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suffered! Just as after! What did the suffering teach Job that he didn't
know before?"
"But how do you make up for it in Hell?"
"I don't begin by telling them that for Him, the human eye expresses
the perfection of creation when it looks with horror upon a
maimed body, just as it expresses the perfection of Creation when it
looks in peace upon a garden.
"And He persists that it's all there. Your Savage Garden, Lestat, is
His version of Perfection. It all evolved from the same seed, and I,
Memnoch, the Devil, fail to see it. I have an angel's simple mind."
"How do you fight Him in Hell and still win Heaven for the
damned, then? How?"
"What do you think Hell is?" he asked. "You must have a surmise
by now."
"First of all, it is what we call purgatory," I said. "No one is
beyond redemption. I understood from your argument on the
battlefield. So what must the souls of Hell suffer to be fully qualified for
Heaven?"
"What do you think they should suffer?"
"I don't know. I'm frightened. We're about to go there, aren't
we?"
"Yes, but I'd like to know what you expect."
"I don't know what to expect. I know that creatures who have
robbed others of life as I have should suffer for it."
"Suffer or pay for it?"
"What would be the difference?"
"Well, suppose you had a chance to forgive Magnus, the vampire
who brought you into this, suppose he stood before you and said,
'Lestat, forgive me for taking you out of your mortal life and putting
you outside Nature, and making you drink blood to live. Do with me
what you will so that you can forgive me.' What would you do?"
"You chose a bad example," I said. "I don't know that I haven't
forgiven him. I don't think he knew what he was doing. I don't care
about him. He was mad. He was an Old World monster. He started
me on the Devil's Road on some warped, impersonal impulse. I don't
even think about him. I don't care about him. If he has to seek
forgiveness from someone, then let it be from the mortals he killed
when he was in existence.
"In his tower was a dungeon filled with slain mortal men young
men who resembled me, men he'd brought there to test, apparently,
and then killed rather than initiated. I remember them still. But it's
just one form of massacre heaps of bodies of young men, all with
blond hair and blue eyes. Young beings robbed of potential and of
life itself. His forgiveness would have to come from all those whom
he robbed of life in any fashion he would have to gain the
forgiveness of each one."
I was beginning to tremble again. My anger was so familiar to me.
And how angry I had become many a time when others had accused
me of my various flamboyant attacks upon mortal men and women.
And children. Helpless children.
"And you?" he said to me. "For you to get into Heaven, what do
you think would be necessary?"
"Well, apparently working for you will do it," I said defiantly. "At
least I think it would from what you've said to me. But you haven't
really told me precisely what you do! You've told me the story of
Creation and the Passion, of Your Way and His Way, you've
described how you oppose Him on Earth, and I can imagine the
ramifications of that opposition we are both sensualists, we are both
believers in the wisdom of the flesh."
"Amen to that."
"But you have not gotten to a full explanation of what you do in
Hell. And how can you be winning? Are you sending them speedily to
His arms?"
"Speedily and with powerful acceptance," he said. "But I am not
speaking to you now about my offer to you, or my Earthly opposition
to Him; I'm asking you this: Given all that you have seen What do
you think Hell should be!"
"I'm afraid to answer. Because I belong there."
"You're never really that afraid of anything. Go on. Make a statement.
What do you think Hell ought to be, what should a soul have
to endure to be worthy of Heaven? Is it enough to say 'I believe in
God'; Jesus, 'I believe in Your Suffering'? Is it enough to say, 'I'm
sorry for all my sins because they offend thee, my God?' Or to say,
'I'm sorry because when I was on Earth, I really didn't believe in You
and now I know it's true, and wham, bang, one look at this infernal
place, and I'm ready! I wouldn't do anything the same way, and
please let me into Heaven quick.' "
I didn't answer.
"Should everyone just go to Heaven?" he asked. "I mean, should
everyone go?"
"No. That can't be," I said. "Not creatures like me, not creatures
who have tortured and killed other creatures, not people who have
deliberately duplicated through their actions punishments as severe
as disease, or fire, or earthquake that is, not people who have done
wrongs that hurt others just as much or worse than natural disasters.
It can't be right for them to go to Heaven, not if they don't know, not
if they don't understand, not if they haven't begun to comprehend
what they've done! Heaven would be Hell in no time if every cruel,
selfish, vicious soul went to Heaven. I don't want to meet the
unreformed monsters of Earth in Heaven! If it's that easy, then the
suffering of this world is damned near.. .."
"Damn near what?
"Unforgivable," I whispered.
"What would be forgivable from the point of view of a soul who
died in pain and confusion? A soul who knew that God didn't care?"
"I don't know," I said. "When you described the elect of Sheol,
the first million souls you took through the Heavenly Gates, you
didn't speak of reformed monsters; you spoke of people who had
forgiven God for an unjust world, didn't you?"
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