I watched him at every line he spoke, and saw the gibe and sneer that marked each sentence.
“You blame them for that which you yourself have formulated.”
“Not I. I blame them for their tawdriness, their mockery, their arrogant vulgarity. It is none of me nor mine.”
“Yet it is the result of your work.”
He laughed scornfully, then answered whimsically, “But God made me. His is the greater sin. For I am like the disrespectful son, who, when accused of ill, speaks of heredity, and blames his father. For I was good until I sinned, and when I sinned I looked into the past life of him who made me, and I found that all was quite respectable and quiet, and the paternal smile still beamed the milder, hiding the devil’s frown which feared detection underneath.”
He stood still looking round and laughing.
“Had they but known my power to smash their Church I think they would have prayed to me instead,” he went on. “I was their God Omnipotent their Lord most merciful, the author of their being and their king. Yet they despised and knew me not. They mocked my power, would not acknowledge me, and prayed to be delivered from my kingdom—licking the very golden dust about my feet the while. Have I not forgiven them time on time? have I not overlooked their follies? Led them gently by the still waters, soothed their stricken consciences, smoothed their guilty paths? Have I not given them gifts for slander, kindness for contempt—and what is my reward? They renounce me—me and all my works—the pomps and vanities of the world I gave them and those delightful pleasures born from flesh. What a thankless office then is mine! I who give all and get nothing but renunciation for all that I have done. Why, even the poorest worm of earth would turn beneath the treatment, and transforming itself into the snake or serpent take God’s voice and utter blasphemy. I, Lucifer, son of the Light, son of the Morning, son of God, an you will, how meek am I become to let mankind walk over me and pry into hell to see my chains and weakness.”
He spoke in that low, contemptuous voice that had the power to cut like knives.
“Therefore,” he continued, “because they renounce me, I renounce them, being but a jealous God, and then I punish them and they say, ‘Nevertheless, not my will but thine,’ and look the other way, so that I am not even held responsible for that, and may torture and torment them as I will.”
“And those who do your will,” said I, “those who do it and swear allegiance to you—what of them?”