Part 9 (1/2)
Is it true, as some would have us believe, that the fear of the extinction of self is the terror supreme?... For the thought of personal perpetuity in the infinite vortex is enough to evoke sudden trepidations that no tongue can utter,--fugitive instants of a horror too vast to enter wholly into consciousness: a horror that can be endured in swift black glimpsings only. And the trust that we are one with the Absolute--dim points of thrilling in the abyss of It--can prove a consoling faith only to those who find themselves obliged to think that consciousness dissolves with the crumbling of the brain....
It seems to me that few (or none) dare to utter frankly those stupendous doubts and fears which force mortal intelligence to recoil upon itself at every fresh attempt to pa.s.s the barrier of the Knowable. Were that barrier unexpectedly pushed back,--were knowledge to be suddenly and vastly expanded beyond its present limits,--perhaps we should find ourselves unable to endure the revelation....
Mr. Percival Lowell's astonis.h.i.+ng book, ”Mars,” sets one to thinking about the results of being able to hold communication with the habitants of an older and a wiser world,--some race of beings more highly evolved than we, both intellectually and morally, and able to interpret a thousand mysteries that still baffle our science. Perhaps, in such event, we should not find ourselves able to comprehend the methods, even could we borrow the results, of wisdom older than all our civilization by myriads or hundreds of myriads of years. But would not the sudden advent of larger knowledge from some elder planet prove for us, by reason, of the present moral condition of mankind, nothing less than a catastrophe?--might it not even result in the extinction of the human species?...
The rule seems to be that the dissemination of dangerous higher knowledge, before the ma.s.ses of a people are ethically prepared to receive it, will always be prevented by the conservative instinct; and we have reason to suppose (allowing for individual exceptions) that the power to gain higher knowledge is developed only as the moral ability to profit by such knowledge is evolved. I fancy that if the power of holding intellectual converse with other worlds could now serve us, we should presently obtain it. But if, by some astonis.h.i.+ng chance,--as by the discovery, let us suppose, of some method of ether-telegraphy,--this power were prematurely acquired, its exercise would in all probability be prohibited.... Imagine, for example, what would have happened during the Middle Ages to the person guilty of discovering means to communicate with the people of a neighboring planet! a.s.suredly that inventor and his apparatus and his records would have been burned; every trace and memory of his labors would have been extirpated. Even to-day the sudden discovery of truths unsupported by human experience, the sudden revelation of facts totally opposed to existing convictions, might evoke some frantic revival of superst.i.tious terrors,--some religious panic-fury that would strangle science, and replunge the world in mental darkness for a thousand years.
THE MIRROR MAIDEN
In the period of the As.h.i.+kaga Sh[=o]gunate the shrine of Ogawachi-My[=o]jin, at Minami-Ise, fell into decay; and the daimy[=o]
of the district, the Lord Kitahatake, found himself unable, by reason of war and other circ.u.mstances, to provide for the reparation of the building. Then the s.h.i.+nt[=o] priest in charge, Matsumura Hy[=o]go, sought help at Ky[=o]to from the great daimy[=o] Hosokawa, who was known to have influence with the Sh[=o]gun. The Lord Hosokawa received the priest kindly, and promised to speak to the Sh[=o]gun about the condition of Ogawachi-My[=o]jin. But he said that, in any event, a grant for the restoration of the temple could not be made without due investigation and considerable delay; and he advised Matsumura to remain in the capital while the matter was being arranged. Matsumura therefore brought his family to Ky[=o]to, and rented a house in the old Ky[=o]goku quarter.
This house, although handsome and s.p.a.cious, had been long unoccupied.
It was said to be an unlucky house. On the northeast side of it there was a well; and several former tenants had drowned themselves in that well, without any known cause. But Matsumura, being a s.h.i.+nt[=o]
priest, had no fear of evil spirits; and he soon made himself very comfortable in his new home.
In the summer of that year there was a great drought. For months no rain had fallen in the Five Home-Provinces; the river-beds dried up, the wells failed; and even in the capital there was a dearth of water. But the well in Matsumura's garden remained nearly full; and the water--which was very cold and clear, with a faint bluish tinge--seemed to be supplied by a spring. During the hot season many people came from all parts of the city to beg for water; and Matsumura allowed them to draw as much as they pleased. Nevertheless the supply did not appear to be diminished.
But one morning the dead body of a young servant, who had been sent from a neighboring residence to fetch water, was found floating in the well. No cause for a suicide could be imagined; and Matsumura, remembering many unpleasant stories about the well, began to suspect some invisible malevolence. He went to examine the well, with the intention of having a fence built around it; and while standing there alone he was startled by a sudden motion in the water, as of something alive. The motion soon ceased; and then he perceived, clearly reflected in the still surface, the figure of a young woman, apparently about nineteen or twenty years of age. She seemed to be occupied with her toilet: he distinctly saw her touching her lips with _beni_[67] At first her face was visible in profile only; but presently she turned towards him and smiled. Immediately he felt a strange shock at his heart, and a dizziness came upon him like the dizziness of wine, and everything became dark, except that smiling face,--white and beautiful as moonlight, and always seeming to grow more beautiful, and to be drawing him down--down--down into the darkness. But with a desperate effort he recovered his will and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the face was gone, and the light had returned; and he found himself leaning down over the curb of the well. A moment more of that dizziness,--a moment more of that dazzling lure,--and he would never again have looked upon the sun...
[Footnote 67: A kind of rouge, now used only to color the lips.]
Returning to the house, he gave orders to his people not to approach the well under any circ.u.mstances, or allow any person to draw water from it. And the next day he had a strong fence built round the well.
About a week after the fence had been built, the long drought was broken by a great rain-storm, accompanied by wind and lightning and thunder,--thunder so tremendous that the whole city shook to the rolling of it, as if shaken by an earthquake. For three days and three nights the downpour and the lightnings and the thunder continued; and the Kamogawa rose as it had never risen before, carrying away many bridges. During the third night of the storm, at the Hour of the Ox, there was heard a knocking at the door of the priest's dwelling, and the voice of a woman pleading for admittance. But Matsumura, warned by his experience at the well, forbade his servants to answer the appeal.
He went himself to the entrance, and asked,--
”Who calls?”
A feminine voice responded:--
”Pardon! it is I,--Yayoi![68]... I have something to say to Matsumura Sama,--something of great moment. Please open!”...
[Footnote 68: This name, though uncommon, is still in use.]
Matsumura half opened the door, very cautiously; and he saw the same beautiful face that had smiled upon him from the well. But it was not smiling now: it had a very sad look.
”Into my house you shall not come,” the priest exclaimed. ”You are not a human being, but a Well-Person.... Why do you thus wickedly try to delude and destroy people?”
The Well-Person made answer in a voice musical as a tinkling of jewels (_tama-wo-korogasu-koe_.):--