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.”