“And must I then sit still, to be devoured of this great burning?”
And the old man said,
“Listen, and in that you have suffered much and wept much, I will tell
you what I know. He who sets out to search for Truth must leave these
valleys of superstition forever, taking with him not one shred that has
belonged to them. Alone he must wander down into the Land of Absolute
Negation and Denial; he must abide there; he must resist temptation;
when the light breaks he must arise and follow it into the country of
dry sunshine. The mountains of stern reality will rise before him; he
must climb them; beyond them lies Truth.”
“And he will hold her fast! he will hold her in his hands!” the hunter
cried.
Wisdom shook his head.
“He will never see her, never hold her. The time is not yet.”
“Then there is no hope?” cried the hunter.
“There is this,” said Wisdom: “Some men have climbed on those mountains;
circle above circle of bare rock they have scaled; and, wandering there,
in those high regions, some have chanced to pick up on the ground one
white silver feather, dropped from the wing of Truth. And it shall come
to pass,” said the old man, raising himself prophetically and pointing
with his finger to the sky, “it shall come to pass, that when enough of
those silver feathers shall have been gathered by the hands of men, and
shall have been woven into a cord, and the cord into a net, that in that
net Truth may be captured. Nothing but Truth can hold Truth.”
The hunter arose. “I will go,” he said.
But wisdom detained him.
“Mark you well--who leaves these valleys never returns to them. Though
he should weep tears of blood seven days and nights upon the confines,
he can never put his foot across them. Left--they are left forever. Upon
the road which you would travel there is no reward offered. Who goes,
goes freely--for the great love that is in him. The work is his reward.”
“I go” said the hunter; “but upon the mountains, tell me, which path
shall I take?”
“I am the child of The-Accumulated-Knowledge-of-Ages,” said the man; “I
can walk only where many men have trodden. On these mountains few feet
have passed; each man strikes out a path for himself. He goes at his own
peril: my voice he hears no more. I may follow after him, but cannot go
before him.”
Then Knowledge vanished.
And the hunter turned. He went to his cage, and with his hands broke
down the bars, and the jagged iron tore his flesh. It is sometimes
easier to build than to break.
One by one he took his plumed birds and let them fly. But when he came
to his dark-plumed bird he held it, and looked into its beautiful eyes,
and the bird uttered its low, deep cry--“Immortality!”
And he said quickly: “I cannot part with it. It is not heavy; it eats
no food. I will hide it in my breast; I will take it with me.” And he
buried it there and covered it over with his cloak.
But the thing he had hidden grew heavier, heavier, heavier--till it lay
on his breast like lead. He could not move with it. He could not leave
those valleys with it. Then again he took it out and looked at it.
“Oh, my beautiful! my heart’s own!” he cried, “may I not keep you?”
He opened his hands sadly.
“Go!” he said. “It may happen that in Truth’s song one note is like
yours; but I shall never hear it.”
Sadly he opened his hand, and the bird flew from him forever.
Then from the shuttle of Imagination he took the thread of his wishes,
and threw it on the ground; and the empty shuttle he put into his
breast, for the thread was made in those valleys, but the shuttle came
from an unknown country. He turned to go, but now the people came about
him, howling.
“Fool, hound, demented lunatic!” they cried. “How dared you break your
cage and let the birds fly?”
The hunter spoke; but they would not hear him.
“Truth! who is she? Can you eat her? can you drink her? Who has ever
seen her? Your birds were real: all could hear them sing! Oh, fool! vile
reptile! atheist!” they cried, “you pollute the air.”
“Come, let us take up stones and stone him,” cried some.
“What affair is it of ours?” said others. “Let the idiot go,” and went
away. But the rest gathered up stones and mud and threw at him. At last,
when he was bruised and cut, the hunter crept away into the woods. And
it was evening about him.
He wandered on and on, and the shade grew deeper. He was on the borders
now of the land where it is always night. Then he stepped into it, and
there was no light there. With his hands he groped; but each branch
as he touched it broke off, and the earth was covered with cinders. At
every step his foot sank in, and a fine cloud of impalpable ashes flew
up into his face; and it was dark. So he sat down upon a stone and
buried his face in his hands, to wait in the Land of Negation and Denial
till the light came.
