Hespira

When all the good ideas have been expended, I quoted to myself, one might as well try a bad one.

“Wealth tends to generate wealth,” he began.

I gave a qualified assent. “If it does not instead give birth to folly.”

I reflected that the genial glow that surrounds the doer of a good deed loses some of its warmth and brightness when the recipient meets every action with the pinched face of suspicion.

“The likelihood seems farfetched.”

“So have several of the situations in which we have found ourselves in the recent past,” I said.

“But you are resolved to avoid those kinds of situations in the future.”

I made a gesture ripe with fatalism. “I have come to understand that the universe accords my resolutions a good deal less consideration than I would prefer.”

The combined effect of so many ambulatory sticks and balls, each of whom wore an expression of complete self-satisfaction, added strength to my longstanding belief that the profession of couturier required only a good knowledge of fabric and a malicious sense of humor.

My intent was to spot not only Massim Shar’s cut-out but the other member of his criminal coterie who would be there to watch our transaction. There might even be a watcher to watch the watcher, trust being a commodity in short supply among the lawless.”

Half the miseries of humankind’s history have originated in those who think they see in the fellow next to them virtues and vices that exist only in the mind of the beholder.

“Are you familiar with Wallader’s theory that every society is fundamentally organized around one or another of the cardinal sins?”

“I believe not,” I said.

“He argues that the true seed of every culture, whatever the ideals to which it gives lip service, always turns out to be one of the seven mortal iniquities identified by the ancients: pride, greed, and anger are the most common; lust, gluttony, and envy less so; those based on sloth usually do not last.”

The insane had a tendency to cloak others in the strange garments they found hanging in the backs of their own mental wardrobes. So, for that matter, did the rest of us, but the consequences of error were usually less drastic.

I realized that Chumblot’s brief had told only the official story which, as in many sophisticated societies, departed starkly from the practical facts.