Chapter XIV

Then Fidu pricked up his ears and listened. And Gud listened also and he heard a far-off wailing sound, as of a soul in torment. So he bade Fidu to remain where he was, and he cast down his staff for the Underdog to watch, for he was a watchdog also.

Then Gud went on alone to find the cause of the wailing. When he found it, behold, it was a soul in pain, and Gud said: "What can I do to stop your wailing?"

The tormented soul replied: "Oh, comrade, I wail because of the memory of injustice and inequality."

"Then your case is simple. I do not know what these things were, the memory of which distresses you, but I have a tube of oblivion here that I can assure you will destroy any memory."

At this the soul shrank from Gud and wailed the louder. "But, I do not want to forget, for that would be unfaithful to the cause."

"Then, what do you want?" asked Gud impatiently.

"I want to see the revolution come."

"What is that?" asked Gud, his curiosity now thoroughly aroused.

"The revolution," said the soul, "would make a world where all are equal, and perfect justice reigns."

"I never heard of a world like that, but I think I can make one. If I do so, will that stop your wailing?"

"Alas, it cannot be, for the world of equality must be made by the workers themselves."

"But I do not see any workers."

"True, they were all destroyed in the rebellion against their masters."

"Then, where are the masters?"

"They were all destroyed in suppressing the rebellion of the workers."

"That must have been quite a fight," remarked Gud. "On which side were you?"

"My heart was with the workers," said the soul, "but my training and inhibitions were with the masters. Therefore, I was torn between opposing forces and was transfixed with horror and remained neutral, which is why I alone escaped destruction."

"Just what were you?" asked Gud, a little puzzled.

"I was a parlor sociologist," said the soul, straightening up proudly.

"I am sorry that you weren't either a master or a worker," said Gud, "for your wailing annoys me and it annoyed my dog. I think I had better destroy you now."

At this the soul cringed cowardly, and Gud was annoyed and turned to go, whereupon the soul started wailing more dismally than ever.

Gud turned back again and said: "Whatever it was you wanted, I see I will have to make it for you, because I cannot stand that wailing--it sounds like a hell that a friend of mine was experimenting with, and I do not like it."

"I wail," said the soul, "because I remember the injustice and inequality, and because the workers are all destroyed and revolution can never be."

"Nonsense! Nothing can never be. Let us make this thing and be done with it. What was it you said you wanted?"

"The world of equality."

"But just a moment ago you said it was a revolution."

"True. But that was but a means to the end."

"Shall I make the means or the end?"

"Alas, neither can ever be, for the workers are destroyed."

"You said that before. You talk in circles like a philosopher, and I don't like philosophers; they are all talk; I believe in action. I don't know what you want, but I heard you say something about a world. I understand that and can make it--I have made myriads of them just to pass the time away. Wait a second."

When he had spoken thus, Gud took out his pocket handkerchief and held it up by two corners. "Now, you see," said Gud, as he exhibited first one side and then the other; "the handkerchief is perfectly empty."

The soul looked at the handkerchief and saw that Gud spoke the truth.

"Now watch!" said Gud, determined to do this thing as impressionably as possible. Then, as the soul watched, Gud caught up the other corners of the handkerchief; then he rolled it into a ball and tossed it up and caught it and made magic passes and said: "Doramialfalfalasido" and did several other perfectly useless and unnecessary things, as all magicians and miracle workers do. Then he caught the handkerchief by the center and shook it out vociferously, and there was a nice virgin world spinning round and round, with its axis wabbling a bit so as to give it a change of climate.

The soul was duly impressed when it saw a real sky-covered dirt-bottomed world spinning from east to west; and the soul said: "I beg your pardon, comrade, I did not recognize you as a worker, but I see that you are, for you have created something--pardon me, but have you a card?"

Gud was puzzled for a moment. Then he remembered the cards he had printed when he entered celestial society, and he drew one out and handed it to the soul. The soul could not read the language in which it was printed, and not wanting to admit his ignorance, assumed that it was O.K.

"Now are you satisfied?" asked Gud.

"The world pleases me, but there is no one in it."

