登陆注册
14198600000043

第43章 CHAPTER I(5)

We have said in our days of dreaming, "Injustice and wrong are a seeming; pain is a shadow. Our God, He is real, He who made all things, and He only is Love."

Now life takes us by the neck and shows us a few other things,--new-made graves with the red sand flying about them; eyes that we love with the worms eating them; evil men walking sleek and fat, the whole terrible hurly-burly of the thing called life,--and she says, "What do you think of these?" We dare not say "Nothing." We feel them; they are very real. But we try to lay our hands about and feel that other thing we felt before. In the dark night in the fuel-room we cry to our Beautiful dream-god: "Oh, let us come near you, and lay our head against your feet. Now in our hour of need be near us." But He is not there; He is gone away. The old questioning devil is there.

We must have been awakened sooner or later. The imagination cannot always triumph over reality, the desire over truth. We must have been awakened.

If it was done a little sharply, what matter? It was done thoroughly, and it had to be done.

VII.

And a new life begins for us--a new time, a life as cold as that of a man who sits on the pinnacle of an iceberg and sees the glittering crystals all about him. The old looks indeed like a long hot delirium, peopled with phantasies. The new is cold enough.

Now we have no God. We have had two: the old God that our fathers handed down to us, that we hated, and never liked: the new one that we made for ourselves, that we loved; but now he has flitted away from us, and we see what he was made of--the shadow of our highest ideal, crowned and throned.

Now we have no God.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." It may be so. Most things said or written have been the work of fools.

This thing is certain--he is a fool who says, "No man hath said in his heart, There is no God."

It has been said many thousand times in hearts with profound bitterness of earnest faith.

We do not cry and weep: we sit down with cold eyes and look at the world.

We are not miserable. Why should we be? We eat and drink, and sleep all night; but the dead are not colder.

And we say it slowly, but without sighing, "Yes, we see it now; there is no God."

And, we add, growing a little colder yet. "There is no justice. The ox dies in the yoke, beneath its master's whip; it turns its anguish-filled eyes on the sunlight, but there is no sign of recompense to be made it.

The black man is shot like a dog, and it goes well with the shooter. The innocent are accused and the accuser triumphs. If you will take the trouble to scratch the surface anywhere, you will see under the skin a sentient being writhing in impotent anguish."

And, we say further, and our heart is as the heart of the dead for coldness, "There is no order: all things are driven about by a blind chance."

What a soul drinks in with its mother's milk will not leave it in a day.

From our earliest hour we have been taught that the thought of the heart, the shaping of the rain-cloud, the amount of wool that grows on a sheep's back, the length of a drought, and the growing of the corn, depend on nothing that moves immutable, at the heart of all things; but on the changeable will of a changeable being, whom our prayers can alter. To us, from the beginning, nature has been but a poor plastic thing, to be toyed with this way or that, as man happens to please his deity or not; to go to church or not; to say his prayers right or not; to travel on a Sunday or not. Was it possible for us in an instant to see Nature as she is--the flowing vestment of an unchanging reality? When the soul breaks free from the arms of a superstition, bits of the claws and talons break themselves off in him. It is not the work of a day to squeeze them out.

And so, for us, the human-like driver and guide being gone, all existence, as we look out at it with our chilled, wondering eyes, is an aimless rise and swell of shifting waters. In all that weltering chaos we can see no spot so large as a man's hand on which we may plant our foot.

Whether a man believes in a human-like God or no is a small thing. Whether he looks into the mental and physical world and sees no relation between cause and effect, no order, but a blind chance sporting, this is the mightiest fact that can be recorded in any spiritual existence. It were almost a mercy to cut his throat, if indeed he does not do it for himself.

We, however, do not cut our throats. To do so would imply some desire and feeling, and we have no desire and no feeling; we are only cold. We do not wish to live, and we do not wish to die. One day a snake curls itself round the waist of a Kaffer woman. We take it in our hand, swing it round and round, and fling it on the ground--dead. Every one looks at us with eyes of admiration. We almost laugh. Is it wonderful to risk that for which we care nothing?

In truth, nothing matters. This dirty little world full of confusion, and the blue rag, stretched overhead for a sky, is so low we could touch it with our hand.

Existence is a great pot, and the old Fate who stirs it round cares nothing what rises to the top and what goes down, and laughs when the bubbles burst. And we do not care. Let it boil about. Why should we trouble ourselves? Nevertheless the physical sensations are real. Hunger hurts, and thirst, therefore we eat and drink: inaction pains us, therefore we work like galley-slaves. No one demands it, but we set ourselves to build a great dam in red sand beyond the graves. In the grey dawn before the sheep are let out we work at it. All day, while the young ostriches we tend feed about us, we work on through the fiercest heat. The people wonder what new spirit has seized us now. They do not know we are working for life. We bear the greatest stones, and feel a satisfaction when we stagger under them, and are hurt by a pang that shoots through our chest.

