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.Familiar asif hardwired into my brain.And I refer to everything now even anaked man with crooked legs, hollering and raving, as he passed us,not seeing us, one hand bent on a stick of a cane.Beneath the layers of grit that covered all, I was surrounded byforms and styles and manners of behavior I knew intimately fromScripture, from engraving, from embellished illustration, and fromfilm enactment.This was in all its stripped-down, burning-hotglory a sacred as well as familiar terrain.We could see people standing before caves in which they livedhigh on the hills.Here and there little groups sat in the shadebeneath a copse, dozing, talking.A distant pulse came from the walledcities.The air was filled with sand.Sand blew into my nostrils andclung to my lips and my hair.Memnoch had no wings.His robes were soiled and so were mine.I think we wore linen; it was light and the air passed through it.Our robes were long and unimportant.Our skin, our forms, wereunchanged.The sky was vividly blue, and the sun glared down upon me as itmight on any being.The sweat felt alternately good and unbearable.And I thought, fleetingly, how at any other time I might wonder atthe sun alone, the marvel of the sun denied to the Children ofNight but all this time I had not even thought of it, not once,because having seen the Light of God, the Sun had ceased to be thatLight for me. We walked up into the rocky hills, climbing steep paths, andcrossing over outcroppings of rock and ragged tree, and finally thereappeared below and before us a great patch of unwatered sand,burning and shifting slowly in comfortless wind.Memnoch came to a halt at the very threshold of this desert, so tospeak, the place where we would leave the firm ground, rocky anduncomfortable as it was, and pass into the soft drudgery of the sand.I caught up with him, having fallen a little behind.He put his leftarm around me, and his fingers spread out firm and large against myshoulder.I was very glad he did, because I was feeling a predictableapprehension; in fact, a dread was building in me, a premonition asbad as any I'd ever known."After He cast me out," Memnoch said, "I wandered." His eyeswere on the desert and what seemed the barren, blazing rocky cliffs inthe distance, hostile as the desert itself."I roamed the way you have often roamed, Lestat.Wingless, andbrokenhearted, I drifted along through the cities and nations of theearth, over continents and wastes.Sometime or other I can tell youall of it, if you wish.It's of no consequence now."Let me say only what is of consequence, that I did not dare tomake myself visible or known to Humankind but rather hid amongstthem, invisible, not daring to assume flesh for fear of angering Godagain; and not daring to join the human struggle under any disguise,for fear of God, and fear of what evil I might bring on humans.Onaccount of the same fears.I didn't return to Sheol.I wanted in noway to increase the sufferings of Sheol.God alone could free thosesouls.What hope could I give them?"But I could see Sheol, I could see its immensity, and I felt thepain of the souls there, and wondered at the new and intricate andever-changing patterns of confusion created by mortals as theydeparted one faith or sect or creed after another for that miserablemargin of gloom."Once a proud thought did come to me that if I did penetrateSheol, I might instruct the souls there so thoroughly that theythemselves might transform it, create in it forms invented by hope ratherthan hopelessness, and some garden might be made of it in time.Certainly the elect, the millions I had taken to Heaven, they hadtransformed their portion of the place.But then what if I failed at this, and only added to the chaos? I didn't dare.I didn't dare, out offear of God and fear of my own inability to accomplish such a dream."I formulated many theories in my wanderings but I did notchange my mind on anything which I believed or felt or had spokento God.In fact, I prayed to Him often, though He was utterly silent,telling Him how much I continued to believe that He had desertedHis finest creation.And sometimes out of weariness I only sung Hispraises.Sometimes I was silent.Looking, hearing.watching."Memnoch, the Watcher, the Fallen Angel."Little did I know my argument with Almighty God was onlybegun.But at a certain time, I found myself wandering back to thevery valleys which I had first visited, and where the first cities of menhad been built."This land for me was the land of beginnings, for though greatpeoples had sprung up in many nations, it was here that I had lainwith the Daughters of Men.And here that I had learnt something inthe flesh which I still held that God did not Himself know."Now, as I came to this place, I came into Jerusalem, which by theway is only six or seven miles west of here, where we now stand."And the times were immediately known to me, that the Romansgoverned the land, that the Hebrews had suffered a long and terriblecaptivity, and that those tribes going back to the very firstsettlements here who had believed in the One God were now underthe foot of the polytheists who did not take their legends with anyseriousness."And the Tribes of Monotheists, themselves, were divided onmany issues, with some Hebrews being strict Pharisees, and othersSadducees, and still others having sought to make pure communitiesin caves in those hills beyond."If there was one feature which made the times remarkable tome that is, truly different from any other it was the might of theRoman Empire, which stretched farther than any empire of the Westwhich I had ever witnessed, and remained somehow in ignorance ofthe Great Empire of China, as if that were not of the same world."Something drew me to this spot, however, and I knew it.I senseda presence here that was not as strong as a summons; but it was as ifsomeone were crying out to me to come here, and yet would not usethe full power of his voice.I must search, I must wander.Maybe thisthing stalked and seduced me as I did you.I don't know. "But I came here, and wandered Jerusalem, listening to what thetongues of men had to say."They spoke of the prophets and holy men of the wilderness, ofarguments over the law and purification and the will of God.Theyspoke of Holy Books and Holy Traditions.They spoke of men goingout to be 'baptized' in water so as to be 'saved' in the eyes of God."And they spoke of a man who had only lately gone into thewilderness after his baptism, because at the moment that he had steppedinto the River Jordan and the water had been poured over him, theskies had opened above this man, and Light had been seen from God."Of course one could hear stories like this all over the world.Itwas not unusual, except that it drew