Galapagos Regained (11 page)

“The Cosmological Proof is famously lucid but notoriously flawed,” said Miss Martineau. “Those who embrace this argument imagine that God Himself is somehow exempt from the infinite regress. But why should that be the case?”

How lamentable, thought Malcolm, that this brilliant woman would ally herself with unbelievers. He wondered if their incompatible theological views would preclude future intellectual congress. Equine of face, stumpish of form, and hard of hearing, Miss Martineau was less than alluring, but never had a person of her sex so fascinated him.

“I fail to follow your reasoning,” said Sethington.

“I shall put it as simply as I can,” said Miss Martineau. “If God created the universe, then who created God?”

“God is by definition uncreated,” Sethington replied.

“Then we might as well say the universe is by definition uncreated and subtract God from the equation,” noted Atkinson. “Aquinas possessed a keen intellect, but his proof proves precisely nothing.”

“Shall I tell you of another crack in your cosmological egg?” said Holyoake to Sethington. “Even if we decide that our infinite regress must terminate in a supernatural being, why assume we're talking about the God of Christian revelation? The entity in question might be the Hindoo's Brahma, the Northman's Odin, the Grecian's Apollo, or a mystic elephant who defecates planets instead of turds.”

The
flâneurs
laughed appreciatively.

“We are sorry, Mr. Sethington,” said Lady Isadora, “but it appears you will leave our meeting no wealthier than you arrived.”

The petitioner rose, packed up his Cosmological Proof, and, grasping the handle of the wagon, trundled wordlessly away.

“We shall now indulge in a short intermission,” declared Lord Woolfenden.

Goblets were filled, cigars ignited, witticisms traded, trysts scheduled, and bodices fondled, after which the master of Alastor Hall clapped his hands and called for silence. Receiving his cue, the evening's second petitioner—a popinjay in a flowered silk waistcoat—entered the library accompanied by a squat hireling bearing an ancient traveling-chest, the unwieldy burden riding on his back like Quasimodo's hump.

“Visiting us tonight on behalf of disbelief is Sir Basil Wanderly of Blackthorn Hall,” said Woolfenden, “who means to undermine the consensus concerning God's goodness.”

As the fop approached the judges, the hireling opened the trunk, revealing a score of wide-mouthed bottles, each packed in straw and filled with a liquid preservative. The receptacles, Malcolm observed, contained all manner of ugly, prickly, slimy, and otherwise untoward things.

“God's reputation precedes Him,” Sir Basil began. “Omnipotent, omniscient, and, most pertinent to my presentation, omnibenevolent. But if compassion is the Almighty's
sine qua non
, then His Creation will necessarily be free of gratuitous cruelty. In my observations, however, something like the
opposite
is the case. Behold the type of Australian jellyfish known as the sea-wasp.”

Receiving his cue, the hireling produced a bottle containing the pickled remains of a creature resembling a diaphanous parasol outfitted with tentacles. “A sea-wasp's every limb sports venomous syringes,” noted Sir Basil, “which means an entangled swimmer may anticipate a slow and agonizing death. I cannot but wonder what sort of God would fashion such a beast.”

“A nasty God,” said Atkinson.

“A nonexistent God,” said Miss Martineau.

“Now behold my guinea-worm,” said Sir Basil, “whose
modus operandi
makes the sea-wasp seem like a saint.”

The hireling set the jellyfish on the dais. Returning to the trunk, he brought forth a specimen suggesting a segment from a child's kite string, though there was nothing remotely frolicsome about the creature.

“Drink from a river in India or Africa, and you risk ingesting the immature larvae of this worm,” said Sir Basil. “Although the male measures but a few inches, the female grows to the three-foot monster you see before you. Day after day she burrows through her host's tissues, a migration that normally terminates in the leg but sometimes in the breast, scalp, tongue, or generative organs. When the worm's head meets the inside surface of the skin, an excruciating blister forms. By immersing the lesion in a cold stream, the victim can gain some relief, as this induces the creature to emerge into daylight and burst, releasing her immature larvae into the water. There now comes the problem of removing the worm's impacted corpse, more painful than a malignant tumor. The usual method is to wind the thing about a stick.”

“What a ghastly beast,” said Miss Martineau.

