THE PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN
"He returns," said the Lord soothingly. "Perhaps I will him to return. What should we be without him?"
"Without me, time and space would freeze into crystalline perfection," said Satan, and at his smile the criminal statistics of a myriad planets displayed an upward wave. "It is I who trouble the waters. I trouble all things. I am the spirit of life."
"But the soul," said God.
Satan, sitting with one arm thrown over the back of his throne towards Michael, raised his eyebrows by way of answer. This talk about the soul he regarded as a divine weakness. He knew nothing of the soul.
"I made man in my own image," said God.
"And I made him a man of the world. If it had not been for me he would still be a needless gardener—pretending to cultivate a weedless garden that grew right because it couldn't grow wrong—in 'those endless summers the blessed ones see.' Think of it, ye Powers and Dominions! Perfect flowers! Perfect fruits! Never an autumn chill! Never a yellow leaf! Golden leopards, noble lions, carnivores unfulfilled, purring for his caresses amidst the aimless friskings of lambs that would never grow old! Good Lord! How bored he would have been! How bored! Instead of which, did I not launch him on the most marvellous adventures? It was I who gave him history. Up to the very limit of his possibilities. Up to the very limit. . . . And did not you, O Lord, by sending your angels with their flaming swords, approve of what I had done?"
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