Outside the windows of this quiet country house lay the lean fields of New England, soberly beautiful enough in their fading autumnal colorings, but somehow yielding no inspiration—forgive the pretentious2 and convenient word—no inspiration for my pen.
All around me my neighbors were busy; soberly engaged, each man of them, in safe-guarding himself, his body, soul, and his possessions, against the accidents of life and death. They too, somehow, failed to inspire that sluggish3 bit of pointed4 gold. Neither do your sober neighbors, friend, as I think of them. In all essentials they might be my own. For we are all a care-worn people, we of this young West, moving always circumspectly5, hedging ourselves round with a tenfold wall against surprises, with creeds6 and codes and philosophies innumerable, all warranted Hell-proof and Heaven-kissing.
We count him wisest who lives and loves and dies most by rule. And the rule is that rule of our Tory Grecian forbears, "Never too much." "We may be a wise people and a happy people," said I to myself, "but we are quite too prudent7 to be counted young, in anything but years." And so that bit of gold hung uninspired as when it left the shop. It waited for livelier, more zestful8 topics than the daily grind of sober middle age.
Then all at once, it seemed, familiar voices called to me from that East we deem so old, and I was back there. A street stretched beneath me, such a street as only the Far East knows, and there only in one enchanted9 city. It was a wide street, and a long one, all aquiver with hot, stinging sunlight. It was walled with solid, four-square houses, and above them roofs and pinnacles10 rose in a hundred fantastic, airy shapes for which our Western architecture has no names, and the fronts of the houses flashed with decorations of barbaric red and gold. The street flamed with them. And all down the spacious11, sun-flooded length of it, filling it from brim to brim, like a river, poured a current of tumultuous life.
From out the crowd eyes met mine, just as they used to do. Eyes of men intent on conquest, of goods, perhaps, or power, or pleasure, the eyes of men who sought, not soberly. Mocking, inviting12, smiling, fathomless13, straightforward14 eyes of women, who, forgetting, or unknowing Heaven and Hell, still knew that they were women, mistresses of a woman's joys and sorrows. Eyes of losers at the game, unhopeful but uncowed. Thousands of eyes glanced up at me, and not one solitary15 pair of them were like the eyes that look out soberly from your neighbor's head, or mine.
As my eyes questioned theirs, it seemed to me again, just as it used to do, that there in the old East, where life began, it still throbs16 most strongly, tingles17 most with the hot blood of youth; that there men, eternally young, are still most unafraid, grasp with least hesitation18 all life offers them, and accept the outcome of their choice with most sincerity19.
As I was thinking that, it seemed to me that I went down into the life and stinging sunshine of the street, and mingled20 with it, till at last my steps led me down an alley21 and across a drawbridge that spanned a green and pestilential moat, and I approached the low gateway22 of a gray Walled City which was old when History was young. I passed under the cavern23 of the gate—and my feet rang on the worn flagstones as I passed—and came into a narrow street between low, sombre houses without windows, and so presently to a temple which in that city bears an unpleasant reputation. Not that scandal hangs about it—it takes Christian24 tongues to make libertines25 and guzzlers of Christian priests. But it is said that for some few centuries experiments in—in Psychical26 Research, let us say—have been going on in that old temple of Tzin Pia?u, with results that are not always reassuring27 to a lay beholder28. I was in too careless a mood to care for that, that morning, and the porter let me pass, barbarian29 that I was, and I crossed the great courtyard and came to a little cell built in the thickness of the walls.
Inside the cell I saw an old, old man, a priest, though but a heathen one, half reclining on a hollowed slab30 of stone.
He was a very gaunt old man, but a very tall and strong one, and his face was like a mask of yellow parchment, seamed with a multitude of tiny wrinkles, and his eyes were two slits31 set slantwise in it. But as he heard my step and looked up, they widened, and the spark of a smile glimmered32 in them.
"It is you again, my son?" said that old heathen priest to me in greeting, though I did not remember having seen him before that day. "What is it now?"
Suddenly I knew why I had come. "My father," I said, though he was but a heathen, "I want to see Life through your eyes."
He looked into me, and through me, and beyond me into vacancy33, and as he looked the spark of laughter in his eyes danced, and flickered34 up into a tiny fire. "You are older now," said he. "Sit down. I will tell you first of the Game of the Little Gods, and then you shall see Life through my eyes."
"The Great God," my heathen priest explained, unheeding me and smiling into vacancy, "the Great God created us men in his own image—and soon found us, as objects of His constant contemplation, distinctly wearisome. If He could have laughed, it would not have mattered much, but Amusement is beneath the ken36 of a Great God. Therefore our inconsistencies, our pettinesses, our hopeless contradictions, quickly wearied Him, as they would us if we had to take them seriously, forever. And so," drawled my heathen tutor, "the Great God, at last, in self-defense, created some Little Gods to take charge of the everyday affairs of men. So far as they are Gods, of course, these Little Gods are Eternal and Impartial37, far raised above Love and Aversion, Pity and Scorn, Admiration38 and Derision, and all our other small emotions. To them all things are equal. But so far as they are Little, and not Great, they are capable of Amusement. And so," said he, "those lucky Little Gods while away Eternity39 by playing games, wherein we men are counters. But we men too," he added, smiling through me into vacancy, "if we are wise, can gain amusement by looking on at the games we're part of."
"I," said I, "have never noticed anything which looked like games—"
"No?" he said, half mockingly. "You never watched a strong man strive his utmost and grasp at last what he strove for, a handful of ashes and dry leaves? Never saw a woman love with all her heart, till she broke it, loving? Never saw Tragedy or Comedy or Farce40 wherein the players were not actors? Have all Life's contradictions—"
"But they've always taught me," I objected, "that in those seeming contradictions, an inscrutable Wisdom was working for the ultimate good of those—"
"My son," said my old heathen priest, stretching his old legs out on his stony41 slab, "go and see for yourself. This is the hour when I take one of my naps. See for yourself."
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1
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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circumspectly
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| adv.慎重地，留心地 | |
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creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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7
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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8
zestful
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| adj.有滋味 | |
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9
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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10
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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fathomless
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| a.深不可测的 | |
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straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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15
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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16
throbs
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| 体内的跳动( throb的名词复数 ) | |
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17
tingles
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| n.刺痛感( tingle的名词复数 )v.有刺痛感( tingle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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18
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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20
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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cavern
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| n.洞穴，大山洞 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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libertines
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| n.放荡不羁的人，淫荡的人( libertine的名词复数 ) | |
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psychical
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| adj.有关特异功能现象的；有关特异功能官能的；灵魂的；心灵的 | |
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reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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barbarian
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| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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slits
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| n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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32
glimmered
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| v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35
squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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ken
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| n.视野，知识领域 | |
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37
impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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38
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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39
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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40
farce
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| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
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41
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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