spoken since it happened. Yet surely he knows where are the Mother and the Father, and why this was allowed to pass.’
“The Elder merely looked forward again. But there was a curious expression on his face, something sarcastic and faintly amused, and a little contemptuous.
“ ‘Even before this disaster,’ the other one said, ‘the Elder did not often speak to us. The fire did not change him, make him more receptive. He sits in silence, more and more like the Mother and the Father. Now and then he reads. Now and then he walks in the world above. He Drinks the Blood, he listens to the singers. Now and then he will dance. He speaks to mortals in the streets of Alexandria, but he will not speak to us. He has nothing to say to us. But he knows . . . He knows why this happened to us.’
“ ‘Leave me with him,’ I said.
“I had the feeling that all beings have in such situations. I will make the man speak. I will draw something out of him, as no one else has been able to do. But it wasn’t mere vanity that impelled me. This was the one who had come to me in the bedroom of my house, I was sure of it. This was the one who had stood watching me in my door.
“And I had sensed something in his glance. Call it intelligence, call it interest, call it recognition of some common knowledge—there was something there.
“And I knew that I carried with me the possibilities of a different world, unknown to the God of the Grove and even to this feeble and wounded one beside me who looked at the Elder in despair.
“The feeble one withdrew as I had asked. I went to the writing table and looked at the Elder.
“ ‘What should I do?’ I asked in Greek.
“He looked up at me abruptly, and I could see this thing I call intelligence in his face.
“ ‘Is there any point,’ I asked, ‘to questioning you further?’
“I had chosen my tone carefully. There was nothing formal in it, nothing reverential. It was as familiar as it could be.
“ ‘And just what is it you seek!’ he asked in Latin suddenly, coldly, his mouth turning down at the ends, his attitude one of abruptness and challenge.
“It relieved me to switch to Latin.
“ ‘You heard what I told the other,’ I said in the same informal manner, ‘how I was made by the God of the Grove in the country of the Keltoi, and how I was told to discover why the gods had died in flames.’
“ ‘You don’t come on behalf of the Gods of the Grove!’ he said, sardonic as before. He had not lifted his head, merely looked up, which made his eyes seem all the more challenging and contemptuous.
“ ‘I do and I don’t,’ I said. ‘If we can perish in this way, I would like to know why. What happened once can happen a second time. And I would like to know if we are really gods, and if we are, then what are our obligations to man. Are the Mother and the Father true beings, or are they legend? How did all this start? I would like to know that, of course.’
“ ‘By accident,’ he said.
“ ‘By accident?’ I leaned forward. I thought I had heard wrong.
“ ‘By accident it started,’ he said coolly, forbiddingly, with the clear implication that the question was absurd. ‘Four thousand years ago, by accident, and it has been enclosed in magic and religion ever since.’
“ ‘You are telling me the truth, aren’t you?’
“ ‘Why shouldn’t I? Why should I protect you from the truth? Why should I bother to lie to you? I don’t even know who you are. I don’t care.’
“ ‘Then will you explain to me what you mean, that it happened by accident,’ I pressed.
“ ‘I don’t know. I may. I may not. I have spoken more in these last few moments than I have in years. The story of the accident may be no more true than the myths that delight the others. The others have always chosen the myths. It’s what you really want, is it not?’ His voice rose and he rose slightly out of the chair as if his angry voice were impelling him to his feet.
“ ‘A story of our creation, analogous to the Genesis of the Hebrews, the tales in Homer, the babblings of your Roman poets Ovid