So Gud took the soul by the hand and they leaped across the void and found themselves in the world Gud had made, and standing in a beautiful garden full of luscious fruit and nice tame animals.

The soul sighed a little sigh of delight, and sat down on an ant hill and began eating alligator pears. Gud strolled around for a few centuries and counted the animals to see if they were all there, and being satisfied on that point, he went back to the soul, who was still sitting on the ant hill eating avacadoes. So Gud went out again and counted the sands of the seashore. He had to count five times to make the count come out twice alike, but in the middle of the fifth count he succeeded and so he went back and found the soul had eaten all the fruit in the garden and was beginning to whimper.

"Oh, bother," said Gud, "are you going to start that wailing again? What's the matter now?"

"I have not the patience," the soul cried, "to wait for the tedious and materialistic process of evolution to make rational beings; and besides if I had, in the struggle for existence they would all become unequal and the revolution would still have to be--it might be sanguinary, and the sight of blood makes me sick at my stomach."

"I never said anything about evolution," replied Gud. "As a matter of fact, I do not take much stock in it, and many of my friends do not believe in it at all; besides, it is liable to get out of hand and produce something entirely different from one's designs. So if you will tell me what more you want I will make it outright, like I did this world."

"I only want," said the soul, "to see this beautiful place inhabited by happy, rational beings among whom there will be no inequality."

"That means that they must all be exactly alike as atoms of hydrogen."

"Well--yes," admitted the soul rather grudgingly. "I suppose it does, if you put it that way, but it sounds much nicer merely to speak of equality."

"Put it any way you like, I want to get the job done and get back to my dog. He is faithful enough, but I don't like to put too much strain on fidelity. Now, as I get it, you want this world peopled with rational beings that are all alike. I am ready to make them, only what kind do you want--something like yourself?"

"No! no! not like me, for I am a weak and selfish fence-straddler. Moreover, I am too modest to be used as a prototype for the members of a perfect world."

"Worse than that, you are a ghost and immaterial and invisible to animal eyes. If I filled the world with creatures like you, the animals might walk right through them--No, we want material beings."

"Then materialize me," cried the soul in sudden eagerness.

"Hold on, if I materialize you in your present immaterial likeness, then all the beings I am to make for this world would have to be like you or you would be the exception and spoil the equality."

"That is so," admitted the soul.

"We are standing here talking like metaphysicians. If there is anything I hate worse than philosophers, it is metaphysicians which are philosophers bereft of what commonsense they did have. I have made this world scientifically," continued Gud, "but the work you want done now is a work of art, and I shall need a model. Since you refuse to be used as a model, I will have to resort to an old trick of my profession."

Gud paused significantly and walked over to a nearby pool of water that, having sought its level in a quiet nook, was very placid. He bent over the pool for a moment and smiled in a pleased fashion at what he saw. But the position was unpleasant and the ground at the edge of the pool was damp and stained his robe where it stretched over his knees. So Gud picked up the pool and propped it up against a rock in a nearly vertical position.

His reflection in the propped-up pool was still more pleasing and Gud called the soul over to him:

"I am going to use my reflection for a model," said Gud, "to fashion the creatures you want to people this world. To try the idea out first, I am going to re-do you in my own image."

The soul was mute with embarrassment and suffered Gud to place it upon a hastily constructed easel. Then, glancing at his own reflection in the propped-up pool, Gud, with a few deft strokes, redid the soul into an image of himself.

Gud lifted the re-done soul down from the easel and set it over beside the propped-up pool, and then stood back and looked at his own reflection and then at the soul which he had re-made in his own image: and the only way he could tell them apart was by the background.

"That's one of the best pieces of copying I ever did," cried Gud. "I am delighted with my craftsmanship. But before I make the rest of the crowd, I think we had better materialize ourselves, otherwise there would not be equality in the world, because we would be immaterial and hence be different from the others."

"Quite right, you are, comrade," said the soul, who was now the image of Gud and so had to agree with him.