“Small wonder Jehovah declines to show His face in public,” said Atkinson.

Next the contestant submitted specimens of the warble fly, “a creature that God in His mercy has instructed to breed in the nasal passages of horses and cattle, so that the maggots will have plenty of cartilage to devour upon hatching.” The subsequent exhibit was a moth called
Lobocraspis griseifusa,
“which on the counsel of our loving Creator uses its proboscis to irritate the eyes of water buffalo and other defenseless livestock, thus provoking a supply of nourishing tears.” Then came a collection of male bedbugs, “an insect that Heaven has favored with a procreative member so long that he rarely bothers about the female's genital opening, preferring to stab her and release his seed into her bloodstream.” And so it went, bottle after bottle, invertebrate after invertebrate, until all twenty indictments decorated the dais. “I could offer additional specimens, but I've no wish to cause the Supreme Being further embarrassment. Stendhal put it well: God's only excuse is that He does not exist.”

Lord Woolfenden rolled off his divan, picked his way amongst the horizontal hedonists, and bowed before his freethinking guest. “Our atheists are impressed by your circus of horrors, but I wonder if you've rattled those amongst us of a Christian persuasion.”

“Your Lordship, the mere existence of vermin does not give a believer pause,” said Mr. Symonds. “With Adam's fall came Nature's corruption. We should not be surprised to find vestiges of that catastrophe in far-flung corners of the globe.”

Malcolm said, “In confronting the phenomenon of evil, we must remember Herr Leibniz's insight that ours is the best of all possible worlds—emphasis on the
possible.
The physical stuff that constitutes the universe is
ipso facto
flawed,” he continued, striving mightily to believe himself, “for if external reality were entirely good, it would not be God's
handiwork—
it would be
God,
full stop. In short, Sir Basil's worms are the price we pay for tangible existence. Without such blemishes on the face of Creation, we should not have a world at all.”

“I was once privileged to hear John Henry Newman speak to the problem of seemingly pointless suffering,” said Owen. “The great cleric averred that ostensibly unjust tribulations harbor a secret benevolence.”

“Having devoted many hours to pickling God's sins, and finding not a single hidden harmony therein,” said Sir Basil, “I remain far less impressed by Father Newman than by Abbess Ich-Newman.”

“Abbess who?” asked Lady Isadora.

“The remorseless ichneumon wasp,” said Sir Basil, “who lays her eggs inside a caterpillar's living body. When the larvae hatch, they eat the caterpillar alive.”

“How unseemly,” said Lady Isadora.

“Alas, Sir Basil, I fear you've not persuaded our believers,” said Lord Woolfenden, “but I must thank you for an engaging presentation.”

As the hireling began packing up the exhibits, cushioning each bottle in straw, Malcolm released a moan of trepidation. Although Sir Basil's monsters had failed to carry the day, sooner or later the Argument from Evil would descend upon the contest in an impossibly potent form—and Malcolm did not want to be there when that disaster occurred.

The guinea-worm was last to enter the trunk. For Malcolm the awful creature evoked an episode from the Book of Numbers: Jehovah punishing the backsliding Israelites by sending fiery serpents to bite and burn them—a plague He lifted only after they'd confessed their sins to Moses. What most intrigued Malcolm was the manner of the Israelites' cure. Just as a guinea-worm victim could find relief by wrapping the parasite's corpse around a stick, so were the Children of Israel saved when Moses set a brass serpent atop a pole for everyone to see.

Worm and stick, serpent and pole—was it all mere coincidence? Or was Numbers in fact a catalog of diseases and their treatments, allegorized as a series of encounters between the Israelites and their irascible God? Malcolm imagined that he might one day explore this notion in depth, writing an exegesis to which he would be pleased to put his name, assuming he could keep his pride from devolving into pridefulness.

*   *   *

Kindly as always and solicitous to the end, Mr. Darwin saw to it that no breath of scandal or whiff of disgrace attended Chloe's departure from Down House. He told the assembled staff that, having grown weary of “the mute universe of lizards and tortoises,” Miss Bathurst had decided to direct her nurturing instincts “towards a more appreciative audience, notably a brood of human children.” Owing to her charm and intelligence, he added, she would “doubtless soon obtain a new situation.” Indeed, were his own progeny not already under excellent tutelage, he would hire her himself.

