Whatever fearsome hand had fashioned that mask had known that a snarl is an elongated smile, just as a smile is a modified snarl. The hand had perceived that it was the snarl of the ape that had become the smile of the man, perceived too that, the process of evolution continuing, the smile of the man had passed into the ultra-tender mouth-curving of X.
And now, that smile which was the apex of Nature's efforts, had been remolded, recast, rehammered, and returned into a caricature of itself.
Da Vincelleo was not only a scientist, he was an artist supreme. In that mask he had shown the people of Dafess a reflection of themselves. And he made them see what they had done to X, how they had twisted the face of universal love into an inverted image of their true nature—that of self-love.
The mask was the face of X—reductio ad absurdum.
The gentle curve of nostrils had been expanded into derision, and an almost savage fierceness. The glowing compassion of the eyes had become intense with a flame so hot it made the onlookers wonder how the lashes and brows resisted melting, and running into the cavernous eyesockets.
Yet, though fiery, the lineaments combined into a chilling sight. And as there were thousands of the masks, they contributed to a geometrical progression of terror.
Revanche, though he was safe, felt struck with fear and guilt that had been instilled into him when he was a child.
At that moment an Elder who had been eyeing the nearest X, afraid to go into the ritualistic embrace with it because of its fearsome aspect, suddenly ran to it. He threw himself at its feet, clasped its legs, and howled: "Mercy!"
A deep powerful voice that sounded more like the roar of a motor than anything else answered, "Justice!"
Justice was what the Elder had prayed for all of his life. Now he got it.