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THE REWARD
One's spirit goes further in dreams than it does by day. Wandering
once by night from a factory city I came to the edge of Hell.
The place was foul with cinders and cast-off things, and jagged,
half-buried things with shapeless edges, and there was a huge angel
with a hammer building in plaster and steel. I wondered what he did
in that dreadful place. I hesitated, then asked him what he was
building. "We are adding to Hell," he said, "to keep pace with the
times." "Don't be too hard on them," I said, for I had just come out
of a compromising age and a weakening country. The angel did not
answer. "It won't be as bad as the old hell, will it?" I said. "Worse,"
said the angel.
"How can you reconcile it with your conscience as a Minister of
Grace," I said, "to inflict such a punishment?" (They talked like this
in the city whence I had come and I could not avoid the habit of it.)
"They have invented a new cheap yeast," said the angel.
I looked at the legend on the walls of the hell that the angel was
building, the words were written in flame, every fifteen seconds they
changed their color, "Yeasto, the great new yeast, it builds up body
and brain, and something more."
"They shall look at it for ever," the angel said.
"But they drove a perfectly legitimate trade," I said, "the law allowed
it."
The angel went on hammering into place the huge steel uprights.
"You are very revengeful," I said. "Do you never rest from doing
this terrible work?"
"I rested one Christmas Day," the angel said, "and looked and
saw little children dying of cancer. I shall go on now until the fires
are lit."
"It is very hard to prove," I said, "that the yeast is as bad as you
think."
"After all," I said, "they must live."
And the angel made no answer but went on building his hell.
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