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·THE SIBYL Pn a mountain slope above Delphi the Sibyl an old voman lives alone in exile with her imbeale son She s visited one day by a stranger It is the Wandering ew cursed because he once prevented a criminal carrying his cross on the way to the place of execution from resting his head against the wall of us house Rebellious against God he asks the Sibyl what his fate will be and she answers by recounting ber own story she tells of how she saw yusions and heard voices and became a priestess of her love for one-armed soldier his death and her subsequent areatment by the priests and the rioting crowds of the birth of her son in a cave among the goats In spite of her tnbulations she cannot hate God and after hearing her story the Jew goes on his way knowing that he too cannot escape or deny bus Creator

·By the same Anthor
BARABBAS
TIE DWARF
Short Stones
TILE MARRIACE FEAST

·THE SIBYL
oc00000
Par Lagerkvist
Translated by
Naomi Walford
1958
CHATTO & WINDUS

·Published by
Chatro & Windús Ltd
42 William IV Street
London WC.
Clarke Irwin and Co Ltd
Toronto
Translation Chatto & Windus Led 1958
Printed in Great Britain

·Na little house on the mountain slopes above Delphi consisted of a single room one wall was the mountainside Itself and always dapped with moisture It was really not a house at all but a ramshackle hut which herdsmen had built for themselves It stood quite alone away up in the wild mountain high above the buildings of the city and above the sacred precincts of the temple The woman seldom left the house her son never He sat within in the half-light smiling to himself as he had always done he was now well into middle age and his lank hair had begun to turn grey But his face was untouched it was as it had always been without any real features in its beardless downy childishness only that queer perpetual smile The old woman s face was furrowed and austere and swarthy as if it had been touched by fire her eyes had the look of eyes that have seen god. They lived quite by themselves no one visited them or had anything whatever to do with them Two goats gave them milk and the woman gathered herbs and roots up in the mountain and that was what they had to live on They could never have got anything from other people for no one would have any dealings with thern 5

·Published by
Chatro & Windus Ltd
42 William IV Street
London WC.
Clarke Irwin and Co Ltd
Toronto
Tradition Chatto & Windus Ltd 1958
Printed in Great Britan

·Behind her inside in the half light sat her grizzled
son a smile on his downy childish face
One evening before sunset a man came walking up
the path from Delphı There was nothing strange in
this people came that way sometimes to see to their
animals at pasture in the mountain The track passed a
stones throw or so below her house But this time
something happened which surprised her greatly The
man turned off the path and began climbing the steep
slope where there was no track at all Such a thing was
unknown no one had ever left the path to come up
here Who would want to? The slope was covered with
loose stones from landslips and at times he found it
difficult to advance Perhaps he was unused to this
country From her nest she followed him with her old
eyes
He came nearer and she was able to make out his
face She did not know him But she knew no one--no
one now living He was quite a tall man with a strong
brownish beard untrimmed and not in the fashion of
this country His cheeks were pale quite without
colour though he had to exert himself greatly to climb
the hill He was a man in the prime of life perhaps in
early middle
age
When he came up to her he made his salutabon but
not in the manner of these parts And when having sat
7

·THE SIBYL
down on the stone bench before the house he began
speaking slowly and at first with some difficulty in
finding words she noted at once that he was a foreigner
and probably from very far away This could be seen
also in his look which was heavy and old though he
himself was young But that might be hus otvn look and
not that of his race
He told her that he had come to Delphi to consult the
oracle about something of great importance to hum But
he had been turned away before he could do so they
would not let him enter the room where the seekers were
assembling
There was no answer to what he asked they told him
No oracle in the world could answer it
Dejectedly he left the temple court and wandered at
random about the city all that day More than once he
thought of leaving Delphu where he had nothing to
hope for and of going further somewhere anywhere
Then in a dirty alley in the poorest quarter of the town
he had got into conversation with an old blund man a
very old beggar who crouched at a street comer and
held out hus shaking hand in the hope that someonc
would drop something into it This seemed an oda
thing in a street wherc all must have been cqually poor
but he said that in caruer days he had begged in the
temple court and beside the sacred way though now he
could no longer go so far When we had begun to talk
of this together I told him of my own care of my long
8

·THE SIBYL vain wayfaring to Delphi and of my distress because the oracle had been unable to give me an answer He listened to me with compassion and understood me well though he thought it strange that there should be anything which the Delphic oracle could not answer You must have put hard questions be said But when he had thought it over he went on reflectively There may be one who can help you One who can answer all that a man can ask And he told me that up in the mountains there lived an old priestess of the oracle an ancient Pythia cursed and hated by all because she had committed a crime against god Against the temple and against god and against all sacred things yet she was a great and mighty sibyl No priestess in Delphi had ever been so great so beloved and possessed by god as she She had prophesied with her mouth wide open and no one had been able to endure the sight of her when she was filled with her god His own breath had issued from her mouth and her speech had been as wild as fiery flames it was said for thus did he love her He refused to speak through anyone but her and did so for many years But then she had sinned against both god and man and cast herself down into damnation she had been daven from the city with sticks and stones and had been cursed by all men and of course by the god-by him whom she had offended This happened in my childhood said the old man but although no one speaks ·THE SIBYL of her any more or utters her name she is said to be living sall in the mountains whither she was driven And I don t doubt that it is true One who has been in such contact with the divine must find it hard to die with such power as must yet remain within her One in whom god has once taken up hus abode he does not forsake though he remain only as a curse Seek her out and you Il surely get an answer to your questions though it may appal you And he pointed with his trembling hand to this mountain and blind though he was he pointed anght She to whom he had been speaking sat motionless as she had sat throughout his tale No change in her face revealed what mught be stirring within her Searchingly and with some surprise he gazed into the dark furrowed face as if to read in thar old book wluch for all its plain script was so difficult to decipher It was as if it had been written in an ancient conguc which was no longer spolen. For a long ame shc sat silent seemingly abstracted, withdrawn into herself What was it that you asked the oracle? she said at Last, as if she had woken from her musing I asked about my destiny he sad. Your destiny Ay my destiny My lfc-how its to be What avaits me. That's what most people ask that s the t 10 ·THE SIBYL about What is so extraordinary in your destiny? Is it something speaal? Yes it is And he told her of a peculiar thing that had happened an event which had scored itself so deeply into his memory that he seemed not to recall anything besides an event which left his soul no peace which had impelled him to come to Delphi and now at last to her to seek enlightenment and some measure of peace I lived happily with my young wife and my little son he began in the city where I was born and I had no thought of leaving I had my livelihood there and a house left me by my father I was not rich but wellto-do my life was secure and carefree and all things seemed to prosper with me One day as I was standing at my door I saw an unknown man dragging himself along with his cross There was nothing extraordinary in this nothing unusual it often happened that men who were to be crucified were led along our street by soldiers up to the gallows place ours was the road to it And there was nothing peculiar about the man himself so far as I could see He was pale and tired he seemed exhausted Because of that no doubt he paused and leaned against the wall of my house a little way from where I was standing I didn t like it What s he doing that for I thought If a condemned man a man so unhappy leans against my house he may bring ill fortune upon it ·THE SIBYL So I told him to move on and said I didn t want him there Then he turned towards me and when I saw his face I knew that this was no ordinary man—that there must be something special about him But what it was that made me think so I could not have said I believe that the look on his face was not usually angry at all but gentle and submissive But it was not so now it was mighty and ternble in a way that I shall never forget Because I may not lean my head against your house your soul shall be unblest for cver he said I was astonished and uncasy and thought it somehow situster The soldiers simply laughed and drove hum forward for they did not want him to stand there either they forced him on But before he went further with his cross he turned to me again and said menacingly Because you denied me this you shall suffer grcater purushment than mine you shall never die You shall wander through this world to all eternity and find no rest And he settied his cross upon his shoulder again and dragged himself on along the street unul he disappeared through the gate of the city some way off I stayed where I was with a most strange sensation Something seemed to have happened to mc--something whose innard meaning escaped me I could not cxplain at either to myself or to anyone else but so it was some ·THE SIBYL neighbours who had heard what the man said and saw me standing there and looking queer told me not to trouble myself about it—not to take any notice of what a man like that said a criminal who was going to be crucified Surely I knew that they often burst out into the most terrible threats and curses because they were in a rage with everything and because they were to lose their lives They talk all sorts of rubbish you know that – s nothing to vex yourself about I knew well enough that they were right And in taking it as they didin laughing at me a little and shrugging their shoulders at the incident they reassured me When we had chatted about it a little I was laughing at it too I went back to my work and thought no more about it But I couldn t quite forget It came into my mind now and then though I tried to drive it out The day passed I attended to my work and everything was as usual or so I thought But the words he had spoken remained with me from time to time they were repeated in my innertnost self—by whom? By me? I don t know but I heard them I heard them quite plainly I couldnt understand why I had to recall them I knew they meant nothing—nothing at all-thar they were just words spoken to me by an unknown criminal because he had not been allowed to lean his head against my house There was no more to it than that and it was foolish to pay any attention to what he d said Why did I do it?

·THE SIBYL I thought that by next day I should have sharen it off But when I woke in the morning it was with the sense of something having happened to me and as I lay dozing the same words were slowly repeated inside me and softly as it were in a whisper--they reminded me of the sentence that had been passed on me by whom? When I had risen I was myself again and I set about my work as usual But I felt no real inclination for it- I who was usually so eager and took such pleasure in it After a time I became too restless to sit still and I wandered idly about doing nothing at all I had no wish to do anything This was quite unlike my usual self And so it went on day after day In some way I had altered and could not recognise myself I dont know how long it was before I heard the queer rumour that the man who had been taken along our street to be crucified was gods son It was not said openly but whuspered among people in the city and talked about in secret Those who ought really to have known the truth of it--those who believed in him scemed to be in hiding and dared not come forth to bear witness on his behalf-not yet There cannot have been many of them most people in the city didnt beliete it at all of course they thought it was some foolish invention and those who had had him executed declared it to be a blasphemy against god Gods son-of course he wasnt I told myself It's ndiculous Quite absurd God s son? And I asked ·THE SIBYL about this rumour about how it had begun and who were spreading it naturally it was those who believed those who were in hiding They declared that a miracle had come to pass--all kinds of miracles-showing that it was true and then the miracle of their own belief that they knew him to be the son of god and had experienced it in themsek es For them this was of course the greatest most important miracle They were not at all reliable people and what they said was unworthy of attention I discussed it with the neighbours asking them their opiruon asking what they thought of the story that the cruinal---If they remembered him—who had dragged himself past with his cross was godsson They had heard of it too and thought it arrant nonsense But many believed it I said They shrugged their shoulders and said something about lunatics Are you still brooding over what he said to you? one of them added with a laugh Not in the least I answered laughing too Are you mad? You dont think Id care about a thing like that? But was that true? Did I really not care about it? It was easy enough to say but why then did I feel so changed so downcast and joyless and why did everything seem so meaningless? Why had it become so? Why did everything seem somehow so empty and desolate both within and around me? I had never felt IS ·It was THE SIBYL thus before. What sort of change was it? Why did I feel like this? I remember one day I was walking outside the city gate in the fertile countryside I knew so well the vincyards and the fields of grain, with olives and fig trees in them I mars elled to see how drab and depressing it all looked for as a rule it was quite the opposite the middle of the day but it felt more like evening and I was oddly oppressed by the sight of that landscape and its grey desolation What did it mean? What was the matter with me? Was this my world> The world I was to live in? And I remember with how heavy a tread I turned back to the aty home As vet I had said nothing to my wife I had not wanted to But she must have noticed it Mustn t she? So I went into the room where she usually was at that time of day to tell her about it and what it was like I found her lying on a straw mat on the floor playing with her child I broke in upon their game I explained to her as best I could hat was the matter with me and that I believed I had been land under a curse Shc laughed at me as she lay there on her back playing with the baby and holding it high in the air hic had such a young and lovely laugh, Yes I think you must have been she said seeing how long it is since you kissed me. I tried to smile and stood watching them knowing and my 16 ·THE SIBYL that thus was something beautiful and something that I dearly loved yet a sort of grey ash seemed to be upon them as it lay upon all I saw And I felt like a stranger standing there like some outsider who ought not to disturb them in their life When I went away I heard them go on with their play As they were so had I been but lately delighting in life in being alive I had rejoiced in it every day Every day. It was strange he had said that I should live for ever-that I should never die How strange Why should I mind that? Had it not always been my dearest wish never to have to die never to die? Why then did I not rejoice? Why did I feel no gladness? To all eternity and find no rest I had never really thought about it before but now I seemed to gain some inkling of what eternity was That It would deprive me of my life That it was itself the damnation the unblessedness that it would itself unhallow my soul Eternity It has nothing to do with life I thought it is the contrary to all life It is something limitless endless a realm of death which the living must look into with horror Was it here that I was to dwell? Was it for that that this thing had been given me? To all eternity That was my death sentence the most cruel that could be devised This god takes from me all the joy of living I whispered to myself ·THE SIBYL For the first time I glimpsed the existence that awaited me and looked into its void And for the first time I truly believed in the power of this curse I believed that this questionable god could carry out his intention and that my soul would become just as he had threatened that all would be accomplished as he had said Yes all was being accomplished The change in me went forward and I was helpless to arrest it What power had I? What was I to do? How could I act how prevent what was happening? I had no power I was utterly impotent For I was myself the unhallowed soul I desired to help I was myself the transformation that was taking place within me and filling me with perdition. One day in my despair I did something--something that was only to increase my unhappiness my unblessedness It was the middle of the day but I lay outstretched upon my bed tormented by my hurrying thoughts by my own inner self-the thing that was no longer mine Suddenly I was seized with fury at my destiny and the malignant god to whom lowed it w should I accept it? Thus madness? W I not reb against the power within me and 2t1I, not! I will live I will be exactly be as I have been I will be like live! And when I had said myself-it was as if the garment I felt a relief my inner self to im ·THE SIBYL known before during all the time that had passed And I rose and went into the room in wbuch my wife and the child were for a while I stood watchung their prattling play then I went up and gently separated her from the child and kissed her She put her arms about me and they were bare and warm and we went into my room together and when we had undressed she lay down on my bed with the little smile I knew so well-on the bed where but now I had lain in torment—and parted her knces for me to come at her All was as before when we had loved each other and I thought I had conquered and regained my happiness But I could do nothing I felt how ravishing she was more ravishing than ever-I knew that–because it had been so long yet I was not filled with any desire Her warmth flooded to meet me but it was she alone who was warm I grew cold and damp and could do nothing Her breath panted against my face panted for me But I was powerless At last I burst out weeping-I lay despairing on her glorious warm body and wept She stroked my hair a little and my cheek Then she took my head between her hands and looked at me looked closely searchingly at me into my face as she had not done for a long time How old your eyes have grown she said Now my unhappiness was complete it was like a bottomless well into whuch I had been hurled now that ·THE SIBYL thus too had been taken from me But was it so strange It was lıfe s greatest bliss Was it strange that it should be taken from me that I should not know it--never know it again? I the unblessed? I condemned to eternal unblessedness? After this others too began to nouce the change in me or so at least I fancied People avoided me withdrew from me I thought and if they were compelled to speak to me and meet my eyes they looked at me queerly The neighbours in our strect fell silent and seemed to realise at last that something had happened to me and that it had to do with the man who was taken out to be crucified and whom I forbade to lean his head against my house They never spoke to me about it and as I say they avoided me yet it was clear that they had nouced the alteration in me-that they observed me secretly and whispered about me and that it was from compassion alone that they refrained from saying How old your eyes have grown My wife became more and more shy of me somcthing in me seemed to fnghten her~no doubt my eyes And she must have remembered my telling her that a curse had been laid upon me I dont know for we never talked of it and what had happened between us we never hinted at by so much as a word She doesn t want to look into them any more I told myself No doubt she suffered as keenly as I did from the 20 ·THE SIBYL change I had undergone I dont know for we never confided in each other neither of us knew what burden of thought the other bore And after the time I ve spoken of our eyes never met again I had never concerned myself about her thoughts in any case She was like a child and I had never gained much by talking to her though this had not struck me before and I had been content with her childish prattling Now I understood the futility of talking to her about anything and I did so no longer Her mere presence began to exasperate me and the knowledge that she was somewhere near-even the sound of her voice or her laughter somewhere about the house But she didnt laugh so often now For the most part she stayed with the child I suppose they still played together in there but more quietly than before they could hardly be heard Thus everything in the house was greatly changed I was bound to bear rancour against her because I had been unable to go into her I had to take revenge upon her for that I did so now I never looked at her neither at her nor at the child but behaved as if they werent there I had never been particularly attached to my son in any case or had I? At least I had always thought that she fussed over him too much no doubt because she was a child herself and the secret grudge I had bome against him broke out now that I was cut off from her for ever What troubled her more than anything I ·THE SIBYL this too had been taken from me But was it so strange? It was life s greatest bless Was it strange that it should be taken from me that I should not know it never know it again? I the unblessed? I condemned to cternal unblessedness? After this others too began to notice the change in me or so at least I fancied People avoided me withdrew from me I thought and if they were compelled to speak to me and meet my eyes they looked at me queerly The neighbours in our street fell silent and seemed to realise at last that something had happened to me and that it had to do with the man who was taken out to be crucified and whom I forbade to lean his head against my house They never spoke to me about it and as I say they avoided me yet it was clear that they had noticed the alteration in me that they obscrved me Secretly and whispered about me and that it was from compassion alone that they refrained from saying How old your eyes have grown My wife became more and more shy of me something in me scemed to frighten her—no doubt my eyes And she must have remembered my telling her that a curse had been laid upon me I dont know for we never talked of it and what had happened between us we never hinted at by so much as a word She doesn t want to look into them myself No doubt she suffered as keenly as I did from the any more I told 20 ·THE SIBYL up her played together and from which one could alsays hear their laughter (though not lately)—when I went in there again and realised at last that they were not there and never would be there again I sank down with a shriek For it was as if a knife had been driven into my breast and I lay bleeding on that little mat of straw where once she had lain on her back and lifted child with her bare arms How long I lay there I cannot tell But then I heard something more and more distinctly a voice inside me and I had to sit up I sat staring before me Over and over again louder and louder I heard it--heard what he had said--the frightful words that he had pronounced over me My inner self was full of them echoed with them it was as cmpty as a deserted house and between the bare walls there reverberated eerily those menacing words about my destiny-about what lay before me His curse resounded through my soul That same evening unknown to any I left the of my birth and walked out into the darkness to begin my wandering through the ages In the loneliness of night I took the first steps along the road of my malediction Since then I have roamed without a halt without test as I am bound to do and like him finding nowhere to lay my head I have wandered about a world covered with ashes with a layer of grey ashes the world that is mine I have seen in it all human wretchedness all ware city 22 ·THE SIBYL and evil I have learnt that it is like me as evil and loveless as I who am to live in it for ever that this is my world the world of the homeless god-accursed man with a soul for ever unblessed From time to time I have come upon those who believe in the man who condemned me to this life It has happened more and more often for it seems that his teaching has spread far and wide These people seem happy whether from simple-mindedness or some other cause-perhaps because of their faith that is what they say themselves of course And it may be true to them he seems to have brought blessing that same god who to me has brought so great a curse And they say he is good and loving—ay that he is love itself for the man who believes in him and devotes himself to him It may be so It does not concern me For me he is a malignant power which never releases me from its talons and gives me no peace That he really is god--that the man who was led along our street past my house to be crucified rcally was god s son-they do not doubt. They have so many signs of it they say that he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven carried up in a cloud-and many many other things But none of that concems me Their faith their teaching all their signs and wonders-- nothing of all that is any concern of munc For me the sign is the eternal unrest in my soul Of course I ought to have let him loan lus head 24 ·THE SIBYL against my house But to me he was no god but just a criminal--one of the many who dragged themselves by with their cross with whom no one would have anything to do Compassion? Love of mankınd? May be But I m not a loving man and have never pretended to be I m an ordinary person qute ordinary like most others When it happened I was a happy man carefree and heartless as is natural when one has nothing in particular on one s mind Wicked perhaps but not more so than others of his doctrine of love I know little only enough to be sure that it s not for me And besides is he himself really so loving? To those who love him he gives peace they say and he takes them up with him into hus heaven but they say too that he hurls those who don t believe in him into hell if this is true then he seems to be exactly like ourselves just as good and just as bad Those we love we too treat well and we wish the rest all the evil there is If we had the power that he has we too perhaps would hurl them to damnation for all eternity though we can t be sure Only the malignity of a god surely could be great enough for that I ve come upon these people here and there about the world but I ve never come to know them well I never get really close to anyone for they withdraw from me —they re uimad aware no doubt of something odd about me something queer something that frightens them I expect its my eyes that fnghten them I ve 25 ·THE SIBYL noticed that people look away if their eyes meet mine They daren t look into them—into these dried-up wells these depths with nothing in them Who is not frightened by such things? It's only natural that they should be As she was As she By now she will have found men with young eyes I used to think to myself on my solitary wanderings And my heart would shrivel and I would hold my hand over my eyes as if to hide them though there was no one there to see no one from whom to hide them And why should she not? It must be so when I had young eyes she loved me Did she? Thus I thought to myself But once far away in a foreign land I met a man from the city of my birth who told me that my wife had died in her mothers house-little and wizened and no longer beautiful and chat long before then my son had died of the plague So they were gone the two who had laughed together How long ago is that? I cannot tell for time does not exist for me Why should it? But it fecis a very long time ago Yes they will all die One generation after another with their afflicuons and crimes and all the things with which they afflicted and tormented onc another But I 26

