Full download test bank at testbankdeal.

com

College Algebra Real Mathematics Real People 7th

Edition Larson Solutions Manual

https://testbankdeal.com/product/college-algebra-real-
mathematics-real-people-7th-edition-larson-solutions-manual/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWLOAD EBOOK

Download more test bank from https://testbankdeal.com

More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

College Algebra Real Mathematics Real People 7th

Edition Larson Test Bank

https://testbankdeal.com/product/college-algebra-real-
mathematics-real-people-7th-edition-larson-test-bank/

Precalculus Real Mathematics Real People 7th Edition

Larson Solutions Manual

https://testbankdeal.com/product/precalculus-real-mathematics-
real-people-7th-edition-larson-solutions-manual/

Marketing Real People Real Choices 7th Edition Solomon

Solutions Manual

https://testbankdeal.com/product/marketing-real-people-real-
choices-7th-edition-solomon-solutions-manual/

Marketing Real People Real Choices 7th Edition Solomon

Test Bank

https://testbankdeal.com/product/marketing-real-people-real-
choices-7th-edition-solomon-test-bank/
Marketing Real People Real Choices 8th Edition Solomon
Solutions Manual

https://testbankdeal.com/product/marketing-real-people-real-
choices-8th-edition-solomon-solutions-manual/

Marketing Real People Real Choices 9th Edition Solomon

Solutions Manual

https://testbankdeal.com/product/marketing-real-people-real-
choices-9th-edition-solomon-solutions-manual/

Marketing Real People Real Choices Canadian 4th Edition

Solomon Solutions Manual

https://testbankdeal.com/product/marketing-real-people-real-
choices-canadian-4th-edition-solomon-solutions-manual/

Marketing Real People Real Choices 3rd Edition Solomon

Test Bank

https://testbankdeal.com/product/marketing-real-people-real-
choices-3rd-edition-solomon-test-bank/

Marketing Real People Real Choices 6th Edition Solomon

Test Bank

https://testbankdeal.com/product/marketing-real-people-real-
choices-6th-edition-solomon-test-bank/
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 5
I got through an unusually sultry July without much interference
from either Cave or the world. Paul paid me a quick visit to get the
manuscript of the dialogues and I was reminded of those accounts
of the progresses made by monarchs in other days, or rather of
great ministers, for his party occupied four large cars which gleamed
side by side in my driveway like glossy beasts while their contents,
Paul and fourteen assistants, all strange to me save Stokharin,
wandered disconsolately about the lawn until their departure.

Paul, though brisk, was cordial. “Trouble all over the map but b-i-g t-
r-o-u-b-l-e,” he spelled it out with relish, size was important, I knew,
to a publicist, even to one turned evangelist.

“Is Cave disturbed by it?”

“Doesn’t pay any attention. Haven’t seen him but Iris keeps me
posted. By the way, we’re hiring a plane the first week in August to
go see him, Stokharin and me. Want to come along?”

I didn’t but I said I would. I had no intention of being left out of

anything: there was my work still to do.

“I’ll let you know details. This is hot stuff?” He waved the sheaf of
papers I’d given him.

“Real hot,” I said but my irony was too pale, only primary colors
caught Paul’s eye.

“I hope so. Got any new stunts?”

I told him, briefly, about my thoughts on marriage or rather Cave’s

thoughts. The literary device was for me to ask him certain
questions and for him to answer them or, at least, to ask pointed
questions in his turn. Cheerfully, I had committed Cave to my own
point of view and I was somewhat nervous about his reaction, not to
mention the others. So far, only Clarissa knew and her approval was
pleasant but perhaps frivolous: it carried little weight, I knew, with
the rest.

Paul whistled. “You got us a tall order. I’m not sure we’ll be able to
handle that problem yet, if ever.”

“I’ve done it carefully,” I began.

Stokharin, who had been listening with interest, came to my aid. “In
the Centers we, how you say, Paul? soft-pedal the family. We advise
young boys to make love to the young girls without marrying or
having babies. We speak of the family as a social unit, and society
changes. I am most eager to study Mr Luther’s approach. Perhaps a
little aid from those of us in clinical work....”

But then the dark sedans began to purr; nervous attendants

whispered to Paul and I was soon left alone with the fragments of
our brief conversation to examine and interpret at my leisure. I was
surprised and pleased at Stokharin’s unexpected alliance. I had
thought of him as my chief antagonist. But then, my work finished, I
tended roses and read Cassius Dio until the summons in August
came.

6
The plane landed on a glare of blue water, more blinding even than
the vivid sky about the sun itself which made both elements seem to
be a quivering blue fire in which was destroyed all of earth save a
tiny smear of dusty faded green, the island of our destination.

The pilot maneuvered the plane against a bone-gray dock where, all
alone, Iris stood, her hair tangled from the propellers’ wind and her
eyes hidden by dark glasses. Like explorers in a new country, Paul,
Stokharin and I scrambled onto the dock, the heat closing in about
us like blue canvas, stifling, palpable. I gasped and dropped my
suitcase. Iris laughed and ran forward to greet us; she came first to
me which, even in my dazzled, shocked state, I realized and valued.

“Gene, you must get out of that suit this minute! and get some dark
glasses or you’ll go blind. Paul, how are you? It’s good to see you,
Doctor.” And, in the chatter of greetings, she escorted us off the
dock and across a narrow white beach to a grove of palm trees
where the cottage stood.

To our delight, the interior was cooled by machinery. I sank into a

wicker chair even while Cave was pumping my hand. Iris laughed,
“Leave him alone, John. He’s smothered by the heat.”

“No hat,” said Cave solemnly after the first greeting which, in my
relief, I’d not heard. “You’ll get sunstroke.”

