The Listener by Taylor Caldwell

will be required of you”? Do you ever tell them why they were born? Why do you let them believe that all will be forever sunshine for them on this earth, that they will always be young, their children forever children, their money always available, their health unfailing, their legs always strong and their hearts always brave, their security unshakable, their lives ever eager and full of food and entertainment and dances? Why don’t you tell them all that tonight, perhaps, but tomorrow, surely, their souls will be required of them, and that all the dancing they did and all the fun they had, and all the bells they rang, and all the money they made will be nothing at all, not even a memory?’ ”
     
    The room waited, as if for an answer. Mr. Carr, waiting also, could see vast answers shaping in his spirit, and he cringed before them.
     
    “Yes,” he said finally. “It is all my fault. The desert I live in; the dry bones I offer my people. For I am the desert and the dry bones. I am the liar and the hypocrite. I never had the faith to tell my people the truth, nor the spirit, nor the courage. I am the guilty. I not only never had a flock, I am not even a shepherd.”
     
    He pushed himself to his feet, tired to the very heart, aching like an old man. He said to the curtain, “Do you understand? You are a clergyman too. But did you ever have a flock like mine, resentful of the truth, liars to themselves, complacent, hurrying, grasping, smirking, preening, authorities on everything, greedy, betrayers, hard-eyed, coveting social honors, doubters, atheists, hypocrites, adulterers, sportsmen, lovers of the trivial and the passing, sheepish before the mention of God’s name? Did you? If you did not, then you can’t answer me and you can’t help me!”
     
    He ran to the curtains, his head roaring, his finger outstretched toward the button.
     
    The curtains rushed aside. Mr. Carr stood and looked in the light. Then he stepped back slowly, foot by groping foot.
     
    And then he fell to his knees.
     
    “Yes,” he said, “of course you did. That is the flock you had, and that is the flock I have. We have them together; we have them together. Until the end of time, we have them together. You and I.
     
    “But you never had to say to yourself, ‘I am the guilty,’ as I say to myself now. I am the guilty. God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
     
    “Give me strength to tell my people the truth. If they reject me, as they rejected you, what does it matter? There is only the truth. Forgive me. Above all things, forgive me. For betraying you in trivialities.
     

SOUL EIGHT
     

The Condemned
     
Because I could not stop for Death,
     
He kindly stopped for me;
     
The carriage held but just ourselves
     
And Immortality .
     
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
     
And I had put away
     
My labour, and my leisure too,
     
For his civility.
     
Emily Dickinson: “The Chariot”
     
    Eugene Emory walked stiffly into the sitting room, saw those waiting in silence, and hesitated. How placid they were, like cattle, some reading a magazine, some only staring at nothing. Like people in an anteroom of the Salvation Army! Why had he come here? That specialist who had given him the irrevocable news, finally! What had he said? “I think you’ll find some peace there. We’re very proud of old John Godfrey’s place. I’ve seen some remarkable things. No, I was never there myself. But you must have read about it.”
     
    He had. In one of the big national magazines. A beautiful square building, set in flower gardens, with trees and arbors — the finest architects had built it. It was open twenty-four hours a day to everybody and anybody. “The Man who Listens.” The reporter in that magazine had been a very amusing boy, full of mocking wide-eyes and arched brows and rounded, contemptuous mouth. “Ooh,” he seemed to be saying in every clever paragraph. “Ooh. Ooh! The lame, the halt, the blind — come one, come all. Find your