— Returned to the Light.
— By now you might just as well say: to the Twilight. And what happened to the fragments of the two tablets?
— Collected by the Jerusalem Sanitation Department. Taken to a rubbish dump with all the other rubble in the Dome of the Chain.
— Well, for that matter, the testimony itself is a mess too. It looks like an upturned compositor's typecase.
— If you must use terrestrial imagery, you'd better choose a more modern one: like erased software.
— That is precisely the language of a world that we've no use for anymore. I suppose the sapphire tablets of the Law were the hardware, then?
— As it were.
— Yes, since Bacon the devil speaks English. It's becoming the world language. So let's keep to Latin: consummatum est. It has been accomplished. My strength is exhausted. We're done for. The world is done for. Humankind is done for. Everything is done for — except Lucifer. What we thought would never be possible has happened: time has gained a hold over us. Time — that was Lucifer's secret weapon. The only thing left to us after more than three thousand years was to take back those ten words. An impotent gesture, of course: like a jilted girl reclaiming her engagement ring. A poor consolation, a symbolic act, a melancholy farewell. But the Decalogue was the ultimate thing on earth: the Chiefs contract with humankind, concluded with its deputy, the Jewish people, represented by its leader Moses in the role of notary. From now on Lucifer has a free hand. Let him carry off all those human things. I really don't care anymore.
— Perhaps someone will appear on earth to put everything right.
— The person would have to come from here, but nothing can come from here anymore. In Moscow an enlightened character assumed power a short while ago — the greatest human being in the human twentieth century in a positive sense, just as he whose name I shall not mention was in the negative sense. Within five years the Berlin Wall will be demolished, Russia will lose its colonies, the whole world will rejoice at the dawning of a new age. . then in the liberated areas, the ultimate bloodthirsty backwardness will be in control again. Migrations of people will take place, shots will ring out again in Sarajevo, and as the third millennium approaches the disgusting twentieth century will be revived due to overwhelming popular success.
— I can't believe that.
— You'll learn to believe it. And it's all the same old thing — politics means nothing. The rise and fall of world empires has gone on forever. Politics are the rippling of the waves in a storm — makes no difference at all to the waves, because they come from somewhere completely different: they come from the moon. To the old global disasters are now added the ravaging tidal waves of the new: with their Baconian control of nature, people will finally consume themselves with nuclear power, burn themselves up through the hole they have made in the ozone layer, dissolve in acid rain, roast in the greenhouse effect, crush each other to death because of their numbers, hang themselves on the double helix of DNA, choke in their own Satan's shit, because that swine didn't conclude his pact out of love of humankind, only out of hatred for us. All hell will break loose on earth and human bangs will one day remember the good old days, when they still listened to us — and probably they won't even do that anymore. It won't even be tragic anymore, just wretched. It's hopeless. Forget it.
— And if they find out what we have done, won't that bring about a change of heart? I can see to that. At the moment there's one person on earth who knows about it.
— You've suggested that before. Don't fool yourself. If they find out, not a soul will believe it. The news will be reported here and there; perhaps a few thousand righteous people, a few hundred theologians, and ten archaeologists will get very excited, but then it will be drowned out by the constant cataract of other news items, and a few months later it'll be forgotten. No, drop it, it's over. Finis comoediae.
— We can at least try!
— No, I'm not even prepared to give that knowledge to those treacherous offspring of ours anymore.
— Am I hearing you correctly? Is Onno Quist in danger if he tells anyone else?
— That must be prevented. If that happens, just throw a stone at his head, like you did with Max Delius. Quiet a moment. . I'm being called. I have to give a report on what you've told me.
— Let's think of something else, then. We must fight to the last — we can still do it! Better to fail than to give up! Can't we do something about that pact that Lucifer concluded with Bacon? Give me another mission at once!
— Those days are gone. You're retiring. Thanks for everything, on behalf of the Chief, too. Adieu.
— Then I'll do it on my own initiative! Do you hear me? I'm not leaving it at that! How do they have the nerve! Who do they think they are, the upstarts! Answer me!