(An Eastern Tale)
(AN EASTERN TALE)
One day, when the three good sages,—Ulaya, Darnu, and Purana,—were sitting at the door of their common home, young Kassapa, the son of the Rajah Lichava, came up to them and sat down on the earth which was piled around the house but he did not speak. The young man’s cheeks were pale and his eyes, which had lost the glow of youth, seemed weary.
The old men looked one at another, and good Ulaya said:
“Listen, Kassapa, tell to us, the three sages, who wish you nothing but good, what is oppressing your soul. Ever since you lay in the cradle, fate has showered its gifts upon you and you look as downcast as the meanest slave of your father, poor Jebaka, who yesterday felt the heavy hand of your steward....”
“Yes, poor Jebaka showed us the welts on his back,” said stern Darnu and kindly Purana added:
“We wished to call them to your attention, good Kassapa.”
The young man did not allow him to finish. He jumped up from his seat and exclaimed with an impatience which he had never before displayed:
“Stop, kindly sages, with your sly reproaches! You seem to think that I must give you account for every welt inflicted by the steward on the back of the slave Jebaka. I greatly doubt whether I am bound to give account even of my own acts.”
The sages glanced again one at another and Ulaya said:
“Continue, my son, if you so desire.”
“Desire?” interrupted the young man with a bitter laugh. “The fact is, I don’t know whether I desire anything or not. And whether I like what I wish or what another wishes for me.”
He stopped. It was almost perfectly quiet but a breeze stirred the tops of the trees, and a leaf fell at the feet of Purana. While the sad gaze of Kassapa was directed upon this, a stone broke off from the heated cliff and rolled down to the bank of a brook, where a large lizard was resting at this moment.... Every day at the same hour it crawled to this spot. Straightening its front legs and closing its protruding eyes, it apparently listened to the discourse of the sages. It was easy to imagine that its green body contained the soul of some wise Brahmin. But this day that stone released this soul from its green envelope, so that it might enter upon new transformations....
A bitter smile spread over Kassapa’s face.
“Come now, ye kindly sages,” he said, “ask this leaf, if it wished to fall from the tree, or the stone, if it wished to break off from the cliff, or the lizard, if it wished to be crushed by the stone. The hour came, the leaf fell, the lizard heard the last of your conversations. For all that we know could not be otherwise. Or do ye say that it should and could have been otherwise than it was?”
“It could not,” answered the sages. “What has been had to be in the great chain of events.”
“Ye have spoken. Therefore, the welts on the back of Jebaka had to be in the great chain of events, and every one of them has been written since eternity in the book of necessity. And you wish me, the same kind of a stone, the same kind of a lizard, the same kind of a leaf on the great tree of life, the same kind of an insignificant stream as this brook which is driven by an unknown power from source to mouth.... You wish me to struggle against the current which is carrying me onward....”
He kicked the bloody stone which fell into the water and he again sank back on the earth beside the good sages. The eyes of Kassapa again became dull and sad.
Old Darnu said nothing; old Purana shook his head; but the cheerful Ulaya merely laughed and said:
“In the book of necessity, it is also manifestly written, Kassapa, that I should tell to you what happened once to the two sages, Darnu and Purana, whom you see before you.... And in the same book it is written that you shall listen to the tale.”
Then he told the following strange story about his companions and they listened smilingly, but neither confirmed or denied a word.
“In the land,” he said, “where blooms the lotus and the sacred stream flows upon its course,—there were no Brahmins more wise than Darnu and Purana. No one had learned the Shastras better and no one had dipped more deeply into the ancient wisdom of the Vedas. But when both approached the end of the mortal span of life and the storms of approaching winter had touched their hair with snow, both were still dissatisfied. The years were passing, the grave was coming nearer and nearer, and truth seemed to recede further and further....”
Both then, well aware that it was impossible to escape the grave, decided to draw truth nearer to themselves. Darnu was the first to put on a wanderer’s robe, to hang a gourd of water on his belt, to take a staff in his hand and to set out. After two years of difficult traveling, he came to the foot of a lofty mountain and on one of its peaks, at an altitude where the clouds love to pass the night, he saw the ruins of a temple. In a meadow near the road shepherds were watching their flocks, and Darnu asked them what sort of a temple it was, what people had built it, and to what god they had offered sacrifices.
The shepherds merely looked at the mountain and then at Darnu, their questioner, for they did not know what answer to make. Finally they said:
“We inhabitants of the valleys, do not know how to answer you. There is among our number an old shepherd Anuruja, who ages ago used to pasture his flocks on these heights. He may know.”
They called this old man.
“I cannot tell you,” he said, “what people built it, when they did it, and to what god they here sacrificed. But my father heard from his father and told me that my great grandfather had said that there once lived a tribe of sages on the slopes of these mountains and that they have all perished, since they have erected this temple. The name of the deity was ‘Necessity.’”
“Necessity?” exclaimed Darnu, greatly interested. “Don’t you know, good father, what form this deity had and whether or not it still resides in this temple?”
“We are simple people,” answered the old man, “and it is hard for us to answer your wise questions. When I was young,—and that was years and years ago,—I used to pasture my flock on these mountain sides. At that time there stood in the temple an idol wrought out of a gleaming black stone. At rare intervals, when a storm overtook me in the vicinity,—and storms are very terrible among these crags,—I used to drive my flock into the old temple for shelter. Rarely, too, Angapali, a shepherdess from a neighboring hillside, would run in, trembling and frightened. I warmed her in my arms and the old god looked down at us with a strange smile. But he never did us any evil, perchance because Angapali always adorned him with flowers. But they say....”
The shepherd stopped with a doubtful look at Darnu and was apparently ashamed to tell him more.
“Say what? My good man, tell me the whole story,” requested the sage.
“They say, all the worshippers of the old god have not perished.... Some are wandering around the world.... And, sometimes, of course rarely, they come here and ask like you the road to the temple and they go there to question the old god. These he turns to stone. Old men have often seen in the temple columns or statues in the form of seated men, richly covered with morning-glories and other vines. Birds have built their nests on some. Later on they gradually turn to dust.”