Paul was now in charge. The heat which had enervated both
Stokharin and me filled him with manic energy, like one of those
reptiles which absorb vitality from the sun.

“What a great little place, John! Had no idea there were all the
comforts of home down here, none at all. Don’t suppose you go out
much?”

Cave, unlike Iris, was not tanned though he had, for him, a good
color, a ruddiness of tone unlike his usual sallowness. “I don’t get
too much sun,” he admitted. “We go fishing sometimes, early in the
morning. Most of the time I just hang around the house and look at
the letters, and read some.”

I noticed on the table beside me an enormous pile of travel

magazines, tourist folders and atlases: this had obviously been
Cave’s reading. I anticipated trouble.
Paul prowled restlessly about the modern living room with its
shuttered sealed windows. Stokharin and I, like fish back in their
own element after a brief excursion on land, gasped softly in our
chairs while Iris told us of the keys, of their fishing trips. She was at
her best here as she had been that other time in Spokane ... being
out of doors, in Cave’s exclusive company, brought her to life in a
way the exciting busyness of New York did not. In New York she
seemed like an object through which an electric current passed;
here on this island, in the sun’s glare, she had unfolded, petal after
petal until the secret interior seemed almost exposed. I was
conscious of her as a lovely woman and, without warning, I
experienced desire: that sharp rare longing which, in me, can reach
no climax. Always before she had been a friend, a companion whose
company I had jealously valued: her attention alone had been
enough to satisfy me, but on this day I saw her as a man entire
might and I plummeted into despair while talking of Plato.

“The Symposium was the model, yes. There are other ways of
casting dialogues such as introducing the celebrated dead brought
together for a chat in Limbo. I thought, though, that I should keep
the talk to only two. Cave and myself ... Socrates and Alcibiades.”
Alcibiades was precisely the wrong parallel but I left it uncorrected,
noticing how delicately the hollow at the base of her throat quivered
with life’s blood and although I attempted, as I often had before
with bitter success, to think of her as so much mortal flesh, the body
and its beauty only pulp and bone, only beautiful to a human eye ...
hideous, no doubt, to the eye of a geometric progression ... that
afternoon I was lost and I could not become, even for a moment, an
abstract intelligence again: I saw the bone; I saw the dust, yet I saw
her existing, despite her nature and her fate, triumphant in the
present. I cursed the flaw in my own flesh and hated life.

“We liked it very much,” she said, not divining my mood, unaware of
my sudden passion and its attendant despair.
“You don’t think it’s too strong, do you? All morality, not to mention
the churches, will be aligned against us.”

“John was worried at first ... not that opposition frightens him and it
is his idea; I mean you wrote the dialogue but it reflects exactly
what he’s always thought.” Though in love’s agony, I looked at her
sharply to make certain she was perfectly serious: she was; this
helped soothe the pain. She had been hypnotized by Cave. I
wondered how Clarissa could ever have thought it was the other way
around.

“In a way we’re already on record,” Iris looked thoughtfully across

the room at Cave who was showing Paul and Stokharin a large map
of some strange country. “The Centers have helped a good many
couples to adjust to one another without marriage and without
guilt.”

“But then there’s the problem of what to do with the children when
the family breaks up.”

Iris sighed. “I’m afraid that’s already a problem. Our Centers are
taking care of a good many children already. A number, of course, go
out for adoption to bored couples who need something to amuse
them. I suppose we’ll have to establish nurseries as a part of each
Center until, finally, the government assumes the responsibility.”

“If it becomes Cavite.”

“When it becomes Cavite.” She was powerful in her casualness.

“Meanwhile there are laws of adoption which vary from state to state
and, if we’re not careful, we’re apt to come up against the law.”

“Paul looks after us,” she smiled. “Did you know that he has nearly a
hundred lawyers on our pay roll? All protecting us.”

“From what?” I had not kept track of this.

“Lawsuits ... mostly attempts by state legislatures to outlaw the
Centers on the grounds of immorality and so on. The lawyers are
kept busy all the time.”

“Why haven’t I read about any of this in the papers?”

“We’ve been able to keep things fairly quiet. Paul is marvelous with
the editors ... several have even joined us, by the way ... secretly, of
course.”

“What’s the membership now?”

Iris gestured. “No one knows. We have thirty Centers in the United
States and each day they receive hundreds of new Cavites. I suspect
there are at least four million by now.”

I gasped, beginning to recover at last from the heat, from my

unexpected crisis of love. “I had no idea things were going so fast.”

“Too fast. We haven’t enough trained people to look after the

Centers and on top of that we’ve got to set up new Centers. Paul
has broken the country up into districts, all very methodical: so
many Centers per district each with a Resident in charge. Stokharin
is taking care of the clinical work.”

“Where’s the money coming from?”

“In bushels from heaven,” Iris smiled. “We leave all that up to Paul. I
shouldn’t be surprised if he counterfeits it. One thing I know,
though, I must get back to New York soon, to the school. I shouldn’t
really have gone off in the middle of everything but I was tired and
John wanted company so I came.”

“How is he?”

“As you see: calm. I don’t believe he ever thinks of any of our
problems. He never talks about them; never reads the reports Paul
sends him. He seldom reads the attacks from the churches and we
get several a day, not to mention threatening mail. It’s got so bad
that we now have full-time bodyguards.”

“You think people are seriously threatening him?”

“I don’t know how serious they are but we can’t take chances.
Fortunately, almost no one knows we’re here and, so far, no cranks
have got through from the mainland. We get our groceries and mail
brought in by boat every other day from Key Largo. Otherwise, we’re
marooned here.”

I looked about me for some sign of the guards but they were
elsewhere: a Cuban woman glumly vacuuming in the next room was
the only visible stranger.

Cave abandoned his maps and atlases long enough to tell me how
much the dialogues pleased him.

