Chapter XXVIII

Having come a long way and being footsore and weary Gud felt that it was time to retire. But he possessed no sleeping garments. So he caused a deep sleep to fall upon the Underdog and then Gud lay down and slept in his waking garments.

But the Underdog dreamed a dream and when Gud heard what the Underdog was dreaming, he arose and drew his long knife and cut off the Underdog's ear so that the beast could not hear what he was dreaming--for it was the kind of dream that Underdogs should never hear, and, if it is not deleted by the censor, this is what it was:

Chapter XXIX

Thirteen respectable spinsters Of the respectable town of Murch, Gave a very respectable party For their eminent orthodox church.

On a green and gra.s.sy pasture By the side of the River Runch They sat with the Reverend Quondam And partook of a dainty lunch.

None could have said they were pretty, Not even those in the "know,"

Yet no one denied in the city That their names were as white as the snow.

And just at the moment of eating The breast of a tender chicken, The Reverend Quondam observed The grey skies overhead thicken.

Within a neighboring farmhouse He betook his respectable form, Accompanied by all of the ladies In deadly fear of the storm.

Then lightning came and the thunder Like the crashing of seventeen earths, And in that respectable party Occurred three premature births.

Chapter x.x.x

The next morning when the Underdog awoke he had an imagination that a fly had alighted on the ear which Gud had cut off. The Underdog grieved because he could not flop the ear which he no longer possessed and so dislodge the fly that he imagined had alighted thereon.

This made bad blood at the breakfast table so that the Underdog growled ungratefully over the bone of contention which Gud threw him.

All that day they walked with their eyes averted and said nothing until they came to the place where the birds of faith roosted on the waves of the wireless; and then they both rejoiced, for here was good game, easily ensnared because it had faith and trust.

So Gud spoke comradely to the Underdog and the Underdog wagged cordially. Gud built a snare out of weeping willow twigs, and the Underdog ran round the birds and barked the birches. Presently an old bird that was steadfast in the faith walked into the snare and Gud reached out his hand and took the bird, and it perched upon his shoulder and told him why love grows cold. This made Gud very happy, for he had always wanted to know.

Chapter x.x.xI

The mists that whirl in greater mists Around the cliffs of s.p.a.ce Leave little drops of glistening water Upon His wrinkled face.

Have you heard Him, as walking through The valleys of the night He paces ever back and forth, Silent, old and white?

Upon some jagged piece of dust As high as night is high He watches all the tiny worlds Go spinning down the sky.

Around Him are the burning stars That toss like little ships And winds blow out of dim unknowns Across His very lips.

Have you heard Him amid the silence, Vast as a silken cloud, Lifting His arms with jewelled pendants, Cloaked in a heavy shroud?

Chapter x.x.xII

As Gud and Fidu journeyed on they came to a rippling rivulet and saw two women who were bathing in the laughing water. Gud was not astonished at what he saw because Gud sees all things, and familiarity breeds contempt. Neither were the women alarmed, because they were busy talking and did not see Gud.

"I am sick of love," one woman said.

Whereupon the other woman said: "My husband understands me."

Just then the Underdog came up panting and athirst and started to lap of the laughing waters of the rippling rivulet. Gud thrust his hand out and jerked the poor beast away. Alas, too late! Fidu had drunk of the bewitched water and when the moon changed its name and a meteor fell into a fit of despondency; the Underdog went mad and frothed at the mouth and bit the hand that fed him, which was the right hand of Gud.

Gud made a tourniquet out of a miser's heart-strings, so that the infection did not pa.s.s above the elbow; and he applied leeches to the wound and also an ointment of soothing words so that the pain abated.

But the poison of falsehood was so potent that Gud found his right hand had become a deceitful hand and could not write the truth. So Gud exchanged his right hand for his left hand, which was very easy to do since he was in the Nth dimension and outside the limitations of three-dimensional s.p.a.ce.

When Fidu, the Underdog, went mad he lost his reason. Gud did not note this at the time because of his own affliction. But after his wound had healed so that it ceased to hurt anything but his conscience, Gud observed, as they walked along, that Fidu had lost his reason. The poor dog walking along there without his reason looked so unreasonable that Gud's heart was touched with compa.s.sion and he said: "Fidu, it grieves me to see you without a reason. Here, take mine."

Fidu looked up gratefully out of his sad, mad eyes as Gud handed him his reason. Glad to have a reason again Fidu seized it in his mouth and ran off, frisking and twisting and wanting to bark, which he could not do because he was carrying Gud's reason in his mouth. So he ran ahead and came to a place where the curve crossed over a deep, dark stream.

Glancing down into the mirror-like surface of the water, the Underdog saw his reflection. He did not think the reflection was another dog with another reason in his mouth--for Fidu had his reason in his mouth and was still mad in his eyes. When he saw his reflection in the water, he thought it was a porcupine or a civet cat or some other unapproachable creature, and so he barked; and in doing so he let Gud's reason fall into the water. Down, down sank the reason of Gud into the dark, deep water, for it was a very weighty reason.

Fidu did not attempt to dive after it, but the poor, mad dog just stood there and let it sink out of sight into the deep dark water.

When Gud came up he, too, was without his reason and he thought Fidu, standing forlornly on the bridge, was an evil genius. When the mad dog ran on into the gloomy wilderness that was beyond the stream, the mad Gud followed after him and became lost in the wildness of the wilderness.

As Gud wandered on amid the gloomy shadows, the void in his mind, where his reason had been, became filled with many strange illusions, and he discovered that he could now believe many things that he had not previously been able to believe because they had been unreasonable.

Faith in things unseen grew within him. The fourth dimension and the squared circle no longer annoyed him. He found that chimeras were very real and also wyverns, and that metaphysical hypotheses were as solid substance and as proven facts.

Gud now understood for the first time in his life that he was Gud and at the same time he was a holy ghost, and that he was also his own father.

This last bit of unreasonable comprehension especially relieved Gud. He was sorry he had not accepted it sooner, for because of it he had never really written his autobiography. When he had started to write, he began by describing his father as being in existence before his own birth, and yet Gud had realized that such could not be, as he and his father were one and the same being. The situation had confused Gud's reason, but now with his reason gone it was all very clear.

There were also many other things which Gud had been unable to accept with his reason, but which now, with no appeal to reason, he gladly embraced, and so reveled joyously in his growing faith. The transfiguration of souls particularly entranced him, and he spent many happy hours, as he walked along amid the gloomy shadows of the wildness of the wilderness, in picking out favorite animals to have been and to be. He rather favored having been a quacking ornithorhynchus and going to be a ring-straked giraffe; and yet the claims of the groundhog, which sleeps half its life away, also appealed to Gud, because he had a long time to live. Having considered these and many others, Gud decided to have been all the unattractive animals in the past and to be all the nice ones in the future. After all, he had plenty of past and future and there was no occasion for abbreviating the list.

With his reason gone Gud also accepted polytheism as being quite compatible with monotheism. He no longer found it objectionable to be the only G.o.d and yet have a lot of a.s.sistant G.o.ds, for he saw that this would relieve him of a great deal of labor.

And thus it came about that through the loss of his reason many irrational things which he had previously disputed and disbelieved were now lucid and believable. So gratified was Gud as he realized the magnitude of his growing faith that he gave a great shout of joy.

The shout echoed through the wildness of the wilderness, and the echo came back to Gud; and Gud thought it was a lion's roar.

The mad Underdog also heard Gud's shout and the echo of Gud's shout, and he thought the shout was the blast of a war trumpet, and that the echo was the noise of the celebration of peace.