Short Fiction - Vladimir Korolenko (easy books to read in english txt) 📗

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.”

III

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 absentmindedly 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