Briefing for a Descent Into Hell - Doris May Lessing [51]
“Ah,” says he, “it’s time again, is it? I was thinking it must be.”
“You sound reluctant,” said Minerva.
“I’ve just been visiting Venus.”
“Everyone always likes her best,” says Minerva, drily. “As everyone knows, she and I don’t get on. She’s so silly—that’s what I can’t stand. People say I’m jealous—not at all. It’s that damned stealthy dishonesty I can’t tolerate—that appalling hypocrisy. I’ve never been able to understand how it is that intelligent men can put up with it—but there you are. And I didn’t come to talk about Aphrodite. I’m here about poor Earth, poor traveller!”
“Your kind heart does you credit. But don’t forget, it was partly their fault.”
“Stealing the fire?”
“Of course. If that fellow hadn’t stolen the fire, then they would never have known what a terrible state they are in.”
“You, Mercury, God of letters and of music and of—in a word, progress, complaining about that! You wouldn’t want them still in that dark and primitive state, would you?”
“They don’t know how to use it.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“All I’m saying is that knowledge brings a penalty with it—of course, it was enterprising of him—what’s his name, Jason, Prometheus, that fellow—in his place I might have done the same. Eating the fruit when I was told not to …”
“Stealing the fire,” says Minerva, always with a tendency towards pedantry.
“Come now, don’t be so literal-minded, that’s to be like them,” says Mercury.
“And there’s the other thing,” says Minerva, rather stern—at her tone Mercury began to look irritated. For Minerva was also a bit of blue-stocking; her feeling of justice and fair play (regarded as childish by some of the Gods who regarded themselves as more advanced, philosophically) usually led her to the question of women’s rights, and men’s vanity.
“All right,” says Mercury, “understood.”
“But is it?” says she, severe. “His mother was an earth-woman, certainly, but who was his father? Well?”
“Oh don’t start, please,” says Mercury. “You really are a bore, you know, when you get on to that.”
“Justice,” she says. “Fair play. I’m my father’s daughter. And who was his father? With such blood, or rather, fire, in his veins, he was not to be expected to live like a mole in earth knowing that Light existed, and yet never reaching out after it.”
“There was reason to believe,” says Mercury, “that he was in it all the time. He walked in the Garden with God.”
“And then he ate what he should not have done. He stole the Apple, dear God of Thieves. And paid for it.”
“And in short everything is going as was expected, and according to plan, and with Our assistance.”
“Progress has to be seen to be made.”
“All right, I’m ready to leave when the Time is Ripe.”
“Are you quite sure of your mandate?”
“Dear Minerva! Is it any different this time?”
“It is always the same Message, of course …”
“Yes. That there is a Harmony and that if they wish to prosper they must keep in step and obey its Laws. Quite so.”
“But things are really very much worse this time. The stars in their courses, you know …”
“Fight on the side of Justice.”
“In the long run, yes. But what a very long run it must seem to them, poor things.”
“Partly through their own fault.”
“You sound very severe today. Sometimes we even seem to change roles a little? You must remember that you are God of Thieves because you inspire, if not provoke, curiosity and a desire for growth, in such actions as stealing fire or eating forbidden fruit or building towers that are intended to reach Heaven and the Gods. Punishable acts. Acts that have, in fact, been punished already.”
“Perhaps it isn’t always easy to take responsibility for our progeny? Is it, dear Minerva? For acts can be our children … tell me, is it easy for your Father, or for you, to recognise as kith and kin acts of justice that are in fact the results of your influence