy with its obsession with His suffering! Youwill not serve me in one place or the other or the other. But in allthree. And like me, you may soon come to find Heaven just about asunbearable in its pitch as Hell. Its bliss will make you eager to healthe evil He has done, you will seek Hell to work on those torturedconfused souls, to help them up from the morass and into the Light.
When you're in the Light you can't forget them! That's what itmeans to serve me."He paused, then he asked:
"Do you have the courage to see it?""I want to see it.""I warn you, it's Hell.""I am just beginning to imagine. ...""It won't exist forever. The day will come when either the worlditself is blown to pieces by His human worshippers or when all whodie are Illuminated and surrender to Him, and go straight into Hisarms.
|