·THE SIBYL
shall never die So long as these creatures exist-evil
most often-I too shall exist evil myself their destiny
is mine And that is why I ask about it—why I want to
look into it into the future although I dread it Tear
down the vel and let me see, however ternble it may
bel
He was silent.
Darkness had fallen long before and from the one to
whom he had spoken no answer came He sat as if
alone
I have seen god as you have he added after a time
I have met him and the meeting has filled my soul with
horror
The old woman was quite hidden from him in the
darkness But he heard her say in a low almost toneless
voice
There is no joy in seeing god
And she rose drawing her garment about her as if
she were cold It had indeed grown chilly since sunset
and a light shiver can through him too When she
invited him to go in he followed her crouching
through the low doorless opening He had never been
in so small a human dwelling before He could not
stand upright and from where he was he could touch
every wall the wall that was the mountainside was
dopping with moisture
She lit the fire taking fuel from a pile of brushwood
and trec-roots on the earth floor The hearth was simply

·THE SIBYL a stone set in thus floor and the smoke escaped through a hole in the slate roof against the mountain wall When the fire blazed up he looked about him in that curious room and to hus surprise he saw that they were not alone Away in a dim comer a grey-haired man was squatting a man or a child he could not be sure whuch he could not determine and the uncertainty gave him a sense of something inexplicable almost frightening he could not think why this should be but so it was The face was like a chulds with a smile which in the half-dark seemed enigmatic-etugmatic perhaps Simply because he could see no reason for it It was neither a good nor a wicked smile it appeared altogether detached in its changelessness perhaps that was what made it seem mysterious although the eyes in that grizzled forward poking head followed their every move He thought it very strange For a moment a blurred memory crossed hus mind of what? A memory stirred by this smile? No he could not capture it he could not pin it down But this grey-headed child crouching in the half-dark with his changeless smile had a singular and frightening effect He could not take hus What sort of a being was it what sort of Sectes, in this house which seemed hardly like a human dwelling at all? 'That is my son said the old woman You can speak quite freely before him he understands nothung But the stranger could not bring himself to speak or 28 cyes off it.