“I wish I could put it down like you do. I can only say it when people
listen.”

“You feel I’ve been accurate?”

He nodded solemnly. “Oh, yes ... it’s just as I’ve always said it, only
written down.” I realized that he’d already assumed full responsibility
(and credit, should there be any) for my composition; I accepted his
presumption with amusement. Only Stokharin seemed aware of the
humor of the situation. I caught him staring at me with a shrewd
expression; he looked quickly away and his mouth was rigid as he
tried not to smile. I liked him at that moment: we were the only two,
evidently, who had not been possessed by Cave. I felt like a
conspirator.

For several days we talked, or rather Paul talked. He had brought

with him charts and statements and statistics and, though Cave did
not bother to disguise his boredom, he listened most of the time and
his questions, when they did occur, were apposite. The rest of us
were fascinated by the extent of what Paul referred to as the “first
operational phase.”

Various projects had already been undertaken; others were put up

to the directors for discussion. The mood was, due to Paul’s
emphatic personality, more like that of a meeting of account-
executives in an advertising firm than the pious foregathering of a
messiah’s apostles ... and already that word had been used in the
press by the curious as well as by the devout. Cave was the messiah
to several million Americans, one not come with fire to judge the
world, nor one armed with the instruction of a supernatural being
whose presence was elsewhere but whose secret word had been
given this favorite son ... no, Cave was of another line: that of the
prophets, of the instructors like Jesus before he became Christ, like
Mohammed before he became Islam. Cave was the one in our age
whose single task it was to speak out, to say the words all men
waited for yet dared not speak nor even attend without the
overpowering authority of another who had, plausibly, assumed the
guise of master. I could not help but wonder as I watched Cave in
those hectic conferences if the past had been like this.

Cave certainly had one advantage over his predecessors: modern

communications. It took three centuries for Christianity to infest the
world. It was to take Cave only three years to conquer Europe and
the Americas.

But I did not have this foreknowledge in Florida. I only knew that
Paul was handling an extraordinary business in a remarkable way.
There was no plan so vast that he could not contemplate its
execution with ease. He was exhausting in his energy and, though
he did not possess much imagination, he was a splendid improviser,
using whatever themes were at hand to create his own dazzling
contrapuntal effects with.
We decided upon a weekly magazine to be distributed gratis to the
Cavites (I was appointed editor though the real work, of which I was
entirely ignorant, was to be done by a crew already at work on the
first issue); we determined to send abroad certain films to be shown
by Cavite lecturers; we approved the itinerary of Cave’s national tour
in the fall (Cave was most alive during this discussion; suggesting
cities he wanted particularly to see, reveling in the euphony of such
names as Tallahassee); we planned several dinners to be held in
New York with newspaper editors and political figures and we
discussed the advisability of Cave’s accepting an invitation to be
questioned by the Committee on National Morals and Americanism
of the House of Representatives, a remarkably powerful Committee
which had begun to show an interest in the progress of our Centers.
It was decided that Cave delay meeting them until the time was
propitious, or until he had received a subpoena. Paul, with his
instinctive sense of the theatrical, did not want to have this crucial
meeting take place without a most careful build-up.

We discussed the various steps taken or about to be taken by certain

state legislatures against the Centers. The states involved were
those with either a predominantly Catholic or predominantly Baptist
population. Since the Centers had been organized to conform with
existing state and federal laws (the lawyers were earning their fees),
Paul thought they would have a difficult time in closing any of them.
The several laws which had been passed were all being appealed
and he was confident of our vindication by the higher courts.
Though the established churches were now fighting us with every
possible weapon of law and propaganda, we were fully protected,
Paul felt, by the Bill of Rights even in its currently abrogated state.

Late in the afternoon after one of the day’s conferences had ended,
Iris and I swam in the Gulf, the water as warm as blood and the sky
soft with evening. We stayed in the water for an hour, not talking,
not really swimming, merely a part of the sea and the sky, two lives
on a curved horizon, quite alone (for the others never ventured out),
only the bored bodyguard on the dock reminded us that the usual
world had not slipped away in a sunny dream, leaving us isolated
and content in that sea from which our life had come so long ago ...
water to water, I thought comfortably as we crawled up on the
beach like new-lunged creatures.

Iris undid her bathing cap and her hair, streaked blonde by the sun
(and a little gray as well), fell about her shoulders. She sighed
voluptuously. “If it would always be like this.”

“If what?”

“Everything.”

“Ah,” I ran my hand along my legs and crystals of salt glittered and
fell; we were both dusted with light. “You have your work,” I added
... with some malice though I was now under control ... my crisis
resolved after one sleepless night. I could now look at her without
longing, without pain; regret was another matter but regret was only
a distant relative to anguish.

“I have that, too,” she said. “The work uses everything while this ...
is a narcotic. I float without a thought or a desire like ... like an
anemone.”

“You don’t know what an anemone is, do you?”

She laughed like a child. “How do you know I don’t?”

“You said it like somebody reading a Latin inscription.”

“What is it?”

I laughed, too. “I don’t know. Perhaps something like a jellyfish. It

has a lovely sound: sea anemone.”

We were interrupted by a motorboat pulling into the dock. “It’s the

mail,” said Iris. “We’d better go back to the house now.”
While we collected towels, the guard on the dock helped the
boatman carry two large boxes of groceries and mail to the house.

Between a pair of palm trees, a yard from the door of the house, the
bomb went off in a flash of light and gray smoke. A stinging spray of
sand blinded Iris and me. The blast knocked me off balance and I
fell backward onto the beach. For several minutes, my eyes filled
with tears and burning from the coral sand, I was quite blind. When
I was finally able to see again, Iris was already at the house trying
to force open the door.

