_ BOOK I. THE COMING OF PAN
CHAPTER II
To the lonely house in the pine wood people sometimes came for advice
on subjects too recondite for even those extremes of elucidation, the
parish priest and the tavern. These people were always well received,
and their perplexities were attended to instantly, for the Philosophers
liked being wise and they were not ashamed to put their learning to
the proof, nor were they, as so many wise people are, fearful lest they
should become poor or less respected by giving away their knowledge.
These were favourite maxims with them:
You must be fit to give before you can be fit to receive.
Knowledge becomes lumber in a week, therefore, get rid of it.
The box must be emptied before it can be refilled.
Refilling is progress.
A sword, a spade, and a thought should never be allowed to rust.
The Grey Woman and the Thin Woman, however, held opinions quite contrary
to these, and their maxims also were different:
A secret is a weapon and a friend.
Man is God's secret, Power is man's secret, Sex is woman's secret.
By having much you are fitted to have more.
There is always room in the box.
The art of packing is the last lecture of wisdom.
The scalp of your enemy is progress.
Holding these opposed views it seemed likely that visitors seeking for
advice from the Philosophers might be astonished and captured by their
wives; but the women were true to their own doctrines and refused to
part with information to any persons saving only those of high rank,
such as policemen, gombeen men, and district and county councillors;
but even to these they charged high prices for their information, and a
bonus on any gains which accrued through the following of their advices.
It is unnecessary to state that their following was small when compared
with those who sought the assistance of their husbands, for scarcely a
week passed but some person came through the pine wood with his brows in
a tangle of perplexity.
In these people the children were deeply interested. They used to go
apart afterwards and talk about them, and would try to remember what
they looked like, how they talked, and their manner of walking or taking
snuff. After a time they became interested in the problems which these
people submitted to their parents and the replies or instructions
wherewith the latter relieved them. Long training had made the
children able to sit perfectly quiet, so that when the talk came to the
interesting part they were entirely forgotten, and ideas which might
otherwise have been spared their youth became the commonplaces of their
conversation.
When the children were ten years of age one of the Philosophers died. He
called the household together and announced that the time had come when
he must bid them all good-bye, and that his intention was to die as
quickly as might be. It was, he continued, an unfortunate thing that his
health was at the moment more robust than it had been for a long time,
but that, of course, was no obstacle to his resolution, for death did
not depend upon ill-health but upon a multitude of other factors with
the details whereof he would not trouble them.
His wife, the Grey Woman of Dun Gortin, applauded this resolution and
added as an amendment that it was high time he did something, that the
life he had been leading was an arid and unprofitable one, that he had
stolen her fourteen hundred maledictions for which he had no use and
presented her with a child for which she had none, and that, all things
concerned, the sooner he did die and stop talking the sooner everybody
concerned would be made happy.
The other Philosopher replied mildly as he lit his pipe: "Brother,
the greatest of all virtues is curiosity, and the end of all desire
is wisdom; tell us, therefore, by what steps you have arrived at this
commendable resolution."
To this the Philosopher replied: "I have attained to all the wisdom
which I am fitted to bear. In the space of one week no new truth has
come to me. All that I have read lately I knew before; all that I have
thought has been but a recapitulation of old and wearisome ideas. There
is no longer an horizon before my eves. Space has narrowed to the petty
dimensions of my thumb. Time is the tick of a clock. Good and evil are
two peas in the one pod. My wife's face is the same for ever. I want to
play with the children, and yet I do not want to. Your conversation with
me, brother, is like the droning of a bee in a dark cell. The pine trees
take root and grow and die.--It's all bosh. Good-bye."
His friend replied:
"Brother, these are weighty reflections, and I do clearly perceive that
the time has come for you to stop. I might observe, not in order to
combat your views, but merely to continue an interesting conversation,
that there are still some knowledges which you have not assimilated--you
do not yet know how to play the tambourine, nor how to be nice to your
wife, nor how to get up first in the morning and cook the breakfast.
Have you learned how to smoke strong tobacco as I do? or can you dance
in the moonlight with a woman of the Shee? To understand the theory
which underlies all things is not sufficient. It has occurred to me,
brother, that wisdom may not be the end of everything. Goodness and
kindliness are, perhaps, beyond wisdom. Is it not possible that the
ultimate end is gaiety and music and a dance of joy? Wisdom is the
oldest of all things. Wisdom is all head and no heart. Behold, brother,
you are being crushed under the weight of your head. You are dying of
old age while you are yet a child."
