a fruit of learning that he had not plucked? Divinity … philosophy … theology … metaphysics …
F. (musing): Tits, (in confusion) No, I mean metaphysics! Geometry, anything … he knew it all!
T.W. (benignly): Soon we shall join him, when we have made the final Journey, but only after long and laborious struggle. When you first visited Heaven, were you given new bowels?
F.: Eh? Oh … no, no, I wasn’t. I wasn’t considered worthy, you see … your majesty. Not then. Not for new bowels.
T.W.: Take heart. I too was rebuked when I first entered the Golden Doors. Jesus, my Elder Brother, was angry because I had not learned my Bible lessons well. He was correct. We must all learn our Bible. (Long pause)
F. (desperate): Moab is my washpot, over Edom will I cast out my shoe. Er … Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, thing …
T.W.: I remember how kind Jesus’s wife was … and when my heart and entrails had been removed, I was given new ones, of shining red.
F.: Red, eh?
T.W.: And God gave me a sword to exterminate demons … and a seal of authority. The demons transformed themselves eighteen times, as they have power to do.
F.: Yes, yes … eighteen. Shocking.
T.W.: But I drove them down to Hell, and the Heavenly Mother gave me fruits and sweets. As I ate them, marvelling at their savour, God traced the Devil’s misdeeds to errors in Confucius, and rebuked him. But Confucius defended himself vehemently.
F. (indignant): He did, did he?
T.W.: Then Jesus and the Angels joined in against Confucius, who tried to sneak away to join the Devil, Yen-lo, but he was caught and brought back and beaten. (Smiling blankly) But at last God allowed him to sit in Heaven, in recognition of past merits.
F. (doubtful): Well …
T.W.: Yen-lo is the Serpent-Devil of the Garden of Eden …
F.: Is he? Ah!
T.W.: … and when Eve heeded his words, she was driven forth, and her children were drowned in the Great Rain. But Yen-lo seeks ever to steal men’s souls, ensnaring their senses with beautiful temptations … there were beautiful handmaidens in Heaven …
This seemed to give him an idea, for the husky voice, which had been droning away as at a lesson learned, trailed off, and he turned to stare at the splendid naked nymph kneeling beside him. It was the first sign of intelligence I’d seen in him, for he was plainly madder than Bedlam; his mouth twitched, and he came up from his reclining position to gape, and then to reach out and fondle her neck and shoulder and arm. She stayed stock-still; he leaned closer, gaping, and I had to strain to hear.
“…Šwe must strive to discern false beauty from true,” he muttered, “and manfully resist Yen-lo, seeking solace only in that which is pure. So we should study the Book of One Hundred Correct Things. Let us hear now how we may resist temptation.”
I’d have thought it was the last thing he needed to hear just then, but it was evidently a cue, for the kneeling beauty came to life with a sudden shudder that caused his Heavenly Majesty to grunt alarmingly and gape wider than ever. She lifted her scroll and began to read in a shrill, breathless little voice:
“Temptation must be eradicated from the world, and from the human mind. By sight, by scent, by touch may temptation be aroused. Temptation is caused by the original sin of lust, in the beginning of the world.”
Well, no one was going to argue with that, least of all Flashy, grinding his teeth, or the Tien Wang, staring and hanging on every word, so to speak. Then he lay back with a gentle groan, as she leaned forward over him, reading rapturously.
“Temptation results from indecision. As a homeless person wanders, seeking relief, so the unstable mind is always subject to temptation, which beguiles the senses of the unwary, or,” her voice sank to a whisper, “those who lack the power of decision.”
She sighed convulsively, no doubt at the pathos of the thing, and with difficulty I restrained a sharp cry. The Tien Wang, on the other hand, emitted a low, percolating sound, staring up at them like one who lacked the power of decision but would get round to it presently.
“A mind lured by temptation will deteriorate from day to day,” whispers the reading girl soulfully, and shook her pagoda, which tinkled. “Conscience will perish. Ah, beware when conscience perishes, for then … then lust will grow.”
There was much in what she said, as the veins standing out on my bulging forehead testified. She’d been practically suffocating him, but now she straightened up, rolling her scroll, and his majesty gave a little whimper, and reached up a pawing hand. At the same moment the female at my feet stirred, gliding up to rest her arms on the divan, blast her, her hand straying on to his knee. He gaped vacantly at her, going red in the face and breathing with difficulty, looked back at the reading girl, who was opening another scroll, and began to growl – whether it was possible for his mind to deteriorate any further was doubtful, but plainly conscience was about to perish.
“As lust grows, and conscience dies, the Devil will seize his opportunity,” croons the reading hussy, and I contemplated her twin’s alabaster bottom, poised within easy reach, and wondered if I dared play the Devil myself. In the nick of time I recalled that this panting idiot on the couch was the monster who had slaughtered millions and took heads off for adultery; God knew what he did to molesters of the Heavenly Harem. I bit my knuckles instead, watching helpless as the reader reached her peroration; the brute was dazedly pawing at her with one hand while the other clutched at her twin, who seemed to be trying to climb into his lap. Suddenly the reading girl flung aside her scroll and lunged down at him, babbling:
“Suppress temptation! Throw out evil! Cleanse the heart! So the felicity of Paradise will be won! Everyone shall conquer temptation, and having thus strengthened himself, will be able to attack the small demons! Universal peace will follow!”
And I’ve no doubt it did, to judge by the gasps and sobs and rhythmic pagoda tinklings which pursued me as I fled a-tiptoe for the archway. Well, it would have been damned bad form to stay, and I swear to God I couldn’t have – not without committing the fearful lèse-majesté of plunging into the mêlée crying “Me, too!” Not that they’d have noticed, probably. The women were ecstatics, and as for that lecherous lunatic with his crimson bowels and visits to heaven – well, aside from being the starkest maniac I’d ever struck, he was also a damned poor host. And he had inspired the Taiping rebellion? It passed belief – but he did, and if you doubt one word of his conversation with me, or his concubine’s recitation, you’ll find every last syllable of them in scholarly works written about him by learned men – all except about Dr Sylvester, for whom I believe I’m the sole authority. And that, you’ll allow, was the sanest part of it.15
No – he was a raving, dangerous, dreadful madman, and one of the most diabolical powers ever loosed on a suffering world. Hung Hsiu Chu’an, the Coolie King. As to his depravity – in my eyes his one redeeming quality – I’ve told my tale, and you may put it in the balance between those who claim he was a celibate saint, and t’others who say he was topsides with Tiberius. I’ll add only that no one disputes that he lived surrounded by a thousand women, eighty-eight of ’em “wives”. And devil a thought for his guests.
I emerged in the corridor panting like