One of the palm trees looked as if it had been struck by lightning, all
its fronds gone and its base smoldering. The windows of the house
were broken and I recall wondering, foolishly, how the air-
conditioning could possibly work if the house was not sealed. The
door was splintered and most of its paint had been burned off: it
was also jammed for Iris could not open it. Meanwhile, from a side
door, the occupants of the house had begun to appear, pale and
shaken.

I limped toward the house, rubbing my eyes, aware that my left

knee had been hurt. I was careful not to look at either the boatman
or the guard. Their remains inextricably strewn among tin cans and
letters in the bushes.

Paul was the first to speak: a torrent of rage which jolted us all out
of fear and shock. Iris, after one look at the dead men, fled into the
house. I stood stupidly beside the door, rolling my eyes to dislodge
the sand and listening to Paul.

Then the other guards came with blankets and gathered up the
pieces of the two men. I turned away, aware for the first time that
Cave was standing slightly apart, nearest the house. He was very
pale. He spoke only once, half to himself for Paul was still ranting:
“Let it begin,” said Cave softly. “Now, now.”
 Eight

1
It began indeed, like the first recorded shot of a war. The day after
the explosion, we left the island and Cave was flown to another
retreat, this time in the center of New York City where, unique in all
the world, there can exist true privacy, even invisibility.

The Cavite history of the next two years is publicly known and the
private aspects of it do not particularly reveal. It was a time of
expansion and of battle.

The opposition closed its ranks. Several attempts were made on all
our lives and, six months after our return from Florida, we were all,
except the indomitable Clarissa, forced to move into the brand-new
Cavite Center, a quickly built but handsome building of yellow glass
on Park Avenue. Here on the top floor, in the penthouse which was
itself a mansion surrounded by Babylonian gardens and a wall of
glass through which the encompassing city rose like stalagmites,
Cave and Paul, Stokharin and Iris and I all lived with our
bodyguards, never venturing out of the building which resembled,
during that time, a military headquarters with guards and adjutants
and a maze of officials through whom both strangers and familiars
were forced to pass before they could meet even myself, much less
Cave.
In spite of the unnaturalness of the life, it was, I think, the happiest
time of my life. Except for brief excursions to the Hudson, I spent
the entire two years in that one building, knowing at last the sort of
security and serenity which monks must have known in their
monasteries, in their retreats. I think the others were also content,
except for Cave who eventually grew so morose and bored by his
confinement that Paul not only had to promise him a world tour but,
for his vicarious pleasure, played, night after night in the Center’s
auditorium, travel films which Cave devoured with eager eyes,
asking for certain films to be halted at various interesting parts so
that he might examine some landscape or building (never a human
being, no matter how quaint); favorite movies were played over and
over again, long after the rest of us had gone off to bed, leaving
Cave and the projectionist alone with the bright shadows of distant
places ... alone save for the ubiquitous guards.

There were a number of attacks upon the building itself but since all
incoming mail and visitors were checked by machinery for hidden
weapons there was never a repetition of that island disaster which
had had such a chilling effect on all of us. Pickets of course marched
daily for two years in front of the Center’s door and, on four
separate occasions, mobs attempted to storm the building: they
were repulsed easily by our guards (the police, for the most Catholic,
did not unduly exert themselves in our defense; fortunately, the
building had been constructed with the idea of defense in mind).

The life in the Center was busy. In the penthouse each of us had an
office and Cave had a large suite where he spent his days watching
television and pondering journeys. He did not follow with much
interest the doings of the organization though he had begun to
enjoy reading the attacks which regularly appeared against him and
us in the newspapers. Bishop Winston was the leader of the non-
Catholic opposition and his apologias and anathemas inspired us
with admiration. He was, I think, conscious of being the last great
spokesman of the Protestant churches and he fulfilled his historic
function with wit and dignity and we admired him tremendously. By
this time, of course, our victory was in sight and we could show
magnanimity to those who remained loyal to ancient systems.

I was the one most concerned with answering the attacks since I
was now an editor with an entire floor devoted to the Cavite Journal
(we were not able to think up a better name). At first it was
published weekly and given away free but after the first year it
became a daily newspaper, fat with advertising, and sold on
newsstands.

Besides my duties as editor, I was also the official apologist and I

was kept busy composing dialogues on various ethical matters,
ranging from the virtues of cremation to fair business practices.
Needless to say, I had a good deal of help and some of my most
resounding effects were contrived by others, by anonymous
specialists. Each installment, however, of Cavite doctrine (or
rationalization as I preferred to think of my work) was received as
eagerly by the expanding ranks of the faithful as it was denounced
by the Catholic Church and the new league of Protestant Churches
under Bishop Winston’s guidance.

We received our first serious setback when, in the autumn of our

first year in the new building, we were banned from the television
networks through a series of technicalities created by Congress for
our benefit and invoked without warning. It took Paul’s lawyers a
year to get the case through the courts which finally reversed the
government’s ruling. Meanwhile, we counterattacked by creating
hundreds of new Centers where films of Cave were shown regularly.
Once a week he was televised for the Centers where huge crowds
gathered to see and hear him and it was always Paul’s claim that the
government’s spiteful action had, paradoxically, been responsible for
the sudden victory of Cavesword: not being able to listen to their
idol in their own homes the Cavites, and even the merely curious,
were forced to visit the Centers where, in the general mood of
camaraderie and delight in the same word, they were organized
quite ruthlessly. Stokharin’s clinics handled their personal problems.
Other departments assumed the guidance and even the support, if
necessary, of their children while free medical and educational
facilities were made available to all who applied.

At the end of the second year, there were more enrolled Cavites than
any other single religious denomination including the Roman
Catholic. I published this fact and the accompanying statistics with a
certain guilt which, needless to say, my fellow directors did not
share. The result of this revelation was a special Congressional
hearing.