"Brother," replied the other Philosopher, "your voice is like the
droning of a bee in a dark cell. If in my latter days I am reduced to
playing on the tambourine and running after a hag in the moonlight, and
cooking your breakfast in the grey morning, then it is indeed time that
I should die. Good-bye, brother."
So saying, the Philosopher arose and removed all the furniture to the
sides of the room so that there was a clear space left in the centre.
He then took off his boots and his coat, and standing on his toes he
commenced to gyrate with extraordinary rapidity. In a few moments his
movements became steady and swift, and a sound came from him like the
humming of a swift saw; this sound grew deeper and deeper, and at last
continuous, so that the room was filled with a thrilling noise. In a
quarter of an hour the movement began to noticeably slacken. In another
three minutes it was quite slow. In two more minutes he grew visible
again as a body, and then he wobbled to and fro, and at last dropped
in a heap on the floor. He was quite dead, and on his face was an
expression of serene beatitude.
"God be with you, brother," said the remaining Philosopher, and he lit
his pipe, focused his vision on the extreme tip of his nose, and began
to meditate profoundly on the aphorism whether the good is the all or
the all is the good. In another moment he would have become oblivious of
the room, the company, and the corpse, but the Grey Woman of Dun Gortin
shattered his meditation by a demand for advice as to what should next
be done. The Philosopher, with an effort, detached his eyes from his
nose and his mind from his maxim.
"Chaos," said he, "is the first condition. Order is the first law.
Continuity is the first reflection. Quietude is the first happiness. Our
brother is dead--bury him." So saying, he returned his eyes to his nose,
and his mind to his maxim, and lapsed to a profound reflection wherein
nothing sat perched on insubstantiality, and the Spirit of Artifice
goggled at the puzzle.
The Grey Woman of Dun Gortin took a pinch of snuff from her box and
raised the keen over her husband:
"You were my husband and you are dead.
It is wisdom that has killed you.
If you had listened to my wisdom instead of to your own you would still
be a trouble to me and I would still be happy.
Women are stronger than men--they do not die of wisdom.
They are better than men because they do not seek wisdom.
They are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.
I had fourteen hundred maledictions, my little store, and by a trick you
stole them and left me empty.
You stole my wisdom and it has broken your neck.
I lost my knowledge and I am yet alive raising the keen over your body,
but it was too heavy for you, my little knowledge.
You will never go out into the pine wood in the morning, or wander
abroad on a night of stars.
You will not sit in the chimney-corner on the hard nights, or go to bed,
or rise again, or do anything at all from this day out.
Who will gather pine cones now when the fire is going down, or call my
name in the empty house, or be angry when the kettle is not boiling?
Now I am desolate indeed. I have no knowledge, I have no husband, I have
no more to say."
"If I had anything better you should have it," said she politely to the
Thin Woman of Inis Magrath.
"Thank you," said the Thin Woman, "it was very nice. Shall I begin now?
My husband is meditating and we may be able to annoy him."
"Don't trouble yourself," replied the other, "I am past enjoyment and
am, moreover, a respectable woman."
"That is no more than the truth, indeed."
"I have always done the right thing at the right time."
"I'd be the last body in the world to deny that," was the warm response.
"Very well, then," said the Grey Woman, and she commenced to take off
her boots. She stood in the centre of the room and balanced herself on
her toe.
"You are a decent, respectable lady," said the Thin Woman of Inis
Magrath, and then the Grey Woman began to gyrate rapidly and more
rapidly until she was a very fervour of motion, and in three-quarters
of an hour (for she was very tough) she began to slacken, grew visible,
wobbled, and fell beside her dead husband, and on her face was a
beatitude almost surpassing his.
The Thin Woman of Inis Magrath smacked the children and put them to bed,
next she buried the two bodies under the hearthstone, and then, with
some trouble, detached her husband from his meditations. When he became
capable of ordinary occurrences she detailed all that had happened, and
said that he alone was to blame for the sad bereavement. He replied:
"The toxin generates the anti-toxin. The end lies concealed in the
beginning. All bodies grow around a skeleton. Life is a petticoat about
death. I will not go to bed." _