Walker Percy - Lancelot

Not even the knife at his throat seemed to make any difference. All it came down to was steel molecules entering skin molecules, artery molecules, blood cells.

You gaze at me with such — what? Sadness? Love? What about love? Do I think I can ever love anyone? Explain the question.

But that is beside the point. The point is, I know what I need to know and what I must do. Shall I tell you? Christ, you of all people should understand. Come here and stand with me at the window. I want to show you something, some insignificant things you may not have noticed. Why so wary? You act as if I were Satan showing you the kingdoms of the world from the pinnacle of the temple.

Listen. Do you hear them? Young people singing and laughing, enjoying themselves in the city of the dead. Perhaps they know something we don’t know.

I’m like that old lady at the window across the street. I don’t miss much. For example, I saw you earlier down there. In the cemetery. Surprised? I saw what you did, even though you did it very quickly. You stopped at a tomb and said a prayer. A relative? A friend? A request? So you pray for the dead. You know, something has changed in you. I have the feeling that while I was talking and changing, you were listening and changing. Am I wrong or have you reached a decision of sorts? No? You’re waiting for me to finish?

Just take a look. What do you see? The same friendly little scene I first showed you the other day. The same street, the same junked 1958 Cadillac, the same movie, the same neat little Volkswagen with the MAKE LOVE NOT WAR sticker pulling in this very moment with the same mousy little coed at the wheel, the same two homosexuals holding hands next door, a quiet decent couple actually, much like any other couple, raper and rapee, with needs like yours and mine plus an occasional tube of K-Y jelly.

Look closely, you’ll see that one or two insignificant items are different out there in the street. Notice the new bumper sticker on the VW: IF IT FEELS GOOD DO IT. Notice the poster near the old colored entrance of the movie. It’s new. Deep Throat where once we saw Henry V and Key Largo.

Yes, insignificant changes, I’ll admit. In fact, not really a change at all, but only more of the same. You shrug. What of it? Yes, you’re right. What of it?

You say you wish to know what I’m going to do. Very well. I’ll gladly tell you because when I woke this morning I knew for the first time exactly what I was going to do. Really it’s simple. I can’t imagine why I had to go to such lengths to discover it. There it was under my nose all along.

Yes, it dawned on me that suddenly, the solution is as clear and simple as an arithmetic problem. As a matter of fact, that is what it is: a matter of logic as simple as two plus two. I saw exactly how things are and what I must do. For your benefit I can even state it as a simple scholastic syllogism.

We are living in Sodom.

1. I do not propose to live in Sodom or to raise my son and daughters in Sodom.

2. Either your God exists or he does not.

3. If he exists, he will not tolerate Sodom much longer. He will either destroy it or let the Russians or the Chinese destroy it just as he turned the Assyrians loose on the Jews, and Sparta on Athens. How many Spartans would be needed to take these 200 million Athenians? Ten thousand? A thousand? A hundred? Twelve? One?

4. If God does not exist, then it will be I not God who will not tolerate it. I, one person. I will start a new world single-handedly or with those like me who will not tolerate it. But the difference between me and God is that I won’t tolerate the Russians or the Chinese either. God uses instruments. I am my own instrument. No Russkies or Chinks in the Shenandoah Valley. We won’t tolerate either. We won’t tolerate that out there and we won’t tolerate the Russians. We know what we want. And we’ll have it. If it takes the sword, we’ll use the sword.

5. I’ll wait and give your God time.

You are silent. Your eyes are vacant.

So you plan to take a little church in Alabama, Father, preach the gospel, turn bread into flesh, forgive the sins of Buick dealers, administer communion to suburban housewives?

At last you’re looking straight at me, but how strangely! Ah, all at once I understand you. I read you as instantly as I used to when we were so close. All of a sudden we understand each other perfectly, don’t we?

Tell me if I’m right or wrong.

You know something you think I don’t know, and you want to tell me but you hesitate.

Yes .

You speak! Loud and clear! And looking straight at me!

But I can see in your eyes it doesn’t make any difference any more, as far as what is going to happen next is concerned, that what is going to happen is going to happen whether you or I believe or not and whether your belief is true or not. Right?

Yes.

We are not going to make it this way, are we?

No.

It’s all over, isn’t it? I can see it in your eyes. We agree after all.

Yes.

Yes, but? But what? There must be a new beginning, right?

Yes—

But? You don’t like the new beginning I propose?

You are silent. So you are going to go to your little church in Alabama and that’s it?

Yes.

So what’s the new beginning in that? Isn’t that just more of the same?

You are silent.

Very well. But you know this! One of us is wrong. It will be your way or it will be my way.

Yes.

All we can agree on is that it will not be their way. Out there.

Yes.

There is no other way than yours or mine, true?

Yes.

One last question — and somehow I know you know the answer. Do you know Anna?

Yes.

Do you know her well?

Yes.

Will she join me in Virginia and will she and I and Siobhan begin a new life there?

Yes.

Very well. I’ve finished. Is there anything you wish to tell me before I leave?

Yes.