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"I have seen
vileness born and reborn!
I have seen vileness in the form of a vicar!"
(Recorded on Sony cassette tape in
the main lounge of Rydges Hotel, Canberra, April 25th, 2004)
"I have seen vileness born and reborn!
I have seen vileness in the form of a vicar!
What is its being and its mode of existence?
You want answers: but I can only say, the force of vileness
is mystery unfathomable. Prodigious, hideous, dire, inscrutable.
I do not know if it is human or super-human, personal or impersonal.
I see it as the dark behind the doings, the germ behind the
symptoms, the rot behind the rottenness. It is the essence
and it is the cause.
How did it come into our world? With
Basil Smorta's evidence in The Black Crusade, we can trace
it back to the Marquis of Morbol Villica, a Russian nobleman
who committed appalling crimes at the start of the 19th Century.
But the Marquis was reborn later on as the vicar of Morbing
Vyle - so how many rebirthings might have come before the
Marquis? I can't believe such a monster was the ordinary offspring
of ordinary Russian parents. In some way, he must have been
an interloper, a cuckoo in the nest. But what had he been
before?
That question leads to a more urgent
question: what will he be next? At the end of my own terrible
experiences in Morbing Vyle, I stamped on the vicar and ground
his final squirming manifestation under my heel. Back then,
I believed I'd destroyed him once and for all. Now I know
better. Now I know that the vile essence is able to remain
as a residue, shapeless and dormant, waiting to re-emerge
when the time is ripe. The proof is there in The Black Crusade.
I might have destroyed the vicar, but I could hardly have
destroyed his essence. One killing is not enough!
That's why I speak to you now, as human
to human, unvile to unvile. Do not lose heart! As I wrote
in my Epilogue to The Black Crusade, the similarities between
marquis and vicar give us clues to the next manifestation.
First, the supreme egotism: both marquis
and vicar showed a sense of absolute superiority and indifference
to other mortals.
Second, the laugh: both marquis and vicar
are known to have possessed a light, tinkling laugh.
Third, the claim to artistic genius:
the marquis as composer, the vicar as creator of visual and
sculptural effects.
Fourth, the cult association: in both
cases, the vile essence attracted bizarre religious cults
around itself.
Fifth, the parallel names: Morbing Vyle
and Morbol Villica.
Not all of those similarities may prove significant, but some
at least will surely re-surface in the next manifestation.
Such are the clues for which we must hunt!
I stand before you - no, sit before you,
pouring my thoughts into this dictaphone. I cannot tell where
or when I shall be in contact again. Agents of vile, operating
under the guise of various government agencies, pursue me.
Before I disappear, let me utter one last paragraph.
Vileness can defeat us only if ridicule
defeats us. There are those who will confront you, saying,
How can you take this seriously? How can you believe such
nonsense? Do not be embarrassed! Do not be silenced by their
mockery! Now is the time of heroes! We have come to a crossroads
where the sign points forwards or backwards, left or right.
Do not be deflected! Pluck that sign right out of the ground
and swing it boldly round your head! March on! March on!"
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