Darnu pondered deeply over the story. “Am I now near the goal?” he thought. For it is well known that “he, who like a blind man sees naught, like a deaf man, hears naught, like a tree is immovable and insensible, has attained unto rest and knowledge.”
He turned to the shepherd.
“My friend, where is the road to the temple?”
The shepherd pointed it out, and when Darnu commenced to ascend the overgrown path, he watched the sage a long time and then said to his young companions:
“Call me not the oldest of shepherds, but the youngest of suckling lambs if the old god is not soon going to have a new sacrifice. Yoke me like an ox or burden me like an ass with various loads, if another stone column is not to take its place in the old temple!...”
The shepherds respectfully hearkened to the old man and scattered over the pasture. And once more the herds grazed peacefully in the valley, the ploughman followed his plough, the sun shone, night fell, and men were occupied with their own cares and thought no more of wise Darnu. Soon,—in a few days or so,—another wanderer came to the foot of the mountain and he, too, asked about the temple. When he followed the directions of the shepherd and began to ascend the mountain cheerfully, the old man shook his head and said:
“There goes another.”
This was Purana, following in the steps of wise Darnu and thinking:
“It will never be said that Darnu found truth which Purana could not seek.”
Darnu ascended the mountain.
It was a hard climb. It was very evident that a human foot rarely passed over the neglected path, but Darnu cheerfully defied all obstacles and finally reached the half-ruined gates, above which was the ancient inscription: “I am Necessity, the mistress of every movement.” The walls had no other sculptures or decorations save fragments of some numbers and mysterious calculations.
Darnu entered the sanctuary. The old walls spread abroad the peace of destruction and death. But this destruction apparently had grown weary and left undisturbed the ruins of walls which had witnessed the march of centuries. In one wall there was a broad recess; several steps led up to an altar, on which was an idol of a gleaming black stone; the deity smiled strangely as it gazed upon this picture of ruin. From beneath it bubbled a brook which filled the wondrous silence with the murmur of its water. Several palms stretched their roots into its course and towered up to the blue sky, which freely looked down through the ruined roof....
Darnu involuntarily submitted to the wondrous spell of this place and decided to question the mysterious deity, whose spirit still seemed to fill the ruined temple. The sage scooped up some water out of the cold brook and gathered some fruit which an old fig-tree had shed and then he began his preparations according to all the rules in the books on contemplation. First of all he sat down facing the idol, drew up his legs, and looked at the image a long time, for he wanted to impress it upon his mind. Then he bared his abdomen and gazed upon that spot where he was bound to his mother before his earthly birth. For it is well known that all knowledge lies between being and not being and hence must come the revelations of contemplation....
In such a posture he saw the end of the first day and the beginning of the second. The heat of noon several times replaced the cool of evening and the shadows of night gave place to the light of the sun,—but Darnu remained in the same position, rarely plunging his gourd into the water or absent-mindedly picking up some fruit. The eyes of the sage grew dull and fixed; his limbs dried up. At first he felt the inconvenience and pain of immobility. Later on these sensations passed into complete unconsciousness, and before the stony gaze of the sage another world, the world of contemplation, began to unroll its strange apparitions and shapes. They no longer bore any relationship to the experiences of the meditating sage. They were disinterested, disconnected, and concerned only themselves, and that meant that they were the preludes to a revelation of the truth.
It was hard to say how long this state continued. The water in the gourd dried up, the palms quietly rustled, the ripening fruits broke off and fell at the sage’s feet, but he let them lie on the ground. He was almost freed from thirst and hunger. He was not warmed by the noontide sun nor chilled by the cool freshness of the night. Finally he ceased to distinguish the light of day and the darkness of night.
Then the inner eye of Darnu saw the long expected vision. Out of his abdomen grew a green trunk of bamboo tipped with a knot like an ordinary stem. From the knot grew another section and thus, rising ever higher, the trunk grew to consist of fifty joints, a number corresponding to the years of the sage. At the top, instead of leaves and blossoms, grew a something resembling the idol in the temple. This something looked down on Darnu with an evil smile.
“Poor Darnu,” it said finally. “Why did you come here and take so much trouble? What do you want, poor Darnu?”
“I seek the truth,” answered the sage.
“Then look on me, for I am what you sought. But I see that I am unpleasant and disagreeable to your sight.”
“You are incomprehensible,” answered Darnu.
“Listen, Darnu. Do you see the fifty joints of the reed?”
“The fifty joints of the reed are my years,” said the sage.
“And I sit above them, for I am ‘Necessity,’ the mistress of every movement. Every act, every breath, everything existing, everything living is impotent, powerless, helpless; under the control of necessity it attains the aim of its existence, which is death. I am that which has guided the fifty joints of your life from the cradle to the present moment. You have never done a single thing in your whole life: not a single thing of good or evil.... You have never given a coin to a beggar in a moment of pity nor dealt a single blow with hatred in your heart ... you have never cared for a single rose in your monastery gardens nor felled a single tree in the forest ... you have never fed a single animal nor killed a single gnat which was sucking your blood.... You have never made a single movement in your whole life without it being marked down in advance by me.... Because I am Necessity.... You have been proud of your actions or lamented bitterly for your sins. Your heart trembled from love or hate, but I—I was laughing at you, for I am Necessity and write down everything in advance. When you entered a square to teach fools what to do or what to avoid,—I was laughing and saying to myself: just see wise Darnu reveal his wisdom to those naïve fools and share his sanctity with sinners. Not because Darnu is wise and holy, but because I, ‘Necessity,’ am like a stream and Darnu is like a leaf carried away by the current. Poor Darnu, you thought that you had been led hither by your search for truth.... But on these walls among my calculations was marked the day and the hour when you had to cross this threshold. Because I am Necessity.... Poor sage!”
“I loathe you,” said the seer with aversion.
“I know it. Because you considered yourself free and I am Necessity, the mistress of every movement.”
Then Darnu became angry; he seized the fifty joints of the reed, broke them off, and flung them away. “So,” he said, “so will I deal with the fifty joints of my life, because during these fifty years I was merely the tool of Necessity. Now I will free myself, because I have seen and I want to break my yoke.”