·THE SIBYL to ask about what was now occupying his thoughts... about the son who was to sit there in his comer listening to the conversation without understanding any of it and smiling that smile It was the old woman who broke the silence at last, saying That was a strange god you met Was he crucified Yes Curious If he was gods son Why was it? I dont know—I can t make out either what good it was supposed to do But I ve heard it said that it was because he had to suffer That has father wanted him to suffer But thats sheer madness I can t explain it eather to you or to myself A cruel god Yes indeed But it's just hearsay To let a man suffer! What good can that do? I think I recognise that god she murmured to herself And after a while she continued a little hesitantly And she who bore god this son-do you know anything of her? No I never heard anything about her She was just an ordinary woman I should think Yes I imagine so So you know nothing about her? No All I heard them say was that by having this child she became god s mother-as of course she would No I know nothing about her why do you I was just wonderng what she was like and what sort ask? 29 ·THE SIBYL of life she led How god treated her while he loved her and afterwards when perhaps he loved her no more Whether she was a happy woman I mean and whether bearing gods son gave her joy Or whether he let her be crucified too No no of course he didnt! Of course not And anyhow she was a woman Yes of course She sat silent for a ume Then she asked This son—you said he was a god of love? Yes you could call him that He preached the love of mankınd-all people were to love one another That s what he meant I think if I venghtly understood it. What a strange teaching He must be an extraordinary god That may well be Ive never heard tell of such a god Yet I ve heard about so many that I thought I knew them all How happy she must have been Its a pity you dont know anything about her the one who was allowed to bring hum into the world who was chosen for it I wish he d never been born Then I might have lived life happily as I did before I met hom Ay ay It s dangerous to meet a god as we all know But why didn t you let hum lean his head against your bo:sc? Why did you deny him that? Such lovelessness mkt have been a great crime against him my 30 ·THE SIBYL Lovelessness! I am as I am and I ve never pretended to be anything different Im like everybody else and what s wrong with that? And do you think god himself is so full of love? Do you really think so? Has he shown himself so to you? Then why did he curse you. The old woman made a sharp movement and he broke off She raked the fire with a half-charred branch and sent the sparks flying upward After a while he went on You committed a crime against god and were cursed by him as I was Why was that? Was he in the right? Is he always nght? Are we never in the nght against him He looked at her furrowed old face hoping that she would open her own surely tormented soul to him and let hum see into her destiny which he believed would help him to understand his own But she just sat looking into the flames and he knew nothing of what surred in her That blind beggar down there told me about it buc not so that one could understand what really happened to you. How was it that you became priestess of the oracle? he went on after a pause hoping that she would at least tell him this My parents were devout people she replied at last That was no doubt the reason And then we were very poor 31 ·THE SIBYL Poor? Surely you couldnt be made priestess for that? Ah yes I could But there s no joy in remembering such things Was it here in Delphi No we lived some way down the valley We were peasants Oh You could see the place from here if it was daytime ats no further than that And although my eyes arent what they were I can make out the gable end and the old olive-tree beside it But who lives there now I dont know Have you no kinsfolk left? Kinsfolk? I should hardly think so But how can I know? Kinsfolk? No those I speak of have been dead a long long time You haven t spoken of any No no i havent that s truc But you were thinking of some perhaps? hus I was thinking of my parents of my mother and father But how long ago it is to think that onc can Temember thuigs that were so long ago My father was a good husbandman but the fields were small and merere they yielded little toil as he mught--and everything and to be donc by hand he had no draught animals And of course the ficlds scrent his own he had to give most of tic crop to the temple 32 t ·THE SIBYL which owned all the land there It was the god who owned it one might say we belonged entirely to the temple and to him There was little over when all dues had been rendered But we were content with little and had never known anything but poverty Yes and now after all I ve had to undergo I don t think of it as poverty I remember the fine big olives we used to get especially from the old tree at the end of the house for it was old even then but its often the old ones that bear the best Ive never tasted any since Not olives That too is long ago And was it there you grew up? Yes Two of their children died and I was the only one left so I had much love during my childhood and youth all the same I was alone—that s strange isnt it? Children can be alone without anyone knowing it even when they re surrounded by love Yes I must have been an odd child though it didn t show so much at first I went about on my own and was hardly ever with others of my age We lived a little apart too though there were other houses not far off The person I with most often was my mother No doubt we were much alike—both serious We walked and talked with each other as if we were the same age and had the same experience of life In fact neither of us knew much about it She was quite untouched by what is usually called by that name—by all the meanness malice and confusion which men call life and which they pnde was C 33 ·THE SIBYL themselves on knowing so well she knew only the simple things what it was like to bear children and then Jose them what it was like to love a man who had been young and strong and who was growing coil nom like herself Such things she knew and it may be called cnough. Her soul was as pure and simple as a tree She was a tall woman and indeed she resembled a tree for there was something restful and peaceful about her We had a tree like that among the fields a Little way down the valley-a big solitary tree which was sacred. Father worshipped it He went down to it every morning before beginning the days work But mother and I went a little further down the valley and prayed to a spring wluch always had fresh crduce round its clear waters It was very holy if one stood and looked down inco it one saw at once that it was divine One could scccvery grain of sand at dhe bottom and a place where they whurled 6cndy round moved by 30 2015- visible tunger of god Yes my parisies were very god fearing but for them god was springs and trees and sacred groves not the one up in the temple who was far too great and far away for them and to whom they paid their crustung lent. If they escr went up to Delphemand it happened Ty seldom-hey preferred to visit the modest Itin plc of Gasa the carch goddess it was just a lule abes then cabin and remunded them of their own sunplc father flowing Of gods miglt and depth and dreadful small ani 34 and evet suche im ·THE SIBYL power over the human soul they had no idea-nor of all the shamelessness surrounding him and his temple They ordered their own relationship with god and in a grove not far from the house we had our own little turf altar which father bad built and at which he made sacrifice at the great annual festivals for tillers of the soil But on ordinary days too he liked to lay some little gift there when he came back in the evening after his days work a few ears of corn from the fields or fruit and berries of some kind according to the scason And of course before and after each meal he made offerings at the hearth like everyone else but I can still remember with what reverence he did it whereas so many others do it thoughtlessly with no sense of its content or meaning He was a heavy taciturn man and I remember his gentle but always rather sorrowful look and his big coarse hands which on the inside were like the bark of an old stone pine They made me feel so safe when he held me It was safe and sweet too when we went walking together and my little hand quite disappeared in huis But he seldom said anything In his later his later ycars he grew more and more melancholy especially after mother s death And certainly too because of his sorrow at what happened to me He lived so long that he had to witness it all I ve often wondered whiccher he too cursed me He died quite alone They found him under the tree I spoke of the one that was sacred but those who found him didn t know that it was sacred and therefore 35 ·THE SIBYL couldn t understand why he had lain down under it to dic No funcrary sacrifices are offered at lus grave, but I hope he is not angry with me on that account and that hus soul is nevertheless at peace As I grew up it began to be noticed that I was not quite like other girls of my age 1 saw visions and heard voices thus was when the signs of womanhood first appeared Later it passed Yet I was still abscracted and alicn to reality in some way I began to keep even more co myself than before and ceased to confide in mother I felt my loneliness and my difference from other people more Xeonly I could not explain it but it caused me suffering And I grew very restless I felt unsafe though I was in the midse of safety That very security began to disturb and oppress sne It was queer I liked to feel it all about me--indeed I could not do without it--yet at gave me great distress Unknown to the others I became a stranger to their world though I lived in it and could have lived nowhere else What other world had ? None My parents were the only people who existed for me and I loved them infinitely Yet I vent about my home like a stranger filled with an uncase of whuch they had no inkling and which if they had they would not have understood They lived on in their sumple fasth in all about them and in a god who existed me crything that surrounded them God? Hadla god any longer? Yes surely-but where was be? He was so far an ay he must have forsaken me 30 ·THE SIBYL Or had I forsaken him? Had I? Was that it? Why else was I so restless so bereft of safety? Was not god that very safety—peace and safety? Was he not all the things I no longer possessed? I had long spells of utter indifference And yet I burned with a vague longing for I knew not what And suddenly without warning and for no reason at all I would be filled with a glowing wave—a wave of happiness and excitement which at first was glorious but afterwards became so violent and hot that it filled me with anguish and terror so that I had to press my hand hard against my eyes for a while until the wave subsided and I became myself again Myself? But who was that? Who was 1? All thus time I was physically sound and healthy strong and powerfully built like my parents That was the cunous thing I was a blend of disease and perfect health of an overstrung creature and an ordinary peasant gul for this reason my true state was not as noticeable as one might have expected In time of course it became known that I was a little odd as indeed all our family were reputed to be Thus must have been what made the temple-people think of me when they needed a new pythia. I dont remember clearly but I believe I was about twenty when this happened Those who ruled and ordained made their minds that thus up poor odd 37 peasant gul ·THE SIBYL who was thought to be rather simple and whose parents were dependent on the temple and on god would do very well Also she came of pious and very god fearing home they had heard and thus was a good thing Father and mother were quite bewildered when the proposal was made to them They had never imagined such a thing They realised that it was a great honour for it was of course it was certainly that And they knew that the god was a great and mighty god who had an incomparable dwelling place a temple which they must say was very fine and splendid though they had only becn inside it a few times and had felt quite lost there among all the precious things and strange people Nor could one well refuse the mughty ones up there the most powerful in all Delphi Whatever such men proposed must be right Though one didn c understand enough about it to know how to answer They supposed they would have to say yes-to trust in god and hope it was he who wished it anxious though it made them to hand me over to something they knew nothing whatever about And I? I myself I was strangely troubled when I heard of 1t Chosen Was I chosen Summoned to the temple? To gods Chosen to be his instrument to speak his words words inspued by him-1 to be filled with lus spirit seized by holy rapture? PI chosen for thus? 38 ·THE SIBYL It aroused a tumult in me it frightened me anruhilated me and filled me with boundless happiness Was it possible? Could I be wanted by god? But they said so they believed so By god who had forsaken me Whom I had forsaken Could such a thing come about? Was I chosen by him to be his handmaid his prophetess would he speak through my mouth? It was inconceivable a miracle Was it the miracle I had been awaiting? No god had not forgotten me not forsaken me nor I him-no that never He called me and I came I came with my whole heart already filled with him God was calling me! When the first feverish excitement had passed I went about in quiet joy thinking only of the wonder that awaited me Now I should know peace and security again with him Mother and I were to go up to the temple together We went one morning and when we had made known our errand we were shown into a house by the temple court and taken before the man who at that time held the highest pnestly office This was an elderly man a member of one of the foremost families in Delphi and we had never met such a person before He was kind and it was really not at all difficult He asked a few questions about our way of life and then talked to me for a time asking me about my childhood and other 20 ·THE SIBYL things ahich I couldne tlunk why he should want to know about and he seemed sausfied with my presumably artless replies At last he told me that the god duelling in this temple was the god of light that he was the greatest of all gods and his oracle the most eminent of any in the world to be its priestess called and initiated by the god himself was a signal grace and a great responsibility I stared down at the floor with my mind in a turmoil and full of happiness Then he summoned a servant who led us across the open court into the temple and there handed us over to a priest who was now to take charge of us I had never been in the temple before And while mother stood there simple and foreign to it all like any country woman without looking about her very much 1 gazed round chraptured overwhelmed by the wealth and magnificence of this holy room I had never seen anything like it before and could never cien have imagined its castence I was seized with severence and joy to be standing here in the presence of the devinc. Yes thus was indeed the temple of the god of light the gods own abode the house in whuch he dwelt. The priest scemed plcased with my delight and also it seemed because strangely enough I had never been in there before He let me stand undisturbed in my adoration. Then he led us further into the sanctuary to heart. A narron door led into another room and here he told mother to stay outside and wait for Its very 40 ·The air here was oppressive and musty almost ing and I felt I could hardly breathe Th Eos stood a tall tripod flanked by two high boric thought but I couldn e discern anything clea', kas ground full of queer smells--a sickly blend of ...more and stuffing fumes that seemed to be rising E: - nift in the rock and much to my surprise a la smell of goat I was shaken I breathed shay panting and once I almost thought I was 2 The priest who despite the darkness scemed: of holies where god spoke where he inspired th Em with what she should utter in her delurium its that he would fill me with his spirit I panted andox not answer He seemed satisfied with me and we impression the holy room had made upon my ST* mind And when he had forbidden me ever to bet THE SIBYL us We entered the room which was net so you and he told me that this was where to za assembled those who came to consult the case we went down a narrow starway into 27 - completely dark room lit only by two feeble on uneven and slimy and I realised that it #25 ET living rock itself In it there was a crevice, one and saw no walls the place was just a sort of fun faunt. observing me closely explamed that this was elect anything I had seen or might see we turned back, With my hand pressed hard against my eyes 41 ·THE SIBYL was when disturbed I followed him up the narrow stair Mother seemed to have been waiting for us with some uneasiness and she looked at me searchingly when I rejoined her I was soll breathing heavily but hoped she wouldn t notice it I looked about me with empty eyes in that great bright temple where the sunshine was pouring in exactly as before But I felt no gladness now And for a omo as if too full of something else I closed my eyes against the light It was as if for the first time I had sensed something of god Wc parted from the priest in the entrance hall He told me when to come again and mother and I went home in silence side by side She asked what he had shown me but I answered evasively and we went the whole way home without another word I had to be alone with this as with everything else with the knowledge that god was incomprehensible inconceivable--that he dwelt in a hole in the groundthat he fnghtened me! And yes that I longed for him. For I did I did in spite of everything and although he was not at all as I had expected and would hardly help me as I had thought he would Though he was only calling me Why me? Why should I of all pcoplc be the chosen one? He had a temple up in the daylight too it was truc A beauaful glonous temple But from what they told ·I was to serve him It was not there that he #28 123 to fill me with his spirit There he was another bmw and had no use for me For it was not with his light tha he meant to till my soul Down in a holc beneath the sanctuary he would reveal himself to me and incld And yet I longed to be there! Despite my fears, my being shut into that musty stufling suffocating holc prophesy with wide open mouth to shrek out wild incomprehensible words through frothing lips filled with his spirit to be used made use ot by my god! In this excitement I waited for what was to com But in time the excitement subsided and was followed by a kind of lethargy in which I lived and saved, mwardly I was seething still though the tumul never broke out I dont know if those who now took charg of me noticed this noticed my condition I was aften there for the feast-day upon which I was to become pythra was approaching and they wanted to prepare me task and keep me under their influence away from my parents I grasped little of these prepara ons, and in some I could see no purpose at all some year had passed I remember before I understood that you was a virgin I lived in another world than theirs. THE SIBYL me it was not the holiest place and it was not there ea. be possessed by god terror of what awasted me I longed only to be ther's I thought of nothing else never of anything be of up for my 43 ·they could THE SIBYL perhaps god had plunged me into this lethargy to protect me to keep me living in his world and not in theurs It is possible though I know nothing about it The seventh day of the spring month which is gods day was drawing near and it was then that I was to be pythia for the first time I stas the only one tum to for the woman who had been pythua before me had died quite suddenly some time carlier in arcumscances which they did not want known. They were expecting many pilgrims to come for the fesaval wiuch lasted several days and they were uncasy about my performance since I had never done it before about whether god would speak through me and whether I could endure the intense strain for so many days on end They were full of consideration and care But not on my account I realised that even then chough I was like a child and had hardly ever been out among people before and knew almost nothing about them I understood too that they lived not for god but for his temple that it was the temple they loved and not him-and for its presage and renown in the world Great flocks of pilgrims would certainly be coming to this gods most solemn fesaval as usual bringing the temple many gifts which would sull further increase its w calth and poner All the ins were expected to be full and everyone in the caty would profit in one way or another by what was to take place These fesses which brought vuitors from all over the world meant much to the ·guests city and THE SIBYL people here indeed it was by them they lived 'The whole city was preparing to receive the I didn t understand this then I knew nothing about it but later I was to know it all too well I was to leam what manner of thing surrounded god and his holy place and what has fame meant to the people in all these houses that clung to the mountain round about the temple like a swarming ant hill Because of their association with god and because they did no mundanc work they considered themselves to be in a privileged position and in fact looked down upon the strangers who made their way to this remarkable community in the mountains They were very proud of their regarded it as holy because everyone in it lived on god But all this was still hidden from me I noticed a great commotion but gave it no thought and in a way did not see it I went about in my daze into which god humself had perhaps plunged me seemingly untouched by anything outside The day came gods day with which his festval opened and I remember that morning very well Never was there such a sunrise over these mountains-never at least that I have seen I had fasted for three days and was light weightless as a bird I bathed in Castalia s spring the water was fresh and I felt pure—freed from all that did not belong to gods morning They dressed me as a bride-his bride and I walked slowly along the sacred way to the temple People must have been 45 ·THE SIBYL massed all along the wayside and in the open court itself but I never noticed them or knew that they werc there Ieusted only for god And I walked up the steps of the temple where one of his servants sprinkled me with boly water and stepped into his radiant sanctuary into all the brightness where he was not waiting for me where I might not serve him I walked through it with the tears burning under my closed eyelids for I shut my cyes not to see his glory and perhaps fuu fum-fail in the task which he had given me to do and for which he had chosen me Led between two priests I passed the altar where his eternal fire was burning entered the pilgrim shall and went down the narrow din starway into the holy of holics There was as urtle light there as before and it was some time before I could make anything out But I noaced the sailing fumes from the cleft at once and they seemed even more sailing and swooning than before I smelt che stench of goat too but this time it was much stronger and more pungent I could not explain it There must have been something burning there for I could smell that as well And then after a while I saw a glow in a bowl in the darkness and a Lule man was crouching over it fanning Lfc into the embers with a bird s wing that looked like a kites A yellow-grey snake wriched past his foot and varushed swiftly in the darkness This filled me with terror for I had heard it ss hispered that the former pythua died 46 ·THE SIBYL from the bite of such a snake but I had acr teeds and I had seen no snakes when I was there below I learned that it was true that they were always ties and were much venerated, because they ver.com beasts and had divine percipience. I also learned to the embers glowing in the bowl were pieces of laurel-real which was the gods sacred tree and whose smoke priestess must inhale to be filled with bus spint Now the little man rose up from his bowl and t. bırd s wing and looked at me so kindly that my terro, were a little allayed His dry wizened face was gocha natured and he even smiled at me a little I didn t know then that he was to be my only friend in the sanctuary my help and consolation through the years and especially when fate swooped down upon me like an eagle from its cleft In my present drowsy state I took little note of him but I felt that he was not like the others and that he meant me nothing but good although he had to attend to his work here it was he who now handed me a bowl of fresh laurel leaves recently plucked in the gods sacred grove these I must chew together with ashes for tlus too would fill me with hus spunt And it was then that the little servant of the oracle smiled at me as if to calm my fears and amongst these frightening things hus smule was kind and reassur ing But of course he said nothing to me for here in the holiest place no one nught speak. What he gave me tasted homble and whether 47 all ·THE SIBYL because of its effect on me or because of my exhaustion after fasting I felt ill and recled a little The mo priests of the oracle who were watching me the whole time helped me up on to the tripod which was too high for me to mount unaided then they set the dish of embers on a high stand bringing it to a level with my head and with every breath I had to inhale the drugging smoke It was acred and produced a peculiar giddiness But it was the fumes rising from the cleft in the rock that affected me most for I was far more aware of them now that I was sitting directly over them they werc poisonous and nauseous It was hornble and the thought flashed through my mind that the cleft was believed by some to run night down into the scalms of death from which the oracle really drew its power for death knows all things I was seized with horror at having this beneath me borror of losing consciousness and perhaps sinking and being engulfed in 11-horror of the realms of death the realms of death I felt myself sinking sinking But where was god where was god! He was not there he was not coming to me He did not fill me with his was only sınking sinking With my senses quite clouded half-conscious I denly sat one of the priests of the oracle Icading forward from the obscurty a he-goat with unusually Large homs it seemed to me that he poured water over Is head. Then I knew no more 48 spirit as he had promised I ·It was hel Hel l vaske Joy hus raptur that . release a feeling not of death but of here wonderful to feel his spirit his inspiration commis Is there anything more wonderful than sharozen But the feeling mounted and mounted it full of delight and joy but it was too violent travail powering it broke all bounds-It broke me has it was immeasurable demented and I felt my v beginning to writhe to writhe in agony and to my being tossed to and fro and strangled as if I were suffocated But I was not suffocated and insteadliku to hiss forth dreadful angushed sounds utterlyser to me and my lips moved without my will itv I who was doing this And I heard shrieks loud shirik I didn t understand them they were quite unintelligits yet it was I who uttered them They issued from How long it went on I dont know I had no senso THE SIBYL But all at once everything charged. I indescribable feeling of delight ble song unprecedented me I felt it I knew it! He was filling annubulating me and filling me utterly when with his happiness hus mc-to be hus his alone to be possessed by goals ecstasy his happiness by the wild delight in being alive? gaping mouth though they were not mine not myself at all I was no longer 1 I was his bus aloma It was terrible terrible and nothing else! D 49 ·THE SIBYL time while it was happening Nor do I know how I afterwards got out of the holy of holics of what happened next who helped me and took care of me I awoke in the house next to the temple where I lived during this time and they said I had lain in a deep sleep of utter exhaustion And they told me that the priests were much pleased with me and that I had exceeded all ther hopes as priestess of the oracle The old woman with whom I lived told me this and then she left me to have a chorough resto I lay there in my bridal gown as gods bride It was the only bridal gown I would ever wear And I remember feeling the fine strange fabric and being very loncly God? Who was god? And where was he now? Why as he not here? No longer with mc> Wliere was he my bridegroom? Why had hc forsaken me? I didn t understand hım But I longed for him No I didn t understand him at all I didnc know at all who he was less than ever since I had been his since he had filled me with hus spint with hus bliss hus sapture unul I screanied with pain Yes he had filled nic with agony Nerertheless 1 longed for lum and him only for without hum all was nothingness and void. Suppose he were to come here to me from his temple there no doubt he was now being worslupped by his people by all those who adored him there for lus glory s sake! If he sucre to come and take me in his SO ·THB SIBYL arms as lovers surely do afterwards Not let me le here quite alone in my bndal gown as if forsaken by him by my beloved now that he had no further use for me--now that I had fulfilled my task and to his satisfaction Now that the fever the delinum the possession was over Why did he love me only then? Why was he with me only then? How gladly I would have rested quite still in bus embrace without raving or any excitement. Just Tested safely and happily in his arms No I did not want to be possessed by god I wanted him to love me as he loved others and give me security and peace chereby Only peace and security in his embrace Or did I not want this? Was this not what I longed for? It was it was But should I ever experience it? Was I meant for that was it for that he wanted to use me? Security Peace How could I desire such things? How could I believe I could find such thungs in his embrace? How could I ask security of god? God could not be as I wished him to be as I so much wanted him to be He could not God was not secunty and repose and rest He was unrest conflict and uncertainty Those things were god. I lay and watched dusk darkening in the room. He had plunged me into so deep a sleep that it was now cvenmg-the day was over SI ·THE SIBYL In the moming early in the morning as soon as the sun rose above the mountains my bndegroom would come to me he would fill me again with his spint his hot breath his bliss ind I should be his once more! So began my life as hus priestess-my long service with him I lived sometimes at home sometimes in the house by the temple with the old woman who had charge of me She had always tended the pytha during the great fesavals For the festivals were many and long and the scrvice of the oracle was so exhausting that the prophetess had to be cared for by someone she had to rest thoroughly afterwards and at night have a quict and strengthening sleep A grcat part of the old womans life had been spent in this work under the direction of thc priests She knew all about the pythias from a long time back and liked to talk of them She always wanted to talk She knew all about the priests toon-what they were like which of them really belicved and wluch only pretended I lcared at once that the one who first lcd me into the holy of holics only pretended yet he was greatly respected for as treasurer he had donc much for the temple His period of office was now nearly at an end appointments ucre held only for a fixed number of ycars All came of good families in Delphi Those in the highest positions were drawn from the most families and of these she talked often and in great detail in her yes it seemed to be this fact which cminc $2 ·THE SIBYL gave the temple its real prestige The sanctuary and all concerning it lay very close to her heart and she was evidently extremely proud of her position there Of god I never heard her speak Despite her respect for the men in high places and their birth she never spoke well of them-no not even of them she never spoke a really good word for anyone but she had a keen eye for human failings The image of the world that I so young and inexperienced gained through her was warped and distorted I felt this yet I could see that much of it was true and it puzzled and bewildered me I have often thought that this woman whom I came to loathe and despise so heartıly did more to form my views of mankind than anyone else and made them bitter and unjust Despite my loathing of her and my conviction that she was wrong she did influence me And at last by revealing herself to me in all her yıleness she confirmed me in my belief that her false idea of human beings was the nght one Thus we gather knowledge which we call truth from those in whom we least believe and unconsciously let ourselves be led by what we most heartly detest Later I myself experienced much human malignity and added it to what I had absorbed from her But now after sitting up here in my solitude for so long thinking of all I went through I ve often asked myself in spite of what was done to me Are men really so wicked? 33 ·THE SIBYL Has not my own bitter desany led me astray in my judgment of them? I dont know for I never meet anyone nos But in my loneliness I have thought so She influenced me because so much of what she said was crue. She was speaking the truth when she told me of the bascness of the holy city and the licentiousness attending the great festivals All these men from every corner of the world had to have light women and all the poor girls in the places and not only the poor oncs esther—were procured for them by the agency of the inns There were few virgins in Delphi she declared and that must have been why I had been chosen as pythra she blurted out suddenly making me quite sed and confused and then she said no more of that. And then there were all the rogues and cheats who were attracted by the fairground life of the great festivals and all the shady and dishonest dealing that went on under the very wing of the temple There were scoundrels even among the priests who took bribes for giving the desired answers from the oracle and for giving the pythuas utterances the desired interprctauon--though she had to admit that this was rareor who kept the money paid over at the sacrifices or made profits for chemselves by selling the skins of sacnficial animals and so on all kinds of ways of cheating the temple were open to those who held the nyht appointments in it and, so far as she knew manymcn perhaps most people tool adiantage of such opportuniacs ·THE SIBYL I must say that her nasty talk and the falsehood and meanness of which she told me and which I unhappily had many chances of observing for myself all round me gave me a very lofty idea of god and love for him If he was surrounded by such corruption—if he arose from such a morass as this—he was the more extraordinary the more worthy to be loved And it was necessary to love him For what else was there in this dirty world to love but him? And what desolation it was to be tossed out into it as I had been tossed out into thus detestable world of men I longed to leave her evil prattling and everything else behind me and return to him to him whom she never mentioned I was thankful that she did not I longed for hus embrace for the dark hole in the ground where he would enfold me in his arms and fill me with hus heavenly ecstasy his wild bliss his spirit His spint? And what was his spirit? Was it simply sublimity and greatness? Exaltation? Only that? If so if it were as simple as that why was it such anguish to be his? Why need I suffer agony and shriek with pain? Why was his love not gentleness and peace as I so longed for it to be? Why did it bring me no safety never the safety for which I prayed continually from my innermost heart? He was wonder release... why must he be also ternble and frightening and cruel and immense-why so many things at once.why did he strangle me at the moment of bliss and leave me 35 ·THE SIBYL forsaken when he seemed nearest and I most needed him? Who was he? Who? I threw myself into hus arms wild and fevered like lumself and before he stunned mc and annilulated me with his immensity I cred god who are you who are you? But he never answered He filled me with himself erased me with himself but who he was he did not reveal He never did To this day I sit here in my loneliness and think about him wondering who he is I ask sail but he does not answer Yes I loved lum Iloved him with all my heart But my love did not make me happy It was not that kind of love But I was going to talk about the old woman To me she was always good and kind and she praised me in exaggerated terms The priests had told her that I was the best pythia chey had had for a very long ume she said and among all those whom she had had Living with her not one could be compared with me Shc spoke very contemptuously of these predecessors of mind it was painful to hear her talk so of these women whom I could not think of without sympathy and a sense of fellowshup I had seen one or two of them in the streets of Delphi especially one thin quect woman who slunk along the rows of houses mumbling to herself inces- Sandy The old soman Lughed hcaruly at thus one making fun of the fact that she had lost shat lietle wits 56 ·THE SIBYL she ever had but I listened with a shudder reflecting that I too might come to the same end It was a long time before I realised that it was as priestesses that she despised them For other reasons too certainly but above all because they had been pythuas for this she thought contempuble in itself I was astounded Could she be senous? Yes there was no doubt about it She did not say so durectly to be sure but for all that it was plain enough I cannot say how amazed I was to discover this And now that my eyes were opened at last I found that she was not alone in her opinion I began noticing those about me their treatment of me their behaviour to me and I understood ever more clearly that it was as she had hinted and that I held a despised position among mankind People avoided me Yes I had noticed that long before and realised that it arose from amidity a dread of someone who had been in such close touch with the divine which as everyone knows is a dangerous matter-of one who was sometimes possessed by god and whose shrieks in the secret pit below the ground could at times be heard up in the temple People hung back from me and I didn t wonder at 1-but now I saw that they also looked down on me they regarded me as a sort of outcast and preferred to ignore me I kept myself to myself always and liked best to be alone as had been my way from a child but now it dawned on me that in fact no one wanted to be with me or have $7 ·THE SIBYL anything to do with me that my solitude was enforced and real. It is strange how depressed and sad thus made me Although I cared nothing for company and wanted nonc although I sccmed born to lonchiness nevertheless It saddened me And when young people in the screet nudged one another and whispered as I passed it cut me to the quick though I didn t really understand why It should Did they despise me too? They probably never thought about it but they must have felt that I was diffcrent. Yes and I was I was not like them Not young as they were Young? I wasn e really much older than they But young? Young? They never spoke to me No one did unless it was really n cessary Even the prests who praised me som for they did praise me both to my face and to others--and valued me for the salc of the oracle never said anything to me beyond what was needful for my service and for my tasks in connecuon with it They were interested in me only as a pythua as onc employed in the sanctuary 1 bad no other cxistence for them and thout ctcr saying a harsh word rather indeed by a constant condescending kindness--they shored that ticre was a gulf fixed between them and this poor ignorant gul from $8 ·THB SIBYL a poor family somewhere down the valley They appreciated me and prized me as a good pythia-one through whom god clearly liked to speak and whom he filled at once with his mighty spint-but although this meant that I was of great service to them and although I was chosen by god they looked upon me as they always looked upon those so employed They felt nothing but a sort of pitying contempt for this роог raving half-conscious woman whom they set upon the tripod in the gods stifling pit Her inspirapon was divine no doubt but it was they who interpreted it and knew how to extract a meaning from what for everyone else was unintelligible confused utterance The great thoughts the lofty wisdom which they put into the oracles answers those famous answers which conferred world-wide power and prestige upon the oracle—had nothing to do with the wild shrieks of this ignorant woman or very little She was possessed by god certainly god spoke through her But it was they who knew what god really meant and wanted to say they who knew how to penetrate the core of him and reveal it And it was true I had no share in this in their wise interpretations of his message I was altogether shut out I didnt know what I said what I screamed in my delinum my possession their manner of interpretation and exploitapon had nothing to do with me I was simply filled with god 59 ·THE SIBYL I didne know what he put into me I knew nothing of lus wisdom Ilnew in fact nothing at all about him nor guessed who he might be I was simply filled with lum I only felt him in me I was lus No more But was thus so contemptible? I could not secit To be filled with god-hon could they feel such profound contempt for this? I did not understand What I had taken to be a divine grace an election a call from hum to be his chosen one his priestess the one through whose mouth he spoke they regarded as somehow degrading Degrading to be the clect of god! The oracle was sad to command veneration throughout the world yet the one into whom god injected lus spunt in whom he took up his abode was an outcast with whom no one would come in contact or even speak. I was baffled The woman with whom Ilved who was honest in her own peculiar way told me how fortunate it was that they had found me since it was so difficult to find anyone willing to be pychua Not even the poorest would be pythua non And she hinted that no one but my poor simplo-munded parents who led all on their own in the valley and were a little queer in thc head could have been persuaded to consent to it. I tvas utterly confounded You can sell image hos it troubled and oppressed me and how many fearful thoughts it aroused in me Chosen? Suppose after all I had not been chosen? Or ·THE SIBYL not by god only by the priests who perhaps didnt even believe in him Suppose what she said was true and they had only taken me from my poor ignorant parents by guile because they could get no one else? Suppose god had not called me at all and I was not his elect his chosen? I had believed myself to be so and I had felt myself seized by his spint filled with him I thought. But was it so? Was it quite certainly so? How could I tell! Certainly I had felt myself to be one with him-I had felt myself full of his glory yet immediately afterwards I was quite forsaken and alone and he was not with me at all Almost always I was forsaken by him filled only by a boundless void I longed for him but he was indifferent I cried out for him but he made no reply I asked Who are you? But he did not tell me You whom I love above all else! But he gave me no answer Never any answer Until he came to me again hurled himself upon me again like a storm of savage heat rapture bliss At such times I was happy-happier than all other people in the world—everything was night and perfect--for a little while Then I was cast down into emptiness again in an emptiness which no one else had ever had to feel not as I felt it-I who had been his who had shared gods vast joy at being alive Thus it was for me Thus was my love for god-and I did not even know who he was 61 ·THE SIBYL It gave me no security no assurance no certainty I could never rest quetly in lus embrace Heat and rapture I felt but never sallness and serenity I prayed for at but he never gave it the Can it be so if one is the elect of god? I lcpe these thoughts to myself as usual Whom could I share them with in whom could I confide> The only onc who could have helped me and answered my questions was more remote than ever before I had never felt so far from him as during this time I longed to thron myself in his arms.I longed only for that -yet at the same tinc I dreaded it for the first time I was full of fear-fear of che day when once more I should be as a bride and led down into his pit--down into the holy of holies to meet him I had long to wait for no fesaval w3s near Then an oracle-day was fixed upon between fesavals as was sometimes done when pilgrims were expected The momug camc 1 bathed in Castalia s spring and was bridal gown I walked up che sacred way passed through the temple and down the dim star as usual. All was as usual in the cave and I breathed the aic there breedily the smoke from the smouldering laurel the acnd goat stench the sickening fumes from the cleft under the mpodmall chat could drug me excite me deliver me into hus embrace Buming with desire for him Isar with eyes closed with the cascc of the leaves from his sacred cree in my mouth waiting to be 62 dressed in my ·THE SIBYL filled with him again—with hus living spirit his painful delight and bliss waiting for him to erase me and all my longing and my doubt and bong all to consummation But he did not come He did not come I inhaled the vapours in deep eager draughts and felt them working in me-felt that I was near to stifling and swooning But they had no other effect on me I was not inspired by god and I did not feel his presence They brought forward the goat his sacred beast they poured water on its head-and it was then at that moment that hus spirit was supposed to come upon me But the animal simply lowered its head to the ground with a queer whining cry and then dragged itself back to its obscurity The priest of the oracle gave in thinking It useless to try any longer I sat there with staring eyes my dry quivering lips parted for a cry that never came I was quite empty with an emptiness and desolation I had never known before though I had felt something like it often enough There was emptiness all about me too as if there were nothing there and when I stretched out my hand before me it was as if I stretched it into perfect vacancy and boundless desolation Only the fumes from the kingdom of death rose up round me enveloping me in their ісу chill They had to help me down from the tripod and when they let go of me I reeled and almost fell The only one who noticed this was the little servant of the 62 ·THE SIBYL oracle he hurried up and supported me I stood leaning against the doorpost until I had mastered the dizziness that had seized me and seized me in vain The priest of the oracle--the one who had first shown mc the holy of holies-- vas much displeased with me and displeased too because he had to dismiss with their errand unfulfilled those who were waiting in the pulgrims hall They were only simple country folk to be sure who had come to consult the oracle about their everyday cares and worries Nevertheless he was annoyed on the temples account that I had failed and been unrcceptive to gods inspiranon He used no harsh words yet his feelings were plain He did not believe in god yet he was angry because I had not been filled with him as usual But what was his displeasure compared to my own despair at what had happened to the abyss into which I had been hurled? Now I knew that I had been forsaken by god, utterly forsaken Now it was no longer a matter of uncertainty and unrest but of certainty Hc did not care about me and wanted to have nothing to do with me And had hc ever cared? Had I ever been summoned chosen by hum as I had fancied? And I had believed that he had called for me! Had he ever wanted mc as lus instrument his clect his priestess? Thc priests had wanted me yes They had wanted a poor foolish woman to use in his service But god himself had noter wanted her when they forced her 6.4 ·THE SIBYL upon him he took her to himself and flung her away again He had shown his contempt for the peasant girl whom they had brought to him in the belief that he would accept her and fill her with hus holy spirit love her as she loved him Violated and tossed aside It was for this that I had been chosen Called for me? He had never called for me how could I have imagined it? It was I who in my loneliness my abandonment had called upon him In my despair I tortured myself with these bitter hopeless thoughts I believe I should have broken down altogether had it not been for the little servant of the oracle He comforted me and reasoned with me he took it more sensibly than I did Such a thing was bound to happen at times he said and he had long experience of the oracle pit It happened to all pythias and quite often and it had to happen to me too sooner or later It didnt mean that god had forsaken his chosen one certainly not But at times like these the priest of the oracle was always annoyed for he was concerned about the reputation of the oracle as was only natural and he probably found it vexing that it should occur on the day he was on duty But god was not angry-not in the least that was not the reason No one could really tell what the reason was no human being could ever know That was the secret of the oracle-pit and it was never revealed. He bumself had had a vague feeling that things were ·THE SIBYL not quite as usual that day- --not quite as they should be Why he could not say but he had seen it all so often and could usually feel these things He had sensed 16 as soon as he went down into the holy of holies long before I came He had scented it as it were beforehand And then the little grey and yellow snakes had nor shown themselves they had not emerged from the sccser crevices and that was a bad sign a very bad sign And the goat she gods sacred bcase of wluch he had charge and uluch lie looked after becticen oracion days had bchar cd quectly that morning when he led it from its stall to the oracle-hole it had bleated and struggled as of unwilling to go So what with one thing and another he had felt that nothing would go right and that there would be no oracle coday But it was no fault of mune certainly not I was in no way to blame I was a very finc pythua and must surely be mich beloved of god It svas clear that hic liked to talk through me he came to me so quickly and I slipped so casily into the proper recepuse state During the ecstasy my face showed that I was filled with him Anyone v ho had been there as long as he had could tell that at once Thus he calked to me and brought me gradually to a calmer morc rcasonable frame of mind His words bus very nature and lus kotle face with its kindly wrinkles had a bencficent and calming effect on me And I should have been cien almer if I had known 66 ·THE SIBYL that at the next festival all would go well once more and just as usual In time I came to realise that it might have been because I had felt anxious uncertain and doubtful about my meeting with god and because I had feared it That must be wrong One ought not to feel uneasiness hesitancy or doubt in one s soul for then one could scarcely be received into his arms Yet how could one be without dread without doubts? How could one approach god without them? This I did not confide to my friend I never really confided in him at all It might sadden hum I thought We became very good friends during this tune and remained so as long as I was with the oracle We sited one another well for he too was despised But I believe he never gave that a thought--was never even aware of it-whereas I was troubled by it Why should I have been? No one had so modest a position in the temple as he yet it contented him no one could have been more content than he was He swept the floor of the temple and the steps outside he sprinkled water and then with his broom swept out all the dirt that the visitors had brought in He kept the place clean for god And he did this most conscientiously it was always beautifully neat and clean This was his main task but he had many others He tended the laurel trees in the gods sacred grove he replenished the bowls of holy water at the entrances to the temple he fed the veno·mice hc THE SIBYL mous uttle oracle-snakes with birds csss and amed wood for the eternal fire on god s alcar in the sanctuary and made sure that it never went out for although this was not hus responsibility yet it was he who saw to it He made sure that all was in order in the holy of holies and on oracle-days he served and helped there as I have described He was put to every kund of task. He won small thanks The priests treated hum with condescension and often scolded him сxcept for the senior ones who never addressed him at all Werc one to judge by the treatment he recen cd one would fancy him almost uscless but in fact he did his work very scrupulously and I m sure that god was well pleased with him He more than anyone loved and venerated the temple it was the apple of his he loved god too though not in any cercmorous manner and not by talking about him very much he loved him as he loved his work hus situation hus cleaning-dudes whose importance he sell understood He looked after gods house and was eves busy with somc work or other for hum He had a great deal to do with him but no problems or troubles cier arosc between them there was only mutual trust and kindness No great distance divided them and infcrior though his position was he was never anxious or uncertan bur felt himself to be close to goda good friend of his He associated with lum unaffectedly and all nas natural and cosy berscen them 68 cye But ·THE SIBYL It was pleasant to see how he lived to feel the serenity that surrounded him and in some sort to share in it I thunk he was the happiest person I ever met HC knew there was purpose in all he did and he was good friends with god Little wonder then if he paid no attention to the opinions of men or to their treatment of him and in any case as I said he nonced nothing wrong with it He was so ingenuous so utterly without suspicion and without observation of human beings as to be quite touching at times one could almost have laughed at him for it Friendly and smiling he wandered among them all including those who never showed him any kindness in return He lived for his simple menial tasks with a simple everyday piety of which he himself was quite unconscious He was so devout that he never even knew it How well I remember him long ago though it is I remember that the soles of his feet were always coalblack for the sacred place might not be entered save with bare feet and he was constantly in it so that the grime became ingrained and never wore off Whenever he bustled about in there in his eager way one saw the black soles of his feet He is the only one of those down there in the temple whom I remember with gladness yes and I find it still does me good to think about him He must have died long ago ·rapture the THE SIDYL At the next great festival as I said all went well from the first day largely because he helped me The evening before he sat with me and talked reassuringly and encouragingly and then when the time came in the morning and I felt anxious and tense again it was he who made me quite forget it When he handed me the bowi of leaves to chew he w hispered to me softly that the little oracle snakes had come out of their crannies and he smuled contentedly with all bus surinkles next he coared me mto my trance and then into thic possession which I so longed to feel Afterwards it was seldom dar the ccstasy failed me but when it did it was always just as terrible as the first time They became increasingly pleased with me and as the y cars went by a began to be said of me as the blind beggar told you that I was the best pythua they had cxer leadm-though that can be trupund that god would not speak through anyone but mc Thus was because once when they tried another woman to case my burden during the lengthy festivals she had no success and I had to go on bearing a alone as before The regard 13 w fuch I was held led to my staying on with the oracı as priestess micad of leavmg st after a fent cars as suas usual-usual because for one thing most of them lached the strength to contine longer It was good to base a pytua with such a reputation 25 mic and they didnt want to lose me Nor did I want rolase the temple and 11 senice The oracle-pit and 70 ·THE SIBYL all connected with it held me captive everything that happened to me there—my transformation into something other than myself the wildness the possession the transcending of all bounds-was something I could no longer be without I could no longer bive without it I was also accorded more respect because I had become so well known as a pythia because everyone knew I was of service to the temple of the oracle and therefore to the town and because I was considered to be chosen by god in an especial manner But this very fact made people shyer of me than ever and indeed I seemed to inspire them with a kind of fear They avoided me more than before and I was completely shut out from all human society All knew in what a fearful relationship I stood to god and how terrible my face was when he filled me with himself It made me lonelier than any other person in the holy city No one saw me as anything but the priestess of the oracle did I myself? I was one with the oracle and had no life of my own no existence but in and through it Yes I was a pythia only and no longer a person in the usual meaning of the word I now lived almost entirely in Delphı at the temples expense and seldom visited my parents my parents and my home in the valley I had become quite strange to them and I felt that they were as shy of me as everyone else When I visited them and we started to talk to each other we seemed not to know what to talk about of my life we 71 ·THE SIBYL could say nothing they didn t understand it and were troubled by heanng of it And there was so little to be sad about their life se felt it glided by just as before just as it had always donem and I new it inside out Or did I Did I know it any longer? I had become a stranger to their world and remote from it Although I could see that it was exactly as 20 had been before and therefore familiar to me I was still a stranger there Nothing is more foreign than the world of one s chuldhood when one has truly left it They were old now both of them and they showed it. They moved more slowly and mother had grown I cry thin She looked about her with sunken eyes Like an old bird And she liked to sit and rest in silence Wc had so lactic to say to one another I myself was no longes young How old was I when mother died? Well up in the churnies I should think A message was sent to the temple to say that she was dying but they could not give st me at once for I was just on my way to the holy of holses and if I had known of it I could not have performed my task and reconed god s inspiranon I had first to do my duty to the temple and to him And on that particular day there were exceptionally many pilgrims it was the last day of the great spring festnal and the oracle went on for an unusually long time The little oracle-servant whispered the news to mc 23 soon as I shoned ugni of coming round but I was soll in my exaltapon my trance and 72 ·THE SIBYL found it hard at first to grasp what he was saying it seemed so remote and somehow irrelevant Gradually I took it in however and hurried home in agitation I was still dazed when I arnved hot and out of breath at the house where an infinite sullness reigned It was always quet there but now it was quieter than ever I felt I was disturbing an ineffable peace I was still wearing my bridal gown--the one I wore in the oracle-pit as gods bride And I noticed that father looked at it in wonder though he said nothing Mother was lying with a perfectly white face and closed eyes I thought she was already dead But when I sat down beside her and began sobbing she opened her eyes and looked at me with a look I shall never forget It came from that I dont know how it reached me reached anything so allen and remote Who was this unknown woman who had come and sat down at her side so strangely dressed dressed for something she could not remember what? Then she seemed to recognise me she saw who I was and realised that I had come at last It was she who had asked father to send for me I learned afterwards so that she might see me before she died But what was I wearing? How strangely I was dressed Slowly she stretched out her emaciated hand and fingered my bridal gown the stuff of it without comprehension It must have seemed to her that I was masquerading—as indeed I was she must have thought SO far away ·THE SIBYL So-she who had ccally been a bride and born children to a man and loved him and dhem She lay piching at my finc bridal dress without understanding With a wery pained look she closed her eyes and her hand dropped gaunt and empty I left my place at her side and father took it With hus hand in hers she slipped quictly away To my despaut I sul felt fercr and excitement as she went With his great coarse hand father stroked fier face which he had caressed when it was voung and he must have been tunking of much that I had never known and would never hear about things that belong to the life of mankind Unnouced by him I went and took off my bridal gown and put on an old kirtle which I found some where left over from my youth When I came back he was still sitting and looling at her and he still did nos nouce me He saw nothing but her wom face wluch he had loved when it was alive and loved stud-a face as pure and simple as her soul luad always been Nos the soul had left it but it was soll filled with the memory of that soul I too went forward and looked at it and uw how beauaful and hou transtigured 16 was But when I saw its infinste peace I sept It was actwo who had once been so much alike He had folded her hands upon her breast and they 74 ·THE SIBYL were white and thin almost transparent though they had toiled at many tasks throughout a long life Now they were quite white as if all that was earthly were already being erased from them Later we helped each other to wash the dead body and anoint it with oil Then we carried it to a bier that father had made and laid it there upon a bed of thyme and olive-twigs according to the old custom to give it back to life And although I would have helped him it was father who with his stiff fingers wove a myrtlewreath and set it about her head because she was now initiated and a partaker of the divine He was scrupulous that all things should be duly observed and so they were Finally he laid a few ears of grain upon her sunken breast and covered her face with a cloth that she might be at peace Next day he dug a grave in the grove some httle way from the house not far from the turf altar at which he offered gifts almost every day Together we carried out the bier which was heavy for me for she was not a slight woman and lowered it into the earth There she lay on her bed of fresh leaves restored to the earth to the womb For the last time we beheld her peaceful face then father cast earth upon her and later sowed grain upon the grave as the custom was for she belonged not to death but to life I stayed with father for a time to help him settle 75 ·THE SIBYL down I was able to do this for the great festival as Over The house needed a woman to look after it and father was used to having one And I was glad to stay there at least for a time to walk in the peace and stillness that reigned there of which I myself stood in such need For I was distressed by what had happened by her fingering my bridal gown and scarcely recognising mendistressed because I had come too late to beg forgiveness for being no longer like her because I had disturbed che stiliness of her death and because her hand had dropped empty from my lap Distressed by all th se things It is strange that the peace in someone s face can be felt as a reproach but I did feel it so Iseproached myself for not possessing it for being incapable of 10 Tom proached myself for my wholc soul my bfc my existence as it had now become Why way I not like her? Why was my life not like hers) Why was not all ufc all the world like her? Why was not everything as at had been in my chuldhood? As it was when we used to go down together to the sacred spring in the valley the one with the ever fresh greenery about its clear waters and the grains of sand so gently stirred by the invisible finger of god? Why did we not sall salk side by side as then? There was so much I should have liked to talk to her about She had lain here nuang for me but i had not come munal it was too late I had been too greatly pre 76

