The Family - Mario Puzo [53]
Alexander took up the challenge. Since he was with friends, he chose not to draw upon the words of Scripture to make his point. Rather he answered as a Greek philosopher or a Florentine merchant would.
“What if God promised a Heaven achieved so easily, and without pain, here on earth?” he said. “Heaven would not seem such a prize. What reason would test man’s sincerity and faith? With no purgatory, there is no Heaven. Then, what inexhaustible evil would men engineer? Man would dream up so many ways to extinguish each other, there would not even be an earth. What is achieved without suffering is worthless. What is achieved easily is of no account. Man would be a trickster, playing the game of life with crooked dice and marked cards. He would be no better than the beasts we raise. Without all these obstacles we call misfortune, what pleasure would Heaven be? No, these misfortunes are proof of God, of his love for mankind. As for what men do to each other, we cannot blame that on our God. We must blame ourselves and do our time in purgatory.”
“Father,” Lucrezia asked him, for she was his child most concerned by the matters of faith and goodness, “but then what is evil?”
“Power is evil, my child,” he said. “And it is our duty to erase the desire for it from the hearts and minds of men. That, the Holy Church can do. But we can never erase the power of society, in society. Therefore we can never erase evil from civilized society. It will always be unjust, it will always be cruel to the common man. It is possible that in five hundred years, men will not cheat and murder each other, oh, happy day!”
Then he looked directly at his sons Juan and Cesare and continued. “But it is in the very nature of society that, in order to hold a people together for their God and their country, a king must hang and burn his subjects in order to bend their will. For mankind is as intractable as nature, and some demons don’t fear holy water.”
Alexander raised his glass in toast then, “To the Holy Mother Church and to our family. May we flourish as we spread the word of God throughout the world.”
They all raised their glasses now and shouted, “To Pope Alexander! May God bless him with health, happiness, and the wisdom of Solomon and the great philosophers.”
Soon, most of the company retired to their quarters, settling into the lakeside cottages, each flying the charging red bull of the Borgia banner. Fires burned to give light, and many flaming torches fastened to wooden arcs sparkled on the shores of Silverlake.
In his quarters Jofre paced, sulking. Sancia had not returned with him that night. When he had approached her earlier at the festivities with his request that she accompany him back to their cottage, she had refused with a snigger and waved him away. As he searched the faces of the crowd around them, he felt the hot flush of embarrassment color his cheeks and sting his eyes.
That day at Silverlake had been a humiliation for him, though everyone else appeared to be drinking and laughing and having so good a time that he doubted they had noticed. He had clapped, of course, and smiled—as was required of him by royal protocol—but the vision of his wife and his arrogant brother, Juan, singing a duet, set his teeth to snapping and destroyed any enjoyment he could find in the sweet sound of her song.
Jofre had returned to their cottage by himself. After trying to sleep and finding himself unable to, he walked outside to quell his restlessness. The humming of the sleeping night creatures in the groves made him feel less alone. He sat on the ground, feeling its coolness, which calmed him. And he thought about his father, the Pope, and his brothers and sisters . . .
He had always known that he was not as smart as his brother Cesare, and no match in physical strength for Juan. But in the deep recesses of his soul, he understood something they did not. That the sins he committed—of gluttony and excess—were not as black as Juan’s cruelty