But Necessity, invisible in the darkness which surrounded the dull gaze of the sage, laughed and repeated:
“No, poor Darnu, you are still mine, because I am Necessity.”
Darnu opened his eyes with difficulty and suddenly he felt that his feet were swollen and painful. He started to rise, but at once he sank back again. Because he now saw clearly the significance of all the inscriptions and calculations in the temple. As soon as he began to move his limbs, he saw that his desire to do so had already been written on the wall.
As from another world, the voice of Necessity came to his ears:
“Rise now, poor Darnu; your limbs are swollen. You see 999,998 of your brothers in darkness do it.... It is necessary.”
In disgust Darnu remained in his former position, which now became still more painful. But he said to himself: “I will be one of those in the darkness who will not submit to Necessity, because I am free.”
Meanwhile the sun had reached the zenith, and as it looked through the holes in the roof, it began to parch the ill-protected body of the sage.... Darnu stretched out his hand toward his gourd.
But he at once saw what was written on the wall under the number 999,998 and Necessity again said:
“Poor sage, it is necessary that you drink.”
Darnu left the gourd untouched and said:
“I will not drink, because I am free.”
There came a laugh from a distant corner of the temple and at the same time one of the fruits of the fig-tree grew too heavy to hang any longer and fell at the feet of the sage. At the same time a number on the wall changed. Darnu realized at once that this was a new attempt of Necessity to destroy his inner liberty.
“I will not eat,” he said, “because I am free.”
Again there came a laugh from the depths of the temple and he heard the murmuring of the brook:
“Poor Darnu!”
The sage became more angry. He remained motionless without looking at the fruit which from time to time fell from the boughs, without hearkening to the seductive murmur of the waters, and he kept repeating one phrase to himself: “I am free, free, free!” And that no fruit might thwart his freedom by falling directly into his mouth, he closed it tightly and clenched his teeth.
Thus he sat for a long time, freeing himself from hunger and thirst and trying to spread abroad to all the corners of the earth confidence in his inner liberty. He grew thin, dried up, became wooden, lost track of time and space. He could no longer distinguish day and night, but he kept repeating and asserting to himself that he was free. After a certain space of time, the birds became accustomed to his immobility, flew up and perched upon him, and still later a pair of wild doves built their nest on the head of the free sage and heedlessly brought forth their young in the folds of his turban.
“O foolish birds!” thought wise Darnu, when first the calling of the parents and the peeping of the young penetrated his consciousness. “They do all this because they are not free and obey the laws of Necessity.” And even when his shoulders were covered with the droppings of the birds,—he again said to himself:
“Fools! They do this too, because they are not free.”
He counted himself perfectly free and close to the gods.
Below, out of the soil, the thin tendrils of climbing vines began to rise and to wind themselves around his immovable limbs....
Only once was the wise Darnu partially recalled from complete unconsciousness and at that time he felt in some remote corner of his mind a sensation of mild astonishment.
This was caused by the appearance of the sage Purana. Exactly like Darnu he walked up to the temple, read the inscription above the entrance, and then going in, began to read the figures on the walls. The wise Purana was very unlike his stern companion. He was kindly and had a round face. A cross-section of his trunk would have formed a circle, his pleasant eyes sparkled, and his lips wore a smile. In his wisdom he was never obstinate like Darnu, and he sought blessed peace far more zealously than he did freedom.
Walking around the temple, he came to the recess, reverenced the deity, and then, with a glance at the brook and the fig tree, he said:
“Here is a deity with a pleasant smile, and there is a stream of fresh water and a fig-tree. What more does a man need for pleasant contemplation? Yes, and there’s Darnu. He is so blessed that the birds are building their nests upon him....”
The appearance of his wise friend was not especially joyous, but Purana, gazing at him reverently, said to himself:
“There’s no doubt he’s blessed; but he always loved too stern methods of contemplation. I do not aspire to the higher stages of blessedness, but I hope to tell the dwellers upon earth what I see on the lower planes.”
Then after enjoying the water and the juicy fruit, he sat down comfortably not far from Darnu, and he too prepared for contemplation in the proper way: that is, by baring his abdomen and gazing at it as the other sage had done.
So passed a time, more slowly than with Darnu, for the kindly Purana often interrupted his contemplation to enjoy the water and the juicy fruit. Finally out of the navel of the second wise man sprang a bamboo trunk and this attained a height of fifty joints, the number of the years of his life. On the top again sat “Necessity,” but in his semi-conscious state she seemed to him to smile pleasantly and he replied in the same way.
“Who are you, kind deity?” he asked.
“I am Necessity, who has governed the fifty years of your life. All that you have done, you did not do, but I did them, for you are but a leaf swept along by the stream and I am the mistress of every movement.”
“Blessed art thou,” said Purana. “I see that I have not come to you in vain. Continue in the future to execute your tasks for yourself and me and I will watch for you in pleasant contemplation.”
He lost himself in sleep with a happy smile on his lips. So he continued his pleasant contemplation, from time to time filling his gourd with water or picking up fruit which had fallen to the ground at his feet. Each time he stirred with less and less pleasure, since the drowsiness of contemplation was more and more strongly mastering him, and since he had already eaten the fruit which was nearest to him, he had to exert himself to obtain them from the tree.
Finally he said to himself:
“I’m a foolish man far removed from truth, and that’s why I have such foolish cares. Isn’t it because this good deity is so slow with her revelations? Here before me on the tree is ripe fruit and my stomach is empty.... But doesn’t the law of necessity say: ‘where there is an hungry stomach and fruit, the latter must of necessity enter the former’?... So, kind necessity, I submit to your power.... Isn’t that the greatest blessedness?”
Thereupon he buried himself in complete contemplation like Darnu, and he waited for necessity to manifest herself. In order to facilitate her task, he held his mouth open facing the fig tree....
