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"This music had of course already been tinged with somethingdark... dare I say it梩he hesitation or the shadow produced in us bythe Revelation of Death and Decay. And now with the flowers, thisdark element grew even stronger in our songs and exclamations ofwonder and gratitude, for when the flowers died, when they lost theirpetals, when they fell to the earth, it seemed a terrible loss.
"The spark of life had emanated most powerfully from theseflowers, and from the larger trees and plants that were growingeverywhere in profusion; and so the song took on its sombre notes.
"But we were more than ever enthralled with the earth. In fact, Iwould say at this time that the character of Heaven had been changedutterly. All of Heaven, God, the angels in all ranks, were now focusedon the Earth. It was impossible to be in Heaven merely singing toGod as before. The song would have to have something in it aboutMatter and process and beauty. And of course those angels who makethe most complex songs did wind together these elements梔eath,decay, beauty梚nto more coherent anthems than those which camefrom me.
"I was troubled. I had a sleepless mind in my soul, I think. I hadsomething in me which had already become insatiable. ...""Those words, I spoke those words to David when I spoke of you,when you first stalked me," I said.
"They come from an old poem that was sung of me, written inHebrew and now rarely found in translation anywhere in the world.
Those were the words of the Sibylline Oracle when she described theWatchers . . . we angels whom God had sent to observe. She wasright. I liked her poetry, so I remember it. I adopted it in my definitionof myself. God only knows why other angels are more nearlycontent."Memnoch's whole manner had become sombre. I wondered if themusic of Heaven which / had heard included this sombre quality hewas describing to me, or whether its pure joy had been restored.
"No, you hear now the music of human souls in heaven as well asangels. The sounds are completely different. But let me go on quicklythrough the Revelations, because I know that they aren't easy tograsp except as a whole.
"The Fifth Revelation was that of Encephalization. Animals haddifferentiated themselves in the water from plants some time ago,and now these gelatinous creatures were beginning to form nervoussystems and skeletons and with this formation came the process ofencephalization. Creatures began to develop heads!
"And it did not escape our notice for one divine instant that we, asangels, had heads! The thinking processes of these evolving organismswere centered in the head. So it was with us, obviously! No onehad to tell us. Our angelic intelligence knew how we were organized.
The eyes were the giveway. We had eyes, and these eyes were part ofour brains and sight led us in our movements, and in our responses,and in our search for knowledge more than any other sense.
"There was a tumult in heaven. 'Lord,' I said, 'what is happening?
These creatures are developing shapes ... limbs ... heads.' And onceagain the anthems rose, but this time mingled with confusion as wellas ecstasy, fear of God that such things could happen, that fromMatter things could spring which had heads.
"Then even before the reptiles began to crawl out of the sea intothe land, even before that happened, there came the Sixth Revelation,which struck nothing short of horror in me. These creatures,with their heads and their limbs, no matter how bizarre, or various intheir structures, these things had faces! Faces like ours. I mean thesimplest anthropoid had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. This is a face,such as I have! First the head, now the face, the expression ofintelligence within the mind!
"I was aghast! I raised the worst arguments. 'Is this something youwant to happen? Where will this end? What are these creatures? Thespark of life from them grows stronger, flares hotter, and dies hard!
Are you paying attention!' Some of my fellow angels were horrified.
"They said, 'Memnoch, you are pushing God too far! Obviouslythere is a kinship between us, magnificent as we are, the Sons of God,the inhabitants of the bene ha elohim, and these creatures. The head,the face, yes, it's evident. But how dare you challenge the plan ofGod?'
"I couldn't be comforted. I was too full of suspicion, and so werethose who agreed with me. We were puzzled, and back down toEarth we went, persuaded by the earth to wander, to walk. I couldnow measure myself in size by the scale of things as I earliermentioned, and I could lie amongst soft bowers of plants, listening tothem grow and thinking about them, and letting their colors fill myeyes.
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