A GOAT FOR AZAZEL
195
in
the church, in labor, in the economic system; after two genera·
tions the whole body of society was heaving with premonitions of
change. The children merely followed their sure instincts, but they
were not understood, and Cotton Mather at twenty.eight years was
in
a position of power he was in no way fitted to assume. He used
any
weapon that came his way, but his personal desires blinded his
judgment, and so he chose badly. He was bound to make of this
absurd episode an issue of first importance in the history of his
career, and he succeeded. He had proved his power as a witch·
finder in the case of Bridget Glover, and he believed that a cure of
Martha would establish finally the supernatural authority he craved:
to
be
marked and set apart as the intimate of God, the most potent
enemy of the Devil in New England, and in the world. First he
must convince the Governor and the magistrates and the ministers
of Boston that he could truly cast out devils. The rest would follow.
Martha's personality was a
disturbi~g
element, not to his
greater plan but in his secret self. Neither of them realized fully
the nature of the tension between them, and they played a gruesome
game of Blind·Man's Buff. She tormented and tantalized him end·
lessly, and he held her and prayed with her while she struggled in
her recurrent frenzies. At times these scenes were mere romps
~een
them; at other moments they touched the edge of horror:
he
stared fascinated as she flung herself
do~
before him writhillg,
crying for him to save her from her demons. He listened to her
blasphemies as long as he dared, then stroked and soothed her into
calm.
She would work herself into a dangerous stlCte and kick and
Itrike at him; but always the blow that began in violence ended in
alight
pat of the finger tips or a soft nudge of the toe.
Day and night were the same to Martha. She would rise out
of
her sleep crying that her devil·horse was waiting for her.
Mounting a chair, she would gallop about the room. Once, seated
OIl
air in the posture of a woman on horseback, she galloped up a
Sight of stairs, and Mather admired this feat so much he almost
forgot its devilish inspiration. In this mood her boisterious humor
!feW
very broad in the best seventeenth-century manner. If her
Itomach made sounds of disturbed digestion, she would exclaim,
"Something is going away from me!", clasp her head in her palm
and
complain of faintness. Mather, listening solemnly for some
ltatement from the derpon inhabiting her, would declare indeed he
