The Plato Papers (12 page)

42

Throw yourself upon our mercy, Plato. Trust us.

I can trust only my destiny. Whether I stand or fall here, I could not have acted otherwise. I can no more change my life than I can alter the colour of my eyes. They are white, like yours, and my conscience is white.

Conscience is knowledge with others. Here we are all one
city. We are the limbs of the city. We are a common body.
How can you wish to part yourself from us?

I have been granted a vision and I must declare it. I can do no other.

You know well enough that we can have no separate visions. It is impossible. Worse: it is blasphemy.

I do not act alone, as you seem to think. I have my soul. She led me forward on my journey.

43

Plato:
Where were you when I needed you, in Golden Lane?

Soul:
You always need me. And, you must admit, I ask for very little in return. But I will ask you this: are you determined to go forward into the cave?

Plato:
Forward? It may be backward.

Soul:
You were the one who wished to visit this place. I am here to accompany you, not to lead you.

Plato:
The rain might fall here, as it did in the old days. The wind might blow and the dew form.

Soul:
The old days. Always the old days. Can you survive the heat of their false sun? Can you live in their dust?

Plato:
I admit that I am afraid of those things. I am afraid of their teeming life. Of their blind instinct to grow. Listen. Can you hear the voices?

Soul:
I hear nothing.

Plato:
I feel that I am close to them.

Soul:
You may have heard them. But are you sure that they are not within your own mind?

44

More blasphemy. Our souls do not speak to us.

How can you be sure?

Our souls do not appear to us.

That is not true. I slept after my journey and, when I awoke, she was sitting beside me. She was singing to herself, I remember, and then I opened my eyes.

45

Plato:
For how long have I been gone?

Soul:
It is hard to say.

Plato:
Where did you find me?

Soul:
Here. Among your papers.

Plato:
It was a hard journey. It was as if I were entering the cave and travelling beneath our earth. Could there have been such a place?

Soul:
If you saw it, then it exists.

Plato:
So it was not a vision? Or a dream?

Soul:
What do you think?

Plato:
I believe it to have been real.

Soul:
And in turn I believe you. Of course, it may not be so easy to persuade the others.

Plato:
Others?

Soul:
But at least you have taken the first step. You have seen what was once unimaginable.

Plato:
What is the saying? ‘My eyes have been opened.’ Now I must begin to wake my companions.

46

So you refuse to believe that I travelled to a dark cave in which the ancient inhabitants of London dwelled? Citizens, listen to me. Please listen. Perhaps I was mistaken. I had felt and believed that I was travelling beneath the earth, but that may have been my own lack of imagination. Perhaps they are all around us, but we cannot see one another. Now you are laughing again. You prove my point. It may be that we refuse to see them. Or they refuse to see us. I am not sure. Somehow we have all become separated. But I know this: our world and their world are intermingled.

47

Your own words condemn you. You confess to doubts about
your journey and yet you expect us to believe your stories?

I have always taught stories. How our souls first came to light in the Age of Orpheus, when the divine human awoke from slumber and embraced us. How, in the malign Age of the Apostles, we learned to worship and suffer. I shall speak no more of Mouldwarp, but I have taught that the succeeding Age of Witspell witnessed a reawakening and restoration of human power. We look back at them with great attention. We have established an Academy for the sole purpose of studying the beliefs of these past ages. But are we in a position to examine and to judge those who came before us? What if they are still examining us?

You are truly remarkable, Plato. You change your argument at every turn.

I am merely speculating. I assert nothing. It has always been my belief that speculation can do no harm.

It is not necessarily ours.

So, after all, I am to be condemned for challenging your beliefs? Then surely this age is no better than any that has come before.

Once more your head is filled with dreams and delusions.

Have you ever considered that our lives are a form of dream and that it is time to awake? What if we are being dreamed by the people of Mouldwarp? And what if we were dreaming them? What if the divine human had never woken and all the ages were part of the fabric of his sleep?

This is foolishness, Plato. Enough. We know that we exist.
We know our history. We are not the figments of anyone’s
imagination.

Forgive me. I thought it was the city custom that I should be allowed to speak freely and openly in my defence. If I am permitted to reveal all that I have thought and imagined, after my journey, then perhaps the citizens will reject the charges of falsehood against me.

Yes. They signal their assent. It is allowed. Continue.

48

Sparkler:
For so frail a figure, he has a powerful voice.

Ornatus:
No. Not powerful. Piercing. Somehow one always feels obliged to listen to him. He has always been full of ideas. I remember once, when we were children, he had a theory about the lambs of Lambeth. I cannot recall any of it now. I just remember his little face puckered up in sorrow, and his piping voice.

Sparkler:
Look. He is hitching up the sleeves of his robe.

Ornatus:
It has always been too large for him.

Sparkler:
Did I tell you of my encounter with him, when I was about to be healed?

Ornatus:
Of course. You have told everyone.

Sparkler:
My apologies. Do you see his hands pointing upwards as he speaks? He is describing the old city again—

Ornatus:
A phantom from his dreams.

Sparkler:
Are you sure? He is describing its domes and high buildings and wide streets. There were once stars in a night sky. There was a sun, casting shadows upon the earth.

Ornatus:
Next he will be saying that these shadows were souls.

Sparkler:
You should not treat his story so lightly, Ornatus. What if all were true?

Ornatus:
Why would it matter, true or not? One age is enough for me.

Sparkler:
So you would prefer to remain in ignorance?

Ornatus:
Ignorance is better than doubt.

Sparkler:
Yet Plato has begun a process which will not end—

Ornatus:
This is precisely why I condemn him. He has introduced uncertainty among us.

Sparkler:
‘And if we doubt, the world goes out.’ Who said that?

Ornatus:
Can we please not discuss these matters? What is Plato doing now?

Sparkler:
He is drawing some symbol or letter in the earth.

Ornatus:
Absurd. Who can be expected to see it from here?

Sparkler:
Do stop talking, Ornatus. Then we will be able to hear him. Look. Even the angels are interested. The tips of their wings have changed colour.

The people of Mouldwarp did not know why they believed in science. They knew only that it was absurd
not to believe. And their science worked in their dimensions! They could move quickly from place to place,
converse with one another over long distances, and see
one another in different regions of the earth.

Ornatus:
Three of the most foolish activities one can imagine.

Sparkler:
Hush.

Science created a great reality for them. It manufactured planets, and stars, and medicines. Can we truly
believe them to be primitive?

Ornatus:
Oh yes. Certainly.

Sparkler:
He speaks with great conviction.

Do you remember what one of the guardians told me
during the first session? ‘We do not wish to build our
own monuments or memorials, since, unlike those who
came before us, we wish to efface ourselves. All objects
dissolve, so we choose not to make them.’ Do you recall
his words? Well, let me tell you this. We are astounded
by our ancestors and their misconceptions, but we may
seem equally foolish to our successors. In the distant
villages of the hammer and the smith, as you know,
dwell those who believe themselves to be already dead.
They neither eat nor drink, but they survive their allotted span. May I prophesy? We will become like
them, dying in life, if we refuse to countenance the
presence of other realities around us.

Ornatus:
This is madness. Can he truly believe what he says?

Sparkler:
Do you see how some of the citizens are becoming restless?

Ornatus:
Bewildered, too.

Sparkler:
It is almost finished. The next session, according to custom, will also be the last.

Ornatus:
I will be truly thankful.