·to sit and I found I liked the smell of the old house,
THB SIBYL
occupied with the great festival to think of her to come
down here and find out for myself that she was ill
that she was dying Too much taken up with things
she could not understand things one could not explain
to her Things that lay beyond her grasp but held me
captive so that I could not live without them
Not live without them? But her world could I live
without that? Could I really?
The great festival which I could not leave from
which I could not tear myself away—the wildness the
rapture the obsession--what was that compared to the
peace in a human face and to the possession of that
peace?
What did I possess? And what had I lost? What was
my world to hers—to the world I lost when I forsook
her
I would have sat here at her side in the stillness
holding her hand in mine It was here I ought to have
been
I perceived that the solemn festival had been here
when my mother lay dying
Yes I felt I wanted to stay here for a time and live
in this peace and safety In her world For a time at
least
Often I sat by the hearth in the place where she used
them!
This was strange for before when I came to see
never liked it it had seemed to me unpleasant probably

·with its THE SIBYL because I knew it so well and the quietness the safety of the place had oppressed me Now I sank into it feeling it take me to itself and enfold me It was sweet to me now So it was that I came once more to experience the home of my childhood To relive the fields the earth the old oli e-tree by the gable end the grove turf altar where mother now lay and the path winding down the valley to the spring All these familiar things became dear to me again they enfolded me faithfully, and it almost seemed as if I had never left them Yet I still fele uncertain of their rcality and sometimes I was disturbed by other thoughts nevertheless it did scem that I was on my ay back to real everyday life Father continued his work in the fields and I kept house as best I could I had lost touch with it and forgotten it but I soon got into the way of Lived a pleasant life together Strangely enough we never talked much about mother though we both thought of her constantly Father crected a stele over her grave and made frequent sacrifice there They were simple offenngs such as suited them both I used to see him standing there and aftersyards when he came up to me by thc house his gaze was abstracted as if he were sall far away It was almost odd to see that gentle sad look in the face of so big and sturdy a min His gaze was as clear as a childs though the expression was not at all that of a child He 78 it again Wc ·THE SIBYL grew more and more silent but his melancholy was full of goodness I remember him so well as he was during this time-- the last time I was together with him He would come slowly in at the door in the evenings and when he had caten his big old hands remained resting on the table staff and tired unused to idleness Seeing them I could not help recalling how safe and comforting it had felt when in my childhood he held my Little hand in his But now they had greatly altered and grown old and wrinkled Each morning he went down to the solitary tree as he had always done the one be worshipped and then he began the day s work This was in the early morning light before the sun had nsen for it nises late among these hugh mountains though the sky is bright long before A little later I took the path to the spring down in the valley the sacred spring It was so restful and peaceful to stand there and look into it it filled me with devotion and I returned calm strengthened and in my own way happy So our life flowed by Spring came the country round lour place was beautiful and so was all that mighty valley One morning as I was walking down the path I saw a man bending over the spring and drinking from hus hand I remember that while I was still some dis- 79 ·twenty THE SIBYL tance away I noticed that he drank from his left hand His back was tumed to me yet I saw that this was someone I didn t know and I slackened my pace chunking to wait a little before gong on But he had heard me and looked up He was quite young a good ten y cars younger than I was his face was fresh and frank and decply browned by the sun When I looked at it more closely there eemed someching familiar about it And he too seemed to know me He rose and when I came up to him I found that like me he was from this valley and that I d seen him sometimes as a child though that was long ago He was now a man of five or thirty not very tall but broad and pox crful and full of hcalch But he had only one arm He recogfused me too although it i as many years since he had seen mc Our homes were not far apart parents like mine leased a small piece of land from the temple they were poor people--perhaps even poorer than wc for they had many children Wc chacted cogethr He told me he had been away for some cars as a soldier having set forth when he was lede more than half grown because there were so many of them as home Thich he had lost an asm in the Bar and that was why he had come back He was no good at war nos he said smuling and it didn t matter He hada o ished ss bus a man had to do something The best work of all was alling the soul if one had any But for that too one really necded two arms 80 His