In spite of the usual confusion attendant upon any of the vigorous

old Congress’s hearteningly incompetent investigations, this event
was well-staged, preparing the way politically, to draw the obvious
parallel, for a new Constantine.

It took place in March and it was the only official journey any of us,
excepting Paul, had made from our yellow citadel for two years. The
entire proceedings were televised, a bit of unwisdom on the part of
the hostile Congressmen who, in their understandable eagerness for
publicity, overlooked their intended victim’s complete mastery of that
medium. I did not go to Washington but I saw Cave and Paul and
Iris off from the roof of the Center. Because of the crowds which had
formed in the streets, hoping for a glimpse of Cave, the original plan
to fly to Washington aboard a chartered airplane was discarded at
the last minute and two helicopters were ordered instead to pick up
Cave and his party on the terrace in front of the penthouse, a mode
of travel not then popular.

Paul saw to it that the departure was filmed. A dozen of us who

were not going stood about among the trees and bushes while the
helicopters hovered a few feet above the roof, their ladders dangling.
Then Cave appeared with Paul and Iris while a camera crew
recorded their farewell and departure. Cave looked as serene as
ever, quite pale in his dark blue suit and white shirt ... a small
austere figure with downcast eyes. Iris was bright-faced from the
excitement and cold; there was a sharp wind on the roof which
tangled her hair.

“I’m terrified,” she whispered fiercely in my ear as we shook hands

formally for the camera.

“Paul seems in full command,” I said, comfortingly. And Paul, not

Cave, was making a short speech to the camera while Cave stood
alone and still; then, in a gust of wind, they were gone and I went
to my office to watch the hearings.

The official reason for the investigation was based upon certain
charges made by the various churches that the Cavites were
subverting Christian morality by championing free love and publicly
descrying the eternal institution of marriage. This was the burden of
that complaint against Cave which the Committee most wished to
contemplate since it was the strongest of the numerous allegations
and, in their eyes, the most dangerous to the state, the one most
likely to get the largest amount of publicity. For some years the
realm of public morals had been a favorite excursion grounds for the
Congress and their tournaments at public expense were attended
delightedly by everyone. This particular one, affecting as it did the
head of the largest single religious establishment in the country
would, the Congressmen were quite sure, prove an irresistible
spectacle. It was.

At first there was a good deal of confusion. Newspaper men

stumbled over one another; flash bulbs were dropped; Congressmen
could not get through the crowd to take their seats. To fill in, while
these preliminaries were got over, the camera was trained upon the
crowd which was beginning to gather in front of the Capitol; a crowd
which grew, as one watched, to Inaugural size. Though it was
orderly, a troop of soldiers in trucks soon arrived, as though by
previous design, and they got out, forming a cordon of fixed
bayonets before the various entrances to the Capitol.
Here and there, against the gusty blue sky, banners with the single
word “Cave,” gold on blue, snapped: In hoc signo indeed!

Then the commentators who had been exclaiming at some length on

the size of the crowd, excitedly announced the arrival of Cave. A
roar of sound filled the plaza. The banners were waved back and
forth against the sky and I saw everywhere the theatrical hand of
Paul Himmell.

The scene shifted to the House of Representatives entrance to the

Capitol. Cave wearing an overcoat but bareheaded, stepped out of
the limousine. He was alone. Neither Paul nor Iris was in sight. It
was most effective that he should come like this, without equerries
or counselors. He stood for a moment in the pillared entrance, aware
of the crowd outside; even through the commentator’s narrative one
could hear, like the surf falling: Cave! Cave! Cave! For a moment it
seemed that he might turn and go, not into the Capitol, but out onto
the steps to the crowd; but then the chief of the Capitol guard,
sensing perhaps that this might happen, gently steered him up the
stairs.

The next shot was of the Committee Room where the hearings had
at last begun. A somewhat phlegmatic Jesuit was testifying. His
words were difficult to hear because of the noise in the committee
room, and the impotent shouts of the chairman. The commentator
gave a brief analysis of the Jesuit’s attack on Cave and then, in the
midst of a particularly loud exchange between the chairman and the
crowd, the clerk of the court proclaimed: John Cave.

There was silence. The crowd parted to make way for him. Even the
members of the committee craned to get a good look at him as he
moved quietly, almost demurely, to the witness chair. The only
movement in the room was that of the Papal Nuncio who, in his
robes, sat in the front rank of the audience. He crossed himself as
Cave passed and shut his eyes.
Cave was respectful, almost inaudible. Several times he was asked to
repeat his answers even though the room was remarkably still. At
first Cave would answer only in monosyllables, not looking up, not
meeting the gaze of his interrogators who took heart at this,
professionals themselves: their voices which had almost matched his
for inaudibility, began to boom with confidence.

I waited for the lightning. The first intimation came when Cave
looked up. For nearly five minutes he had not raised his eyes once
during the questioning. Suddenly he looked up and I saw that he
was trying to locate the camera; he did, and it was like a revelation:
a sudden shock went through me and as well as I knew him, as few
illusions as I had about him, I was arrested by his gaze ... it was as
though only he and I existed, as though he were I; all of those who
watched responded in the same fashion to that unique gaze.

