THE PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN
narrative tones, "lived to a great age. After his disagreeable experiences he lived one hundred and forty years. He had again seven sons and three daughters, and he saw his offspring for four generations. So much is classical. These ten children brought him seventy grandchildren, who again prospered generally and had large families. (It was a prolific strain.) And now if we allow three generations to a century, and the reality is rather more than that, and if we take the survival rate as roughly three to a family, and if we agree with your excellent Bishop Usher that Job lived about thirty-five centuries ago, that gives us— How many? Three to the hundred and fifth power?. . . It is at any rate a sum vastly in excess of the present population of the earth. . . . You have globes and rolls and swords and stars here; has anyone a slide rule?"
But the computation was brushed aside.
"A thousand years in my sight are but as yesterday when it is past. I will grant what you seek to prove; that Job has become mankind."
§ 4
The dark regard of Satan smote down through the quivering universe and left the toiling light waves behind. "See there," he said pointing. "My old friend on his little planet—Adam—Job—Man—like a roast on a spit. It is time we had another wager."
God condescended to look with Satan at mankind, circling between day and night. "Whether he will curse or bless?"
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