_ BOOK I. THE COMING OF PAN
CHAPTER I
IN the centre of the pine wood called Coilla Doraca there lived not long
ago two Philosophers. They were wiser than anything else in the world
except the Salmon who lies in the pool of Glyn Cagny into which the nuts
of knowledge fall from the hazel bush on its bank. He, of course, is the
most profound of living creatures, but the two Philosophers are next to
him in wisdom. Their faces looked as though they were made of parchment,
there was ink under their nails, and every difficulty that was submitted
to them, even by women, they were able to instantly resolve. The Grey
Woman of Dun Gortin and the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath asked them the
three questions which nobody had ever been able to answer, and they were
able to answer them. That was how they obtained the enmity of these two
women which is more valuable than the friendship of angels. The Grey
Woman and the Thin Woman were so incensed at being answered that they
married the two Philosophers in order to be able to pinch them in bed,
but the skins of the Philosophers were so thick that they did not know
they were being pinched. They repaid the fury of the women with such
tender affection that these vicious creatures almost expired of chagrin,
and once, in a very ecstacy of exasperation, after having been kissed
by their husbands, they uttered the fourteen hundred maledictions which
comprised their wisdom, and these were learned by the Philosophers who
thus became even wiser than before.
In due process of time two children were born of these marriages. They
were born on the same day and in the same hour, and they were only
different in this, that one of them was a boy and the other one was a
girl. Nobody was able to tell how this had happened, and, for the first
time in their lives, the Philosophers were forced to admire an event
which they had been unable to prognosticate; but having proved by many
different methods that the children were really children, that what
must be must be, that a fact cannot be controverted, and that what
has happened once may happen twice, they described the occurrence
as extraordinary but not unnatural, and submitted peacefully to a
Providence even wiser than they were.
The Philosopher who had the boy was very pleased because, he said, there
were too many women in the world, and the Philosopher who had the girl
was very pleased also because, he said, you cannot have too much of a
good thing: the Grey Woman and the Thin Woman, however, were not in the
least softened by maternity-they said that they had not bargained for
it, that the children were gotten under false presences, that they were
respectable married women, and that, as a protest against their wrongs,
they would not cook any more food for the Philosophers. This was
pleasant news for their husbands, who disliked the women's cooking
very much, but they did not say so, for the women would certainly
have insisted on their rights to cook had they imagined their husbands
disliked the results: therefore, the Philosophers besought their wives
every day to cook one of their lovely dinners again, and this the women
always refused to do.
They all lived together in a small house in the very centre of a dark
pine wood. Into this place the sun never shone because the shade was too
deep, and no wind ever came there either, because the boughs were too
thick, so that it was the most solitary and quiet place in the world,
and the Philosophers were able to hear each other thinking all day long,
or making speeches to each other, and these were the pleasantest
sounds they knew of. To them there were only two kinds of sounds
anywhere--these were conversation and noise: they liked the first very
much indeed, but they spoke of the second with stern disapproval, and,
even when it was made by a bird, a breeze, or a shower of rain, they
grew angry and demanded that it should be abolished. Their wives seldom
spoke at all and yet they were never silent: they communicated with each
other by a kind of physical telegraphy which they had learned among the
Shee-they cracked their finger-joints quickly or slowly and so were able
to communicate with each other over immense distances, for by dint of
long practice they could make great explosive sounds which were nearly
like thunder, and gentler sounds like the tapping of grey ashes on a
hearthstone. The Thin Woman hated her own child, but she loved the Grey
Woman's baby, and the Grey Woman loved the Thin Woman's infant but could
not abide her own. A compromise may put an end to the most perplexing
of situations, and, consequently, the two women swapped children, and
at once became the most tender and amiable mothers imaginable, and the
families were able to live together in a more perfect amity than could
be found anywhere else.
The children grew in grace and comeliness. At first the little boy was
short and fat and the little girl was long and thin, then the little
girl became round and chubby while the little boy grew lanky and wiry.
This was because the little girl used to sit very quiet and be good and
the little boy used not.
They lived for many years in the deep seclusion of the pine wood wherein
a perpetual twilight reigned, and here they were wont to play their
childish games, flitting among the shadowy trees like little quick
shadows. At times their mothers, the Grey Woman and the Thin Woman,
played with them, but this was seldom, and sometimes their fathers, the
two Philosophers, came out and looked at them through spectacles which
were very round and very glassy, and had immense circles of horn all
round the edges. They had, however, other playmates with whom they could
romp all day long. There were hundreds of rabbits running about in the
brushwood; they were full of fun and were very fond of playing with the
children. There were squirrels who joined cheerfully in their games, and
some goats, having one day strayed in from the big world, were made so
welcome that they always came again whenever they got the chance. There
were birds also, crows and blackbirds and willy-wagtails, who were well
acquainted with the youngsters, and visited them as frequently as their
busy lives permitted.
At a short distance from their home there was a clearing in the wood
about ten feet square; through this clearing, as through a funnel, the
sun for a few hours in the summer time blazed down. It was the boy who
first discovered the strange radiant shaft in the wood. One day he had
been sent out to collect pine cones for the fire. As these were gathered
daily the supply immediately near the house was scanty, therefore he
had, while searching for more, wandered further from his home than
usual. The first sight of the extraordinary blaze astonished him. He
had never seen anything like it before, and the steady, unwinking glare
aroused his fear and curiosity equally. Curiosity will conquer fear
even more than bravery will; indeed, it has led many people into dangers
which mere physical courage would shudder away from, for hunger and love
and curiosity are the great impelling forces of life. When the little
boy found that the light did not move he drew closer to it, and at last,
emboldened by curiosity, he stepped right into it and found that it was
not a thing at all. The instant that he stepped into the light he found
it was hot, and this so frightened him that he jumped out of it again
and ran behind a tree. Then he jumped into it for a moment and out of it
again, and for nearly half an hour he played a splendid game of tip and
tig with the sunlight. At last he grew quite bold and stood in it and
found that it did not burn him at all, but he did not like to remain
in it, fearing that he might be cooked. When he went home with the pine
cones he said nothing to the Grey Woman of Dun Gortin or to the Thin
Woman of Inis Magrath or to the two Philosophers, but he told the little
girl all about it when they went to bed, and every day afterwards they
used to go and play with the sunlight, and the rabbits and the squirrels
would follow them there and join in their games with twice the interest
they had shown before. _