The Committee, however, was not aware of what had happened,

that their intended victim had with one glance appropriated the eye
of the world. The subsequent catechism is too well known to record
here; we used it as the main exposition of Cavesword, the one
testament which contained the entire thing. It was almost as if the
Congressmen had been given the necessary questions to ask, like
those supporting actors whose minor roles are designed to illuminate
the genius of the star. Two of the seven members of the Committee
were Cavites. This was soon apparent. The other five were violently
in opposition. One as a Catholic, another as a Protestant, and two as
materialistic lovers of the old order. Only one of the attackers, a
quiet scholarly-looking Jew, made any real point. He argued the
perniciousness of an organization which, if allowed to prosper, would
replace the state and force all dissenters to conform; it was his
contention that the state prospered most when no one system was
sufficiently strong to dominate. I wanted to hear more of him but his
Catholic colleague, a bull-voiced Irishman, drowned him out, winning
the day for the Cavites.
Cave, to my astonishment, had memorized most of the dialogues I’d
written and he said my words with the same power that he said his
own. I was startled by this. There had been no hint that such a thing
might happen and I couldn’t, for some time, determine the motive
until I recalled Cave’s reluctance to being quoted in print; he had
apparently realized that now there would be a complete record of his
testimony and so, for the sake of both literacy and consistency, he
had committed to memory those words of mine which were thought
to be his. At the great moment, however, the peroration (by which
time there were no more questions and Cave’s voice alone was
heard) he became himself, and spoke Cavesword.

Then, without the Committee’s leave, in the dazzled silence which

followed upon his last words, he got up abruptly and left the room. I
switched off the television set. That week established Cavesword in
the country and, except for various priests and ministers of the
deserted gods, the United States was Cavite.

2
The desertion of the old establishments for the new resembled, at
uneasy moments, revolution.

The Congressional Committee, though anti-Cavite, did not dare even

to censure him ... partly from the fear of the vast crowd which
waited in the Capitol plaza and partly from the larger, more cogent
awareness that it was politically suicidal for any popularly elected
Representative to outrage a minority of such strength.

The hearing fizzled out after Cave’s appearance and though there
were a few denunciatory speeches on the floor of Congress, no
official action was taken; shortly afterwards the ban on Cave’s
television appearances was lifted but by then it was too late and
millions of people had got permanently into the habit of attending
weekly meetings at the various Centers to listen to Cave, to discuss
with the Residents and their staffs the points of doctrine ... and
doctrine it had become.

The second year in our yellow citadel was more active than the first.
It was decided that Cave make no personal appearances anywhere.
According to Paul, the mystery would be kept intact and the legend
would grow under the most auspicious circumstances. He did not
reveal his actual motive in Cave’s presence but I was aware, from
private conversations we had, just the two of us, of the wisdom of
his plan.

He explained himself to me late one afternoon in my office.

“Get him in front of a really hostile crowd and there’d be no telling

what might happen.” Paul was restlessly marching about the room in
his shirtsleeves ... a blunt cigar in his mouth gave him the
appearance of a lower-echelon politician.

“There’s never been a hostile audience yet,” I reminded him. “Except

for the Congressional hearings and I thought he handled himself
quite well with them.”

“With your script in his head,” Paul chuckled and stopped his march
to the filing cabinet by way of that huge television screen which
dominated every office and home. “What I mean is, he’s never been
in a debate. He’s never had a tough opponent, a heckler. The
Congressmen were pretty mild and even though they weren’t
friendly they stuck to easy issues. But what would happen if Bishop
Winston got him up before an audience? Winston’s a lot smarter and
he’s nearly as good in public.”

“I suppose Cave would hypnotize him, too.”

“Not on your life.” Paul threw himself into a chair of flimsy chrome
and plastic. “Winston’s been trying to arrange a debate for over two
years. He issues challenges every Sunday on his program (got a big
audience, too ... though not close to ours; I keep checking it).”

“Does Cave want to give it a try?”

“He’s oblivious to such things. I suppose he would if he thought

about it. Anyway it’s to our advantage to keep him out of sight. Let
them see only a television image, hear only his recorded voice. It’s
wonderful copy! Big time.” He was out of the chair and playing with
the knob of the television set: the screen was suddenly filled with a
romantic scene, a pulsating green grotto with water falling in a thin
white line ... so perfected had the machine become that it was
actually
like looking through a window, the illusion of depth quite perfect and
the colors true. A warm deep voice off-screen suggested the virtues
of a well-known carbonated drink. Paul turned the switch off. I was
relieved since I, alone in America, was unable to think or work or
even relax while the screen was bright with some other place.

“He won’t like it. He expects next year, at the latest, to start his
world tour.”

“Perhaps then,” said Paul thinly. “Anyway, the longer we put it off the
better. Did you know we turn away a thousand people a day who
come here just to get a glimpse of him?”

“They see him at the Center meetings.”

“Only our own people ... the ones in training to be Residents. I keep
those sessions carefully screened. Every now and then some
outsider gets in but it’s rare.”

I glanced at the tear-sheet of my next day’s editorial; it contained,

among other useful statistics, the quite incredible figures of Cavite
membership in the world. Dubiously, I read off the figure which Paul
had given me at a directors’ meeting.
“It’s about right,” he said complacently, coming to a full stop at the
files. “We don’t actually know the figures of places without proper
Centers like the Latin countries where we are undergoing a bit of
persecution. But the statistics for this country are exact.”

“It’s hard to believe.” I looked at the figure which represented so

many human beings, so much diversity, all touched by one man.
“Less than three years....”

“Three more years and we’ll have most of Europe too.”

“Why, I wonder?”

“Why?” He slammed shut the cabinet drawer which he’d been

examining. He looked at me sharply. “You of all people ask why?
Cavesword ... and all your words too, did the trick. That’s what.
We’ve said what they wanted to hear ... just the opposite of my old
game of publicity where we said what we wanted them to hear. This
time it’s just the other way around and it’s big, ah, it’s big.”

I could agree with that but I pressed him further. “I know what’s
happened, of course, and your theory is certainly correct if only
because had we said the opposite of what they wanted to hear
nothing would have happened. But the question in my mind, the real
'why,’ is Cave and us. Why we of all the people in the world?
Cavesword, between us and any school of philosophy, is not new.
Others have said it more eloquently. In the past it was a reasonably
popular heresy which the early popes stamped out....”

