“I am sure he wasn’t joking when he spoke of hatred,” said Lind. “He was funny, or ironic, or whatever you want to call it, about the World of Wonders. We all know why people talk in that way; if we are amusing about our trials in the past, it is as if we say, ‘See what I overcame — now I treat it as a joke — see how strong I have been and ask yourself if you could have overcome what I overcame?’ But when he spoke of hatred, there was no joking.”
“I don’t agree,” said Ingestree. “I think joking about the past is a way of suggesting that it wasn’t really important. A way of veiling its horror, perhaps. We shudder when we hear of yesterday’s plane accident, in which seventy people were killed; but we become increasingly philosophical about horrors that are further away. What is the Charge of the Light Brigade now? We remember it as a military blunder and we use it as a stick to beat military commanders, who are all popularly supposed to be blunderers. It has become a poem by Tennyson that embarrasses us by its exaltation of unthinking obedience. We joke about the historical fact and the poetic artifact. But how many people ever think of the young men who charged? Who takes five minutes to summon up in his mind what they felt as they rushed to death? It is the fate of the past to be fuel for humour.”
“Have you put your finger on it?” said Lind. “Perhaps you have. Jokes dissemble horrors and make them seem unimportant. And why? Is it in order that more horrors may come? In order that we may never learn anything from experience? I have never been very fond of jokes. I begin to wonder if they are not evil.”
“Oh rubbish, Jurgen,” said Ingestree. “I was only talking about one aspect of humour. It’s absolutely vital to life. It’s one of the marks of civilization. Mankind wouldn’t be mankind without it.”
“I know that the English set a special value on humour,” said Lind. “They have a very fine sense of humour and sometimes they think theirs the best in the world, like their marmalade. Which reminds me that during the First World War some of the English troops used to go over the top shouting, ‘Marmalade!’ in humorously chivalrous voices, as if it were a heroic battle-cry. The Germans could never get used to it. They puzzled tirelessly to solve the mystery. Because a German cannot conceive that a man in battle would want to be funny, you see. But I think the English were dissembling the horror of their situation so that they would not notice how close they were to Death. Again, humour was essentially evil. If they had thought of the truth of their situation, they might not have gone over the top. And that might have been a good thing.”
“Let’s not theorize about humour, Jurgen,” said Ingestree; “it’s utterly fruitless and makes the very dullest kind of conversation.”
“Now its my turn to disagree,” I said. “This notion that nobody can explain humour, or even talk sensibly about it, is one of humour’s greatest cover-ups. I’ve been thinking a great deal about the Devil lately, and I have been wondering if humour isn’t one of the most brilliant inventions of the Devil. What have you just been saying about it? It diminishes the horrors of the past, and it veils the horrors of the present, and therefore it prevents us from seeing straight, and perhaps from learning things we ought to know. Who profits from that? Not mankind, certainly. Only the Devil could devise such a subtle agency and persuade mankind to value it.”
“No, no, no, Ramsay,” said Liesl. “You are in one of your theological moods. I’ve watched you for days, and you have been moping as you do only when you are grinding one of your homemade theological axes. Humour is quite as often the pointer to truth as it is a cloud over truth. Have you never heard the Jewish legend — it’s in the Talmud, isn’t it? — that at the time of Creation the Creator displayed his masterwork, Man, to the Heavenly Host, and only the Devil was so tactless as to make a joke about it. And that was why he was thrown out of Heaven, with all the angels who had been unable to suppress their laughter. So they set up Hell as a kind of jokers’ club, and thereby complicated the universe in a way that must often embarrass God.”
“No,” I said; “I’ve never heard that and as legends are my speciality, I don’t believe it. Talmud my foot! I suspect you made that legend up here and now.”
Liesl laughed loud and long, and pushed the brandy bottle toward me. “You are almost as clever as I am, and I love you, Dunstan Ramsay,” she said.
“New or old, it’s a very good legend,” said Ingestree. “Because that’s always one of the puzzles of religion — no humour. Not a scrap. What is the basis of our faith, when we have a faith? The Bible. The Bible contains precisely one joke, and that is a schoolmasterish pun attributed to Christ when he told Peter that he was the rock on which the Church was founded. Very probably a later interpolation by some Church Father who thought it was a real rib-binder. But monotheism leaves no room for jokes, and I’ve thought for a long time that is what is wrong with it. Monotheism is too po-faced for the sort of world we find ourselves in. What have we heard tonight? A great deal about how Happy Hannah tried to squeeze jokes out of the Bible in the hope of catching a few young people who were brimming with life. Frightful puns; the kind of bricks you make without straw. Whereas the Devil, when he is represented in literature, is full of excellent jokes, and we can’t resist him because he and his jokes make so much sense. To twist an old saying, if the Devil had not existed, we should have had to invent him. He is the only explanation of the appalling ambiguities of life. I give you the Devil!”
He raised his glass, but only he and Liesl drank the toast. Kinghovn, who had been getting into the brandy very heavily, was almost asleep. Lind was musing, and no sign of amusement appeared on his long face. I couldn’t possibly have drunk such a toast, offered in such a spirit. Ingestree was annoyed.
“You don’t drink,” said he.
“Perhaps I shall do so later, when I have had time to think it over,” said Lind. “Private toasts are out of fashion in the English-speaking world; you only drink them on formal occasions, as part of the decorum of stupidity. But we Scandinavians have still one foot in Odin’s realm, and when we drink a toast we mean something quite serious. When I drink to the Devil I shall want to be quite serious.”
“I hesitate to say so, Roland,” I said, “but I wish you hadn’t done that. I quite agree that the Devil is a great joker, but I don’t think it is particularly jolly to be the butt of one of his jokes. You have called his attention to you in what I must call a frivolous way — damned silly, to be really frank. I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“You mean he’ll do something to me? You mean that from henceforth I’m a Fated Man? You know, I’ve always fancied the role of Fated Man. What do you think it’ll be? Car accident? Loss of job? Even a nasty death?”
“Who am I to probe the mind of a World Spirit?” I said. “But if I were the Devil — which, God be thanked, I am not — I might throw a joke or two in your direction that would test your sense of humour. I don’t suppose you’re a Fated Man.”
“You mean I’m too small fry for that?” said Ingestree. He was smiling, but he didn’t like my serious tone and was inviting me to insult him. Lucidly, Kinghovn woke up, slightly slurred in speech but full of opinion.
“You’re all out of your heads,” he shouted. “No humour in the Bible. All right. Scrub out the Bible. Use the script Eisengrim has given us. Film the subtext. Then I’ll show you some humour: that Fat Woman — let me give you a peep-shot of her groaning in the donniker, or being swilled down by Gus; let me show her shrieking her bloody-awful jokes while the Last Trick gets dirtier and dirtier. Then you’ll hear some laughter. You’re all mad for words. Words are just farts from a lot of fools who have swallowed too many books. Give me things! Give me the appearance of a thing, and I’ll show you the way to photograph it so the reality comes right out in front of your eyes. The Devil? Balls! God? Balls! Get me that Fat Woman and I’ll photograph her one way and you’ll know the Devil made her, then I’ll photograph her another way and you’ll swear you see the work of God! Light! That’s the whole secret! Light! And who understands it? I do!”