And it was night in his heart also.
Then from the marshes to his right and left cold mists arose and closed
about him. A fine, imperceptible rain fell in the dark, and great drops
gathered on his hair and clothes. His heart beat slowly, and a numbness
crept through all his limbs. Then, looking up, two merry wisp lights
came dancing. He lifted his head to look at them. Nearer, nearer they
came. So warm, so bright, they danced like stars of fire. They stood
before him at last. From the centre of the radiating flame in one looked
out a woman’s face, laughing, dimpled, with streaming yellow hair. In
the centre of the other were merry laughing ripples, like the bubbles on
a glass of wine. They danced before him.
“Who are you,” asked the hunter, “who alone come to me in my solitude
and darkness?”
“We are the twins Sensuality,” they cried. “Our father’s name is
Human-Nature, and our mother’s name is Excess. We are as old as the
hills and rivers, as old as the first man; but we never die,” they
laughed.
“Oh, let me wrap my arms about you!” cried the first; “they are soft
and warm. Your heart is frozen now, but I will make it beat. Oh, come to
me!”
“I will pour my hot life into you,” said the second; “your brain is
numb, and your limbs are dead now; but they shall live with a fierce
free life. Oh, let me pour it in!”
“Oh, follow us,” they cried, “and live with us. Nobler hearts than yours
have sat here in this darkness to wait, and they have come to us and we
to them; and they have never left us, never. All else is a delusion, but
we are real, we are real, we are real. Truth is a shadow; the valleys of
superstition are a farce: the earth is of ashes, the trees all rotten;
but we--feel us--we live! You cannot doubt us. Feel us how warm we are!
Oh, come to us! Come with us!”
Nearer and nearer round his head they hovered, and the cold drops melted
on his forehead. The bright light shot into his eyes, dazzling him, and
the frozen blood began to run. And he said:
“Yes, why should I die here in this awful darkness? They are warm, they
melt my frozen blood!” and he stretched out his hands to take them.
Then in a moment there arose before him the image of the thing he had
loved, and his hand dropped to his side.
“Oh, come to us!” they cried.
But he buried his face.
“You dazzle my eyes,” he cried, “you make my heart warm; but you cannot
give me what I desire. I will wait here--wait till I die. Go!”
He covered his face with his hands and would not listen; and when he
looked up again they were two twinkling stars, that vanished in the
distance.
And the long, long night rolled on.
All who leave the valley of superstition pass through that dark land;
but some go through it in a few days, some linger there for months, some
for years, and some die there.
At last for the hunter a faint light played along the horizon, and he
rose to follow it; and he reached that light at last, and stepped into
the broad sunshine. Then before him rose the almighty mountains of
Dry-facts and Realities. The clear sunshine played on them, and the tops
were lost in the clouds. At the foot many paths ran up. An exultant cry
burst from the hunter. He chose the straightest and began to climb;
and the rocks and ridges resounded with his song. They had exaggerated;
after all, it was not so high, nor was the road so steep! A few days, a
few weeks, a few months at most, and then the top! Not one feather only
would he pick up; he would gather all that other men had found--weave
the net--capture Truth--hold her fast--touch her with his hands--clasp
her!
He laughed in the merry sunshine, and sang loud. Victory was very near.
Nevertheless, after a while the path grew steeper. He needed all his
breath for climbing, and the singing died away. On the right and left
rose huge rocks, devoid of lichen or moss, and in the lava-like earth
chasms yawned. Here and there he saw a sheen of white bones. Now too the
path began to grow less and less marked; then it became a mere trace,
with a footmark here and there; then it ceased altogether. He sang no
more, but struck forth a path for himself, until it reached a mighty
wall of rock, smooth and without break, stretching as far as the eye
could see. “I will rear a stair against it; and, once this wall climbed,
I shall be almost there,” he said bravely; and worked. With his shuttle
of imagination he dug out stones; but half of them would not fit, and
half a month’s work would roll down because those below were ill chosen.
But the hunter worked on, saying always to himself, “Once this wall
climbed, I shall be almost there. This great work ended!”