“Timing! The right man at the right time saying the right thing.
Remember the piece you did on Mohammed....”

“I stole most of it.”

“So what? Most effective. You figured how only at that one moment
in Arabian political history could such a man have appeared.”
I smiled. “That is always the folly of the 'one unique moment.’ For all
I know such a man could have appeared in any of a hundred other
Arab generations.”

“But he never did except that one time ... which proves the point.”

I let it go. Paul was at best not the ideal partner in the perennial
conversation. “There is no doubt but that Cave’s the man,” I said,
neutrally. “Not the last of the line but at least the most effective,
considering the shortness of the mission so far.”

“We have the means. The old people didn’t. Every man, woman, and
child in this country can see Cave for themselves, and at the same
moment. I don’t suppose ten thousand people saw Christ in action
... it took a generation for news of him to travel from one country to
the next.”

“Parallels break down,” I agreed. “It’s the reason I wonder so

continually about Cave and ourselves and what we are doing in the
world.”

“We’re doing good. The people are losing their fear of death. Last
month there were twelve hundred suicides in this country directly
attributable to Cavesword. And these people didn’t kill themselves
just because they were unhappy, they killed themselves because he
had made it easy, even desirable. Now you know there’s never been
anybody like that before in history, anywhere.”

“I’ll say not.” I was startled by the figure he had quoted. In our
Journal we were always reporting various prominent suicides and,
though I had given orders to minimize these voluntary deaths, I had
been forced every now and then to record the details of one or
another of them. But I’d had no idea there had been so many. I
asked Paul if he was quite sure of the number.

“Oh yes.” He was blithe. “At least that many we know of.”
“I wonder if it’s wise.”

“Wise? What’s that got to do with it? It’s logical. It’s the proof of
Cavesword. Death is fine so why not die?”

“Why not live?”

“It’s the same thing.”

“I would say not.”

“Well, you ought to play it up a little more anyway. I meant to talk

about it at the last directors’ meeting but there wasn’t time.”

“Does Cave know about this? About the extent....”

“Sure does.” Paul headed for the door. “He thinks it’s fine. Proves
what he says and it gives other people nerve. This thing is working.”

There was no doubt about that of course. It is hard, precisely, to

give the sense of those two years when the main work got done in a
series of toppling waves which swept into history the remaining
edifices of other faiths and institutions. I had no real firsthand
impressions of the country for I seldom stirred from our
headquarters.

I’d sold the house on the river. I had cut off all contacts with old
friends and my life, simply, was Cave. I edited the Journal, or rather
presided over the editors. I discussed points of doctrine with the
various Residents who came to see me in the yellow tower. They
were devoted men and their enthusiasm was heartening, if not
always communicable to me. Each week was published further
commentaries on Cavesword and I found my time grew short if I
tried to read them all. I contented myself, finally, with synopses
prepared for me by the Journal’s staff and I felt like a television
emperor keeping abreast of contemporary letters, but there was not
enough time, as it was, in which to contemplate the great things.
Once a week we all dined with Cave. Except for that informal
occasion we seldom saw him; though he complained continually
about his captivity (and it was exactly that; we were all captives to
some degree), he was cheerful enough. Paul saw to it that he was
kept busy all day addressing Residents and Communicators,
answering their questions, firing them by the mere fact of his
presence. It was quite common for strangers to faint upon seeing
him for the first time, as a man and not as a figure on a bit of film.
He was good-natured, though occasionally embarrassed by the
chosen groups which were admitted to him. He seldom talked
privately to any of them, however, and he showed not the faintest
interest in their problems, not even bothering to learn their names.
He was only interested in where they were from and Paul, aware of
this, as an added inducement to keep Cave amenable, took to
including each group at least one Cavite from some far place like
Malaya or Ceylon.

Iris was busiest of all. She had become, without design or

preparation, the head of all the Cavite schools throughout the
country where the various Communicators of Cavesword were
trained, thousands of them each year, in a course which included not
only Cavesword but history and psychology as well. There were also
special classes in television-producing and acting. Television, finally,
was the key. It was the primary instrument of communication. Later,
with a subservient government and the aid of mental therapists and
new drugs, television became less necessary but, in the beginning, it
was everything.

Clarissa’s role was, as always, enigmatic. She appeared when she

pleased and she disappeared when she pleased. I discovered that
her position among the directors was due to her possession of the
largest single block of stock, dating back to the first days. During the
crucial two or three years, however, she was often with us merely for
protection since all our lives had been proscribed by the last
remnants of the old churches who, as their dominion shrank, fought
more and more recklessly to destroy us.
Stokharin spent his days much like Iris, instructing the
Communicators and Center-therapists in psychology. His power over
Paul had fortunately waned and he was far more likeable: Paul was
“freed,” Stokharin would say with some satisfaction, due to therapy
... and a new father-image.

Less than two years after the Congressional hearings, Paul, in his
devious way, entered politics and in the following Congressional
elections, without much overt campaigning on our part, the majority
of those elected to both Houses of the Congress were either Cavite
or sympathetic.

3
At last I have met him. Early this evening I went downstairs to see
the manager about an item on my bill which was incorrect. I had
thought that I should be safe for this was the time when most of the
hotel guests are bathing and preparing for dinner. Unfortunately, I
encountered Butler and his newly arrived colleague in the center of
the lobby. I suddenly found myself attempting, by an effort of will,
very simply to vanish into smoke like one of those magicians in a
child’s book. But I remained all too visible. I stopped halfway across
the lobby and waited for them.

They came toward me. Butler murmuring greetings and

introductions to Communicator Jessup (soon to be Resident of Luxor
“when we get underway”): “And this, Jack, is the Mr Hudson I told
you about.”