·t you
THE SIBYL
Then he asked about me and I told him that mother
had died and that I now kept house for father
Aren married then? he asked
No I answered hesitating a little
Then we talked about the spring I told him how I
went to it every morning because my mother had
taught me to and because it was very holy Yes he
knew that he said and the water was sweet Not even
the Castalian spring was so good and such crowds went
there that one couldn t get near it He had longed for
this water all the years he was away He had returned
the evening before and come down here first thing this
morning to taste it
And he knelt down and drank again as if he could
never have enough
Won t you drink? he said
I hesitated and then knelt beside him and we both
drank the cold clear water from our hands There was
nothing extraordinary about thus and yet I felt that
it was a singular act we were performung together
Afterwards our faces were reflected side by side in the
water which soon lay still again I dont know whether
he saw how the grains of sand in one corner were being
slowly stirred round and round Perhaps not but he
sad
Nowhere else in the world can there be such glorious
water as thus It must indeed be a holy spring
We rose and parted He was going to wander about

·THE SIBYL the countryside he said and see if he remembered at And with a little smule on his sunburat face he left mc and went his way down the valley I took the path home slowly and without tuming round though now and then I wondered which way hc was going Did he know that I was a pythia? Perhaps not? Next morning I went there as usual I lingered perhaps a little longer chan usual He came at last and I found that I was glad of his coming It was a strange thing to notice to feel We talked again He said that yesterday he had been right down to the river at the very bottom of the valley and had enjoyed going there again He was astorushed to hear that I had never been there l ought to go he said it was nor far and not terribly steep if one Ancu the right places We might go there together some ame hc added as if it were something quite natural When he had drunk from the spring we sat down beside it and he told me of his soldierng life in countries unknown to me He thought it was fine to be home again but he did not care for Delpha It was a city of rogues and all the konacn were venal But it has a glonow temple I said Yes of course he answered. But that was all he sud I couldn t make out whether or not he knew that I was a pythua And anyhow what did it matter--why was I so curious about 15?

·THE SIBYL
If he didn t know now he soon would
We talked together as if we d known each other a
long ame and were old friends But now and then we
looked at each other not knowing what to say nor
quite knowing what it was we had been talking about
The sun was some way above the mountain when we
parted and I went home
On the third morning, for I remember I counted
them though only half-consciously-on the third
morning I got ready as soon as father had gone out to
work and I remember thinking how queer it was to
feel my heart beating while I did so As I came down the
path I soon saw that he was already sitting there at the
usual place and I felt suddenly very happy as I walked
along through the moming light which was not yet
real light but would soon become so-would soon
blossom out in full sunshine over all the valley He heard
me while I was still a long way off and turned and sat
smiling at me as I drew near And when I reached him
and drank from the spring he knelt down at my side
though he had drunk already and drank again from
his hand which was sunbrowned and broad and the
back of it very hairy When we had finushed we
remained on our knees looking at each other and all
at once without a word he put his hand behind my bead
and drew it to him and kissed me Our lips were cold
from the chilly spring water but grew gradually warmer
they grew warmer and sarmer and at last they were
82

·Why do THE SIBYL buming hot I fek hus broad wet hand at the back of my neck and I heard myself panting and my heart thudding within me And when at last his lips left mune I heard him saying in bus calm voice but as if at a distance you shut your eyes? I had not known I was doing it I opened my eyes and saw hss sruling sunbume face close to minom.sas ? come nearer agam until I saw it no longer but only felt his strong lips on mine which were parted and waiting for them Afterwards we did sof speak but only held cach others hand It was the first time I had held hus hand in mincmhas beloved hand which I so well remember cien now We were both brcathing hard when we got up and stood side by side Shall we go down to the river together? he said gravely You ve never been there juse pressed husband and looked at bum For st no longer scemod at all strange that he should ask me and that we should yo there together We sped downhill and presently when the slope steppened he found a place not too difficult for me though it was not casy either at the rate we were going and with me so new tv it But at the worst places he helped me took my body and held me unul I segained my footing on the rocky slopes where roots of stonepines ran cverywhere. The ground became wider and 84 ·THE SIBYL more precipitous and from below rose the murmur of the nver growing louder and louder until it rushed and thundered The valley bottom narrowed it grew as narrow and shut-in as a crevasse and the daylight withdrew until at last it was no more than twilight filled with the stunning thunder of the torrent The pines hid the river from us but we should soon see it But when at last breathless and hot with exertion we reached it we quite forgot this nver that we had come to sec.we never looked at it we saw only each other thought of nothing but ourselves and ot sinking into each other s embrace down there in the darkness where none could see us where all that was done was done in secret And we sank upon the ground and with my eyes closed I felt him tear the clothes off me and come into me For the first time I experienced love—the marvel of not being alone of another person being in me The marvel of embracing another and being myself embraced and of feeling a profound wild satisfaction in my powerful body which without always knowing it had always longed for this Meanwhile I heard the roar of the river about me smelt the fragrance of the soft carpet of pine-needles on which I lay and which those good trees for untold years untold summers had been preparing for me I would always associate this scent of pine-needles and this dull roar with love as it was for me 85 ·was to be THE SIBYL I did not want to open my eyes and I had no need to knowing that my beloved was with me that my happy body rested lmply with him in his strong arm which was hard-so comforting and sweet to rest in And I felt his hand lus left hand stroke my face it was queer to feel it, but I loved to feel it and I had never been caressed before by any hands at all and never would be caressed by any other one chan chus than huis This was human happiness this was whats a human being I was as happy as such beings can be I was just like onc of them When at last we had had our hill of each other wc climbed up again towards the day ught towards the sunlight towards the full radiant sunshine that now seigned over the whole valley By the spring whuch lay there as still as if nothing had happened we parted from onc another and happy I went home When I reached the doorpost of the house 1 grasped it with my still hot hand and stood leaning against it for a uttle while full of my happiness Later when I was preparing the meal for father to cat when he came in from the fields I began to chunk at had been very wrong of us to forget the nver and not cren to look at it Perhaps it was angered because of that-because we had noc prayed beside it and purified oursches in it before abandoning ourscives to our love Because we had thought only of ourselves Perhaps thus 138 an offerice for which we should be punished Tiere 86

·is no river which is not divine this one by its mighty
roar showed us that it was and perhaps it was angry
with
us I could still hear its menacing thunder it seemed to
me and now in my solitude it frightened me
Rivers do not easily forgive as we all know And
god
God? God? Would he forgive me this that I had done?
I belonged to him I was bus bride
Yes truly But I was human too I was a human
being a woman like all other women This was what I
had felt and experienced with such unutterable joy A
joy and a happiness which I had never dreamt of
Which had been stolen from me—by whom?
I was chosen by god I was god select But I was also
chosen by the life of this earth by ordinary human life
to live it I was chosen by love by a man who loved me
who wanted to possess me and whom I wanted to
possess I was his bride Gods bride--and his
No I didn t want to think of this I wanted to think
only of how happy I was Of that alone Of nothing
but that
But it was god himself who had given me these
disturbing thoughts which I now thrust from me And
he would return with them and never leave me in
peace I didn t know that then I never drearnt how much
reason I had to be troubled on my own account and
on my beloved s I never dreamt what was awaiting us
menacing us
87

·THE SIBYL WcIner not what we did when we hurried down into the gorge to the rushing mer I tned to immesse myself in my tasks and think of nothing else But they needed no thought-my hands performed them without my mund My hands wluch but not had caressed To hold hus head between thein vas most wonder ful What was as precious as the head of the beloved to kiss hus lips warmwhormand see his gaze plunge into mune I wonder what my own eyes tucce like as he looked into them they must have been like those of onc drowning If it was found out what would happen? What frightful thing would happen to us both? But it had been done in secret and no one know of is That is the 11x cr kncu And god kncy God kness And 1 would happen again It would happen agausi and again my body cried out for it and would never stific ics cry my mouth longed to shout it out across the mountains orer all mountains What would come of it? I feared nothing' Love fears notung My only drcad was that my beloved that my beloved right Did he inou Did he know that I 11 as a py chia the priestess and bride of god And if he came to lacar of it would he like cryone clser would he then No I would chunk of nothing but my happiness My ·on THE SIBYL present happiness my happiness now this day I would think of myself down there among the lindly trees on their carpet of fragrant needles resting among them his arm his hard arm that was so safe to rest in Yes with him there was safety safety at last If only god would let me keep it--he who could never be safety No he could not one had to understand that and I understood But to a mortal to one who was no more than human safety might surely be vouchsafed two lovers might surely find it in each other s embrace I too might find it at last in my beloved s embrace I who had longed for it so much I prayed to god I remember-prayed that he would let me be happy and find peace in love in the earthly love that now filled me I did not know I never dreamed that what I prayed for in my innermost heart was something he could never think of granting something out of all reason for him to give me up Our happiness must have blinded me to the unreasonableness of my prayer and to the impossibility of its being heard We dwelt blindly in our love abandoning ourselves to it with only faint misgivings I alone was troubled at times my beloved never It was not in bus nature He belonged to reality to the earth to real life and he feared nothing beyond That he as well as I had reason to do so never crossed his mind No happily we knew nothing nothing at all 89 ·THE SIBYL We loved each other sought each other as often as we could whenever we had the chance Secretly for so it had to be--but that only increased our ardour Wc loved each other wherever we happened to be but always in the open like the animals like all nature We were constrained to do thus but we wanted it too it suited us as we were and as our love was homeless and happy Never indoors like other people bur out in the wind and min and sun. When desire came upon us I remember that we would hide in a cornfield to possess one another and lic there unseen with our love Only the cagles hovering high above the valley saw us 1 remember once that summer that the and smoked above us as we became one in the sunshine I remember the smell of the com and how the air quivered about us in the summer heat But never again would I go down the river Sometimes he thought we should for there we should be most hudden And he wondered why I didn t want to But I never told him I had had enough of that roar that distant but menacing din which was for ever linked with my love I could never experience love without hearing that sound. Even up in the day light-yes in the midst of our happiness in the comfield-I seemed to hear the muffled roar of the nor round me Or perhaps within grain bloomed me? I kept my troubled thoughts to myself and be knew 90

·THE SIBYL
nothing of them They came upon me mostly when I
was working in the house alone with plenty of time for
every kind of thought Then I would be filled with a
dull unease a vague dread of what the future might
have in its womb Its womb? Once I remember when
I was looking for something something quite different
-I came upon my bridal gown I hid it away quickly
Afterwards I walked about that lonely house in a
ferment full of flying thoughts
If only I could talk to him—to my beloved about
what was weighing on my mind how much easier it
would be if I could share it with him Often I thought
of confiding in himasking him if he knew if he
knew who I was But I dared not My love was all too
precious to me and I could not bear to lose it I possessed
it now but if I opened my heart to my beloved might
I not lose him? It had happened to many If I told him
who I was
But he muse surely hnow it already he could not
but know it so then I might just as well
In the end I did tell him
And it tumed out that he knew I had been priestess of
the oracle when he was a child and perhaps still when
he left home as a young boy but he thought I had
given it up long ago after only a few years as others
did He was astonished that I was soll a pythia—that I
was one now Since his return he had not wanted to
talk to anyone about me so as not to betray our
91

·THE SIBYL secret, and therefore he had heard nothing No more than what I myself had told him that I kept house for my father I saw that he did not quite know what it meant to be prestess of the oracle or what it invoked He had been absent from Delphu for so long and anyway he had never cared about such things-he never troubled his head about them he said But he could not conceal his amazement that I was still there that I was so deeply bound to god He said noching outrighe buc I saw that it made him thoughtful I felt relicsed that he should take it bike this I was not co lose hum then He attached betle importance to my being a pytha he was the first person not to regard me as something qucer and avoid me because of it He had known it all the time though not that I was a pythis still He had known yet loved me so much! What better proof could there be of how little it mattered to him! Had I not reason to be thankful and happy I had told him everything and he had understood me and my uncasiness Yes though I had said nothing about uncasiness in so many words And now I was uncasy no longer Hc had understood it all as a lover docs I stroked hus hand which was so dear to me and at Last I remember that I kissed it Wc parted with many kisses and studies as we alsays did Next ame se were together everythung was as before I beliac that never since the scry first time 9.

·THE SIBYL had I embraced him with such passion my love for him was ardent and thankful as never before and I wanted to show it to give it him to give him me me all that a woman in love can give with her body her devotion her desire And he received it and gave himself again But perhaps he was a little surprised at my vehemence He caressed me afterwards very gently I remember almost as if he wanted to calm me We didn t talk about it this time we both avoided it And we hardly ever spoke of it again I noticed a certain unwillingness in him to touch on the subject nor did I want to now that I had confided him and all was well Yes everything was as before except that my love was even hotter now and meant even more to me 1 could not belp showing how infinitely much it meant to me how I clung to it how overmastering was my need of it Perhaps I showed it all too plainly His love was steadier calmer like everything else about him that was why I loved him so He loved me in his calm strong fashion and would certainly never fail me but the violence of my passion seemed not to increase his love for me and his desire. Indeed it some times appeared to make him a little shy of me just as he seemed shy of recalling what I had told him of myself who I was and that I really belonged to god. He seemed almost to withdraw a little from me and because I thought I detected this he became more 93 ·THE SIBYL necessary than cler 1 dung to him yet more ardently more breathlessly I would neter let hum gol And although I was no longer afraid of losing him for I sasa t at all clung to him as if I thought I might as if I had something to fear I had nothing at all to fear and yet I went on doing it I rubbed oil into my face qute needlessly to soften my skin and take away my wrinkles though I had none Although I looked fresh and not at all old-no older than hoevertheless 1 did . And shen one moming he was not ar the spring I tas franac usch despair Shamelessly I betrayed my msarable desire for him showing him how blatantly brazenly I loved hum and when I did so my eyes must indeed have been like those of one drowning but l 00 longer cared--I let him look into them I had nodung I did not wish to hude anything My passion was like a suyage chasm that sought to engulf kum And I saw that it frightened him Yes my love was too great Too much love cloys the beloved but that I didn know or understand if I had known it would have made no difference for who can determine the degree of loving? He recoiled before chis excess thus wild conflagragon that was so foreign to him and his world-o the security and reality in which he lived it was slussery safety that I lovedmand losed it 30 inordinately that I lost 15m-50 ardently that I was bound to lose it No my love was of the wrong kind 1 did not belong diere la 94 ·THE SIBYL spite of everything I did not belong to this world the real world of men I was not meant for it His embrace was safety and was sweet to rest in But I was not meant for safety I became a stranger m it for I loved it far too much But he did not cast me off He was as good to me as before and we used to have long talks together sitting hand in hand When I pressed myself against hum and he knew I longed for him I could see that he would rather have drawn back and that I aroused in hun no real desure yet at times he did as I wished and endured my violence and ardour which he could no longer share That he did this out of kindness was the bitterest thing of all Bitter too to be forced to acknowledge in one s heart how little love has to do with kindness Yes he was very good to me and it was strange to feel how gently his strong hand could caress and how love died away in it as it did so Thus it was between us when the fatal thing happened when the message came suminoning me to the temple The oracle was to be opened again a long line of feast days and great crowds of pilgrims awaited me On that last evening I was in despair and could not hide it He asked me the reason several times but I would not tell him-could not bring myself to tell him I parted from him in tears utterly distraught Next morning I took out my bridal gown and without a word to my father I stole up the path towards 95 ·THE SIBYL Delpha It was still dark and I suvered under the cold Stars I did not love god I loved someone else But he did not care about me I was quite alone Down in the holy of holes I felt his presenco.the presence of hum I had betrayed His breath came roughly to meet me drugging me he seemed to snatch at me The cave was full of him of bus spice and the air was heavy and sufling to breathe The little vena mous oracle-snakes were out already darting their cloven tongues atter me and from the cleft that ran to che realms of death the poisonous sichly fumes rose up to me and before I was scared on the tripod I felt almost stunned by them Never have I come so swiftly into his power to be wiped out and made his alone it was 25 If he had been waiting to hurl lumself upon me He seized m by the throat as if to strangle me-squeezed se ught-and hornble noises sere forced out through it It was sheer horror and terror without respite or deleghe never have I known such anguish never had he trcated me so savagely with such utter fury but never had he brought me to such a pitch of frenzied costasy They said afterwards that my body had been hurled back and forth and that my shrieks luad been heard right out in the temple I was appalling But whac frightened me most was that in the muddle of it all through it all from far away I seemed to hear the muhd roar of the over Was it true? Did I scally lear it? And why should it have filled me with such tcrror? 26 ·THE SIBYL Afterwards as I lay recovering in the house of the old woman who had care of me and resting from my dreadful exhaustion the little oracle-servant came and sat beside me He bad felt uneasy about me and wanted to see how I was He said he had never seen my face so terrifying as it was this time The priests had thought the same and talked about it among themselves They were much pleased with me with this violent posses sion by god But he added cautiously that perhaps I need not give myself so completely to god-chat god could not require it of me A faint smile must have appeared on my weary face as I listened with closed eyes to his solicitous words though he never noticed it He spoke of god Of his god Why did I smile at that? Then I heard hum mention an unknown man who had come rushing down the stairs from the pilgnms hall into the holy of holies and had stared at me with horror-stricken eyes It could not have been anyone from Delph for no one from these parts would have attempted anything so mad so strictly forbidden. The priests of the oracle had been outraged he was drven forth at once and handed over to the temple guard. No one knew what his punishment would be perhaps they would just let him go It was a strange incident to be sure but I hardly heard what he was saying-until he mentioned that he thought the man had only one arm 97 G