me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Familiar asif hardwired into my brain.And I refer to everything now even anaked man with crooked legs, hollering and raving, as he passed us,not seeing us, one hand bent on a stick of a cane.Beneath the layers of grit that covered all, I was surrounded byforms and styles and manners of behavior I knew intimately fromScripture, from engraving, from embellished illustration, and fromfilm enactment.This was in all its stripped-down, burning-hotglory a sacred as well as familiar terrain.We could see people standing before caves in which they livedhigh on the hills.Here and there little groups sat in the shadebeneath a copse, dozing, talking.A distant pulse came from the walledcities.The air was filled with sand.Sand blew into my nostrils andclung to my lips and my hair.Memnoch had no wings.His robes were soiled and so were mine.I think we wore linen; it was light and the air passed through it.Our robes were long and unimportant.Our skin, our forms, wereunchanged.The sky was vividly blue, and the sun glared down upon me as itmight on any being.The sweat felt alternately good and unbearable.And I thought, fleetingly, how at any other time I might wonder atthe sun alone, the marvel of the sun denied to the Children ofNight but all this time I had not even thought of it, not once,because having seen the Light of God, the Sun had ceased to be thatLight for me. We walked up into the rocky hills, climbing steep paths, andcrossing over outcroppings of rock and ragged tree, and finally thereappeared below and before us a great patch of unwatered sand,burning and shifting slowly in comfortless wind.Memnoch came to a halt at the very threshold of this desert, so tospeak, the place where we would leave the firm ground, rocky anduncomfortable as it was, and pass into the soft drudgery of the sand.I caught up with him, having fallen a little behind.He put his leftarm around me, and his fingers spread out firm and large against myshoulder.I was very glad he did, because I was feeling a predictableapprehension; in fact, a dread was building in me, a premonition asbad as any I'd ever known."After He cast me out," Memnoch said, "I wandered." His eyeswere on the desert and what seemed the barren, blazing rocky cliffs inthe distance, hostile as the desert itself."I roamed the way you have often roamed, Lestat.Wingless, andbrokenhearted, I drifted along through the cities and nations of theearth, over continents and wastes.Sometime or other I can tell youall of it, if you wish.It's of no consequence now."Let me say only what is of consequence, that I did not dare tomake myself visible or known to Humankind but rather hid amongstthem, invisible, not daring to assume flesh for fear of angering Godagain; and not daring to join the human struggle under any disguise,for fear of God, and fear of what evil I might bring on humans.Onaccount of the same fears.I didn't return to Sheol.I wanted in noway to increase the sufferings of Sheol.God alone could free thosesouls.What hope could I give them?"But I could see Sheol, I could see its immensity, and I felt thepain of the souls there, and wondered at the new and intricate andever-changing patterns of confusion created by mortals as theydeparted one faith or sect or creed after another for that miserablemargin of gloom."Once a proud thought did come to me that if I did penetrateSheol, I might instruct the souls there so thoroughly that theythemselves might transform it, create in it forms invented by hope ratherthan hopelessness, and some garden might be made of it in time.Certainly the elect, the millions I had taken to Heaven, they hadtransformed their portion of the place.But then what if I failed at this, and only added to the chaos? I didn't dare.I didn't dare, out offear of God and fear of my own inability to accomplish such a dream."I formulated many theories in my wanderings but I did notchange my mind on anything which I believed or felt or had spokento God.In fact, I prayed to Him often, though He was utterly silent,telling Him how much I continued to believe that He had desertedHis finest creation.And sometimes out of weariness I only sung Hispraises.Sometimes I was silent.Looking, hearing.watching."Memnoch, the Watcher, the Fallen Angel."Little did I know my argument with Almighty God was onlybegun.But at a certain time, I found myself wandering back to thevery valleys which I had first visited, and where the first cities of menhad been built."This land for me was the land of beginnings, for though greatpeoples had sprung up in many nations, it was here that I had lainwith the Daughters of Men.And here that I had learnt something inthe flesh which I still held that God did not Himself know."Now, as I came to this place, I came into Jerusalem, which by theway is only six or seven miles west of here, where we now stand."And the times were immediately known to me, that the Romansgoverned the land, that the Hebrews had suffered a long and terriblecaptivity, and that those tribes going back to the very firstsettlements here who had believed in the One God were now underthe foot of the polytheists who did not take their legends with anyseriousness."And the Tribes of Monotheists, themselves, were divided onmany issues, with some Hebrews being strict Pharisees, and othersSadducees, and still others having sought to make pure communitiesin caves in those hills beyond."If there was one feature which made the times remarkable tome that is, truly different from any other it was the might of theRoman Empire, which stretched farther than any empire of the Westwhich I had ever witnessed, and remained somehow in ignorance ofthe Great Empire of China, as if that were not of the same world."Something drew me to this spot, however, and I knew it.I senseda presence here that was not as strong as a summons; but it was as ifsomeone were crying out to me to come here, and yet would not usethe full power of his voice.I must search, I must wander.Maybe thisthing stalked and seduced me as I did you.I don't know. "But I came here, and wandered Jerusalem, listening to what thetongues of men had to say."They spoke of the prophets and holy men of the wilderness, ofarguments over the law and purification and the will of God.Theyspoke of Holy Books and Holy Traditions.They spoke of men goingout to be 'baptized' in water so as to be 'saved' in the eyes of God."And they spoke of a man who had only lately gone into thewilderness after his baptism, because at the moment that he had steppedinto the River Jordan and the water had been poured over him, theskies had opened above this man, and Light had been seen from God."Of course one could hear stories like this all over the world.Itwas not unusual, except that it drew me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]