The Resident-to-be shook my hand firmly. He was not more than

thirty, a lean, dark-eyed mulatto whose features and coloring
appealed to me, used as I now am to the Arabs; beside him, Butler
looked more red and gross than ever.
“Butler has told me how useful you’ve been to us,” said Jessup. His
voice was a little high but he did not have the trick of over-
articulation which used to be so common among educated Negroes
in earlier times, a peculiarity they shared with Baptist clergymen and
professional poets.

“I’ve done what I could, little as it is,” I said ceremoniously. Then,

without protest, I allowed them to lead me out onto the terrace
which overlooked the setting sun and the muddy river.

“We planned to see you when Jack, here, arrived,” said Butler
expansively when we were seated, a tray of gin and ice and tonic
water set before us by a waiter who was used now to American
ways. “But you had the sign on your door so I told Jack we’d better
wait, till Mr Hudson is feeling better. You are okay now, aren’t you?”

“Somewhat better,” I said, enjoying the British gin: I’d had none
since I left Cairo. “At my age one is either dead or all right. I seem
not to be dead.”

“How I envy you!” said Jessup solemnly. His voice though high was
strong.

“Envy me?” For a moment I did not quite understand.

“To be so near the blessed state! Not to see the sun again and feel
the body quivering with corrupt life ... oh, what I should give to be
as old as you!”

“You could always commit suicide,” I said irritably, forgetting my role

as an amiable soft-headed old cretin.

This stopped him for only the space of a single surprised breath.
“Cavesway is not possible for his servants,” he said at last, patiently.
“You have not perhaps followed his logic as carefully as you might
had you been living in the civilized world.” He looked at me with his
bright dark eyes inscrutably focused.
Why are you here? I wanted to ask furiously, finally, but I only
nodded my head meekly and said, “So much has changed since I
came out here. I do recall, though, that Cavesway was considered
desirable for all.”

“It is ... but not for his servants who must, through living, sacrifice
their comfort ... it is our humiliation, our martyrdom in his behalf.
Even the humblest man or woman can avail themselves of Cavesway
unlike us, his servants, who must live, disgusting as the prospect is,
made bearable only by the knowledge that we are doing his work,
communicating his word.”

“What courage it must take to give up Cavesway!” I intoned with

reverent awe.

“It is the least we can do for him.”

The bright sun resembled that red-gold disk which sits on the brow
of Horus. A hot wind of Numidia stirred the dry foliage about us. I
could smell the metallic odor of the Nile’s water. A muezzin called,
high and toneless in the evening.

“Before I slip off into the better state,” I said at last, emboldened by
gin, “I should like to know as much as possible about the new world
the Cavites have made. I left the United States shortly after Cave
took his way. I have never been back.”

“How soon after?” The question came too fast. I gripped the arms of
my chair tightly.

“Two years after, I think,” I said. “I came to Cairo for the digging out
in El Abul.”

“How could you have missed those exciting years?” Jessup’s voice
became zealous. I remained on guard. “I was not even born then ...
and I’ve always cursed my bad luck. I used to go about talking to
complete strangers who had been alive in those great years. Of
course most were laymen and knew little about the things I had
studied but they could tell me how the sky looked the day he took
his way. And, every now and then, it was possible to meet someone
who had seen him.”

“Not many laymen ever saw him,” I said. “I remember with what
secrecy all his movements were enveloped. I was in New York much
of the time when he was there.”

“In New York!” Jessup sighed voluptuously.

“You saw him too, didn’t you, Mr Hudson?” Butler was obviously
eager that I make a good impression.

“Oh yes, I saw him the day he was in Washington. One of his few
public appearances! I was very devout in those days. I am now too,
of course,” I added hastily. “But in those days when it was all new
one was, well, exalted by Cavesword. I made a special trip to
Washington just to get a glimpse of him.” I played as resolutely as
possible upon their passionate faith.

“Did you really see him?”

I shook my head sadly. “Only a quick blur as he drove away. The

crowd was too big and the police were all around him.”

“I have of course relived that moment in the library, watching the

films, but actually to have been there that day....” Jessup’s voice
trailed off as he contemplated the extent of my good fortune.

“Then afterwards, after his death, I left for Egypt and I’ve never
been back.”

“You missed great days.”

“I’m sure of that. Yet I feel the best days were before, when I was in
New York and each week there would be a new revelation of his
wisdom.”

“You are quite right,” said Jessup, pouring himself more gin. “Yours
was the finer time even though those of us who feel drawn to the
mother must declare that later days possessed some virtue too, on
her account.”

“Mother?” I knew of course before he answered what had happened.

“As Cave was the father of our knowledge, so Iris is its mother,” said
Jessup. He looked at Butler with a half-smile. “Of course there are
some, the majority in fact, of the Communicators who deprecate our
allegiance to the mother, not realizing that it enhances rather than
detracts from Cave. After all, the Word and the Way are entirely his.”

Butler chuckled. “There’s been a little family dispute,” he said. “We

keep it out of the press because it really isn’t the concern of
anybody but us, Cave’s servants. Don’t mind talking to you about it
since you’ll be dead soon anyway and up here we’re all in the same
boat, all Cavites. Anyway, some of the younger fellows, the bright
ones like Jessup, have got attached to Iris ... not that we don’t all
love her equally. It’s just that they’ve got in the habit of talking
about death being the womb again, all that kind of stuff without any
real basis in Cave.”

“It runs all through his work, Bill. It’s implicit in all that he said.”
Jessup was amiable but I sensed a hardness in his tone. It had come
to this, I thought.

“Well, we won’t argue about it,” said Butler, turning to me with a

smile. “You should see what these Irisians can do with a Cavite text.
By the time they finish you don’t know whether you’re coming or
going.”

“Were you at all active in the Mission?” asked Jessup, abruptly

changing the subject.