·THE SIBYL
I sat up abruptly and my manner must have been
very strange for the letle ser ant looked at me in
astonishment He couldn t make out why I was suddenly
so changed But seting that I was not going to lie and
rest any longer he was satisfied that there was norlung
senously wrong with mc He need not be arixous
Smiling all over his friendly face he kf me
I semained alone with my conflicting thouhes Why
had he come' I did not understand what reason had he
Could it mean that somchou lic that he cared about
mer
Something like a faint hope boyu to stir u nic
though there were no sounds for at
Slowly I took off the besdal robe put on mı ordmary
clothes and set ott down to the valley
I found the house empty and went out again to stray at
random thouyh the teelds Then I saw him at work on a
piece of land cults and by his father and sunt over to
him He staredaleck whun le caught sy ht of me and I
noniced somethin, shy in lus loud uhich as a rule x as the
most candid I uk one could mct 111s cos would not
niect mmc uhuni come up tahım We both stood silent
I understood Ill had sou m--seen the horror that
was my face when ! Lilonged to godern what no
ons can endure to see and what no ou can ever forget
once he has beheld it las fun I was nou the pychua the
possessed for him as fur clcrione else Non he was
like a cryone else Now eserything was over
98

·THE SIBYL I asked him and he answered frankly that it was so He would never get over it And I understood that what he meant was that no man could love a woman whom he had seen thus whom he had seen possessed by god Then he told me that he had come to the spring that moming and waited for me when I didn t appear he grew anxious remembering how strangely distraught I had been the evening before and he began to think that something must have happened to me He went up to our house and found it empty and even more agitated he sought out my father in the fields but father didn t know where I was either and was surprised to hear that I wasn t at home Hesitating and reluctant as if it were something he would rather not speak of he admitted that I might be up in Delphı at the temple of the oracle Hearing thus he hurried up there and while still in the entrance hall he had heard my wild shrieks as of people were hurting me he dashed through the temple into the pilgrims hall whence the cries seemed to be coming and down the stairs And here he broke off I took his hand Were you so anxious about me? Yes You needn t be any more Never again I will show you how much I love you He understood what I meant that I would now do for him the utmost and last that any lover can do 99 ·THE SIBYL release him so that he would never need to sec mc again We would part now he should live in hus world and I in mine as we ought always to have done We stood for a long time looking at the ground and avoiding cach other s eyes And I held his hand but not aghtly enough to remind him of how much I loved him or how hard a struggle I was having now And so we parted for ever Although we loved quite ncar to each other we never met again it was clear that he was avoiding me chinhing 10 best for us both I thought so too and was grateful to him Whenever I did not have to be up at Delphi I lived as before with my father amid the same scenery in the same valley as the man from whom I had parted It was late summer now and everything seemed scorched --the whole of that mighty landscape seemed scorched --fields woods and all Only the spring was changeless as full as ever of its limpid sater because it was divine The grains of sand in one place ucre still stirred by an invisible finger I still went down to it in the mornings as I used to do and sat there for a little alone with my thoughts But I never mirrored my face in it. I never wanted to see my face again I just sat there gazing out into empty space which was growing paler and more autunnal And when with closed cycs I had drunk of the water a few ames I turned home again. He must surely hase gone there ev day too for 100 ·THE SIBYL Like me he loved that fresh water and could not do without it But he came at another time of day when he knew I would not be there He could trust me not to be there then But once I spied him at a distance gathering olives in a little grove that belonged to his father s holding ! recognised him from the difficulty he was having in keeping the branch sall while he plucked the olives Unknown to him I stood watching him for a long time as he stretched hus one arm up into the old tree and gathered its frut I could not see his face but I recognised him At last I sank down upon the ground and lay there weeping weeping When I came home I sat down with my face in my hands to think about him for I was alone If only I could have helped him hold the branch while he picked! If I could have lived with him on earth here in the valley a long and happy human life As mother had lived as so many many others had been allowed to live Why coulda t I? Why couldn t I be like the rest? That was the last time I saw him though I didnt know it then Not long afterwards it happened that I was carried out of the oracle-pit unconscious violated by god No one knew this they knew only that he had filled me as never before that my ecstasy my frenzy was measureless and that I should have fallen from the IOI ·THE SIBYL tripod had not the little oracle-servant noticed it and caught me in lus arms What happened was that just as I was losing consciousness I smelt a sour stench of goat and the god in the shape of the black goat hus sacred beast in the cave of the oracle threw itself upon me and assuaged itself and me in a love act in which pain od and voluptuous ness were mungled in a way that retolted me How could I feel debght But I did I did though afterwards it filled me with revulsion and self disgust Was it because I had lost my beloved and had been forsaken by him for cier and because my y caming for lum was boundless? Was that the reason? But with loatung I felt that not he but a stranger possessed me mastered me wa wild and terrible pouer which stunned me with its ruthless enormiry And simultaneously with thes power chere was also somehow the he-goat of the oracle-pie wich is uil stench While it was going on I heard the mighty roar of the over as never before it mounted and mounted grew more violent and filled me in the mudst of my lusting with a pain and terror beyond compare Then I swoond right away and incw nothing more unul I woke up in the house of the old woman sho slunk about me with ingratiating malice in her inquslave obsers ane cyes I begged her to leave me alone and at last reluctantly and suspiciously she did so I could think and suffer my torment in peace I lay there SO.

·THE SIBYL
for a long time and had not the strength to set off home
before the evening
Did it happen at the same time? It s impossible to say
It was next day that they found him drowned and
shattered in the nver but it must have happened the
day before for it was then he left home in the morning
-the morning this ordeal of mine took place How it
had come about no one knew nor what he was doing
down there He had no reason to go down into that dark
gorge They did not know that he had a reason that
he had been summoned there to his destruction that
he had been drawn there by an invisible power which
sought to destroy him to devour him Had he been
drowned or had he perished in the rapids from his
injuries? Perhaps he had been struck senseless and then
died in the river though there was less water in it now
Had he lain there unconscious like me at its inercy
Who knew? They found him lying outstretched on
bus back just beneath the surface fully visible when
they came to look for him
That he had fallen was evident for in his one hand
he sull clutched a twig which they supposed he had
grasped to save himself But the strange thing was that
it was a twig of the gods own tree though no laurels
grew in that narrow cleft It seemed to them odd but
they thought no more about it knowing nothing of
what had really happened of its true inwardness
They did not know that it was gods vengeance on
103

·THE SIBYL human happiness and on his clect who had betrayed him and had not been willing to live for him alone Those who found hum said he lay as if sleeping but bereft of colour bleachedmone who had had all the fresh colours of healch His body was covered with bloodless sounds All the blood had been carned away by the river It was the over that had taken him It had taken escrything I never saw him myselt hon could Y Many others saw him for his strange death attracted a good deal of attendon Many saw him who had no interest 151 him save for the singular manner of his death but not I My love prevented me for it might have betrayed itself and become known I could not go to his home to wluch they had carried hum lest I should arouse surprise and perhaps suspicion in his parents I barcly knew them I could do nothing Nothing but weep in solitude when father could not sec me He never noticed that I had sept he never suspected any thing He never had throughout the aime our love had lasted But it was from lum I leamed of my beloved s death and of how they had found him-leamed what cu cryone else knew because for a cime cueryone in the valley was calking about it Soon I was forgotten He was not well known in bus nove place hasing been so long away from 16 He had never worked there or been in company with the others And now he was dead He would never own any land 10 ·THE SIBYL of his own to culavate with his one arm as he had so longed to do But I did not forget him I mourned him until I seemed tom to tatters and as if through his death I had lost life itself although by that time he didnt belong to me at all—I had lost him before then and lost my life when his love died. I was losing nothing now But I couldn t help thinking of hum who had given me everything and then taken everything away -who in his boundless goodness had allowed me to life I have never forgotten him and I never shall although Its all so long ago.although its so far away that one mught think I would see it only through a haze But I see him before me as alive as if he had never had to die How strange it is to sit here and remember him again and remember the only real life I ever lived. It was a hard time for me and it was hard to hide my sorrow No one must be allowed to guess that anything had happened to plunge me into despair But because I had the lifelong habit of dissembling shutting myself in I think I succeeded and that no one noniced anything No one but the old woman up in Delphı She had a wide knowledge of human nature because she so disliked people and everything to do with them it sharpened her eyes and nothing escaped her Some time in late autumn my monthly flow failed to appear and I began to be haunted by the thought los ·THE SIBYL that I might be with child It filled me with dread and with a wonderful budding joy What this would do to my life.If I lived at all. I had no idea But in my heart I felt a joy which was quite independent of this I was filled with an exaltation so sott that no car could hear it--10 one outside my self could have heard 16 which whispered of a marvels hispered softly bur persistently ceaselessly of something unheard-of a triumph over death itself Over the death of love and over deach itself I had to sit quite motionless with closed eyes to take it in to sense my body s quet rejoicuny 20 Its scary Bus I heard ah? heard it clearly! My love was not dund it hued on widlun nie' Aly bclon cd as noc dead he as wsthun me once more! He had nos forsakun me would never forsake enc never again My love had conquerid at last And I had son hım back It 1435 a happiness so great that it was impossible to sec how I could go about among people without their suspecting it--that I could keep such a thing secret Dut the fact that if suas fut ou s well-bearded secrcsthat it was going on in de me whout am one guessing at 1-only made my happiness greater and more wonderful and the mirack rarus I was atrand certainly Someumes I thought of what lay before me with anxich een terror Dut I did not knot how it would be I could not picture 1ery qute

·THE SIBYL
It was half unreal for in a sense there was no future for
me any more I was without a future and thereby
marvellously free and released from fear How could I
fear anything in my present condition the condition
we call blessed? My quiet inward jubilation drowned
every other sound-all dread all fear all terror--and
turned my peril into something scarcely real I lived
only in the reality which I bore within me for me
that was all there was
Winter came and with it my pregnancy advanced
like spring like early summer carefree though all
nature seemed dead free from any kind of care No one
noticed for so far there was nothing to see Although
so great a miracle was coming to pass no one could
see what was happening to me
Where the old woman was concerned however I
was not so sure and I wondered about it more and more
She was as amiable as ever as amiable as she always was
to everyone But she otten looked at me curously
observing me as only women can observe each other
It was unpleasant and it worried me But I had always
daslıked her looking at me I reminded myself And she
said nothing gave no hint that she knew or guessed
anything she just looked at me in that cunous way
A time would come when I should realise why her
look had always made me feel like that when I
should know that she was always watching me that it
was indeed her duty to do so though a very congenial
107

·THE SIBYL duty that she has to some extent responsible for the py thua and must know all about her and spy on her or thus chosen one who through her close nes with god was so important to the temple and to all Delphi that she must supervise her conduct and report everything however trivial to the priesthood And this she was more than selling to do There was seldom anytlung 10 report beyond the usual gossip in which only she was interested but nox she had something to tell whuch so far as she knew had never happened before---som.thing which they would Listen to at last with amazement and horror Sometung about the of whom to her annoyance she had never before had anything to tell When at last she was suite that I was with chuid she must have wondered how it could prave come about 1 was as solitary as anyone could be mover seeing a soul cither man or woman except my old fisher To thus day I can t made out how she discovered the secret of our love I thought it bclonged to w two alonc and could never be touched by the impure thoughts and words of oliers Bur suddenly one day through her thc priests and the whole city kness of my unspeakable offence against god against the temple and sacred Delplu hey knew that I was with child and that the father was the man who had been found dead down in the anc--sho had already kuad the punishment he deserved and that this was the same one-armed man . 108 ·THE SIBYL who had tried to force his way into the holy of holies and desecrate it, perhaps to rob the god of his property his prestess just when she was filled with his spirit God had judged him already But I remained The guilder criminal remained For he had been an ordinary mortal while I was chosen by the divine ro be used by it for its own purposes and to serve it devotedly faithfully and with perfect self abnegation. And the fact that I bad done so and that since first becoming a pythua as a young girl I had lived only for the temple and god and had been regarded by all as almost part of the oracle that I was reputed to be so dearly beloved by god that he would speak through no one else and that thuis reputation of mine benefited the holy place and with it all Delphımall thus made my guilt the blacker my fall the deeper the sudden hatred of me the more savage That I should have outraged and decerved god, failed him forsaken him for an earthly man was an incredible crime an unfamy without parallel I was brought before a council of the senuor priests who asked me whether what the old woman said was true From what they knew of me and from the good option they had formed of me as a priestess of the oracle throughout all these years of service in the temple It seemed to them utterly beyond belief It was plain that they wanted it not to be true But I admutted 11 at once indeed it must have been evident that I was glad 109 ·THE SIBYI to be carrying a child and st amazed and outraged them more than eser They talked excitedly among them selves about this extraordinary unheard of evene and about the harm it would do to the prestige of the oracle and they said that by nights 1 ought to be hurled over the cliff from which desccracors of the temple were usually thrown though I realised that they were not goug to sentence me to thac Then they turned to me and talked about god and the fearful crime I had committed against him and then more about the dis honour I luad broughe upon the temple and the oracle and all DelphThey ended by saying that god required the sternese of punishments to be inthicted upon me and that thus would be decided upon un clic course of che day Nevertheless it was not thcy who sentenced me for through thus delay my fare was determined by others The runour that I had confessed and that the calc «as truc ran through the city like wildtire and curbulent mobs gartered outside the old womans house where as they have was 215 asturiy my sentence They were armed with sucks and stones and shey yelled that I must die I could see them through the window I could see ther were the kind to carry out their dreads Tacir falcs were horrible in their insensie hatred their mob muligrury Inside the house the old woman padded about with ill-concealed gloading in het rat-grcy face pretending to be alarmed on my account and ac the 330 ·THE SIBYL same time protesting that she would be responsible for me no longer that I must gongo out to them that s to say so that they could kill me Never by a sign did she admit that it was she who had informed against me and I did not care to tell her that I knew perhaps she thought I didn t She may even have felt gultless of my fate-of what was now to befall me for she always regarded herself not only as a nightcous but as a very kind person who never said a bad word about anyone though all around her were mean and false and wicked in every way The yells and threats grew wilder and the priests did nothing they never interfered but seemed glad to leave my sentence to the mob and escape having to deal with me themselves My situation there in that house with the furious murderous crowd outside and the grey slinking poisonous creature in the room behind me was vile and horrible and I felt no hope of ever getting out of it alive It was then that my only friend came the little servant of the oracle He ran in breathlessly in his slapping sandals and urged me to hide in the temple. to take refuge there for it was holy ground where no one could do anything to me for I would be under god s protection The old woman was indignant at this suggestion—at the mere thought of the sanctuary being used for such a purpose or of god protecting a lecherous woman like me a woman who had betrayed him. III ·THE SIBYL Little sonder if she was outraged at the idea she was thinking of the good name of the temple which lay so near her heart of the sacred place sluch she felt appointed to guard and which was the apple of her eye although she hardly ever set foot in it Was it scally to be used in this way and would I perhaps escape punishment altogether? Never before had I seen any evil in her face in that dead grey fale skich I now beheld for the last amembut now she could conccal her nature no longer The keele oracle servant noticed nothing however and dragged me away in an attempt to save my life The woman s house stood so close to the temple that It might be possible to slp from one to the othbefore the mob spred mc The people were massed before the house but at one end there was a way out which they might have forgotten We slipped out so quickly that no one sau as but when uc ran up the steps into the temple we were seen of course and a wild yelling broke out behind us The mob rushed after us and in a fon moments they had filled the whole starway By then we had come through the colonnad- and into the cemple itself and I still remember that in spice of the danger and excitement the first thung my friend thought ot was to take off his sandals and to see that I did the same a thing I should certainly have forgonen otherwise it was so like fum-gods htc fraud and muneto remember first and foremost that this was a ·into THE SIBYL holy place That was why we were safe If we really Here? The mob seemed to have no veneration for the sacred room they poured into it screeching and I only just escaped by running further the interior of the temple They screamed like lunatics saying that they would rid god of this scum this whore of a priestess who had dishonoured him and their city But all at once the gentle kindly little oracle-servant altered in a way I could not have imagined. In a loud fimm voice which I had never before heard from him he declared that this was gods holy place and that whoever dared to force his way into it should die che death and by the hand of the avenging god himself Anyone who sought sanctuary in here stood under gods mighty protection. Didn t they know that he exclaimed in a fury and the rabble with all their hot repulsive faces recoiled before him in fear for what he said was well known to all and no one could doubt its truth. They moved out again into the colonnade but because it seemed to him that some were not moving fast enough he angrily seized his broom which was standing by the entry and swept them out as if they were the dirt which it was his duty to clear away since he was appointed by god to keep his sanctuary clean Having expelled them all he stayed in the colonnade to make sure they did not try to come in again He must have succeeded for no one appeared and it as 113 н ·THE SIBYL non almost quiet I heard no more than a sustained murmur and now and then a single shout I was alone in the temple Alonc under gods protection He had not dorued 10 me he had not quite forgotten that I was hus He recensed me into lus embrace And unto hus radiant embrace in his temple up in the daylight In the temple of his glory where I had never been permitted to serve him Hc received me there at last It was most strange In this desperate hour when the mob were waiting outside to assault me and perhaps take my lfe I was filled with stillness and solemnitynow at last hc filled me with the sercrucy of his whole being for which I had so oftcn prayed bur wluch he had never beforc vouchsafed me Now at last I felt the safety for whuch I had so besought him now at last he let me rest in his embrace. I knew it would only be for 2 little whilomit could not be for long for my fate was scaled Yes I was deeply happy I looked about me with the same reverence and joy as when I had stood here with my mother and beheld hus du cling-place for the very first time bclicking that it was here that I was to serve him of course that could not be Dut now he recen cd me liere in his truc sanctuary and gave me shelter and safety in my hour of mortal danger And I felt hon near he was to me closer perhaps thin cier beforc--not as heat and fire but rather as light I felt hus light pouring over my face 114 ·THE SIBYL that my eyes which I kept closed for very happiness were scalded by tears Now this cruel inscrutable god was shedding all his light and all his peace upon me now when all was over and I was to leave hus temple for ever Now for a while he bestowed upon me his seretuty his safety for a little time while hoarse voices shouted for me outside and penetrated the stillness of the temple came the peace he was giving me at last I have never forgotten that hour Never ceased to be thankful for it But neither have I ever understood why he is like that why things need be as they are Was it because of this that having recovered and summoned up all my strength I was able to leave the temple though the mob were still outside watching for me and desiring nothing more than that I should leave my refuge? I dont know what made me do som perhaps an impulse from god or on the contrary some inner defiance of him a self assertion a challenge to thus ruthless enigmatic deity Or perhaps quite simply pride a contempt for death and for the rabble outside Whatever it was I determined to leave my sanctuary and go out to meet my fate were it life or death in any case I could not have stayed in the temple for ever and would have had to go in the end When the little servant saw me putting on my sandals again he was dismayed for he guessed what I meant to do Whispering he tried to dissuade me from anything IIS ·THB SIBYL so mad But I had made up my mind and for all his entreaties I would not relent To their amazemene I stepped into the colonnade and out on to the steps They were too much astonished to do anything-even to shower abusc upon me they simply stared and drew back It was as if when at last 1 showed myself-when they actually saw me- ternfied them as I had ternfied them during my life as a pythia mand more than any other priestess of the oracle because I was believed to have been specially chosen by god and filled and possessed by hum as no one else had ever been And now although he had curs d me they may have thought that his pouce remaned in me if only as a frightful maledicton It acd them held them back and not one of th me I think they were frightened that I dared to the temple st unde ordinary a thug acthin ome near very fact of my own free will person wou not human They sco W had no gt their eyes url the ut th fc And wh temple cou made WJY of savage! darcd not $ ·THE SIBYL anay now began to shout and yell and soon abuse was hailing down upon me from all sides the foulest names a woman can be given and even mocking comments upon the age at which I had conceived They stopped at nothing in their moral indignation and their rage over the shame I had brought upon the city the temple and god The blow to their livelihood the unprecedented disgrace to Delphi and the oracle might cause the stream of pilgrims to dwindle away and with it their income Their faces were blood red with unnatural excitement and to my disgust I recognised many of them for they were all from Delphi no strangers came here at this time of year Men and women Jostled one another in this mob of every class and order and women not least my own kind who ought to have understood me better and forgiven me for what had befallen me had happened through love My crime after all was what they too called love These loathsome faces might have inspired me with enduring hatred for mankind had not reflection shown me that this was not the whole truth about them But just then it was the whole truth and a dangerous and frightful truth it was The mob followed me and ran alongside me shrieking continued insults and threats But they never touched me they dared not Perhaps this was because I was on the sacred road That too was hallowed ground where no one might be molested and no deed of 117 ·THE SIBYL violence committed and perhaps something of the fear put into them by the little servant still remained At a bend in the road I tumed for a last glimpse of him my friend the only person who wished me well and there he was on the temple-steps looking after me standing with his broom and weeping It grieved me sorely and I found it hard to keep back my tears Next moment he was hidden from me and at once I felt utterly alone So I walked along thus sacred way where one moming in my first youth-gods glorious morning I had passed with such rapture arrayed as gods bride and full of my love for lum I was walking here now for the very last time and in how different a manner! Thrcats and revilings were poured upon me and I did not know what lay before me yet strangely enough I was quite calm As calm as I had been in the temple Though now surcly it was my own calmness--something I had fought for and son by myself Or was it not? This calmness of mine in such a situation may also kate struck them as unnatural and made them shy of molesting me I believe this was why they dared not use their stacks on me their former pythua--why they shunned even that contact with her and with the that mighe sall be in her But when the sacred road time to an end-when I had to leaicit and try to climb the mountain slopesu-there arose such an outcry as svas dever heard before and a liail of stones fell all about me 118 pouce ·THE SIBYL Some hit me but not so as to endanger my life and it seemed as if the people were not trying to kill me—as if they dared not-and were content to drive me from the city But one stone struck the back of my neck so hard that I sank to the ground and could hardly get up again After a time I did so and continued up the mountain And they didnt pursue me they stood shirieking their curses at me and warning me never to set foot in Delphi again When I had come right away from them and out of sight I sat down and breathed more freely I was saved I was bleeding from some wounds especially the one at the back of my neck when I put my hand there it was covered with blood and my body was bruused all over part from that I was whole and had come off lightly considering the mortal danger I had been in What I had dreaded most was that they might so injure me that my child might not reach its full termthat I might be hurt in body or mind in a way fatal to a woman in my condition But I need not have been anxious for nothing of the kind had happened My strong body stood up to this rough treatment which might have broken many another and my mind preserved its serenity If god had had anything to do with this serenity and it was not of my own witung I was thankful to him for it It may have helped to save me and through me the child But could it be supposed that god would want to save the child> 119