At last he came out upon the top, and he looked about him. Far below
rolled the white mist over the valleys of superstition, and above him
towered the mountains. They had seemed low before; they were of an
immeasurable height now, from crown to foundation surrounded by walls of
rock, that rose tier above tier in mighty circles. Upon them played
the eternal sunshine. He uttered a wild cry. He bowed himself on to
the earth, and when he rose his face was white. In absolute silence he
walked on. He was very silent now. In those high regions the rarefied
air is hard to breathe by those born in the valleys; every breath he
drew hurt him, and the blood oozed out from the tips of his fingers.
Before the next wall of rock he began to work. The height of this seemed
infinite, and he said nothing. The sound of his tool rang night and day
upon the iron rocks into which he cut steps. Years passed over him,
yet he worked on; but the wall towered up always above him to heaven.
Sometimes he prayed that a little moss or lichen might spring up on
those bare walls to be a companion to him; but it never came.
And the years rolled on; he counted them by the steps he had cut--a few
for a year--only a few. He sang no more; he said no more, “I will do
this or that”--he only worked. And at night, when the twilight settled
down, there looked out at him from the holes and crevices in the rocks
strange wild faces.
“Stop your work, you lonely man, and speak to us,” they cried.
“My salvation is in work, if I should stop but for one moment you would
creep down upon me,” he replied. And they put out their long necks
further.
“Look down into the crevice at your feet,” they said. “See what lie
there--white bones! As brave and strong a man as you climbed to these
rocks.” And he looked up. He saw there was no use in striving; he would
never hold Truth, never see her, never find her. So he lay down here,
for he was very tired. He went to sleep forever. He put himself to
sleep. Sleep is very tranquil. You are not lonely when you are asleep,
neither do your hands ache, nor your heart. And the hunter laughed
between his teeth.
“Have I torn from my heart all that was dearest; have I wandered alone
in the land of night; have I resisted temptation; have I dwelt where the
voice of my kind is never heard, and laboured alone, to lie down and be
food for you, ye harpies?”
He laughed fiercely; and the Echoes of Despair slunk away, for the laugh
of a brave, strong heart is as a death blow to them.
Nevertheless they crept out again and looked at him.
“Do you know that your hair is white?” they said, “that your hands begin
to tremble like a child’s? Do you see that the point of your shuttle is
gone?--it is cracked already. If you should ever climb this stair,” they
said, “it will be your last. You will never climb another.”
And he answered, “I know it!” and worked on.
The old, thin hands cut the stones ill and jaggedly, for the fingers
were stiff and bent. The beauty and the strength of the man was gone.
At last, an old, wizened, shrunken face looked out above the rocks. It
saw the eternal mountains rise with walls to the white clouds; but its
work was done.
The old hunter folded his tired hands and lay down by the precipice
where he had worked away his life. It was the sleeping time at last.
Below him over the valleys rolled the thick white mist. Once it broke;
and through the gap the dying eyes looked down on the trees and fields
of their childhood. From afar seemed borne to him the cry of his own
wild birds, and he heard the noise of people singing as they danced. And
he thought he heard among them the voices of his old comrades; and
he saw far off the sunlight shine on his early home. And great tears
gathered in the hunter’s eyes.
“Ah! they who die there do not die alone,” he cried.
Then the mists rolled together again; and he turned his eyes away.
“I have sought,” he said, “for long years I have laboured; but I have
not found her. I have not rested, I have not repined, and I have not
seen her; now my strength is gone. Where I lie down worn out other men
will stand, young and fresh. By the steps that I have cut they will
climb; by the stairs that I have built they will mount. They will never
know the name of the man who made them. At the clumsy work they will
laugh; when the stones roll they will curse me. But they will mount, and
on my work; they will climb, and by my stair! They will find her, and
through me! And no man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself.”
The tears rolled from beneath the shrivelled eyelids. If Truth had
appeared above him in the clouds now he could not have seen her, the
mist of death was in his eyes.
“My soul hears their glad step coming,” he said; “and they shall mount!
they shall mount!” He raised his shrivelled hand to his eyes.
Then slowly from the white sky above, through the still air, came
something falling, falling, falling. Softly it fluttered down, and
dropped on to the breast of the dying man. He felt it with his hands. It
was a feather. He died holding it.