I wonder if Matilda is sane, at least in the human understanding of sanity? For that matter, according to the common understanding of sanity, can I be labeled sane for even considering the possibility that Matilda might not be beyond redemption, and that any mortal could undertake... or persuade to be undertaken... the long, hard road to redemption?

Is this insanity? Is it merely vanity, the manifestation of foolish pride? Does it matter in the grand scheme of things whether one demon, a hundred demons, or ten thousand demons find redemption?

And is such a thing possible? Is there anything, any positive quality that a demon might possess to make the risks of playing with Powers far above men worthwhile? If demons are, in fact, engaged in an interminable, multi-dimensional war with their angelic counterparts, do I really want to go anywhere near, much less deliberately walk out onto that cosmic chessboard?

Is this, then, my proverbial forbidden fruit? If I am to believe most accounts, Matilda and her compatriots have been tortured for untold ages. Would the pain of ages be sufficient to have snapped her mind, leaving no spark of goodness to appeal to? Can I trust anything she might do or say, knowing that we perceive and understand things on a vastly different scale? And, is my curiosity just an idle fantasy?