The Exorcist

by William Peter Blatty

The dig was over. What was beginning?

What was it he had felt in the stranger’s presence? Something like safety, he remembered; a sense of protection and deep well-being. Now it dwindled in the distance with the fast-moving jeep.

What was in the air? There was something in the air.

And yet he was here, the air was still thick with him, that Other who ravaged his dreams.

“Come, you live through the works you leave behind, or through your children.” “Oh, that’s bullshit! My children aren’t me!”

More rooted in logic was the silence of God. In the world there was evil and much of it resulted from doubt, from an honest confusion among men of good will. Would a reasonable God refuse to end it? Not finally reveal Himself? Not speak?

There was a strangeness in the house. Like settling stillness. Weighted dust.

isn’t rare to find destructive, even criminal behavior. There’s such a big change, in fact, that two or three hundred years ago people with temporal lobe disorders were often considered to be possessed by a devil.” “They were what?” “Taken over by a demon. You know, something like a superstitious version of split personality.”

“Why, today, for a murderer, a motive is an encumbrance, maybe even a deterrent.”

“Yes, this century hasn’t got a lock on insanity.

Chris turned back and started opening the door, and it was then that Karras felt it: a chill, tugging warning. It scraped through his bloodstream like particles of ice.

“You say you’re the Devil?” he asked. “I assure you.”

“But then how do I know you really can read the future?” “Because I’m the Devil, you ass!” “Yes, you say so, but you won’t give me proof.” “You have no faith.”

He dared not love again and lose. That loss was too great, that pain too keen.

He bowed his head and placed the consecrated Host in his mouth, where in a moment it would stick in the dryness of his throat. And of his faith.

the core of his being refused to give up, to surrender this child to sinuous theories and speculations, to the blood-drenched history of betrayals of the human mind.

I forget.” “Forget what?” “I forget that you’ve never met her.”

Karras moved forward to the foot of the bed while Merrin, tall and erect, walked slowly to the side, where he stopped and stared down into hate.

I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial, vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy. And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love: of accepting the possibility that God could ever love us.”

No, I tend to see possession most often in the little things, Damien: in the senseless, petty spites and misunderstandings; the cruel and cutting word that leaps unbidden to the tongue between friends. Between lovers. Between husbands and wives. Enough of these and we have no need of Satan to manage our wars; these we manage for ourselves … for ourselves.”

“Perhaps evil is the crucible of goodness,”

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.

“What happened?” “Oh, well, who the hell knows.”

The wail of the ambulance siren lifted shrill into night above the river. Then abruptly it ceased. The driver had remembered that time no longer mattered.

“But if all of the evil in the world makes you think that there might be a devil, Chris, how do you account for all of the good?”

In forgetting, they were trying to remember.