what Rose in the bed beside him then was committed to believing. But of course, if you like, you can think he chose to create it all, all its starry depths in all their cosmic evolution, in a single moment: say, just in that moment when Adam opens his eyes to perceive it.
She was impressed. He thought she was. He remembered that she had been. He'd left aside the question of who, just at that moment when the lamp was lit in Adam's head, was creating whom. But he couldn't refrain from pointing out that if you didn't accept the Bible chronology, and had none in particular to replace it with, then you had no way of saying what moment God would choose in which to bring the universe into being. It could be any one; a billion years ago, or just now. Right now, this moment, he'd said, and he sat up and stretched out his arms and closed his eyes: just now, as I open my eyes. All time and history, all my own history too, right up to the very memory I have of just now closing my eyes—it all never existed before, and would all, right now, come into being.
Now . And he opened his eyes on her.
She was on her elbow, looking at him, bare, lost to him; and his cold bedroom was around them; and a huge grief or pity (but for whom?) had seized his throat; and he had begun helplessly to weep, sobbing as she looked on in amazement.
Pierce felt in his body the bell claps of noon, each one stepping upon the trailing tail of the previous one, until no more came, and the twelfth sang alone and died away.
He thought how, in one way if only in one way, Rose and Charis were alike. He thought that neither had ever loved any man, not in the times when he had known them, nor before. Charis had surely known this; but like a person color-blind from birth she probably hadn't regretted it very much, and had gone on (still went on, maybe) secretly believing that others had fooled themselves into thinking a valuable and useful facet of the world—color, love (or Love)—supposedly existed but didn't really. Emperor's new clothes. He hadn't seen her or heard of Charis for a dozen years or more, and wondered sometimes what deal she had struck, if she had, for what she needed, whatever it was.
Sometimes, though, he could perceive Rose, not as she had been, as he had known her, but as she might be now. He would sometimes see with startling suddenness, as in a showstone or a confirming dream, how she lived with them still, her Bible cult, the Powerhouse; getting along, dealing with its hierarchies and its powers as she had always dealt with the world—by indirection, conditional assent, abstraction of her spirit from things she couldn't get her body out of, willingness too to try to live up to others’ standards, at least until she saw no path there for herself and her nature. It must be the case that, in any cult not murderous or psychotic, life eventually settles down and becomes like life anywhere, livings still to get, dishes to wash, rubs and hurts to assuage or nurse in secret. Self-regard to maintain by cunning or other means. Lies to tell. Of course.
It was likely she had never been truly subject to them even back then. The God or godliness she wanted to get for herself was only a new good offered to her to pursue, not really different from health or wealth. It was only he who thought she had laid a way out of the world; only he who ever really believed or feared there was such a way. Following the path that he had made or found through her body he had come himself to be within their unreal heaven and hell, under the rule of their god and his prophets, an enchantment he had not known could happen to a human of his time and place, though common enough (he knew by report) in other times and places. It was there, in that false world, that his spirit had resided while his body walked the Old World searching for the thing lost, in his bad shoes and his overcoat from which the lining had begun to droop. Under his arm that mad guidebook of Kraft's, and the
She was impressed. He thought she was. He remembered that she had been. He'd left aside the question of who, just at that moment when the lamp was lit in Adam's head, was creating whom. But he couldn't refrain from pointing out that if you didn't accept the Bible chronology, and had none in particular to replace it with, then you had no way of saying what moment God would choose in which to bring the universe into being. It could be any one; a billion years ago, or just now. Right now, this moment, he'd said, and he sat up and stretched out his arms and closed his eyes: just now, as I open my eyes. All time and history, all my own history too, right up to the very memory I have of just now closing my eyes—it all never existed before, and would all, right now, come into being.
Now . And he opened his eyes on her.
She was on her elbow, looking at him, bare, lost to him; and his cold bedroom was around them; and a huge grief or pity (but for whom?) had seized his throat; and he had begun helplessly to weep, sobbing as she looked on in amazement.
Pierce felt in his body the bell claps of noon, each one stepping upon the trailing tail of the previous one, until no more came, and the twelfth sang alone and died away.
He thought how, in one way if only in one way, Rose and Charis were alike. He thought that neither had ever loved any man, not in the times when he had known them, nor before. Charis had surely known this; but like a person color-blind from birth she probably hadn't regretted it very much, and had gone on (still went on, maybe) secretly believing that others had fooled themselves into thinking a valuable and useful facet of the world—color, love (or Love)—supposedly existed but didn't really. Emperor's new clothes. He hadn't seen her or heard of Charis for a dozen years or more, and wondered sometimes what deal she had struck, if she had, for what she needed, whatever it was.
Sometimes, though, he could perceive Rose, not as she had been, as he had known her, but as she might be now. He would sometimes see with startling suddenness, as in a showstone or a confirming dream, how she lived with them still, her Bible cult, the Powerhouse; getting along, dealing with its hierarchies and its powers as she had always dealt with the world—by indirection, conditional assent, abstraction of her spirit from things she couldn't get her body out of, willingness too to try to live up to others’ standards, at least until she saw no path there for herself and her nature. It must be the case that, in any cult not murderous or psychotic, life eventually settles down and becomes like life anywhere, livings still to get, dishes to wash, rubs and hurts to assuage or nurse in secret. Self-regard to maintain by cunning or other means. Lies to tell. Of course.
It was likely she had never been truly subject to them even back then. The God or godliness she wanted to get for herself was only a new good offered to her to pursue, not really different from health or wealth. It was only he who thought she had laid a way out of the world; only he who ever really believed or feared there was such a way. Following the path that he had made or found through her body he had come himself to be within their unreal heaven and hell, under the rule of their god and his prophets, an enchantment he had not known could happen to a human of his time and place, though common enough (he knew by report) in other times and places. It was there, in that false world, that his spirit had resided while his body walked the Old World searching for the thing lost, in his bad shoes and his overcoat from which the lining had begun to droop. Under his arm that mad guidebook of Kraft's, and the
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