·THE SIBYL
The one to whom I chucfly owed my life was the
little servant of the oracle Had it not been for him I
should never have survived thus frightful day I thought
when I looked back that evening at what had happened
and prepared to spend my first night under the open sky
I thought of him still when I had lain down to rest on
some Icaves I had swept together in a hollow from
here no human dwelling was to be seen only the steep
mountainsides and between them the stars in thus
solcude I found that it did me good to think of him my
only friend
I had no idea what he really thought about my crime
He helped me he saved my life he took my part
entirely But what he thought of the act of which I was
guilty and which was the cause of all that had happened
I never know We never exchanged a word about it
indeed we never had the chance
Probably he simply did not understand that I had
committed any offence at all Being incapable of seeing
evil in anyone he condemned no one not even me It
was not in his nature to do so
But what of hus faith in the goodness of mankında
The scenes he had witnessed soday wiuch aroused in
kiss suck indignation-how would they affect hus
trust in everything and everyone about lum in god and
in man? Would they bring his vision of the world
topplung about his cars?
No, I hoped that he would soon forget inforget the

·AL THE SIBYL tumult I had caused in his life and go on as before believing the best of everyone as was natural to hun That was how he ought to be the little friend of god and man and that was how I preferred to remember him In that hope I fell peacefully asleep The cold woke me several times that night and I was glad when at last the sun came to shed a little warmth It was the middle of winter and the nights were really chilly Yet I remember that it was a mild winter and luckily so for otherwise I could not have survived Even as it was it was bad enough It was difficult to sustain lifedifficult to keep from starving and to endure the cold at night I sought shelter in holes or in deserted herdsmen s huts and at first I lived solely on dry halfrotten old berries which I found in the mountains and on the seeds from pine-cone-anything which gave nourishment or seemed to give it I roamed far and wide to find these berries whose names I did not know Then I grew bolder and more enterprising driven to it by hunger and the thought of the child it must live and not be harmed by my starvation There were goats on the mountain and I coaxed them to come to me so that I could mulk them I collected the mulk in a bowi I had taken from one of the huts and drank it with a desperate greed I became more daring and adroit at stealing mulk in this way for nothing could have been better for me and the child than this delicious food. I I2I ·THE SIBYL even ventured to creep into inhabited huts and steal the herdsmen s checse and bread I used to lie low among bushes and boulders near by and creep out when they were gone In this way I came by a goatskin to spread over me at rught I stole anything and would gladly have committed any come for the sake of the child hus and my child the child of our love the sign that our love was not dead and that it lived on in me that my beloved was still within me I lived like a savage like a wild animal up there in the mountain I was forced into it having been cast out by men from the life of men and like a tormented gravid bcast I shunned no mcans of leering myself and the child alre I carefully avoided inhabiccd places and all to do with mankind for I could expect no good from them and I was always much afraid that the herdsmen would discover me They would hurt me too for they too were men Nei crtheless I was happy during this ame Happy i my freedom and in my healthy body which knew that it could live in this way without taking harm which coiled hard but became the stronger for it and the fitter to enduro And I was happy in the knowledge that it was bus chuld I arred in me and was to bring forth I fele ut living and sumng in me conanually and it 925e me great joy Despite all hardshups 2720 ties cold and hunger in my lonchiness and cule I xperienced the measurdless happiness of motherhood Tv ·THE SIBYL And when at last the spring came everything was easier or seemed so I was no longer cold and soon there would be more for me to eat as for other beasts of the field I found jucy herbs which tasted fresh and wholesome though they were not filling and the goats milk was richer than before The goats were not hard to call they came of their own accord to be malked perhaps because they knew me now and perhaps because they liked being milked by a woman Often they followed me and I had to drive them off-chase them nght away--for I was afraid that the herdsmen would notice Even animals that had never seen me before sometimes followed me This was the first time I noticed they were in some way attracted to me though I saw nothing odd about it at the time and thought it quite natural The hills turned bright with flowers of all kinds and at night I smelt their rich fragrance sick at heart for him who had loved me and bestowed on me the miracle of spring The only spring my body ever had. If he had lived would he have been with me nowwould he have come back to me now that I was no longer a pythia and because I was carrying his child? Would we have shared this life and been happy in it together? What vain thoughts! He was dead. He lived no longer and would never live again They had found him down there in the river pale and bloodless bereft 123 ·revenge And THE SIBYL of life s colour with a twig of the gods own tree in bus hand Thus it was Thus it would be for ever Mans destiny is but one when it is accomplished nothing remains Only the gods have many destinies and need never die They are filled with everythung and cxperience everything Everything--except human happiness That they can never know and therefore they grudge it to men Notlung makes them so cvil and cruel as that men should presume to be happy and forget them for the sake of their earthly happiness Then they claim their put a twig of their tree in their victims hand. Now and then on really small rights I thought I could hear the rises far below the river which encompassed our love with its maghry roar and afterwards proved 50 fatal to us and took so grim i revenge Now it was sprng again no doubt the waters were running in spate through the narrow gorge and the sound of them may ucll have carried as far up as this For surely I could not have been hearing it only within myself? No I distinguished it clearly coming from the gorge. I lay here among the flowers quite alone and heard the nver the cruel river that had camned away the blood of my beloved, So spring sas both a street and a sorrow ful ame for me as it is for all lovers who are alone Alone? But I 124 ·THE SIBYL was not alonel How could I say so? In my womb was my beloved sall there our love loved on, conquering death and his own death Conquering even god himself It was perhaps presumptuous to say so nevertheless it was true God had taken his life in vain and in vain had swept his blood away down the river He lived again in me with new blood which I had given him my own hearts blood the blood with which I had loved him love s human blood of which the gods know nothing So it was so our struggle with god had ended. And summer came serene summer the season of npening and fulfilment when nature s womb rejoices The valley ringed by its mighty mountains was a womb full of maturing Life and up here too all that could live on these wild slopes lived and throve All was brightness and ease calmness and confidence and I too felt secure and confident though there was much to make me anxious the birth itself how I should manage afterwards how I should feed the chuld and much else If anyone had reason to dread the future it was surely I but I did not. It was useless to burden myself with that too I was confident and carefree as a woman in my blessed condition should be My sturdy body grew big and shapeless yet I moved almost as nimbly as before because my way of life had been 50 active and natural throughout. The female animal which must forage for herself while carrying her young brings 125 ·last time THE SIBYL forth easily I thought to myself and I believed that I would do so too for llnew nothing about it The weather grou hotter and summer seemed so far advanced that I thought my time must soon come But It didn t It didn t come and didn t come-nothing happened I was puzzled. The ame must have passed but by how long I didn t know I know when we had been togecher for the last time for the very But I would not think of that it was more than I could bear I wanted only to remember that I was to bring forth the fruit of our love I wanted only to live in the merrory of that love at its most beauuful when it was equally strong in both of us when we so loved cach other that we conquered everything Now 1 11 25 to bear our chuld our loves child the child of the dead man of the sacrifice I was to bring forth our trumph our victory over death and over all things Over god himself But I did not bring forth Time passed and passed and nothing happened. Summer continued the heat continued and grew more terrible and oppressive and exhausung only the nights brought a little coolness somcomes when a chill came down from the mountains and their cternal snows I have never known so hot a summer in my condiron 1 suffered especally severely from the heat burdened with my big heavy body which lutherto bad not troubled me I had su clled out even mort now 1.6 ·THE SIBYL I felt I could hardly grow any bigger and that the time must have come for me to be delivered But I was not delivered It seemed as if I should never bear this chuld But one day as I lay languishing in the heat I felt that the pains were beginning at last Slight at first then stronger and after that more violently and at shorter intervals The sun scorched down as never before with stabbing red hot rays and the air felt stiflingly heavy hardly to be breathed though that may just have been my own fancy Suddenly great sulphur yellow clouds towered up over the horizon in the south and rapidly approached For the first time that summer a storm seemed to be on the way Darkness fell over the whole valley and the menacing sharp-edged shadow of the storm-clouds came nearer and nearer Suddenly a lightning flash cut through the clouds visible despite the brightness of the day followed by the dull rumbling of the thunder I had never thought of this or taken it into account I had expected to bear my child out in the open anywhere but not to need any kind of shelter Where was I to go? I could not lie out in the pouring rain exposed perhaps to the lightning which often struck down here among the mountains I rose and looked about me There was nothing here to give shelter not so much as a tree and I wandered off at random across the mountainside to search The pains came on again worse than before and because of them 1-7 ·go to have THE SIBYL I had to bend forward as I walked and hold myself hard about the belly What would be the end of it? Where should I my child? It was then that the goats came Goats which i had never seen before and which could not possibly have known me I believe they were wld ones But they seemed to understand what was the matter with me and when I moaned they uttered a whinng pitying cry which had a peculiar almost human sound Some of them sprang eagerly up the hillside and down to me again as if wanting to lead me up there It wasn t easy for me to follow them uphill but I did it rather unsteadily as if somethung were urging me on Somcames when the pains beset me too severely I had to pause and the beasts seemed to understand for they halted too and waited for me to go on again At last the climb was almost vertical and I thought I could go no further But seeing this they bleated so pitifully that I had nor the heart to gneve them and summoning up all my strength I began to climb after them up the steep cliff This evidently pleased them and they gave cager bleats of satisfaction Behind melheard the storm approaching the lashing tuin moved up from the valley closer and closer the thunder roared over the whole countryside and the cliff which I was cumbing and clinging to with hands and fcct glimmered in the crcr more frequent flashes of bghting 128 ·THE SIBYL At last utterly exhausted I reached a small plateaua little place that w25 more or less les el-and just as the rain beat down upon me I spied an opening in the rock before me leading nght into the hill The goats were already thronging into it and dazed and reeling I followed them. The cave was almost dark, at least unul ones eyes became accustomed to it and even afterwards it was so dim that I could not see how large it really was But it seemed a fair size and ran on indefinutely into the darkness A sour goat smell came to meet me Then I knew no more and sank to the ground, which was covered with a thick layer of old, dry goat droppings It made a soft bed and to me it was delight unspeakable to sink down upon it. I must have been unconscious for a time for when I came to myself again all the goats were standing round gazıng at me with anxious pitying eyes My awakening gave nse to Lively bleaongs But when immediately afterwards I was assailed by the most appalling pains pains of a different kind from the earlier ones I thought and began screaming wildly they fell quiet and withdrew a little za alarm then they came back and began to cry out as I did uttering strange plaintiye cies which though not as loud as my own were in a way even more sorrowful like the sighing of cattle helpless and bestial Yet these creatures made me feel less alone in my suffering They shared it, though they 1.9 I ·THE SIBYL could express themselves in no other way-in no human way and for that matter nesther could I We had the same language and understood one another well The pains came now at such short intervals that there seemed hardly any pause between them-just long enough to draw a few breaths-and they were so frightful that the whole cavern resounded to my screams I could not repress my screaming and it relieved me a little too some of the goats ran to and fro in agitation while others stood sull round me as before with outstretched heads lamenting though now they could seldom bc hcard for my own cries drowned theirs But I saw their muzzles qwver with their frightened bleating and their upper lips moved continuously up and down over their moist, yellowishwhute tecth At the ame it never struck me that there was anythung strange about the animals behaviour and their prooccupanon with me I had no thought for that or for anything else But I was thankful that they were there all about me so that forsaken though I was by god and all mankınd I did not have to be quite alone in tlus hour They were the only beings who arcd about me or cared that in my agony I was to bring forth a chuld Outside the storm continued and now 10 ***s night over us Thunder claps followed close upon one another the run fell in sheets beforc the mouth of die care and 130

