"Then perhaps you could find another world…"
"No, this is the last. I left it long ago, promising that I would return and save it, as my final action."
"Well, you are too late."
"Really, madam, I cannot take your word for it. I am the greatest authority on such matters in the universe, to say the least. I am the Champion Eternal, Hero of a million legends. When Law battles Chaos, I am always called. When civilizations are threatened with total extermination, it is to me that they turn for rescue. And when decadence and despair rule an otherwise secure and prosperous world, it is for Emmanuel Bloom, the Fireclown, Time's Jester, that they yearn. And I come."
"But we did not call you, we require no rescuing. We are not yearning, I assure you, even a fraction."
"Miss Ming is yearning."
"Miss Ming's yearning is hardly spiritual."
"So you think. I know better."
"Well, then, I'll grant you that Miss Ming is yearning. But I am not yearning. Doctor Volospion is incapable, I am sure, of yearning. Yearning, all in all, Mr Bloom, is extinct in this Age."
"Forgotten, hidden, unheeded, but I know it is there. I know. A deep, unadmitted sadness. A demand for Romance. A pining for Ideals."
"We take up Romance from time to time, and we have an interest, on occasion, in Ideals — but these are passing enthusiasms, Mr Bloom. Even those of us most obsessed with such things show no particular misery when circumstances or changing fashion require that they be dropped."
"How shallow are those who dwell here now! All, that is, save Mavis Ming."
"Some think her the shallowest of us all." My Lady Charlotina regretted her spite, for she did not wish to seem malicious in Mr Bloom's eyes.
"It is often the case," he said, "with those who cannot see beyond flesh and into the soul."
"I doubt if there are many souls remaining among us," said My Lady Charlotina. "Since we are almost every one of us self-made creatures. There is even some speculation that we are not human at all, but sophisticated androids."
"It could be the explanation," he mused.
"I hope you will not be wholly frustrated," she said sympathetically, watching him climb down his ladder. "I can imagine what it is like to possess only one role."
She settled, like a butterfly, upon the vacated plinth.
He reached the ground and peered up at her, arms held stiffly, as usual, by his side, red hair flaring. "I assure you, madam," he piped, "that I am not in the least impressed by what you have told me."
"But I speak the truth."
"Unlike Volospion, who lies, lies, lies. I agree that you believe, like Miss Ming, that you speak the truth. But I see decadence. And where there is decadence there is misery. And where there is misery then must come the Fireclown, to bring laughter, joy, terror, to banish all anxieties."
"Your logic is, I fear, obsolete, Mr Bloom. There is no misery here, to speak of. And," she added, "there is no joy. Instead, we have a comfortable balance. It enables us to contemplate our own end with a certain grace."
"Hum."
"Surely this equilibrium is what all human morality and philosophy has striven for over the millennia?" she said, seating herself on the edge of the plinth and arranging her gold gauze about her legs. "Would you set the see-saw swinging again?"
He frowned. "No heights or depths here, eh?"
"For most of us, no."
"No Heaven and Hell?"
"Only those we create for our own amusement."
"No Terror and no Ecstasy?"
"Scarcely a scrap."
"How can you bear it?"
"It is the ultimate achievement of our race. We enjoy it."
"Are there none who —?"
"Those time travellers, space travellers, a few who have induced special anachronistic tendencies in themselves. Yes, there are some who might respond to you. A good few of them are not with us at present, however. The Iron Orchid's little son, Jherek Carnelian, his great love, Amelia Underwood, his mentor, Lord Jagged of Canaria, and perhaps a few others, one loses track. Doctor Volospion? Perhaps, for it is rumoured that he is not of this Age at all. Li Pao and various aliens who have visited us and stayed … Yes, from these you could derive a certain satisfaction. Some would undoubtably welcome you, for one reason or another…"
"It is usually for one reason or another," said the Fireclown frankly. "Men see me as many things. It is because I am many things."
"And all of them excellent, I am sure."
"But I must do what I must do," he said. "It is all I know. For I am Bloom the Destroyer, Bloom the Builder, Bloom the Bringer of Brightness, Bloom who Blooms Forever! And my mission is to save you all."
"I thought we had at least removed ourselves from generalities, Mr Bloom," she said a little chidingly.
He turned away, disconsolately so My Lady Charlotina thought.
"Generalities, madam, are all I deal in. They are my stock-in-trade. It is the gift I bring — to remove petty anxieties, momentary considerations, and to replace them with grandeur, with huge, simple, glorious Ideals."
"It is not a simple problem," she said. "I can see that."
"It must be a simple problem!" he complained. "All problems are simple. All!"
He disappeared into the soft trees surrounding the plinth. She heard his voice muttering for some while, but he made no formal farewell, for he was too much lost in his own concerns. A short time later she saw a distant tree burst into flame and subside almost at once. She saw a rather feeble bolt of lightning crash and split a trunk. Then he was gone away.
My Lady Charlotina remained on the plinth, for she was enjoying a rare sense of melancholy and was reluctant to let the mood pass.
10. In which the Fireclown attempts to deny any suggestion so far made that he is an Anachronism
My Lady Charlotina's words had failed, as was soon to be shown, to convince Mr Bloom. Yet there was something pathetic to his acts of destruction, something almost sad about the way he demolished the Duke of Queens' City of Tulips (each dwelling a separate flower) or laid waste Florence Fawkes' delightful little Sodom with all its inhabitants, including Florence Fawkes who was never, by an oversight, resurrected. It was in a half-abstracted mood that he brought a rain of molten lava to disrupt the party which Bishop Castle was giving for moody Werther de Goethe (and which, as it happened, was received with approval by all concerned, since Werther was one of the few to appreciate the Fireclown's point of view and died screaming of repentance and the like — though when he was resurrected almost immediately he did complain that the consistency of the lava was not all that it might have been — too lumpy, he thought). The Fireclown rarely appeared personally on any of these occasions. He seemed to have lost the will to enjoy intercourse with his fellows. Moreover there was scarcely anyone who found him very entertaining after the first demolition or two, largely because his wrath always took exactly the same form. Werther de Goethe sought him out and enthused. He found, he said, Mr Bloom deeply refreshing, and he offered himself as an acolyte. Mr Bloom had informed him that he would let Werther know when acolytes were needed, if at all. Lord Mongrove also visited the Fireclown, hoping for conversation, but the Fireclown told him frankly that his talk was depressing. My Lady Charlotina visited him, too, and came away refusing to tell anyone what had passed between herself and Mr Bloom, though she seemed upset. And when Mistress Christia followed close in the footsteps of her friend and was also rebuffed, Mr Bloom told her sombrely that he waited for one woman and one alone, the beautiful Mavis Ming.