Becoming aware of her entrance, both men rose from their seats.
"My madonna!" breathed Bloom.
"Good evening, Miss Ming." Doctor Volospion bowed.
Emmanuel Bloom seemed to be making an effort to contain himself. He sat down again.
"Good evening, gentlemen." She responded to this effort with one of her own. "How nice to see you again, Mr Bloom!"
"Oh!" He lifted a chop to his grease-painted mouth.
Simple food was placed by servants before her. She sat at Doctor Volospion's left. She had no appetite but she made some show of eating, noting that Doctor Volospion did the same. She hoped that Bloom would not subject them to any more of his megalomaniacal monologues. It was still difficult to understand why a man of Doctor Volospion's intelligence indulged Bloom at all, and yet they seemed to converse readily enough.
"You deal, sir, in Ideals," Doctor Volospion was saying, "I in Realities: though I remain fascinated by the trappings by means of which men seek to give credence to their dreamings."
"The trappings are all you can ever know," said the Fireclown, "for you can never experience the ecstasy of Faith. You are too empty."
"You continue to be hard on me, sir, while I try —"
"I speak the truth."
"Ah, well. I suppose you do read me aright, Mr Bloom."
"Of course I do. I gave my word only that I should not take Miss Ming from here by force. I did not agree to join in your courtesies, your hypocrisies. What are your manners when seen in the light of the great unchangeable realities of the multiverse?"
"Your belief in the permanence of anything, Mr Bloom, is incredible to me. Everything is transitory. Can the experience of a billion years have taught you nothing?"
"On the contrary, Doctor Volospion." He did not amplify. He chewed at his chop.
"Has experience left you untouched? Were you ever the same?"
"I suppose my character has changed little. I have known the punishments of Prometheus, but I have been that god's persecutor, too — for Bloom has bloomed everywhere, in every guise…"
"More peas?" interrupted Miss Ming.
Emmanuel Bloom shook his head.
"But creed has followed creed, movement followed movement, down all the centuries," continued Doctor Volospion, "and not one important change in any of them, though millions have lost their lives over some slight interpretation. Are men not fools to destroy themselves thus? Questing after impossibilities, golden dreams, romantic fancies, perfectibility…"
"Oh, certainly. Clowns, all of them. Like me."
Doctor Volospion did not know what to make of this.
"You agree?"
"The clown weeps, laughs, knows joy and sorrow. It is not enough to look at his costume and laugh and say — here is mankind revealed. Irony is nothing by itself. Irony is a modifier, not a protection. We live our lives because we have only our lives to live."
"Um," said Doctor Volospion. "I think I should show you my collection. I possess mementoes of a million creeds." He pointed with his thumb at the floor. "Down there."
"I doubt that they will be unfamiliar to me," said Bloom. "What do you hope to prove to me?"
"That you are not original, I suppose."
"And by this means you think you will encourage me to leave your planet without a single pledge fulfilled?"
Doctor Volospion made a gesture. "You read me so well, Mr Bloom."
"I'll inspect this stuff, if you wish. I am curious. I am respectful, too, of all prophets and all objects of devotion, but as to my originality…"
"Well," said Doctor Volospion, "we shall see. If you will allow me to conduct you upon a brief tour of my collection, I shall hope to convince you."
"Miss Ming will accompany us?"
"Oh, I'd love to," said Miss Ming courageously. She hated Doctor Volospion's treasures.
"I think my collection is the greatest in the universe," continued Doctor Volospion. "No better has existed, certainly, in Earth's history. Many missionaries have come this way. Most have made attempts to — um — save us. As you have. They have not been, in the main, as spectacular, I will admit, nor have they claimed as much as you claim. However…" He took a pea upon his fork. There was something in the gesture to make Mavis Ming suspect that he planned something more than a mere tour of his treasures. "… you would agree that your arguments are scarcely subtle. They allow for no nuance."
Now nothing would stop the Fireclown. He rose from the table, his birdlike movements even more exaggerated than usual. He strutted the length of the table. He strutted back again. "A pox on nuance! Seize the substance, beak and claws, and leave the chitterlings for the carrion! Let crows and storks squabble over the scraps, these subtleties — the eagle takes the main carcass, as much or as little as he needs!" He fixed his gaze upon Miss Ming. "Forget your quibbling scruples, madonna! Come with me now. Together we'll leave the planet to its fate. Their souls gutter like dying candles. The whole world reeks of inertia. If they will not have my Ideals, then I shall bestow all my gifts on you!"
Mavis Ming said in strangled tones: "You are very kind, Mr Bloom, but…"
"Perhaps that particular matter can be discussed later," proposed Doctor Volospion tightening his cap about his head and face. "Now, sir, if you will come?"
"Miss Ming, too?"
"Miss Ming."
The trio left the hall, with Miss Ming reluctantly trailing behind. She desperately hoped that Doctor Volospion was not playing one of his games at her expense. He had been so nice to her lately, she thought, that he was evidently mellowing her, yet she hated in herself that slight lingering suspicion of him, that voice which had told her, on more than one occasion, that if someone liked her then that someone could have no taste at all and was therefore not worth knowing.
They descended and they descended, for it was Doctor Volospion's pleasure to bury his collection in the bowels of his castle. Murky corridor followed murky corridor, lit by flambeaux, candles, rush torches, oil-lamps, anything that would give the minimum of heat and cast the maximum number of shadows.
"You have," said Mr Bloom after some while of this tramping, "an unexceptional imagination, Doctor Volospion."
"I do not concern myself with the lust for variation enjoyed by most of my fellows at the End of Time," remarked the lean man. "I follow but a few simple obsessions. And in that, I think, we share something, Mr Bloom."
"Well —" began the Fireclown.
But then Doctor Volospion had stopped at an iron-bound door. "Here we are!" He flung the door wide. The light from within seemed intense.
The Fireclown strutted, stiff-limbed as ever, into the high vaulted hall. He blinked in the light. He sniffed the warm, heavy air. For almost as far as the eye could see there were rows and rows of cabinets, pedestals, display domes; Doctor Volospion's museum.
"What's this?" inquired Mr Bloom.
"My collection of devotional objects, culled from all ages. From all the planets of the universe." Doctor Volospion was proud.
It was difficult to see if Mr Bloom was impressed, for his clown's paint hid most expression.
Doctor Volospion paused beside a little table. "Only the best have been preserved. I have discarded or destroyed the rest. Here is a history of folly!" He looked down at the table. On it lay a dusty scrap of skin to which clung a few faded feathers. Doctor Volospion plucked it up. "Do you recognize that, Mr Bloom, with all your experience of Time and Space?"
The long neck came forwards to inspect the thing. "The remains of a fowl?" suggested Mr Bloom. "A chicken, perhaps?"