With a tremor in her voice and a stricture in her throat, Chloe said good-bye to Master Willy and Miss Annie. The children listened uncomprehendingly as she praised their natural Rousseauian goodness. Later that morning Chloe visited her feathered charges, bidding
au revoir
to the mockingbirds, flycatchers, and finches. Next she addressed the lizards, telling them that she'd greatly enjoyed their taciturn and unpretentious company.

The giant tortoises occasioned the most difficult farewells. Chloe felt embarrassed to be rubbing their shells and insisting she would never forget them. After all, the ancestors of these creatures had walked the Earth long before the advent of the sympathetic emotions, and when sorrow had at last appeared on the scene, tortoises had doubtless recognized it for the softheaded and useless sentiment it was. In their antique wisdom Boswell of James Isle, Isolde of Charles Isle, and Perseus of Indefatigable (whose injured leg was healing splendidly) knew better than to trouble themselves with yearning—but Chloe did not, and so she wept.

As the shadows of evening drew nigh, she climbed aboard the steam train for London. Settling into her seat, she thought of those times in her life when, having fallen into the Slough of Despond, she'd managed to escape. In each case she'd begun by cataloging her present advantages—and so she now made a list. Asset number one: the six pounds from Mr. Darwin. Asset number two: her copy of the transmutation essay, secured in her portmanteau. Asset number three: her incipient scheme, precise as an arrow and simple as a stitch. It called for her to use her severance pay in renting illustrative specimens from England's zoos. Equipped with these scaled, beaked, and feathered testaments, she would travel to Alastor Hall, present her disproof of God, and set the ghost of Shelley to grinning.

Detraining at Charing Cross Station, she headed towards the Adelphi Theatre in quest of Fanny Mendrick, with whom she hoped to share lodgings once again. For Chloe, such a bargain would hold clear advantages—she could employ 15 Tavistock Street as her base of operations whilst assembling her menagerie—though she feared the arrangement might prove unpalatable to her rooming-companion. No, dear Fanny, during my days at Down House I did not learn to sew, so I shan't mend your dresses, nor to launder, so I shan't clean your sheets, nor to cook in the French manner, so you mustn't expect meals laden with luscious sauces. I can offer you only my camaraderie and, for the immediate future, my half of the rent.

Midway through her trek across the nocturnal city, Chloe came upon a ragamuffin selling Tuesday's
Evening Standard
. Without asking permission, she seized the topmost copy and turned to page three, which indeed featured Popplewell's account of Saturday night's goings-on at Alastor Hall. Heart astir, she scanned the headline,
COSMOLOGICAL PROOF FAILS TO AUTHENTICATE JEHOVAH
, then the subhead,
ANGLICAN JUDGES REJECT ARGUMENT FROM EVIL
, and finally the illustration: a snake emerging from an African native's chest, labeled
Guinea-Worm Victim
. Despite the disturbing image, she laughed out loud, unnerving the ragamuffin. The purse remained intact. The race went on.

Upon reaching the Strand, she surveyed the Adelphi Theatre billboards and saw that
The Beauteous Buccaneer
had ended its run: hardly a surprise—without Miss Chloe Bathurst in the principal role, who would patronize that overripe melon? The new offering was
Via Dolorosa,
Mr. Bulwer-Lytton's iambic-pentameter dramatization of the further adventures of Veronica, the woman who'd swabbed Jesus' brow as he'd limped towards Golgotha (thereby imprinting his face on her veil in a kind of first-century daguerreotype). Three years earlier, when the Southwark Company was poised to mount the world premiere of
Via Dolorosa,
Chloe had auditioned for the part of Veronica, having read the entire play by way of preparation. The venture came to naught. Not only did the director decline to cast her, but Chloe had nearly drowned in Bulwer-Lytton's cataract of verse, in which treacherous tides of forced rhymes concealed perilous shoals of distressed metaphors. The present production featured Fanny as Veronica—the perfect role for an actress of such radiant faith.

By the testimony of her smile, Fanny was delighted to find her former rooming-companion waiting at the stage door, and she refrained from any show of skepticism when Chloe insisted that her departure from Mr. Darwin's employ had been voluntary, “driven only by a longing for the cosmopolitan life I'd left behind.”