Human evolution -- Fiction; Polygamy -- Fiction; Science fiction
The faces of the people around him showed that they, too, felt what he
felt. They saw beauty in the air, in the world. As he looked on them,
Truggles realized, for the first time in the heart of him, that their
small faults were not vices, not innate evil--not even the hatred and
fear that had been in their hearts when they stormed here with him was
evil. There were only the well-meaning flaws that sprang from earnest
eagerness.
Even the face of Forsythe, when Truggles looked at it, mirrored the
ecstatic understanding of something that he had experienced only
partially before. And Truggles knew that the type of understanding
that had opened up to Forsythe was something he himself never could
comprehend.
And in the midst of this experience that transcended understanding, the
boy Donald took his mother's hand and the two of them floated _up_,
into the air, above Truggles' head, and forward to alight gently at
Forsythe's side on the porch.
But, amazing as that was, Truggles recognized it was only a small
outward manifestation of the Power. The Power of the superman was what
he and all these others felt, a weapon greater than fire or sword,
greater than will or reason. Under its influence, no man could raise
his hand against his brother, for he _understood_.
The vision, if vision it was, faded, and only a crowd of murmuring
people stood around sheepishly in the cold glare of the lights on
Forsythe's lawn.
"Truggles, you've won your point," said Forsythe, and there was no
animosity in his voice. "I don't need to experiment any more. I'm
leaving Marston Hill with my wife and son...."
He caught himself and looked at Allison.
"I can't hold her," said Allison in a low tone. "I won't try to. I'll
give her a divorce."
"... With my only wife and son," resumed Forsythe happily. "I'm going
to find my other children. And I don't think any of you will ever hear
of us again."
He turned and entered the house with Phyllis and Donald. Allison
followed them, his head bowed.
* * * * *
Truggles sat in his small, sparsely-furnished room and fought his soul.
For a long time, the memory of what the boy Donald had somehow shown
the people of Marston Hill lingered with him: the conception of a world
that was all good, all beauty, everything right. Truggles tried to
cling to it, but gradually it slipped from him. There was something in
him that prevented him holding it. At last, he still could remember it,
but the memory was a logical thing, a thing that was incredible to him
because it had no roots in emotion.
As that happened, the old torment returned ten-fold, as though it had
battered outside of the vision's barrier fruitlessly until it could
burst on him with renewed vigor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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