“They are about us! They go with us where we go. They are our history; and we are their immortality.”
“Yes,” Smith answered sadly. “It is ourselves whose bones lie unclaimed in the deep water that washes the Icarian Rocks; or beside the Needles; or at the ‘whuling Cyclades.’ The sea is the sea — this we know — but also were not our prayers answered? for we had, after all, or we have, our ‘safe passage home.’”
“Yes, we belong to them, and they to us,” said Faubion quietly. Demarest could see that she had lifted her face, and was regarding the blue corposants on the mastheads. “And they and we, together, belong to the all-gathering memory of the future. Or is it possible that we shall be forgotten? But that question, I can see, is already answered by all of you.”
“Answered already by all of us,” Demarest said.
“Answered already,” laughed Silberstein, “in the negative-affirmative … But who will he be, the last one who remembers us? And where will he stand? In a world perhaps englobed in snow.”
“The one who remembers last,” said Cynthia, “will remember always. For He will be God … That, at any rate, is the affirmative. Of the negative, what can be said? We know it, but we cannot speak of it.”
“But we see it there,” said Smith, “we see it there! The cold cloud, into which we return, the dark cloud of nescience, the marvelous death of memory!”
All five faces looked in the darkness at one another, as if for the instant almost surprised. At once, however, they all began laughing together: lightly, with recognition. Of course, of course! They had forgotten that for the moment! All except Demarest had forgotten it — Demarest and Smith.
“Well!” Faubion answered bravely, “that is of course what we must see, and what we do see. Nevertheless, can we not remain individual in our feeling toward this? Choosing, for our pleasure, purely (since there can be no other virtue in the choice) the yes or the no? And I, for one, as you already see, will choose the yes! I will be remembered! We will all be remembered! And never, never forgotten. World without end. Amen.”
“Amen!” echoed Silberstein. “But Smith and Demarest do not feel as you do. Smith is the dark self who wants to die! Smith represents clearly — doesn’t he? — that little something hidden in all of us — in the heart, or the brain, or the liver, or where you will — which all our days is scheming for oblivion. It’s the something that remembers birth, the horror of birth, and remembers not only that but also the antecedent death; it remembers that nothingness which is our real nature, and desires passionately to go back to it. And it will go back to it.”
“Yes, Smith will die and be forgotten,” murmured Cynthia. “He already knows himself dead and forgotten; and it is the death in Smith that gives his brown eyes so benign a beam. Isn’t that so? It is the death in Smith that we love him for. We respond to it, smiling, with maternal solicitude. Moriturum salutamus … There, there!”
Smith tapped his foot on the deck and chuckled.
“No no! Don’t be too hard on me. Is that all I can be liked for? I could be hurt by that thought!.. But of course it’s perfectly true.”
“But of first and last things,” sighed Faubion, “there is no beginning and no end.”
The five people stood motionless and silent, their faces faintly lighted by the corposants. This is the prelude, thought Demarest. This is merely the announcement of that perfect communion of which I have often dreamed. They have lost their individualities, certainly — but was individuality necessary to them? Or is it possible that, having lost their personalities, they have lost that alone by which harmony or discord was perceptible? Or is it only that their individualities have been refined by self-awareness, so that the feelings no longer intrude, nor the passions tyrannize, bringing misery?…
“That is true,” said Silberstein. “Here, at any rate, we are: poised for an instant, conscious and delighted, in the midst of the implacable Zero. We remember — well, what do we remember? We remember that our bones are under the Icarian Rocks. We remember, too, that we are only what we thus remember and foresee. We foresee our past, and remember our future. Or so, at all events to interpose a little ease! And that’s saying a good deal.”
“It means everything,” said Cynthia. “It means not only the past and future we have in common, but the past and future that each of us has separately. And this, of course, is precisely what blesses us. It is this diversity in unity that makes the divine harmony. Think only of the joy of recognition, or discovery, when Smith tells us — what indeed we know already, do we not? but in a sense not so deliciously complete — of his life in Devon, his opera tickets in New Orleans, his forgotten yachting cap and his delightful passion for Faubion! To know what grass is, does not preclude surprise at the individual grass-blade.”
“How nice of you to compare me to a grass-blade! It’s exactly what I am. But you meant more than that. Forgive me for parenthesizing.”
“Yes, I did mean more than that. What do I mean? You say it, please, Mr. Demarest.”
“Consciousness being finite, it can only in theory comprehend, and feel with, all things. Theoretically, nothing is unknown to us, and nothing can surprise us or alienate us. But if imagination can go everywhere, it can only go to one place at a time. It is therefore that we have surprises in store for each other — we reveal to each other those aspects of the infinite which we had momentarily forgotten. Who has not known Smith or Faubion? Cynthia and Silberstein are as old and familiar as God. And this sad facetious Demarest, who when he laughs looks so astonishingly like a magnified goldfish, isn’t he too as archaic as fire? Yet you had forgotten that one could be sad and facetious at the same time, and that in addition to this one might look like a goldfish seen through a sphere of water and glass; and the rediscovery of these qualities, which results when they are seen in a fresh combination, this is what delights you and delighting you leads to my delight. This is what Cynthia means, and in fact what we all mean … Yes, and this is what blesses us. For this — on the plane of human relationship — is infinite love, a love which is indistinguishable from wisdom or knowledge, from memory or foresight. We accept everything. We deny nothing. We are, in fact, imaginaton: not completely, for then we should be God; but almost completely. Perhaps, in time, our imagination will be complete.”
“You could have put it in another way,” said Silberstein. “Each of us is a little essay upon a particular corner of the world, an essay which differs in style and contents from any other; each with its own peculiar tints and stains transmitted from environment. A terrific magic is stored in these little essays! more than the essay itself can possibly feel — though it can know. Of the power of Smith or Faubion to give me a shock of delight or terror, can they themselves form a complete idea? No — not in the least. Not, at any rate, till they have felt the peculiar shock of seeing me! After which, of course, they can begin that most heavenly of all adventures, the exploration of that world of feelings and ideas which we then reciprocate in creating — seeing at once the warm great continents, jungles, seas, and snowy mountains, arctics and Saharas, that we can roam in common; but guessing also the ultraviolet Paradises which we shall never be able to enter, and the infrared Infernos which ourselves will never be able to communicate. How can I ever make plain to Faubion or Cynthia why it is that they cannot as powerfully organize my feelings as they organize those of Demarest? There lies the infrared. There perhaps, also, whirls the ultraviolet. Dive into my history, if you like. Look! This deck is no longer a deck. It is a narrow slum street, paved with muddy cobbles. Do you see it?”