He waited one day, two, three.... Gradually the smile congealed upon his face, his body dried up, the pleasant rotundity of his form disappeared, the fat under his skin wasted away and the sinews stood out distinctly through it. When at last the fruit ripened and fell, striking Purana on the nose,—the sage did not hear it fall nor did he feel the blow.... Another pair of doves built a nest in the folds of his turban, fledglings peeped soon in the nest, and the shoulders of Purana were covered thickly with the droppings of the birds. When the luxurious vines had enveloped Purana, it was impossible to distinguish him from his companion—the obstinate sage struggling against Necessity from the good-natured sage willingly submitting to it.
Absolute silence reigned in the temple, and the gleaming idol looked down on the two sages with its enigmatic and strange smile.
Fruit ripened and fell from the trees, the brook bubbled on, white clouds sailed across the blue sky and looked down into the interior of the temple and the sages sat on without manifesting any signs of life—one in the blessedness of denial, the other in the blessedness of submission to Necessity.
Eternal night had spread its black wings over both and no living being would ever have known the truth which the two sages had perceived at the summit of the fifty joints of the reed. But before the last spark which illumined in the darkness the consciousness of wise Darnu had been finally extinguished,—he heard again the same voice as before: Necessity was laughing in the gathering darkness, and this laughter, taciturn and soundless, seemed to Darnu a presentiment of death....
“Poor Darnu,” said the implacable deity, “pitiable sage! You thought you could leave me, you hoped that you could lay aside my yoke and by turning into an immobile column purchase thereby the consciousness of spiritual liberty....”
“Yes, I am free,” answered the thought of the obstinate sage. “I alone in the darkness of your servants do not obey the commands of Necessity....”
“Look here, poor Darnu....”
Suddenly with his inner eye he saw again the meaning of all the inscriptions and calculations on the walls of the temple. The numbers quietly changed, they grew or diminished automatically and one of them especially attracted his attention. It was the number 999,998.... And as he looked at it, two units more fell on the wall and the long number quietly began to change. Darnu trembled and Necessity smiled again.
“You understood, poor sage? In every hundred thousand of my blind servants there is always one obstinate man like you, and one lazy man like Purana.... You have both come here.... Greetings, ye sages, who have completed my calculations....”
Two tears rolled down from the dull eyes of the sage; they quietly rolled down over his dried up cheeks and fell upon the ground like two ripe fruits from the tree of his aged wisdom.
Beyond the walls of the temple everything went as usual. The sun shone, the winds blew, the people in the valley busied themselves with their cares, the clouds gathered in the heavens.... As they crossed the mountains, they became heavy and weak. A storm broke in the mountains....
Again as in times of yore, a foolish shepherd from a neighboring hillside drove hither his flock and from another direction a young and foolish shepherdess drove hither her flock. They met by the brook and the recess out of which the deity looked at them with its strange smile, and while the thunder roared, they embraced and cooed, just as 999,999 pairs had done in the same situation. If wise Darnu could have seen and heard them, he would certainly have said in the greatness of his wisdom:
“Fools, they are doing this not for themselves but for the pleasure of Necessity.”
The storm passed, the sun again played upon the grass, which was still covered with the sparkling drops of rain and lighted up the darkened interior of the temple.
“Look,” said the shepherdess, “see those two new statues. They never were here before.”
“Hush,” answered the shepherd. “Old men say that these are worshippers of the ancient deity. But they can’t do any harm.... Stay with them and I’ll go and find your stray sheep.”
He went out and left her alone with the idol and the two sages. Because she was a little afraid and because she was filled with youthful love and delight, she could not remain in one place but kept walking around the temple and singing loud songs of love and joy. When the storm was entirely passed and the edge of the dark cloud had hidden itself behind the distant summits of the range of mountains, she pulled some damp flowers and decked the idol with them. To conceal its unpleasant smile, she stuck in its mouth a fruit of the mountain nut with its leaves and stem.
Then she looked at it and laughed aloud.
That did not seem enough. She wanted to adorn the old men with flowers. But since good Purana still carried the nest with the young birds, she turned her attention to stern Darnu, whose nest had been abandoned. She removed the empty nest, cleaned of bird droppings the turban, hair and shoulders of the sage and washed his face with spring water. She thought that in this way she was recompensing the gods for their protection of her happiness. Because even this seemed little and she was overflowing with joy, she bent over and suddenly the blessed Darnu, standing on the very threshold of Nirvana, felt on his dry lips the vigorous kiss of the foolish girl....
Soon after the shepherd returned with a lamb which he had found, and the two went off, singing a cheerful song.
In the meantime, that spark which had not been quite extinguished in the consciousness of wise Darnu, flickered up and commenced to burn brighter and brighter. First of all, in him as in a house where everyone is sleeping, thought awoke and began to wander restlessly in the darkness. Wise Darnu thought a whole hour and formed only one phrase:
“They were subject to Necessity....”
Another hour:
“But in the last instance, I too was subject to it....”
A third hour brought a new premise:
“In picking the fruit, I obeyed the law of Necessity.”
A fourth:
“But in refusing, I fulfilled her calculations.”
A fifth:
“Those fools live and love, but wise Purana and I die.”
A sixth:
“This perhaps is a work of Necessity, but it has very little sense.”
Then awakened thought finally stirred itself and began to rouse other sleeping faculties:
“If Purana and I die,” said wise Darnu to himself, “it will be inevitable but foolish. If I succeed in saving myself and my companion, it will be likewise necessary but sensible. Therefore we will save ourselves. For this I need will and strength.”
He rallied the little spark of will which had not been extinguished. He compelled it to raise his heavy eyelids.
The daylight broke in upon his consciousness, as it floods a room on the opening of the shutters. First he noticed the lifeless figure of his friend, with his set face and the tear that precedes death already on his cheeks. Darnu’s heart felt such pity for his ill-fated fellow seeker after truth that his will became stronger and stronger. It entered his hands and they began to move; his hands helped his feet.... This all took much longer to execute than to decide upon. But the following morning found Darnu’s gourd full of fresh water at Purana’s lips, and a piece of juicy fruit fell finally into the open mouth of the good-natured sage.
Then Purana’s jaws moved and he thought: “O benevolent Necessity. I see that you are now beginning to fulfill your promise.” But when he realized that it was not the goddess but his companion Darnu who was stirring around him, he felt himself rather insulted and said:
“Eight mountain ranges and seven seas, the sun and the holy gods, you, I, the universe,—all are moved by Necessity.... Why did you awaken me, Darnu? I was on the threshold of blessed peace.”