While we eat our dinner we carry on baskets full of earth, as though the devil drove us. The Kaffer servants have a story that at night a witch and two white oxen come to help us. No wall, they say, could grow so quickly under one man's hands.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 御棺

    御棺

    这是一个人、兽、魔三界共存的世界,气道为尊,弱肉强食。一名少年意外死去,却又意外的出现在自己的坟墓上,更加意外地得到一口奇异的棺材。“棺材在我手,灵气不用愁。御棺闯天下,三界任我游!”山顶上,杜言一边用手拨着刘海,一边嘿嘿笑道。
  • 转角咖啡厅

    转角咖啡厅

    因为心烦意乱,她来到了一家咖啡厅。却没有想到,在这里遇到了他。他高冷,她阳光,两人也不曾想到,他和她在同一学校,同一班级。当高冷恶魔遇上阳光天使,又会擦出怎样的火花呢?
  • 穿越之异世少爷的霸道恋爱

    穿越之异世少爷的霸道恋爱

    他到底是谁?她又将如何抉择?这,为何会发生在他(她)们身上,她会等他?还是他早已不在?
  • 江山远

    江山远

    华夏神州,沃野万里,自古便是文明昌盛、武道兴旺之地。自盘古氏开天辟地以来,又有伏羲创文、娲皇补天等神迹遗泽后世。神州百姓历经重重劫难却愈加兴盛,无论天灾亦或人祸,以文明智以武修身成为神州百姓每每能渡劫重生的不二法门。由是民间尊文尚武之风日盛,悠悠长河之中华夏文明开枝散叶,渐渐分为儒道两派,加之天竺东传之佛门教法,当今之世儒、释、道三家源远流长鼎足而立,各有信徒万千。另虽曾有隐秘小众崇信鬼魔之道,然大道浩荡,其在世间是否尚存已未可知。而三者虽法门各异,然均为求证大道之法,道教之白日飞升、儒家之肉身成圣、佛门之往登极乐,皆为脱却凡胎长生之道。众家由文入武,以武证文,开创出一番绚丽无比的华夏文明。
  • 魅影街探

    魅影街探

    一个在国外归来的特工化为了都市里揭开重重谜案的侦探,诡异的案情,可怕的对手,这是一个关于解密与人性的故事。传说集齐七片古玄便能揭开一个惊世谜团。他,无奈的走到了光明与黑暗的对立面。一个个悬案,一步步接近他最不愿知晓的真相。前尘旧梦,佳人似水,青梅有心,他又将做出什么抉择?第一个案子象棋杀手已结束,下一卷死亡倒计时将把情节设计的轻松一点。
  • 霸道校草追校女

    霸道校草追校女

    那是一场绝世的意外!当一个被沦为赚钱的工具的人,当一个压迫在家庭的压力下的人,当一个从小遭受最真挚的背叛的人,当一个与朋友玩耍而走丢的人。她她她她,会从而选择?当一个精彩的轮廓降临的时候!一个有着外冷内热的人,一个有着双面的人,一个号称花心大萝卜的人,一个刚从飞机下下来的人。他他他他,美好的救世主,请拯救她们吧!
  • 惊慌失措

    惊慌失措

    我的马个高大,在雪地上像冲天而起的火焰,我在马背上能感觉到那种火热,以及悬空朝前的振奋与快感。有几分钟,这样的状况是以慢镜头的速度进行着的,它使我渴望梦境持续不断,渴望时间暂时停顿
  • 学习问道:中学生高效学习的心理学视觉

    学习问道:中学生高效学习的心理学视觉

    这本书是一个值得鼓励的行动研究的产物。书中附有大量发生在学校课堂中的故事和中学生学习过程中的大量案例资源。
  • 雨下的你和我

    雨下的你和我

    本人QQ:2103945716,喜欢的网友可以加加看,谢谢一场才女与帅气混混的恋爱,她是男生眼中一尘不染的女神,他是女生眼里的黑马王子。虽不是一个世界的人,但却巧妙的在了一起,爱与不爱,恨与不恨由自己决定,呈现在校园里的一场恋爱。可能注定,两个不平凡的人,必须拥有不平凡的恋爱
  • 新冰极条约

    新冰极条约

    于2563年12月22日,冬至一颗来自于河外星系的陨石撞击在新心球的最南端冰极。结果世界在几年内气候大变,炎热大陆变成了冰雪覆盖,巨熊帝国的冰天雪地变成了烈日风暴,,冰极融化,天极冰川全变成了冰封冻土,冰极出现了一块新大陆,,,新大陆上出现了嗜血成兴的巨型猛兽,和巨型食草动物,均为为发现物种,还有一个称为鹆兽族的种族也出现在了冰极的大陆上,而且带有有侵略意图。人类已经惨败,谁呢带领人类重返生物链顶端……