But the chess they play is not the little ingenious game that originated in India; it is on an altogether different scale. The Ruler of the Universe creates the board, the pieces, and the rules; he makes all the moves; he may make as many moves as he likes whenever he likes; his antagonist, however, is permitted to introduce a slight inexplicable inaccuracy into each move, which necessitates further moves in correction. The Creator determines and conceals the aim of the game, and it is never clear whether the purpose of the adversary is to defeat or assist him in his unfathomable project. Apparently the adversary cannot win, but also he cannot lose so long as he can keep the game going. But he is concerned, it would seem, in preventing the development of any reasoned scheme in the game. § 2 Celestial badinage is at once too high and broad to come readily within the compass of earthly print and understanding. The Satanic element of unexpectedness can fill the whole sphere of Being with laughter; thrills begotten of those vast reverberations startle our poor wits at the strangest moments. It is the humour of Satan to thrust upon the Master his own title of the Unique and to seek to wrest from him the authorship of life. (But such jesting distresses the angels.) “I alone create.” “But I—I ferment.” “Matter I made and all things.” “Stagnant as a sleeping top but for the wabble I give it.” “You are just the little difference of the individual. You are the little Uniqueness in everyone and everything, the Unique that breaks the law, a marginal idiosyncracy.” “Sire, _you_ are the Unique, the Uniqueness of the whole.” Heaven smiled, and there were halcyon days in the planets. “I shall average you out in the end and you will disappear.” “And everything will end.” “Will be complete.” “Without me!” “You spoil the symmetry of my universe.” “I give it life.” “Life comes from me.” “No, Sire, life comes from me.” One of the great shapes in attendance became distinct as Michael bearing his sword. “He blasphemes, O Lord. Shall I cast him forth?” “But you did that some time ago,” answered Satan, speaking carelessly over his shoulder and not even looking at the speaker. “You keep on doing it. And—I am here.” “He returns,” said the Lord soothingly. “Perhaps I will him to return. What should we be without him?” “Without me, time and space would freeze into crystalline perfection,” said Satan, and at his smile the criminal statistics of a myriad planets displayed an upward wave. “It is I who trouble the waters. I trouble all things. I am the spirit of life.” “But the soul,” said God. Satan, sitting with one arm thrown over the back of his throne towards Michael, raised his eyebrows by way of answer. This talk about the soul he regarded as a divine weakness. He knew nothing of the soul. “I made man in my own image,” said God.