“You were like a corpse, friend Purana.”
“He who like a blind man sees nought, like a deaf man hears nought, like a tree is insensible and immovable, has attained rest.... Give me some more water to drink, friend Darnu....”
“Drink, Purana. I still see a tear on your cheek. Did not the blessedness of peace press it from your eyes?”
The wise sages spent the next three weeks in accustoming their mouths to eating and drinking and their limbs to moving, and during these three weeks they slept in the temple and warmed each other with the heat of their bodies till their strength returned.
At the beginning of the fourth week, they stood at the threshold of the ruined temple. Below at their feet lay the green slopes of the mountain descending into the valley.... Far in the distance were the winding rivers, the white houses of the villages and cities where people lived their normal lives, busied with cares, passions, love, anger and hate, where joy was changed for sorrow, and sorrow was healed by new joy, and where amid the roaring torrent of life men raised their eyes to heaven, seeking a star to guide them.... The sages stood and looked at the picture of life spread out at the entrance to the old temple.
“Where shall we go, friend Darnu?” asked the blinded Purana. “Are there no directions on the walls of the temple?”
“Leave the temple and its deity in peace,” answered Darnu. “If we go to the right, that will be in accordance with Necessity. If we go to the left, that too is in accordance with her. Don’t you understand, friend Purana, that this deity acknowledges as its laws everything that our choice decides upon. Necessity is not the master but merely the soulless accountant of our movements. The accountant marks only what has been. What must be—will be only by our will....”
“It means....”
“It means,—let us permit Necessity to worry over her calculations, as she will. Let us choose that path which leads us to the homes of our brothers.”
With cheerful steps both sages went down from the mountain heights into the valley, where human life flows on amid cares, love, and sorrow, where laughter echoes and tears flow....
“And where our steward, O Kassapa, covers the back of the slave Jebaka with welts,” added wise Darnu with a smile of reproach.
This is the story which the cheerful sage Ulaya told to the young son of the Rajah Lichava, when he had fallen into the idleness of despair.... Darnu and Purana smiled, denying nothing and affirming nothing, and Kassapa heard the story. Buried in thought he went away toward the home of his father, the powerful Rajah Lichava.
As he went out on the deck of the steamer which was running upstream, Dmitry Parfentyevich drew a deep breath.
The day was ending and the sun was hanging low above the forest-covered mountain. The river furnished a majestic and peaceful picture. Somewhere in the distance a steamboat whistled; a sailboat heavily laden lay on the river and seemed as immobile as the sleepy wife of a merchant. The rafts all carried fires,—the men were cooking their dinners. Two small barks, fastened together and heading obliquely across stream, floated by, hardly touching the glassy surface of the river, and beneath them, swinging and swaying, hung their reflection in the blue depths. When the wake of the steamer, spreading ever wider and wider, touched this image, it suddenly broke and scattered. It was a sudden shattering of a mirror and the fragments floated and sparkled for a long time.
“Are you all right, Grunya?” asked Dmitry Parfentyevich, sitting down beside his daughter.
“Yes,” she answered briefly.
The girl wore a dark dress. A Scythian kerchief on her forehead threw a shadow over her pale young face; her large eyes were dreamy and thoughtful.
“The main thing is heavenly blessing and quiet,” moralized Dmitry Parfentyevich.
His life was moving toward its close and he thought that nothing could be better than the quiet of a dying day....
Only quiet and prayer after sinful vanity and weakness.... May God grant no new wishes, but save from every new temptation.
“Grunya?” Dmitry Parfentyevich looked at his daughter and he wished to ask about her own thoughts.
“Yes,” answered the girl, but her gaze, dreamily running far ahead over the golden river and the mountains with their quiet veil of bluish mist, seemed to be seeking something else.
The passengers on the deck were just as quiet. Some were carrying on private conversations; others were getting ready for tea at the little tables.
In the stern sat a group of Tatars, returning home from Astrakhan. There was an old patriarch with three sons. A fourth, the favorite, had been buried in a strange city. Akhmetzyan had been taken ill with an unknown disease, lay a week and died.
“All is as Allah wills,” said the stern face of the old man, but he had still to tell the mother of the death of her beloved son.
Everything breathed of silence and peace and the mountains on the right bank swam up one after the other and then, receding into the distance, they seemed to wrap themselves in a blue haze.
Near Dmitry Parfentyevich were the knots of passengers, some on benches by the table, others on the deck and sitting on bundles.
There were several raftsmen from Unzha, a fat and good-natured country woman, and an old man, probably also a small farmer. The centre of the group at this moment was a steward for the third class passengers. He was still young and was dressed in a worn and dirty frock coat, with the number “2” on the left side. A napkin hung over his shoulder and with this he attained remarkable success in rubbing the wet tables and the glasses. He had just brought to the deck a tray of dishes with his arms wide open and with his eyes looking ahead and at his feet at the same instant. He had put the tray on the table, wiped off the dust around it with his napkin, and then joining this group of his countrymen sat down on the end of the bench and at once assumed a leading rôle in the conversation which they had already commenced.
“I’ll tell you,” he said in a wholly confident tone, “if I cross myself with my fist, it works. This way: in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. It really works just the same. What do you think?”
He looked at the others with the air of a man who had just propounded a very clever riddle.
“The fist, you say?” asked one of the peasants from Unzha in surprise.
“Yes, the fist.”
The listeners shook their heads as a mark of doubt and reproof. The farmer turned sternly to the young fellow:
“N-now, stop that! You claim to be above God....”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, you are a foo-fool to make the sign of the cross with your fist. Impossible. It never works.”
“It does!”
The young fellow looked round upon his auditors with a joyously radiant face and was about to give the answer to the riddle when he heard at one of the tables the impatient tapping of a spoon on a glass.
The fellow jumped up as if he had been shot. In an instant he was at the other end of the deck, grabbed the tea-pots, ran to the machinery and back, set the table, shook himself, ran below again, put up the orders and passed them around the tables, and all the while the conversation continued before an enchanted audience.
