Marilynne Robinson - Home

Ames said, “That is true. In the majority of cases.” His words seemed pointed.

There was a silence.

Then her father said, “Oh!” and covered his face with his hands. “Oh! I am a very sinful man!”

Lila made a low sound of commiseration. “Dear, dear.”

Jack said, “What? No, I—” He looked up at Glory, as if she could help him interpret the inevitability, the blank certainty, of painful surprise.

His father said, “The night you were born was such a terrible night! I prayed and prayed, just like David. And Ames did, too. And we thought we’d pulled you through, saved your life, didn’t we? But there’s so much more to it than that.”

Jack smiled with rueful amazement.

Ames leaned over and patted Boughton’s knee. “Theology aside, Robert, if you are a sinful man, those words have no meaning at all.”

Boughton said, from behind his hands, “You don’t really know me!”

This made Ames laugh. He thought it over and he laughed again. “I think I know you pretty well. I remember when your granny still pushed you up the road in a perambulator. Of course your arms and legs might have been hanging out of it. You might have been ten or twelve at the time. With that lace bonnet sitting on the top of your head. My mother used to say it would make more sense if the old lady was in the perambulator and you were pushing.”

“Oh, now, it wasn’t as bad as all that. I think I climbed out of that contraption when I was about six. I used to run when I saw it coming. God bless her, though. She meant well.”

The two old men sat for a moment gazing at nothing in particular, as they did when memory arose between them. Jack watched them, the privilege of ancient friendship enclosing them like a palpable atmosphere. “We pulled him through, Robert, and he’s here with you. He’s back home.”

Boughton said, “Yes. So much to be grateful for.”

After a moment Jack said, “‘Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die.’ That’s Ezekiel. But Moses says the Lord ‘will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.’ I wondered if you could explain that to me. It seems like a contradiction.”

There was a silence. Then Boughton said, “He knows his Scripture.”

“Yes, he does.”

Boughton cleared his throat. “If you look at the Code of Hammurabi, I believe that’s Davies—”

Ames nodded. “Davies.”

“—you will find that if a man kills another man’s son, then his own son will be killed. That was the punishment. Ezekiel was writing in Babylon, for the people living there in exile. So I think he was probably referring to the way things were done in that country, by the Babylonians.”

Ames said, “Ezekiel does mention the proverb among the Israelites, the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and so on.”

“But the language of the proverb does not by itself imply anyone should exact a punishment of the sons. I believe at the time Ezekiel wrote, that proverb must have been interpreted in a way that justified the Babylonian practice.” Boughton rallied when he made arguments of this kind, spoke in the language of the old life, and wearied even to crankiness if the discussion went on very long.

Ames said, “Yes, Reverend, that may well have been the case.”

Jack said, “Thank you. So the law can’t punish a child for his father’s sins, but the Lord will.”

His father said, “There is the passage in John, the ninth chapter, in which the Lord Himself says, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned.’ Speaking of the man born blind.”

“Yes, sir. But how do we know what He says is not specific to that case? Or that what He means is that sin can’t always be inferred from — misfortune? He doesn’t really say that if the parents had sinned, they would not be punished through the child. As I read it.”

Silence again. Then Ames, clearly irritated, said, “It is true that children suffer when their fathers aren’t good men. Anyone can see that. That’s common sense. It’s a grave error, I think, to interpret their suffering as an act of God, rather than as a consequence of their fathers’ own behavior.”

Boughton said, “We tried to do right by her. We should have done much more, I know that.”

Jack smiled. He said very softly, “I really am a sinful man. Granting your terms.” He shrugged. “Granting my terms.”

Boughton waved this off, a gesture that discouraged elaboration. There was a long silence. Then he said, “Nonsense. That had nothing to do with it.”

“And I don’t know why I am. There’s no pleasure in it. For me, at least. Not much, anyway.”

Boughton covered his face with his hands.

Ames said, “I think your father is tired.”

But Jack continued, very softly. “I’m the amateur here. If I had your history with the question I’d be sick of it, too, no doubt. Well I do have a history with it. I’ve wondered from time to time if I might not be an instance of predestination. A sort of proof. If I may not experience predestination in my own person. That would be interesting, if the consequences were not so painful. For other people. If it did not seem as though I spread a contagion of some kind. Of misfortune. Is that possible?”

Ames said, “No. That isn’t possible. Not at all.”

“No,” his father said. “It just isn’t.”

Jack laughed. “What a relief. Because that visiting of the sins, it seems to describe something. It works the other way, too. The sins of the sons are visited on the fathers.”

There was a silence. Then Ames said, “‘If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart.’ That’s from the First Epistle of John.”

Jack nodded. “He is writing to the ‘beloved,’ the church. I do not enjoy the honor of membership in that body.”

“I don’t know why you want to insist on that,” his father said. “Why you want to set yourself apart like that. You were baptized and confirmed just like anybody else. How can you know all this Scripture when all you do is reject it?”

Ames said, “He doesn’t exactly reject it, Robert. He’s clearly given it a good deal of thought.”

“Still. It seems almost like pride to me.”

Jack said, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be disrespectful. My question is, are there people who are simply born evil, live evil lives, and then go to hell?”

Ames took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Scripture is not really clear on that point. Generally, a person’s behavior is consistent with his nature, which is to say that his behavior is consistent. The consistency is what I mean when I speak of his nature.”

Boughton chuckled. “Do I detect a little circularity in your reasoning, Reverend Eisenhower?”

Jack said, “People don’t change, then.”

“They do, if there is some other factor involved. Drink, say. Their behavior changes. I don’t know if that means their nature has changed.”

Jack smiled. “For a man of the cloth, you’re pretty cagey.”

Boughton said, “You should have seen him thirty years ago.”

“I did.”

“Well, you should have been paying attention.”

“I was.”

Ames was becoming irritated, clearly. He said, “I’m not going to apologize for the fact that there are things I don’t understand. I’d be a fool if I thought there weren’t. And I’m not going to make nonsense of a mystery, just because that’s what people always do when they try to talk about it. Always. And then they think the mystery itself is nonsense. Conversation of this kind is a good deal worse than useless. In my opinion.”

Glory said, “Your five minutes aren’t up yet.”