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·THE SIBYL thev could come at clearly it was not for my sake they did it to clean me after my delivery but out of desire for the blood stself as if it were of especial value to them I had to fend them off as well as I could with what strength remained to me to hit out at them at their moist tiases goat and its As soon as I was able I took up the baby and found It was a boy I tried to tear the navel-cord and finding ? could not I but it in two and tool the child in my arms to kecp it from the goats It was nos perfectly clean but they would not leave it alone I had to push them and drive them off continually Thir behaviour was incomprehensible to me and I disliked it It seemed to me as strange as it was revolting I s2 jocred up on to my unstcady feet to get out of the plı « It was ungrateful of me perhaps but I couldnt hu p it the cave with its acrid stench of odour of birth nauseated me and I felt I had to get out of it to breathe The storm had ceased so there was no reason to stay if only my strength sufficed to carry me out. With my new-bom babe at my breast I reclcd over to the entrance and out into the air wuch was fresh after the rain I had been on the point of fainting but the freshness revised me Such was my delicrance for which I had so greatly longed. That is how it was Here the old woman broke off her story strughtened herself then bent forward and fiercely 132 She ·THE SIBYL poked the fire which she had been feeding from time to time with a bit of knotty wood And what was it I had brought forth? she went on fiercely That creature sitting over there! That was the fruit of all my love of the highest human happiness of all our love for each other which began by a holy spring such was its end! Our summer love in the flowenng field of com witressed by eagles That was hus and my child I could not make it out It was past understanding As the child grew and revealed itself I pondered more and more but always in vain upon this baffling question how could our love have borne such fruit? It is true that when the child was begotten our love was no longer as happy as it had been Yes at that time the begetter no longer loved Was this the reason? Was it thus that drew such punishment with it? So die a punishment? But he had loved why was the child not conceived then? If we were destined to have a child why did we not have it then in the high noon of our love? Why did I not conceive until the very last when my beloved no longer really loved me when he embraced me without real desire so that his life-sap could not have its proper force? Why was it so? Why did my poor womb not become fruitful until then? Was it not strange that I had not concerred long before? 133 ·THE SIBYL Perhaps it hadn t happened unal the last time we were together--that last heavy hearted ume which brought Joy to neither of us "The last time It must have been then for otherwisc far too long a time would have passed before the birth Even as it was the period was too long No I wouldn t think of that! Not of that! Often the birth came late Or at least sometimes And onc never knows quite how to reckon-so many people say that--no there was no sense at all in trying to explain it I didn e want to think abouts Not at all And anyway there was nothing to be gained by it. So one might as well leave it alone Let oncs thoughts work on something else no matter what But not on anything so pointless and unrewarding I talked like this to myself persuading myself What I did not want to think of was that by womens reckoning the time tallıcd perfectly with the day my beloved was found dead in the nvcr--the day I was raped by god And it was soon after that for the first ume in my life that my monthly flow failed to appear And at the time of lus death it had been long since my beloved lay with me But, I thought what am I saying? This is madness And It s impossible even morc impossible Bcgotten by God? Gods son an idiot who is not cien a man A chuld shich if it leaves will be a poor idiot without understanding not even knowing that he is 134 ·THE SIBYL alive an idiot with a meaningless smuk and a mind like a nets born babys What an ideal That I could even think of such a thing' That I could suppose for a moment that that hornble monstrous thing in the oracle-pit so savage and inhuman and revolting had given life to the child given me a cluld Not my love my great living earthly love but this repulsive thing that I could not recall without the deepest loathing But of course it was quite impossible A mad notion Strange that such a notion could occur to me And it was not so ternbly long since I had been with my beloved my so deeply beloved—for the last time He could be the child s father-thus childs Of course he could If one wished Did I wish it? Did I wish No I couldn t bear to think about it It drove me to despair-despair of life love god everything God is merciless Those who say he is good do not know him He is the most inhuman thing there is He is wild and incalculable as lightning Like lightning out of a cloud which one did not know contained lightning Suddenly it strikes suddenly he strikes down on one revealing all his cruelty Or his love his cruel love With him anything may happen He reveals himself at any time and in anything The thunderstorm that drove me into the cave the goats that were sent to take 135 ·THE SIBYL Perhaps it hadn t happened unul the last time we were together--that last heavy hearted time which brought Joy to neither of us The last ame It must have been then for otherwise far too long a time would have passed before the birth Even as it was the period was too long No I wouldn t think of that! Not of that? Often the birth came late Or at least sometimes And one never knows qwte how to reckon--so many people say that-no there was no sense at all in trying to explain it I didn t want to think about it Not at all And anyway there was nothing to be gained by it. So one might as well leave it alone Let ones thoughts work on something else no matter what But not on anythung so pointless and unrewarding I talked like this to myself persuading myself What I did not want to think of was that by womens reckoning the time tallicd perfectly with the day my beloved was found dead in the giver--the day I was Taped by god and ar was soon after that for the first time in my life that my monthly flow failed to appear And at the ame of his death it had been long since my beloved lay with me But I thought what am I saying? This madness And its impossible--even more impossible Begotten by god? God s son an idiot wo is not cen a man a child which if it lives will be a poor idiot without understanding not even knowing that he is 134 ·He could be the child s father-this childs Of course No I couldn t bear to think about it It drove me to a cloud which one did not know contained lightning revealing all his cruelty Or his love-his cruel love With him anything may happen He reveals himself at any time and in anything The thunderstorm that THE SIBYL alive an idiot with a meaningless smuk and a mind like a new born baby s What an ideal That I could even think of such a thing' That I could suppose for a moment that that hornble monstrous thing in the oracle-pit so savage and ut human and revolting had given life to the child given me a chuld Not iny love my great living earthly love but this repulsive thing that I could not recall without the deepest loathing But of course it was quite impossible A mad notion. Strange that such a notion could occur to me And it was not so terribly long since I had been with my beloved—my so deeply beloved--for the last time he could If one wished Did I wish it? Did I wish despair-despair of life love god everything God is merciless Those who say he is good do not know him He is the most inhuman thing there is He is wild and incalculable as lightning Like lightning Suddenly it strikes suddenly he strukes down on one drove me into the cave the goats that were sent to take 135 ·goats their THE SIDYL care of me the scorching summer, charged with unparalleled heat the birth in the goat cave whulc hcas en hurled its lightnings at the earth the qucer behaviour of the eager interest in the burch and the babs the vile repugnant inhuman cients in the goat-cate what lay hidden behind all that something divine? Something cruelly sasagely divine? Was there a mighty deity behind it? The divine is not human it is somethino quito different And it is not noble or sublimc or spiritualised as one likes to belieuc It is allen and repellent and sometimes it is madness it us malignant and dangerous and fatal. Or so I have found it And I well know the stench of it-the sour goat-stench who should know it better than 1? It was the first thing I recognised when I entered the cave The case in which perhaps 1 bore a son to god a son begotten by the goat god down there in the holy of holies in bus pit beneath the glorious temple which is consecrated to him as the god of radiance and lighe-the temple in which I was never permited to sene hım But I u as permitted to bring into the world his witless son when for some reason he was to be bom in ever leering idiot whom I have had upon my hands all my life No no What am I sayang? I knou nothung nothing at all about it I dont know who is father to this child I didnclnou then and I dont know nou Gods child he cannot be and he cannot be my beloseds he 136 ·THE SIBYL bears no likeness either to him or to me—to neither of us he is like no human being and still less like a god I know nothing But I shake my fist at him who treated me so who used me in this way in his pit bus oracle pit-used me as his passive instrument-raped my body and soul possessed me with his frightful spirit hus delirium hus so-called inspiration filled me with his hot breath his alien fire and my body with his lusting fertilising ray so that I had to bear this witless son who is a mockery of man-of reason and of man--a mockery of me who had to bear him Who chose me to be his sacrifice to be possessed by him to foam at the mouth for god and to bring forth an idior Who has exploited me all my life who stole from me all true happiness all human happiness who bereft me of all that others may enjoy --all that gives thern security and peace who took love my beloved all all-and gave me nothing in return nothing but himself Himself Who is in me still filling me with his presence his unrest never giving me peace because he himself is not peace never forsaking me Never forsaking me! I shake my fist at him~my impotent fist! She trembled seemingly in a violent tumult of mind She stirred the fire and finding that it had gone out tossed the half-charred branch into the smoking embers Yet soon she grew a little calmer and controlled from me my 137 ·THE SIBYL herself And when presently she continued her voice had regained its natural ronc I donc know why I m telling you all this you a stranger But who is not a stranger to this house? You asked me something and when I began to remember my lifemmy whole destiny rose up beforc me and I was filled with what I remembered And when did I last speak to anyoneWhen? It s so long ago that I cannot say I have sat here alone brooding over my fate There has been amc cnough for chat-coo much but never any one to tell Yes my life since I left the world of men-and I not cr rcally belonged to it-has been loneliness I have lcd alone here with thus child this son with thus grey haired man not knowing even non who he is or whence he came We have lived alonc together up here in the mountains in this rumous horci which I sce in order for us I know not how long ago Our only company has been the goats wluch stay by us wild goats wluch have alsays sought us out wherever sc hase duelt and which help us to sustain life They are the only crcatures he knows and cares for But he has always been attracted to the goats and they to him they follow him wherever be and rub against one can hardly part them I think of thus when I wonder who he is And I teflect thuac his face is unsurted by all that people call bocs 138 ·THE SIBYL life--that it has remained the face of a child—a greyhaired child now-with the same unchanging childish smile The vacant smile that has so tormented and tortured me and made me feel that I m living here with an idiot But sometimes I ve wondered whether perhaps it is a god sitting here beside me with his perpetual smule sitting here looking down at his temple his Delphi and the whole world of men—just smiling at it all I dont know I know nothing But sometimes I have thought so Sometimes this idea too has crossed my mind She ceased and for a time sat silent Then she rose and went towards the entrance out towards the night where a faint light was appearing Suddenly she stopped and uttered a cry Hes not here' He s not here! It was true He was no longer there He had varushed At some moment during her long story he must have vanushed into the night It was easy to do so unobserved dark as it was in there and the doorway had no door She became quite franac Her face could not be discerned but from her voice the man knew how distraught it must be Where is he? Where is he? she cried Where can he have gone? Why has he gone out into the night into the darkness where he can t look after himself-hell be killed 139 ·my poor child THE SIBYL Hell fall over the cuff? Why has he donc chus* Why? Why? Why has he left me? Suppose--suppose he understood the bad dlungs i said about himache horrible things I Suppose he understood' But its not possible He s never shown any sign of understanding human speech and never been able to say anythung in it But perhaps it was just what he never wanted to Ncher wanted to have anything to do with such creatures is men are some ames Ive almost yes sometimes Ive wondered whicther perhaps he did understand what I said to lum in anger when I was hasty and unreasonable with him my chuld Ah I was many times and I was unjust unjust How could I How could 1 $27 hurt lum so so that he had to leave me Lease me She was talking to herself not to the stranger although she cumed to hum eagerly mcann hile He must have understood and thats why Ah what hasc I donc that havcl done! We must go out and search for him she exclaimed suddenly despairingly and scooping she passed through the los cntrance and disappeared He followed for It was a moonlight rughe and bright with stars but a light mist of cold lay are the mountains and one could not see far She glanced quickly sound so mal e sure that her son 140 such things ·THE SIBYL was nowhere near the house and then set off at once along a track-t might have been a track though it was difficult to distinguish--leading uphill into the mountains She walked so swiftly that he could hardly keep up being unaccustomed to such terrain It seemed incredible that one of her age could move so rapidly But she had lived the greater part of her life in these hills and was one with them with her old feet swathed in almost worn-out goatskin she glided along the mountainside almost without effort as if she belonged to it like a grey animal nearly impossible to make out in the musty moonlight She walked like the wild animals of the region He followed her marvelling at what she had told him of herself and of this son whom they were seeking up the mists God s son? It was certainly an animal track that they were following and not one used by men Theirs ran somewhere lower down though it was hidden by the haze Why she chose this particular path he did not know but supposed that for some reason she believed her son must have passed this way she could be sure he had not gone down towards Delphi for he could never have been there in his life Had she spied some foot print? Perhaps since she took this way so determinedly It was a gentle climb at first but later it became very steep They came right in among in among the hills and the path -invisible to him-sloped ever more sharply upward But once they had reached more level groundhere among 141 ·THE SIBYL perhaps a plateau-she haltcd The invisible track must fork hese or she must have lost the tradd for she stopped and hesitated gizing out over the barc mountain landscape The moonlighe filtered through the then cold must and made es erztlung look strange it seemed to him that one might have doubts about any ching and everything in tlus half real world But soon she went on again and now seemed certain of her way He had che qucer impression that although she was a woman she moved instinctively like the bcasts or was perhaps gwded by some other sonst not possessed by ordinary mortals They continued further and further into unrcality The ground began risus again All at once the most liſted and in the sharp moonlight they saw before them a mighty peak covered with everlasting snow white and dark and mysterious under the sparkling stars A slow climb led them up to the cdge of the snow into , luch a narrow but distinct track sound and disappeared Winther it lid one could nor cell se merely ceased varusked It was odd the way this path vanuslied beneath the eternal snous Thc old woman began to make her way along it After a liecke while she stooped and picked up some thing from the ground It was a goatskın girdle She cramund it cabcrly and then lowered the hand that held it draw a dep breaths She went on. Soon afterwards she found a kile also of goatskin discarded beside the path Thus too she picked up and laid orer

·THE SIBYL
her arm without a word Further up she found a sandal
and not long afterwards another simply made from a
piece of hide and a thong It lay quite near the edge of
the snow They stopped there and looked up at the
mysterious mountain
A thin layer of fresh snow had fallen during the night
and on it they saw the clear print of a naked foot in a
line with the path As they continued upward they
found one footprint after another-someone had walked
barefoot up towards the eternal snows They were the
light distinct tracks ot quite a small delicate foot
becomin, faunter and fainter until at last they were no
more than a hint an almost imperceptible touch upon
the snow Then they ceased altogether No trail led
back
The old woman stood and looked at these vanishing
traces of a foot that had ceased to touch the ground-of
a being who had lost all weight and had risen into
space which here on the mountain of god was so clear
that it seemed one could touch its stars
He has gone back she murmured softly to herself
It is as I thought
He used to come up here when he did leave our
hut she added It was this place that drew hum Now
he has thrown off the garments in which he hud his
earthly busk and become again what he really was
The father has fetched him home
She was silent and what sturred in her what she

·THE SIBYL entrance of a runous goat-hut and look out over the world and the breed of men and their many inventions and his own magnificent temple and laugh at it all Suddenly he knew of what that perpetual smile reminded him It was the image of a god which he had scen yesterday down in the temple at Delphi an ancient image standing somewhat apart as sf to make room for mer finer images It had the same smule crugmatic and remote at once meaningless and inscrutable A smıle nether good nor evel yet for that very reason frighterung Ic represented the same god as did the other images doubt-fier god and the temple s--but I was evidency very old and so was the nddic of its stone smile Yes god s as incomprehensible cruel and frightening She too had found lum somachus sibyl who had known him as no one else had known him who had been possessed by him foved and cursed by him who had ined her whole life for him and had even bome him a son A son who must have come into the world just to show that meaninglessness too is divine Or to be tevenged upon ber because she loved the one-armed man-because she rested one summer upon his single arm. Because she had expencnced something other chan god. Another love than the love of goch Yes god is ed she was nght in that Heartlets and maligriant. Resengeful towards anyone who dares to losc another than lum Tonards lum who dares forbid ·THE SIBYL him to lean his head against his house Cruel and merciless He cares nothing for mankind only for himself Aadhe nevar.farospoo_ma con for And I then I Rcsrower Borros er s Das Date Due D te No 1s! He not for ruellest ality is eternal a few 1 earth sed by inding he left out me tens of everyworld n me hatred as he ning on ay by the ·THE SIBYL entrance of a runous goat-hut and look out over the world and the breed of men and their many inventions, and his own magnificent temple and laugh at it all Suddenly he knew of what that perpetual smule reminded him I was the image of a god stuch he had seen yesterday down in the temple at Delphı an ancient image scanding somewhat apart as if to make room for neuer finer images I had the same smule enigmatic and remote at once meaningless and inscrutable A smile neither good nor evul yet for that very reason frightening It represented the same god 25 did the other images no doubt-hes tod and the temple s-buc it was evidendy very old and so was the middle of its stone smile Yes god was incomprehensible crucl and frightening She too had found lum somchis sibyl who had known him as no one else had known him who had been possessed by him loved and cursed by him who had Lived her whole life for hum and had even bomc lum a son A son who must have come into che world just to shor that mcanınglessness too is divine Or to be revenged upon her because she loved the onc-armed man--because she rested one summer upon hus single am. Because she had experienced something other than god. Another love than the love of god. Yes god is evil She was nght in that. Heartless and malignant Revengeful towards anyone who dares to love another than hum Tonards him who dares forbid 146 ·THE SIBYL him to lean his head against his house Cruel and meraless He cares nothing for mankind only for himself And he never forgives never forgets But neither do I care for anyone but myself And I hate him as he hates me If he has cursed me then I curse him too I will not bow And I am immortal as he is! He herself made me so—though from malice and not for my enjoyment It is a part of his curse the cruellest part of it I am immortal! Though my unmortality is not like his He reigns in the highest he is ascended into eternal youth in his heaven after hanging on a cross for a few hours while I must be tormented for ever here on earth I must wander here unblessed in my soul pursued by the unrest with which he has filled me and never finding peace Doomed to live on in this world which he left long ago and to possess no other And to look about me day after day year after year for centuries and tens of centuries with these old eyes that see through everything and perceive the vanity of all things In a world covered with ashes It is for this that he has chosen me condemned me But I will not bow And my hatred is as immortal as his! Thus he reflected distraught by his destny as he followed the old womans grey figure moving on ahead They had to cover the last part of the way by the 147 ·a you so THE SIBYL ught of the stars alone but it was thus part duat she knew best. The must had gone When they reached the hut the first dawnlight of the new day was appearing and they sat down on the clumsy stone bench outside they did not go in. There was no sunshine anywhere in that landscape but a faint brightness showed that it would come He was still in huis stormy mood and suddenly kc broke out heatedly as if he were in the muddle of fierce dispute v ich hes How you must hate this god who has treated and done these things to you! Hon you must have a being so full of insensate evil as he is! The old woman did not ansner at once and seemed to be reflecting Then she said I dont know who he is How then can I Hate hum? Or love hum” I believe I neicher hate hem nor lovchum When I think about it ic scems to me that such nords have no meaning when applied to hum. Hou not as wc are and we can never understand hum He is incomprohensible inscrutable He is god And so far as I comprehend at he is both evil and good both light and darkness both meaningless and full of a mcarung which we can never percaic yet never ccase to puzzle ou cr A nddle which is intended not to be solted but to exist. To ctist for us always To trouble w always The most incomprehensible ehung about lum us that 148 ·peace He be a spring THE SIBYL he can also be a little turf altar where we may lay a few ears of corn and so be at ease and at peace inay where we can mirror our faces and drink sweet fresh water from our hands He can be that too I know Though he was not that for me I think he could not be For me he has been a wild chasm which engulfed me and all that I held dear A glowing breath and an embrace without safety without peace but for which I longed nevertheless A hot an alien power which ruled my ways He has made me very unhappy But he has also allowed me to know a happiness passing all understanding He has and I must not forget it What would my life have been without him? If I had never been filled with him with his spirit? If I had never felt the bliss that poured from him the anguish and pain that is hus also and the wonder of being annuhulated in bus blazıng arms of being altogether his? Of feeling his rapture his boundless bliss and shanng god s infinute happiness in being alive? What would I have been without that? If I had never experienced anything but myself Yet I cannot forget all the evil he has done me and the horror How he took possession of my whole life and took from me almost every earthly joy How he opened bus abysses to me hus evil depths I dont forget that and I don t forgive! 149 ·THE SIBYL But sitting here, old and alone looking backlooking back over my hft it as you my god that I tunk of for it is you who have been my life you who consume and burn all things like fire You who leave nothung in your wake My life is what I have lived in you The cruel bitter nch lıfe you have gives me May you be cursed and blessed: He looked at her in silence at her dark face which seemned ravaged by fire and at her inscrutable old cycs włuch had scen god His cyes too had seen god But because of that they flere empty like dried-up wells like depths wide nothing in them They were not like hers Why was char? Why was he so poor and she so nch? But my fate What have you to say of that he demanded fiercely What have you to tell me me the man who comes to you seeking an interpretaron of dus tumult in his soul of the curse that lees on burn? What comfort have you for me? The things that bring you comfort and meaning hold nodlung for me The old woman looked at him and met hus It nas poor indeed It was the poorest look she had seen in anyone She had noted it when he came and nobced that bus simple mantic was like a king s robc in comparison But she saw too that he was wrong in what he sud that his eyes ucre dard up tells depths with nothing in them. It was not so They ssere not cmpty They $50 ·With what you THE SIBYL were full of despair If the curse that had fallen upon him had made him desatute and taken everything from hu it had at least brought him this And perhaps because she saw this she answered as she did I can see in your face that you re under god s curse and that what you say is true It s plain that you re not free that you re bound to him and that he doesnt mean to let you go He is your destiny Your soul is filled with him through his curse you live a life with god. You hate him you mock and revile hum But judging by your indignant words you care for nothing in the world but him and are filled with him alone call your hatred of him. But this very red hot hatred of god is perhaps your experience of the divine Perhaps one day he will bless you instead of cursing you I dont know Perhaps one day you will let him lean his head against your house Perhaps you wont I know nothing about that But whatever you may do your fate will be for ever bound up with god your soul for ever filled with god You want me to look into the future I can t do that But I know enough of the life of mankind and can glimpse enough of the road that lies before them to know that they can never escape the curse and the blessing that comes to them from god Whatever they may think and do whatever they may believe or disbelieve their destiny will always be bound up with god. ISI

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