Bradbury, Ray - SSC 11
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Authors: The Machineries of Joy (v2.1)
THE MACHINERIES OF JOY
Ray Bradbury
For Ramona, who cried when she heard that the
Hound of the Baskervilles was
dead .
• •
For Susan,
who
snorted at the
same news
For Bettina, who
laughed ..
•
And for Alexandra, who told everyone to just
get out of the way...
This book, dear daughters,
with four different kinds of love, for you.
Contents
BOYS!
RAISE GIANT MUSHROOMS IN YOUR CELLAR!
AND
THE SAILOR, HOME FROM THE SEA
THE
MACHINERIES OF JOY
"Somewhere," said Father Vittorini,
"did Blake not speak of the Machineries of Joy?
That is,
did not God promote environments, then intimidate
these Natures by
provoking the existence of flesh, toy men and women, such as are we all? And
thus happily sent forth, at our best, with good grace and fine wit, on calm
noons, in fair climes, are we not God's Machineries of Joy?"
"If Blake said that," said Father
Brian, "he never lived in Dublin."
Father Brian delayed going below to breakfast
because he thought he heard Father Vittorini down there, laughing. Vittorini,
as usual, was dining alone. So who was there to laugh with, or at?
Us, thought Father Brian, that's who.
He listened again.
Across the hall Father Kelly too was hiding,
or meditating, rather, in his room.
They never let Vittorini finish breakfast, no,
they always managed to join him as he chewed his last bit of toast. Otherwise
they could not have borne their guilt through the day.
Still, that was laughter, was it not,
belowstairs? Father Vittorini had ferreted out something in the morning Times.
Or, worse, had he stayed up half the night with the unholy ghost, that
television set which stood in the entry like an unwelcome guest, one foot in
whimsy, the other in the doldnmis? And, his mind bleached by the electronic
beast, was Vittorini now planning some bright fine new devilment, the cogs
wheeling in his soundless mind, seated and deliberately fasting, hoping to lure
them down curious at the sound of his Italian humors?
"Ah, God." Father Brian sighed and
fingered the envelope he had prepared the previous night. He had tucked it in
his coat as a protective measure should he decide to hand it to Pastor Sheldon.
Would Father Vittorini detect it through the cloth with his quick dark X-ray
vision?
Father Brian pressed his hand firmly along his
lapel to squash any merest outline of his request for transferral to another
parish.
"Here goes."
And, breathing a prayer. Father Brian went
downstairs.
"Ah, Father Brian!"
Vittorini looked up from his still full cereal
howl. The brute had not even so much as sugared his com flakes yet.
Father Brian felt as if he had stepped into an
empty elevator shaft.
Impulsively he put out a hand to save himself.
It touched the top of the television set. The set was warm. He could not help
saying, "Did you have a seance here last night?"
"I sat up with the set, yes."
"Sat up is right!" snorted Father
Brian. "One does sit up, doesn't one, with the sick, or the dead? I used
to be handy with the ouija board myself. There was more brains in that."
He turned from the electrical moron to survey Vittorin. "And did you hear
far cries and banshee wails from, what is it? Canaveral?"
"They called off the shot at three
a.m."
"And you here now, looking
daisy-fresh." Father Brian advanced, shaking his head. "What's true
is not always what's fair."
Vittorini now vigorously doused his flakes
with milk. "But you. Father Brian, you look as if you made the grand tour
of Hell during the night."
Fortimately, at this point Father Kelly
entered. He froze when he too saw how little along Vittorini was with his
fortifiers. He muttered to both priests, seated himself, and glanced over at
the perturbed Father Brian.
"True, William, you look half gone.
Insomnia?"
"A touch."
Father Kelly eyed both men, his head to one
side. "What goes on here? Did something happen while I was out last
night?"
"We had a small discussion," said
Father Brian, tojdng with the dread flakes of com.
"Small discussion!" said Father
Vittorini. He might have laughed, but caught himself and said simply, “The
Irish priest is worried by the Italian Pope."
"Now, Father Vittorini," said Kelly.
"Let him run on," said Father Brian.
"Thank you for your permission,"
said Vittorini, very politely and with a friendly nod. "H Papa is a
constant source of reverent irritation to at least some if not all of the Irish
clergy. Why not a pope named Nolan? Why not a green instead of a red hat? Why
not, for that matter, move Saint
Peter's Cathedral to Cork or Dublin, come the
twenty-fifth century?"