“He’s beside himself!” said the farmer.
“Due to a stupid mind,” added the old woman pityingly.
“The little fellow was a liar, that’s all!”
“How can you do it with your fist?... That never works....”
The general opinion was evidently very definite.
“Impossible,” said several voices suddenly. “It’s impudence and nothing else....”
“What——?”
“Where did you get that notion?”
“It’s impudence....”
“Just you listen,” interrupted the young waiter, suddenly coming up the hatch, “and you may not think it impudent.... In the linen factory in the place where I lived there was a fellow and a machine caught all his fingers and slash bang! That’s all! He didn’t have a finger left! And his right hand too.... Just imagine: being a man with nothing but his palm left....”
The audience was charmed.
“What are you driving at?”
“You see the question.... What would you do, brothers?... Could he cross himself with his left hand?...”
“What, what?” The farmer waved his hand. “You can’t use the left hand.... That’s for Satan....”
“But he’d lost the fingers on the right, so he couldn’t join them.... Had only the palm left!...”
“That’s so....”
The riddle became more popular. The passengers nearby listened; those further off got up and walked nearer to the speaker. Even the young merchant who was talking very authoritatively about politics at the tea table with a fat gentleman, deigned to turn his benevolent attention to the all-ingrossing riddle. He tapped with his spoon and beckoned to the waiter.
“Waiter, how much?... O-oh! What did you say: with the fist?”
“Yes, your excellency, among ourselves.... It doesn’t interest you....”
“No, but it’s really clever, isn’t it?” remarked the merchant to his fat friend.
The latter’s answer was unintelligible, for the man was struggling with a slice of bread and butter.
But the Tatars sat in the stern without taking any part in the general conversation. They were silent, but once in a while they made brief remarks to one another in their own language.
Dmitry Parfentyevich started like a war horse at the sound of a trumpet. Grunya did not take her eyes from the distant mountains and the river, but it was easy to see that she was not looking at them. Without turning her head she was listening intently to the conversation of her neighbors.
Dmitry Parfentyevich looked at her askance. Hitherto she would have turned to him immediately with a trusting question: “Papa, how’s that?” Now she seemed to pay no attention to her father’s opinion.
He waited for her to ask but her large eyes fell with evident sympathy upon that knot of dark, ignorant people, who were shocked by such a meaningless change in their faith....
He rose and walked up to the disputants. His thickset, dry figure, savagely pure, in an old-fashioned costume, won for him the immediate attention of all.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked.
“It’s this way, you see, merchant.... This little fellow says you can cross yourself with your fist.”
“I heard him but don’t repeat it! That man’s a fool!”
“Yes, yes,” whispered one timidly, “we’re all dark people....”
“That’s true, ... you are. If you follow the teachings of your true masters, you’ll find nothing surprising here.”
The audience grew rapidly larger. All were now interested in the tall old man with quiet and majestically austere manners. Dmitry Parfentyevich was not embarrassed by the attention he was receiving. It was not the first time. There was only one person in that crowd that interested him and that was his scholar, his disobedient and devout Grunya. In his own way he loved his daughter and his rough heart was torn by her unwearied doubts and her sad look. He passionately wished her to feel that peace from heaven which his own heart had so fully obtained. But her disobedience always aroused in his stern soul a storm of suppressed rage and this struggled with his love and usually conquered it.
Grunya still kept her seat. She did not stir but she listened intently.
“Now listen,” came to her ears the confident and harsh voice of her father. “This is the true cross and it is to this cross that we hold in order to be saved.”
He raised his hand with two fingers raised, so that all could see.
“A dissenter,” was the murmur in the crowd. Two or three merchants who were apparently fond of religious discussions, pressed nearer, when they heard this unexpected confession.
“We are not dissenters,” continued Dmitry Parfentyevich. “We confess the true faith. This was the form of the cross which the holy fathers and the patriarchs believed in. This was taught by St. Theodoret.”
He raised his hand with the two fingers joined still higher.
“Press the thumb against the little finger and the ring finger. That is to signify the Holy Trinity. Three Persons united. Raise two fingers: that’s for deity and humanity—two natures. Theodoret teaches again that the middle finger is to be bent a little. That symbolizes humanity reverencing deity. See!”
“Wait!” interrupted one of the merchants who had forced his way to the front. “St. Cyril says something else.”
“St. Cyril says the same thing. Only he bids you keep both fingers straight.”
“That must make a difference.”
“Wait, my good man, that’s wrong.... Don’t interrupt....” The speakers stopped. “Let him finish.... What about the fist, merchant?”
“Yes ... that’s the main thing.”
“It’s like this: if he lost his fingers he wasn’t to blame. That means: God allowed it. It was His will! But a man can’t live without making the sign of the cross. Without the sign of the cross he’s worse than this heathen Tatar. He’s bound to cross himself ... with his right hand....”
“Well?”
“And his fingers,” concluded Dmitry Parfentyevich after a pause: “His fingers he must place in thought, as he is ordered by the holy fathers and patriarchs....”
The crowd heaved a sigh of relief and joy.
“Merchant, we thank you!”
“He decided....”
“That’s it: he just chewed it up and explained it.”
“With thought! That’s true!”
“Of course!... With thought, nothing else!”
“That will work all right....”
Dmitry Parfentyevich looked at his daughter.... What did he care for this applause, these praises from strange, ignorant people! She, his daughter, kept looking straight ahead with a look of indifference upon her face, as if her father had said something which she had long known and which had lost all power to touch her confused and weary soul....
The old man frowned and his voice became menacing.
“If he joins his imaginary thumb with the two imaginary fingers beside it—he is wrong.... A man who crosses himself that way will be condemned to eternal damnation.... Cursed be he in this life and he will have no lot in the next.”
These violent and harsh words, suddenly falling upon the crowd which had just quieted down, changed its mood.
It became excited, began to murmur, separate into smaller groups. A black-eyed, black-haired merchant, who had maintained hitherto an obstinate silence, now struck his fist on the table and said with a flash of his deepset and enthusiastic eyes:
“True! The Devil Kuka and his whole crew are in that cursed cross with the thumb and the fingers next to it.”
