damned essayist from Caladon.
Outside his window the loudspeaker buzzed and twittered, a wordless, static sound. He stood immobile, listening, and then opened the window, for the heat inside his room had grown oppressive.
Standing with his nose pressed against the gauze mosquito screen, he looked down into the narrow street toward the corner. The streetlight had come on. Behind him on the map above his desk, in the middle of the fifty-mile circle, a colored push-pin marked a tiny dot, the site of a small village.
*
In the sixteenth phase of summer, Mr. Sarnath was living by himself at the top of the hill above the village in the trees. This was the expression that he gave to his sorrow and frustration; during his exile in Caladon and during his long journey home, he had gotten used to thinking that the master’s theories were self-evident, and that their application also was self-evident. While the old man was still alive it had seemed easy to believe. Now, not yet two thousand days after his death, there were changes in the village that sickened Mr. Sarnath and made it impossible for him to live there.
This was the first change: After the master’s death, no one ever left the village to take up a mission in Caladon or Charn. It no longer was the custom for the brightest students, male and female, to go out into the world to spread the teachings of the master. In the opinion of Canan Bey this custom had always been unfortunate—since the founding of the village twenty-seven people had gone out, and of them only Mr. Sarnath had ever returned. The size of the village had been diminished. Families had been disrupted, lives had been lost, and for no reason.
Until he died (said Canan Bey) the master had been under the illusion that the young people of the village had formed a school somewhere along the coast, were teaching dozens, hundreds of human children how to live peacefully, how to achieve happiness, how to destroy selfishness. And (continued Canan Bey) it had been the shattering of this illusion which had killed the master in the end, when he heard Sarnath confess that he had spent his exile as a customs officer in Caladon.
This suggestion was painful to Mr. Sarnath, for reasons that he did not share. Aloud, he pointed out that the master’s own father had been a postal inspector in Caladon City. Sarnath’s family had worked in customs houses long before the master was born. The tradition of their race was in the civil services—he was not ashamed of this tradition. Nor was it useful to pretend that wisdom could be attained and shared only in ideal conditions. The master had once said: “Anyone at all, at any time …” Nevertheless, after his death, no new students took the almond path out of the village. None seemed to want to go.
The second change was one that had immediate and tragic consequences, because it was as a result of it that the first outsiders visited the village—the first traders and travelers, the first agronomists. Mayadonna Bey, the oldest of the five members of the council, remarked one evening that it was against nature and against efficiency for everyone to labor at all tasks, that people were not gifted equally, and that they naturally enjoyed what they did best. He held up a square of fabric—dyed ikat in a complicated pattern—which had come from the loom of a woman in the village. He suggested that this woman and her family, because of the beauty of her work, should be exempted from all other village tasks, and that she should train others in her new technique.
Mayadonna was supported in this opinion by Canan and Langur Bey, opposed by the two others. Mr. Palam argued that most villagers had several hours of free time each day in order to pursue their inclinations or their gifts, but that nothing was more central to the master’s vision than that the work of the village be shared communally, as all else was shared. “ ‘In every task,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘no matter
Outside his window the loudspeaker buzzed and twittered, a wordless, static sound. He stood immobile, listening, and then opened the window, for the heat inside his room had grown oppressive.
Standing with his nose pressed against the gauze mosquito screen, he looked down into the narrow street toward the corner. The streetlight had come on. Behind him on the map above his desk, in the middle of the fifty-mile circle, a colored push-pin marked a tiny dot, the site of a small village.
*
In the sixteenth phase of summer, Mr. Sarnath was living by himself at the top of the hill above the village in the trees. This was the expression that he gave to his sorrow and frustration; during his exile in Caladon and during his long journey home, he had gotten used to thinking that the master’s theories were self-evident, and that their application also was self-evident. While the old man was still alive it had seemed easy to believe. Now, not yet two thousand days after his death, there were changes in the village that sickened Mr. Sarnath and made it impossible for him to live there.
This was the first change: After the master’s death, no one ever left the village to take up a mission in Caladon or Charn. It no longer was the custom for the brightest students, male and female, to go out into the world to spread the teachings of the master. In the opinion of Canan Bey this custom had always been unfortunate—since the founding of the village twenty-seven people had gone out, and of them only Mr. Sarnath had ever returned. The size of the village had been diminished. Families had been disrupted, lives had been lost, and for no reason.
Until he died (said Canan Bey) the master had been under the illusion that the young people of the village had formed a school somewhere along the coast, were teaching dozens, hundreds of human children how to live peacefully, how to achieve happiness, how to destroy selfishness. And (continued Canan Bey) it had been the shattering of this illusion which had killed the master in the end, when he heard Sarnath confess that he had spent his exile as a customs officer in Caladon.
This suggestion was painful to Mr. Sarnath, for reasons that he did not share. Aloud, he pointed out that the master’s own father had been a postal inspector in Caladon City. Sarnath’s family had worked in customs houses long before the master was born. The tradition of their race was in the civil services—he was not ashamed of this tradition. Nor was it useful to pretend that wisdom could be attained and shared only in ideal conditions. The master had once said: “Anyone at all, at any time …” Nevertheless, after his death, no new students took the almond path out of the village. None seemed to want to go.
The second change was one that had immediate and tragic consequences, because it was as a result of it that the first outsiders visited the village—the first traders and travelers, the first agronomists. Mayadonna Bey, the oldest of the five members of the council, remarked one evening that it was against nature and against efficiency for everyone to labor at all tasks, that people were not gifted equally, and that they naturally enjoyed what they did best. He held up a square of fabric—dyed ikat in a complicated pattern—which had come from the loom of a woman in the village. He suggested that this woman and her family, because of the beauty of her work, should be exempted from all other village tasks, and that she should train others in her new technique.
Mayadonna was supported in this opinion by Canan and Langur Bey, opposed by the two others. Mr. Palam argued that most villagers had several hours of free time each day in order to pursue their inclinations or their gifts, but that nothing was more central to the master’s vision than that the work of the village be shared communally, as all else was shared. “ ‘In every task,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘no matter
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