Asimov's Future History Volume 4 by Isaac Asimov Page B

about her cerebra-impulses that would indicate a pathological addiction to lying.”
    Baley turned an offended look upon the robot. “I should say not. And there will be no necessity to mention her name in our reports. Do you understand that?”
    “If you wish it so, partner Elijah,” said R. Daneel calmly, “but our report will then be neither complete nor accurate.”
    Baley said, “Well, maybe so, but no real harm will be done. She has come to us with whatever information she had and to mention hen name will only put her in the police records. I do not want that to happen.”
    “In that case, certainly not, provided we are certain that nothing more remains to be found out.”
    “Nothing remains as far as she’s concerned. My guarantee.”
    “Could you then explain why the word, Jezebel, the mere sound of a name, should lead her to abandon previous convictions and assume a new set? The motivation seems obscure.”
    They were traveling slowly through the curving, empty tunnel.
    Baley said, “It is hard to explain. Jezebel is a rare name. It belonged once to a woman of very bad reputation. My wife treasured that fact. It gave her a vicarious feeling of wickedness and compensated for a life that was uniformly proper.”
    “Why should a law-abiding woman wish to feel wicked?”
    Baley almost smiled. “Women are women, Daneel. Anyway, I did a very foolish thing. In a moment of irritation, I insisted that the historic Jezebel was not particularly wicked and was, if anything, a good wife. I’ve regretted that ever since.
    “It turned out,” he went on, “that I had made Jessie bitterly unhappy. I had spoiled something for her that couldn’t be replaced. I suppose what followed was her way of revenge. I imagine she wished to punish me by engaging in activity of which she knew I wouldn’t approve. I don’t say the wish was a conscious one.”
    “Can a wish be anything but conscious? Is that not a contradiction in terms?”
    Baley stared at R. Daneel and despaired at attempting to explain the unconscious mind. He said, instead, “Besides that, the Bible has a great influence on human thought and emotion.”
    “What is the Bible?”
    For a moment Baley was surprised, and then was surprised at himself for having felt surprised. The Spacers, he knew, lived under a thoroughly mechanistic personal philosophy, and R. Daneel could know only what the Spacers knew; no more.
    He said, curtly, “It is the sacred book of about half of Earth’s population.”
    “I do not grasp the meaning here of the adjective.”
    “I mean that it is highly regarded. Various portions of it, when properly interpreted, contain a code of behavior which many men consider best suited to the ultimate happiness of mankind.”
    R. Daneel seemed to consider that. “Is this code incorporated into your laws?”
    “I’m afraid not. The code doesn’t lend itself to legal enforcement. It must be obeyed spontaneously by each individual out of a longing to do so. It is in a sense higher than any law can be.”
    “Higher than law? Is that not a contradiction in terms?”
    Baley smiled wryly. “Shall I quote a portion of the Bible for you? Would you be curious to hear it?”
    “Please do.”
    Baley let the car slow to a halt and for a few moments sat with his eyes closed, remembering. He would have liked to use the sonorous Middle English of the Medieval Bible, but to R. Daneel, Middle English would be gibberish.
    He began, speaking almost casually in the words of the Modern Revision, as though he were telling a story of contemporary life, instead of dredging a tale out of Man’s dimmest past:
    “‘Jesus went to the mount of Olives, and at dawn returned to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and preached to them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery, and when they had placed her before him, they said to him, “Master, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the