“No, stop!” shouted the Orthodox, “don’t insult the true cross! Why do you separate the Three Persons, c-curses on you?... This is the Trinity in these three fingers....”
“Where are your first fingers?”
“Merchant, have you read the hundred and fifth article?”
“Yes, it’s on the end of the world.”
Dmitry Parfentyevich remained the centre of the group. He was still composed and calm, but each time when he answered any of his opponents, he transfixed him with a stubborn and unfriendly glance.
With splashing wheels, the steamboat steadily ascended the river and cleft the blue surface of the stream; it carried with it this group of violently quarreling people and the clay slopes of the steep bank reëchoed their confused voices.
A steep mountain, which had concealed a bend in the river, now receded to the rear and a broad sweep of the river appeared in front. The sun hung like a red ball above the water and from the east, darkness spread over the meadows as if on the soft wingbeats of the evening shadows, overtaking the boat and falling more and more noticeably over the Volga.
The silent group of Tatars suddenly rose from their places in the stern and with even step moved to the paddle box at the edge of the upper deck. They took off their coats and spread them on the deck. Then they took off their slippers and reverently stepped upon their coats. The glow of the sunset fell upon the rough faces of the Tatars. Their thickset figures were sharply outlined against the light and cooling heavens.
“They’re praying,” one man whispered and several left the quarreling group and walked to the railing.
Others followed. The argument quieted down.
The Tatars stood with their eyes closed, their brows were raised and their thoughts were apparently lifted up to that place where the last rays of daylight were fading on the heights. At times they unlocked their arms which were crossed on their breasts and placed them on their knees, and then they bowed their heads with their sheepskin caps, low, so low. They arose again and stretched their hands with the fingers extended toward the light.
The lips of the Moslems were whispering the words of an unknown and unintelligible prayer....
“Look there,” said one peasant, and he stopped hesitatingly, without expressing his thought.
“They are fulfilling the rites of their religion,” asserted another.
“Yes, they’re praying too....”
The Tatars suddenly knelt, touched their foreheads to the deck, and at once rose again. The three young men took their coats and slippers and went back to their former seats on the stern. The old man was left alone. He sat with his feet crossed under him. His lips moved and over his beautiful face with its gray beard passed a strange and touching expression of deep sorrow softened by reverence before the will of the Most High. His hands quickly fingered his beads.
“See.... He has beads too.”
“A zealous man....”
“Yes, it’s for his son.... He died in Astrakhan,” explained the merchant who had gone down the river with the Tatars.
“Oh, oh, oh!” sighed one of them philosophically. “Every man wishes to be saved. No one wishes to perish, whoever he is, even if he’s a Tatar....”
It was too dark to tell who was speaking. The group melted together but the isolated figure of the old man still at his devotions could be seen at the edge of the paddle box above the water. He was silently swaying backwards and forwards.
“Papa!” suddenly came a soft voice.
It was Grunya calling her father.
“What is it, daughter?”
The girl was silent for a moment; she kept looking at that praying figure of the adherent of an alien faith, and then her young and eager voice clearly sounded through the quiet:
“Please, ... what do you think: will God hear that prayer?”
Grunya spoke softly, but all heard her. It seemed as if a light breeze had passed along the deck and in more than one soul the question of the pale girl found response: will God hear that prayer?
All were silent.... Their eyes involuntarily turned upward, as if they wished to follow in the blue of the evening sky the invisible flight of that strange and unintelligible but beautiful prayer....
“Why won’t He?...” came the irresolutely soft words of a good-natured peasant. “You see, he’s not praying to any one else. There’s only one God.”
“Yes, the Father. You see, he’s looking to heaven.”
“Who knows, who knows?...”
“It’s a hard question—the ways of the Lord....”
A block creaked at the bow, the light of a golden star flew to the top of the mast; the waves splashed somewhere in the darkness; the distant whistle of an almost invisible steamboat reëchoed above the sleeping river. In the sky the bright stars appeared one after the other, and the blue night hung noiselessly above the meadows, the mountains and the ravines of the Volga.
The earth seemed to be sadly asking some question but the heavens remained silent with its quiet and its mystery....
(A Sketch From a Traveler’s Notebook)
(A SKETCH FROM A TRAVELER’S NOTEBOOK)
Early one summer morning I put my knapsack on my shoulders and set out from Arzamas.
Southeast of the city stretched the slopes of a green mountain. A little white church welcomingly and mildly peered out through the trees which grew in large numbers among the graves and beside the cemetery on the pitted sides of the mountain were some strange white spots....
As I drew near I saw that these were small and almost toy houses of old brick with peaked roofs covered with mosses and lichens. Three were shorter than a man,—one, in the form of a chapel, was taller. The roofs supported eight-pointed crosses, and on the walls were the dark boards of ikons. The faces had been worn away by the winds and beaten by the rains.
I was told in Arzamas that these were all that was left of a unique village. In earlier times the entire mountainside had been covered with similar structures, as if a city of dwarfs had been laid out opposite to the real city with its gigantic churches and its monastery. The people called this place the “Village of God.”
Every year, on the Thursday of the Seventh Week after Easter the local clergy come to this mountain and wave their censers in the air amid these peculiar houses; the incense perfumes the place and the choir sings:
“Remember, Lord, Thy slaughtered servants and those who died an unknown death, whose names, O Lord, Thou knowest....”
For whom they pray, for whom they sing the requiem, whose sinful souls are remembered in this prayer,—neither the people of Arzamas who stand around and pray nor the clergy of Arzamas can tell definitely.... For them the service in the disappearing “village” is merely a pious and revered custom, a relic of the hoary past....
And this past was sad and bloodstained....
Arzamas was once on the frontier. The city guarded the border. The breeze which raised the dust on the distant steppes here roused great anxiety and alarm. Some looked toward the steppes with terror, others with uneasy hopes.... And every spark borne hither on the winds from the Don or the Volga, found here a goodly supply of inflammable material in oppression, violence, injustice, slavery, and grievous national suffering.
This was the soil where was planted the Village of God.