Gud looked around for some clever trick by which he could make this materialization impressive--and the soul also looked around, being Gud's double and having identical thoughts. When Gud saw that his thoughts were the soul's thoughts, he was annoyed, because he saw he could not do anything now to astonish or impress the soul. So Gud decided to materialize without any hocus pocus, and the soul thought what Gud thought; so they materialized themselves without more ado.

"Well," said Gud, "let's make the rest of us."

"That's what I was thinking," agreed the soul.

"And shall we be savage or civilized?"

"Civilized," said the soul; "of course, it will be a lot of bother to make all the appurtenances of civilization, but one can't have equality as long as there is savagery and poverty in the world."

"That's just what I was thinking," agreed Gud, annoyed to find himself thinking the soul's thoughts.

So Gud, and his image that had been the soul, made a world full of civilized beings and all the appurtenances of civilization, and they did it very quickly, for they were both impatient to find themselves thinking the other's thoughts, and were desirous to get the job done and get away from that world and get back to the Underdog.

And when they had done this thing they found themselves in a great convention hall that had arisen where the garden had been. The hall was full of creatures made in the exact image of Gud and in the image of the soul that Gud had re-made in his own image.

As Gud glanced around, marveling at the myriads of creatures that were exactly alike, he suddenly realized that he could no longer identify the soul for which he had done all this--and for a brief moment he was very much relieved for that particular creature had annoyed him grieviously.

But Gud's relief was of short duration, for it was dawning upon his consciousness that he had done a terrible thing, because all these myriads of creatures about him looked just like himself. And Gud saw that he had no longer the one Gud but one of a myriad of Guds; and that he had lost his distinction and position and superiority, and all the other satisfying attributes that attach to the office and function of being Gud.

How it would all have ended, not even Gud knew, but just then they all saw a stream of smoke in one of the galleries and they all shouted: "Fire." There was a wild scramble. And when the Guds nearest the fire had stamped out the flames, the real Gud had been lost in the turmoil and confusion, and did not know which one of the myriads of Guds was himself and which were the other Guds made in the image of himself.

It was very distressing.

For three days and seven nights Gud went around that world of equality, wondering who he was and whether he was Gud or one of the imitation Guds; and all the imitation Guds went around wondering whether they were Gud or one of the imitation Guds.

And then a joyful event happened! The Underdog had become worried over his master's long absence and had trailed him with his unerring canine scent. Coming into the confusion of this world of equality, the Underdog walked right up to the honest-to-God Gud, leaped up and sat himself upon his own true master's shoulder and barked with delight, and licked the cheek of his master.

When he saw the action of his dog, Gud knew again for a surety that he was himself. With a mighty cry of deliverance from this torture and terror of pure democracy and achieved equality, Gud called down lightning from on high and earthquakes from below and winds from abroad and floods from the seas, and destroyed the world of equality once and for all and forever, and all that was therein contained, and all the myriads of fraudulent Guds he had so foolishly made in his own image to please the longing for equality in the soul of the parlor sociologist, and thereby stop its wailing.

And when the fire and flood and the winds and the earthquakes had done their work with neatness and dispatch, Gud and the Underdog went on their way rejoicing, and Gud made three cats for the Underdog to chase. They were all alike because they were copycats, and the Underdog would chase one and then the other and then all three at once.

Gud sat down and laughed at the troubles of the Underdog, because the poor beast, despite his canine instinct, could not tell one cat from the other two, and could not catch any of them because they were always crossing each other's paths, so that the Underdog would chase the others and give the one a chance to rest.

But being cats, they were not friendly, even though they were copycats; and finally they ran into each other and began to fight among themselves and to chase each other around in a circle.

Now the Underdog was wise, and he stopped running and sat down on the edge of the circle and got the one and then the other, which left only the third. Then Gud called off his dog, and also called up the last copycat for a bowl of cream; and the Underdog and the copycat drank cream together out of the same bowl. Which proves, dear children, the importance of a good example and demonstrates the power of kindness.

So Gud, and the Underdog, and the copycat all started walking along the Impossible Curve, all of them wondering what the next adventure would be. But I think we had better go to bed, for too much of this kind of stuff is likely to make us talk indiscreetly in our sleep.