Chapter 2.

Azzie arrived at Aretino's door one week to the minute after he had first talked with him. Aretino welcomed the demon to his home and led him to an upper sitting room where they could take their ease on brocaded chairs and enjoy the spectacle of the lights of Venice outlining the ca.n.a.ls. Aretino served a wine he had chosen carefully for the occasion. A servant brought in little cakes for refreshment.

A soft blue twilight lay across the city, increasing by a hundredfold its air of magic and mystery. From below came the sound of a boating song: "Ho for the life of a gondolier!" Man and demon listened to it in silence for a few moments.

Azzie was experiencing one of the finest times in his life. This was the first moment of the launching of a new enterprise. The next words he spoke would make a great change in many lives; he was about to experience his own importance as a prime mover. Azzie was to become one who shaped events rather than being shaped by them. Power, self-aggrandizement, that was what it was all about.

In Azzie's imagination the new project swelled into immediate completion. It almost seemed done immediately after it had been conceived. His vision of it was vague but grand.

It took him a moment to come back to himself and realize that everything still remained to be accomplished. "I have experienced some impatience, my dear Aretino, waiting to hear what you might come up with. Or do you consider the matter of my play beyond your competence?"

"I think I'm the only man for the job," Aretino said boldly. "But you'll judge for yourself when I tell you the legend I would like to base the play upon."

"A legend? Oh, good!" Azzie said. "I love legends. Is it about anyone I know?"

"G.o.d is in my story, and Adam, and Lucifer."

"All old friends. Do proceed, Pietro."

Aretino settled back, and, taking a sip of wine to clear his throat, began talking...

Adam was lying beside a brook in Eden when G.o.d came to him and said, "Adam, what have you been up to?"

"Me?" Adam sat up. "I've just been sitting here thinking good thoughts."

"I know you've been thinking good thoughts," G.o.d said. "I tune in on you every once in a while just to see how you're doing. That's personal G.o.d involvement at its finest. But what were you doing before those good thoughts?"

"I'm not sure."

"Try to remember. You were with Eve, weren't you?"

"Well, yeah, sure. That's all right, isn't it? I mean, she's my wife, you know."

"n.o.body's trying to make anything of it, Adam. I'm just trying to establish a fact. You were talking with Eve, weren't you?"

"All right, I was. She was going on about something the birds told her. You know, G.o.d, just between you and me, for a grown woman she does go on a lot about birds.

"What else were you doing with Eve?"

"Just talking about birds. With her it's birds all the time. Tell me frankly, do you think the lady is all there? I mean, is she normal? Of course I don't have anyone to compare her to because I've never met another lady. You didn't even give me a mother, not that I'm complaining. But still, talking about birds all the time, I mean, come on already."

"Eve happens to be very innocent," G.o.d said. "Nothing wrong in that, is there?"

"I guess not," Adam said.

"What's the matter? Have I offended you?"

"You? Offend me? Don't be silly. You're G.o.d, so how could you offend me?"

"What else did you do with Eve other than talk with her?"

Adam shook his head. "Frankly, you wouldn't want to know. I mean, where is it written that a man should talk dirty in front of his G.o.d?"

"I'm not talking about the s.e.x thing," G.o.d said contemptuously.

"Look, if you know what I did and what I didn't do, why do you even bother asking me?"

"I'm trying to make a point," G.o.d said.

Adam added something in a voice so low that G.o.d had to ask him to speak up.

"I said that you shouldn't get so angry at me. After all, you made me in your image, so what do you expect?"

"Oh, that's 'what you think, is it? And you think that my creating you in my image excuses any sort of behavior on your part?"

"Well, I mean, after all, you -"

"I gave you everything, all of it, life, intelligence, good looks, a cute wife, imagination, good food, a mild climate, good taste in literary matters, skill at many sports, artistic apt.i.tude, the ability to add and subtract, and quite a lot else.

I could have put you on the Earth with one finger and left you spending all your time counting up to one. Instead I gave you ten fingers and the ability to count all the way up to infinity. I did it all for you. All I asked was that you play with the stuff I gave you but leave alone the stuff I didn't want you to touch. Is that right or is that not right?"

"Yeah, it's right," Adam mumbled.

"All I said was, that tree over there, what we call the Tree of Life, see that apple on it? And you said you saw it. And I said to you, 'Just do me a favor, don't eat that apple, got it?' And you said, 'Sure, G.o.d, I've got it and it's no big deal.' But yesterday, with Eve, you were eating the forbidden apple, weren't you?"

"Apple?" Adam asked, with a puzzled tone.

"You know very well what apples are," G.o.d said. "They're round and red and they taste sweet, only you shouldn't know how they taste because I told you not to taste one."

"I never understood why we weren't supposed to eat it."

"I told you that, too," G.o.d said, "If you had bothered to listen. It would give you knowledge of Good and Evil. That's why you weren't supposed to eat it."

"What's so bad about knowledge of Good and Evil?" Adam asked.

"Hey, any kind of knowledge is wonderful," G.o.d said. "But you have to have some knowledge to be able to handle knowledge. I was bringing you and Eve along nice and slow to the point where you could eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge without freaking out or thinking you knew everything. But she had to go tempt you with that apple, didn't she?"

"It was my own idea," Adam said. "Don't go blaming Eve. All she knows about is birds."

"But she put you up to it, didn't she?"

"Maybe she did. But so what? There's a rumor around here that you wouldn't be so angry if one of us did eat the apple."

"Where'd you hear that?"

"I don't remember," Adam said. "Birds and bees, maybe. But Eve and I had to taste the apple sometime or other. The law of dramatic necessity says you can't just leave a loaded apple on the mantel without using it sometime. Can't just stay in the Garden of Eden forever, can we?"

"No, you can't," G.o.d said. "As a matter of fact, you're leaving at once. And don't think you're coming back."