It began, according to tradition, in the days of Stepan Timofeyevich Razin.... The workmen of Stenka robbed even in Arzamas. They fled from here to the north of Nizhny Novgorod, nested for a while in the village of Bolshoye Murashkino, and then passed on to Lyskovo and Makary. At their heels came the generals of the tsar and the bloody vengeance of the followers of Razin was followed by the not less bloody vengeance of the tsar.
During Peter’s reign in 1708, Kondrashka Bulavin sent from the free Don his “pleasant letters.” “Young atamans, lovers of travel, free people of every class, thieves and robbers! He who wishes to go with the military campaigning ataman Kondraty Afanasyevich Bulavin, he who wishes to raid with him, to travel gloriously, drink and eat as he will, ride over the open fields on fine horses, let him come to the black mountains of Samara.” ... So wrote the rebellious ataman to the Cossacks of the Don, to the Ukraine, and the Zaporozhian Syech. Along the Volga, through cities north and south, to worthy commanders, flew the message and also to the villages and towns. In long and business-like letters, carefully composed with a view to their political effect, he set forth all the oppressions of nobles and magnates, all the wrongs and injustice under which the land had long been suffering. The appeals of Kondrashka inflamed the whole land, more blood was shed, and savage was the vengeance of the people.... Again from Moscow advanced the regiments of troops in accordance with the terrible order of Tsar Peter:
“ ... Go through the cities and villages which have joined the robbers, burn them to the last straw, slay the people and torture the leaders on wheel and stake.... For this plague cannot be removed, except by sternness....”
In those days there was no lack of sternness and after the pacification even the cruel tsar wrote to Dolgoruky, not to execute the brother of the slain Bulavin, for many had joined the revolt from misapprehension or “from compulsion.”
The rebels were carried to Arzamas. Scaffolds, stakes, and wheels were erected along the roads and the city during one of these periods of vengeance was, in the words of an eye-witness quoted by Solovyev, “like hell”; for more than a week the groans of the victims of the terrible tortures filled the air and birds of prey hung over the places of execution.
After this pacification arose on the mountainside houses of the “Village of God,” and the people began to sing the requiems on the hillside....
Ere long the bone of the followers of Razin and of Bulavin were joined by the bones of the banished Stryeltsi (Guards).... Defiantly and in disobedience to the tsar’s order, they left Vekikiya Luki, whither they had been sent, and they stoutly resisted the tsar’s General, Shein, with a large force, but they were defeated in a desperate hand-to-hand encounter, as they were trying to cut their way through to Moscow to the Stryeltsi villages where their wives and children were living. The victorious general filled the prisons and dungeons of Arzamas with the men who had disobeyed the tsar’s orders. The ring-leaders were punished. The tsar returning from abroad was dissatisfied with the weakness and the mildness shown by Shein to the rebels. A judge was sent from Moscow to make a new investigation.... There were not enough executioners in the city to administer the new tortures and punishments and more had to be summoned from Moscow for the occasion....
New houses were added to the “Village of God.” ...
Drenched with blood, the naïve and rebellious dream of the people for a free life died away until new outbreaks commenced, a dream closely connected with the old cross and the beard, with Cossack bands, and with confused memories of the freedom of the steppes. The old injustice weighed more and more heavily upon them and hardened and increased their century-old suffering. The memory of the people involuntarily returned to those who promised freedom and who sealed this promise with their own and others’ blood.... Time and time again, like stones washed down to the shore by the raging torrent, new groups of “houses of God” appeared on the slopes of the mountain of Arzamas.
At first, perhaps, each grave preserved the memory of a definite man, his name, and his saint on an ikon. Some one would bring these ikons and sprinkle the tombs of shame with passionate tears of love and sympathy. These mourners died.... The wind, the rains, and the sun faded the faces on the ikons, and along with these there perished the living personal memory of the people buried here. There remained hanging above the mountain only a vague tradition and a vague popular feeling, ... a feeling of sad inability to comprehend, which dared not pronounce its own judgment and presented this to heaven.... And down the centuries, from year to year, even to our own times, sounds the solemn prayer for all those who had been put to death, be they innocent or guilty, and for all those who died an unknown death....
... Whose names, O Lord, Thou knowest....
I heard the following tale in Arzamas.
It was after the suppression of the rebellion of Razin. The tsar’s generals had erected near Arzamas a whole forest of columns with cross-beams and towards evening the city saw in horror, as they looked from one hill to another, hanging upon them the bodies of atamans and of the men of Arzamas who had joined the revolt. The bloody sun set behind the mountain, fearful darkness covered the heavens, and crows swarmed in clouds around their booty. The people kept asking one another: “Who is hanging there on the mountain? Criminals and murderers or the defenders of popular freedom, the avengers of century-old injustices?”
That same night a young merchant of Arzamas was driving his tired horse along the road from Saratov and he was urging it on with all his might. He abandoned far from the city his cart and the wares which he was bringing from the Volga, and was hurrying ahead without resting at all; he had learned from fugitives whom he had met that there was something wrong in the city and that the men of Razin were rioting in it. And he had left in the city his father and mother and his young wife with her first-born babe.
At midnight the young man galloped on his foaming horse out of the forest on to a hill in sight of his natal city. There was no gleam of fire to be seen above the city, no alarm bells to be heard. The city seemed dead; but in two or three of the churches were there timid lights,—perchance by the dead bodies of “honorable citizens,” who were waiting Christian burial....
Suddenly ... his horse started.... It was at that very place where now stand the “houses of God.” ... The merchant saw a dread and leafless forest standing on the mountain side, and, like ripe fruit, the bodies of good young men hanging on the trees, with crows flapping their wings and picking out the eyes of the dead.
The young merchant’s heart had been surging with uncertainty and sorrow during his hurried journey by day and night, uninterrupted save by the need of changing his tired horses, and his soul was weighted down as by a rock with his hatred for the rebels of Razin. He stopped his horse under one scaffold, rose in his stirrups and with all his strength he lashed one of the dead bodies and cursed it.... The body swayed.... The chain creaked and a cloud of crows rose in the air, flapping and cawing.