"I hope nobody said that” said Father
Kelly.
"I am an angry man," said Father
Brian. "In my anger I might have inferred it."
"Angry, why? And inferred for what
reason?"
"Did you hear what he just said about the
twenty-fifth century?" asked Father Brian. "Well, it's when Flash
Gordon and Buck Rogers fly in through the baptistry transom that yours truly
hunts for the exits."
Father Kelly sighed. "Ah, God, is it that
joke again?"
Father Brian felt the blood bum his cheeks,
but fought to send it back to cooler regions of his body.
"Joke? It's off and beyond that. For a
month now it's Canaveral this and trajectories and astronauts that. You'd think
it was Fourth of July, he's up half each night with the rockets. I mean, now,
what kind of life is it, from midnight on, carousing about the entryway with
that Medusa machine which freezes your intellect if ever you stare at it? I
cannot sleep for feeling the whole rectory will blast off any minute."
"Yes, yes," said Father Kelly.
"But what's all this about the Pope?"
"Not the new one, the one before the
last," said Brian wearily. "Show him the clipping. Father
Vittorini."
Vittorini hesitated.
"Show it," insisted Brian, firmly.
Father Vittorini brought forth a small press
clipping and put it on the table.
Upside down, even. Father Brian could read the
bad news: "pope blesses assault on space."
Father Kelly reached one finger out to touch
the cutting gingerly. He intoned the news story half aloud, underlining each
word with his fingernail:
CASTEL
gandolfo
,
ITALY
,
SEPT.
20.—Pope Pius Xn gave his blessing today to mankind's efforts to
conquer space.
The Pontiff told delegates to the
International Astronautical Congress, "God has no intention of setting a
limit to the efforts of man to conquer space."
The 400 delegates to the 22-nation congress
were received by the Pope at his summer residence here.
"This Astronautic Congress has become one
of great importance at this time of man's exploration of outer space," the
Pope said. "It should concern all humanity. . . . Man has to make the
effort to put himself in new orientation with God and his universe."
Father Kelly's voice trailed off.
“When did this story appear?”
"In 1956."
''That long back?" Father Kelly laid the
thing down, "I didn't read it."
"It seems," said Father Brian, “you
and I, Father, don't read much of anything."
"Anyone could overtook it," said
Kelly. “It's a teeny-weeny article."
“With a very large idea in it," added
Father Vittorini, his good humor prevailing.
“The point is—"
"The point is," said Vittorini,
“when first I spoke of this piece, grave doubts were cast on my veracity. Now
we see I have cleaved close by the truth."
"Sure," said Father Brian quickly,
"but as our poet William Blake put it, “A truth that's told with bad
intent beats all the lies you can invent.' "
“Yes." Vittorini relaxed further into his
anMabtlity. "And didn't Blake also write
He who doubts from what he sees, Will ne'er
believe, do what you please. If the Sun and Moon should doubt They'd
immediately go out.
Most appropriate," added the Italian
priest, "for the Space Age."
Father Brian stared at the outrageous man.
"I'll thank you not to quote our Blake at
us."
"Your Blake?" said the slender pale
man with the softly glowing dark hair. "Strange, I'd always thought him
English."
'The poetry of Blake," said Father Brian,
"was always a great comfort to my mother. It was she told me there was
Irish blood on his maternal side."
"I will graciously accept that,"
said Father Vittorini. “But back to the newspaper story. Now that we've found
it, it seems a good time to do some research on Pius the Twelfth's
encyclical."
Father Brian's wariness, which was a second
set of nerves under his skin, prickled alert, "What encyclical is
that?"
"Why, the one on space travel."
"He didn't do that?"
"He did."
"On space travel, a special
encyclical?"
"A special one."
Both Irish priests were near onto being flung
back in their chairs by the blast.
Father Vittorini made the picky motions of a
man cleaning up after a detonation, finding lint on his coat sleeve, a crumb or
two of toast on the tablecloth.
"Wasn't it enough," said Brian, in a
dying voice, “He shook hands with the astronaut bunch and told them well done
and all that, but he had to go on and write at length about it?"