“Faith!” Janicot said, rather wistfully. “Ah, there we encounter another fine word, a wonder word: and I admit that your anodyne is potent. But it is not to my taste. However, this wine here is emphatically to my taste. So let us drink!”
“It is a good wine. But it begets a treacherous softness of heart and an unsuitable, a quite un-Hebraic tendency to let bygones be bygones. I mean, unsuitable for one in my service. For, after all, old adversary, without intending any disrespect, of course, we were originally for martial law and military strictness, for smiting hip and thigh when the least thing went wrong: and in spite of our recent coming over to these new Christian doctrines—And, by the way, that reminds me of this sinner here. We seem to keep wandering from the point.”
They had looked toward Florian, who discreetly remained lying back in his chair, watching them between nearly closed lids.
“Indeed, we have so utterly neglected him that he has gone to sleep. So let us drink, and be at ease,” said Janicot, “now that we are relieved of his eavesdropping. This little Florian annoys me, rather. For he makes something too much of logic: so he rebels against your creed of faith and of set laws to be obeyed, asking Why? Did you never hear the creature crying out, Let us be logical! in, of all places, this universe? And he rebels against my creed, which he believes a mere affair of the lingham and the yoni, saying This is not enough. Such men as he continue to dream, my friend, and I confess such men are dangerous: for they obstinately aspire toward a perfectibility that does not exist, they will be content with nothing else; and when your master and I do not satisfy the desire which is in their dreams, they draw their appalling logical conclusions. To that humiliation, such as it is, I answer Drink! For the Oracle of Bacbuc also—that oracle which the little curé of Meudon was not alone in misunderstanding,—that oracle speaks the true wonder word.”
Michael had listened, with one elbow on the table, and with one hand propping his chin. Michael had listened with a queer mingling, in his frank face, of admiration and distrust.
The archangel now slightly raised his head, just free of his hand, and he asked rather scornfully, “But what have we to do with their dreams?”
“A great deal. Men go enslaved by this dream of beauty: but never yet have they sought to embody it, whether in their wives or in their equally droll works of art, without imperfect results, without results that were maddening to the dreamer. Men are resolved to know that which they may whole-heartedly worship. No, they are not bent upon emulating what they worship: it is, rather, that holiness also is a dream which allures mankind resistlessly. But thus far,—by your leave, good Michael,—they have found nothing to worship which bears logical inspection much better than does Hoprig. The dangerous part of all this is that men, none the less, still go on dreaming.”
“They might be worse employed.” Michael himself refilled his cup. “For I could tell you—”
“Pray spare my blushes! Yes, they obstinately go on dreaming. Your master is strong, as yet, and I too am strong, but neither of us is strong enough to control men’s dreams. Now, the dreaming of men—mark you, I do not say of humankind, for women are rational creatures,—has an aspiring which is ruthless. It goes beyond decency, it aspires to more of perfectibility than any god has yet been able to provide or even to live up to. So this quite insane aspiring first sets up beautiful and holy gods in heaven, then in the dock; and, judging all by human logic, decrees this god not to be good enough. Thus their logic has dealt with Baal and Beltane and Mithra; thus it will deal—” Janicot very courteously waved a brown and workmanlike hand. “But let us not dwell upon reflections that you may perhaps find unpleasant. In the meanwhile, me too this human dreaming thrusts aside, as not good enough.”
It was plain that Michael distrusted Janicot in all and yet in some sort admired him most unwillingly. Michael asked, with a reserved smiling, “What follows, O subtle one?”