"You _don't_ understand!" she said irritably. "I mean I felt my spirit
reflected, the hypostatized nothing!"
"Over my head," I admitted, gently. The big words meant something to
her.
She gnawed her knuckles, thinking. "Well, you know," she began again,
"there is no such thing as a real thing in the world, don't you? You
know that everything--a frying pan, a café table, an atom--is merely
a make-believe. It's simple! If you divide a thing into the things
that make it, and then divide them into the things that make them, and
so on, and so on, you find whenever you want to stop that you've got
down to Nothing! At the center of a thing sleeps a word. And what is
a word?... A word is the spirit of a witch." She looked at me. "She
doesn't understand," she muttered sadly. "She doesn't understand!"
Suddenly the witch reached forward and grabbed my empty coffee cup.
"You think this is a coffee cup, don't you? You think it is a
scientific fact that it is a coffee cup!"
She was talking loudly and men near us began to smile. Our kind of talk
was not unusual in the White Hen; but it had never before been heard
from two women! I said, "Sh-h-h, please not so loud," for I felt shy,
and then I was very sorry I had spoken. The witch covered her face.
"Oh, I am so sorry!" she said, "I am so sorry."
After a minute she began again in a low voice. "You say it is a cup,
but what is it made of?"
"Atoms!" I said, quickly.
"What are atoms made of?"
"The scientists know." It was fantastic--two women unaccompanied by men
whispering across the table about atoms!
"They say the atom consists of protons and electrons! Now, ask me what
protons and electrons are!"
"_Bien!_ I am asking you, what are they?"
"Two fictions!" exclaimed the witch triumphantly. "Two big lies!"
She leaned back in her chair and smiled at me. But as my thoughts
groped around in a fog of her words, the smile faded. "Then I'll tell
you a true fable," she said patiently.
"Once upon a time there was a scientist who wore glasses and used his
brains all day long. One morning his wife brought him his coffee in a
pretty blue cup. Instead of drinking the coffee he thought about the
cup.
"'What is my cup made of?' he asked his wife and she said she didn't
know but would go fetch the potter.
"'Clay,' said the potter, wiping his dirty hands on his leather apron.
"'What is clay made of?' asked the scientist, polishing his glasses and
putting them back on his nose.
"'Clay,' said the potter, 'is made of clay we dig from a clay bank!'
"'That is not an answer,' objected the scientist.
"'It is, too,' the potter said, 'it is the best kind of an answer--clay
is made of clay from the clay bank!'
"'It is not!' shouted the scientist, pounding on the table so all the
dishes in the house rattled and his wife went running out into the
barnyard because she felt more natural with the cows and horses during
such arguments. 'It is not!' shouted the scientist again. 'If it is the
best kind of answer why didn't you answer that the cup was made of
cup!'
"'I am an ignorant man,' the potter admitted in a trembling voice for
no one could deny the good sense of the scientist's retort. 'Tell me,
what is clay made of?'
"'I don't quite know,' the scientist replied.
"'You don't know!' yelled the potter. 'You don't know! and you go
and upset me for life? Now when I make pots I'll always have to be
wondering what are they made of!'
"'You'll probably make better pots,' the scientist said. 'They have
been too heavy--round with roundness of stones and zeros; now perhaps
they will be round with the roundness of birds and clouds and your
whirling thoughts, and the wind swishing by your house!'
"'They'll be fancy and mixed up and much worse,' moaned the potter.
"'Bring me some clay!' ordered the scientist, and the potter ran to get
him some.
"The scientist looked at the clay with his microscope, he worked at it
with his spectroscope. He decided it was made of atoms. He listened
to the clay through an enormous loud-speaker and he heard the atoms
moving around. They made a rustling noise ... s-s-s-w-s--w-sss.
"'Clay is made of atoms,' he declared.
"'What is an atom made of?' asked the potter.
"The scientist set to work to separate one atom from all the other
atoms, and he worked at it with his biggest spectroscope, listened to
it with his biggest loud-speaker, and looked at it through a microscope
as big around and as deep as a well. After a long time he straightened
his back and said: 'The atom is made of nothing!'
"'Then the cup is made of nothing!' cried the potter.
"'Then all things are at base nothing at all, and the world isn't real,
because it can't be real, it is based on nothing,' cried the scientist,
and they both took turns looking at and listening to the insides of the
atom, and heard nothing and saw nothing! At least, in their ears there
was naught but the beating of their own hearts; and when they peered
down at the heart of the atom they saw on the curving lens away at the
end of the tunnel of the enormous microscope only the reflection of
their own, peering, frightened faces!
"'My pretty blue coffee cup is nothing,' the scientist moaned. 'It is
not made of cup, nor of clay, nor of atoms--it is made of nothing!'
"'I have a magical idea,' declared the potter. 'Let us split the
nothing we have brought into the world into twins and call one Electron
and the other Proton, and hereafter let's make believe everything is
made of electrons and protons, and let it go at that. We have to do
something.'
"Well, right then in came the scientist's wife, smelling of the cows
and horses, and she said: 'I'll fill your pretty blue cup with hot
coffee,' and did so, and the cup held the coffee.
"'We are saved!' shouted the scientist.
"'We are saved!' shouted the potter--'The world is saved!' And they
embraced each other. But the wife, when told of the narrow escape
of the cup (and the world) from utter annihilation, was not greatly
impressed.
"'If the cup were not a cup it would never have held coffee,' she
asserted stupidly, 'and it would not get dirty and I would not have to
wash it!'"