World of Wonders

“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 Ha

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 a

“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 do

Lind and Ingestree decided it was time to take him to his bed. As they manhandled him down the long entry-steps of Sorgenfrei he was shouting, “Light! Let there be light! Who said that? I said it!”

8

The film-makers were drawing near the end of their work. All but a few special scenes of Un Hommage a Robert-Houdin were “in the can”; what remained was to arrange backstage shots of Eisengrim being put into his “gaffed” conjuror’s evening coat by the actor who played the conjuror’s son and assistant; of assistants working quietly and deftly while the great magician produced astonishing effects on the stage; of Mme Robert-Houdin putting the special padded covers over the precious and delicate automata; of the son-assistant gently loading a dozen doves, or three rabbits, or even a couple of ducks into a space which seemed incapable of holding them; of all the splendidly efficient organization which was needed to produce the effect of the illogical and incredible. That night, therefore, Eisengrim moved his narrative along a little faster.

“You don’t want a chronological account of my seven years as the mechanism of Abdullah,” he said, “and indeed it would be impossible for me to give you one. Something was happening all the time, but only two or three matters were of any importance. We were continually travelling and seeing new places, but in fact we saw nothing. We brought excitement and perhaps a whisper of magic into thousands of rural Canadian lives, but our own lives were vast unbroken prairies of boredom. We were continually on the alert, sizing up the Rubes and trying to match what we gave to what they wanted, but no serious level of our minds was ever put to work.

“For So