The Exorcist

by William Peter Blatty

“Death’s a comfort.”

His daughter slammed shut the door. Standing silent and motionless in the dank, graffitied tomb of his hopes, the Swiss manservant stared without sight for long moments until at last he slowly lowered his head in grief.

“Ah, well … at last I realized that God would never ask of me that which I know to be psychologically impossible; that the love which He asked was in my will and not meant to be felt as emotion. No. Not at all. He was asking that I act with love; that I do unto others; and that I should do it unto those who repelled me, I believe, was a greater act of love than any other.”

Looked below. And felt her heart dropping out of her body. At the bottom of the steps on M Street, Karras lay crumpled and bloody as a crowd began gathering around him.

He pulled back his head and saw the eyes filled with peace; and with something else: something like joy at the end of heart’s longing. The eyes were still staring. But at nothing in this world. Nothing here.