The Three Pillars

Blessed was that moonlit night, one of the mountain nights of summer, when it occurred to me to take a stroll not far from our house in the village — there where nature, from dusk onward, surrenders itself in its calm to pleasant dreams, calling its creatures to rest after the wakefulness of their long day.

I felt in myself a strong inclination to share in nature's dreams. Have I not dreams of my own as well? I do not deny that most of them have evaporated in a chain of disappointments of bitter reality; but souls kneaded of the same clay as mine have a strange way about them: they take no lesson from disappointments, but are struck down and rise, then struck down again only to rise again, and you find them ever yearning for dreams that tickle them in certain hours of their solitude — be it only for the sake of taking comfort in them and living in them, if realities have passed them by.

I turned off the main road toward a cluster of pine trees which I had often frequented, finding beneath their shade a kindly companionship and peace, and a passing security that I drank in happily and guarded jealously, as provision for days when I would be far from it...

While I was in this state, I sensed the rustle of a silk dress, and the air grew fragrant with a perfume the like of whose sweetness I do not recall ever having smelled in my life. I turned, and behold: an enchanting maiden advancing toward me, drawing near with tenderness, and on her beautiful lips a sweet, encouraging smile — the least part of which is the smile of a mother at her son as she watches him receive his diploma. I did not wonder at her presence there, for I had, in the rapture of my dreams, fully persuaded myself that I was on a passing visit to Paradise; and is not Paradise a free stage for her kind — so why wonder?...

What I did wonder at was that this houri should spend her time on me, when in Paradise so many of its notables stand waiting. But I soon remembered that Paradise, in this respect, is not like the earth: there only one distinction is observed — the distinction of the good Teacher who said, "Whoever would be great among you, let him be your servant" — and only one covenant, the covenant of "whoever humbles himself shall be exalted." Then too, in Paradise they make no difference between one sex and the other, nor between the chieftain and the vagabond, nor between rich and poor. My astonishment vanished as I recalled these happy, ideal arrangements; I answered the maiden's smile with a smile like it, and stepped aside to make way for her. Whereupon she said:

"No! I have reached my destination, and you are my goal." And before I could pour out a flood of questions upon her, I heard her announce:

"I am a messenger of good tidings to you. I have been empowered to grant you whatever your soul desires. Ask what you will, and it shall be carried out for you this very hour."

The earth spun about me for joy, and I do not know how long a time passed over me while I thought in my perplexity: what should I ask? My imagination at once alighted upon that famous sage to whom the very same words were spoken and who asked for wisdom — nor did the wisdom he asked for prevent him from coming before the generations with a conclusion drawn from his wisdom that gives the sons of men no encouragement, neither much nor little:

"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!"

Everything — yes! Even wisdom! What, then, should I ask, so long as beauty and kingship, wealth and wisdom are all, in the eyes of eternity, vanity, because behind them lies the inevitable end?...

My perplexity took possession of me, and I forgot the messenger of good who was watching what passed within my frail person. Then I thought: what if I were wiser than the sage, and asked that this death be removed far from me — this death which causes "vanity of vanities, and all is vanity"? But I had scarcely said it before: what use is it for me to remain in life while those I love pass away? And would this survival profit me anything in generations to come, far from me and from my own generation and from my memory — even the unhappy part of which is dear to me? No! Immortality, too, is no wise request... What, then, shall I ask?...

The minutes flew swiftly, for time does not alter a law it laid down for itself from eternity, and the legend of stopping it is not for our age!... Then the messenger of good reminded me that she was waiting for me, that the time permitted her was about to run out, and that I must choose a wish at once.

Suddenly a happy thought struck me: since anything I asked for myself would perish one day with my own inevitable passing, what if I seized the opportunity to ask on behalf of her who does not perish with the passing of persons, nor die out with the dying of individuals, but endures as long as mountains and plains and rivers endure; endures as long as her clear, eternal sky endures; endures as long as this sun sends its warm rays upon her land, so that life springs up in her and her creatures are renewed — in a word, endures through all the ages. Yes — to ask on behalf of her whom I have loved as I have loved myself since the day I first knew myself; and I had always longed for an opportunity to come my way, that I might render her the service my love for her deserves. What, then, prevents me — now that this rare opportunity has been given me — from asking on her behalf? Nothing. And here I have decided, with strength and faith — and I wondered at myself and at her: how had this thought not occurred to me from the very start? It would have shortened the road!

I ask for my country!! Thus my mind was settled — how happy a thought!!

I ask for my country. And yet — though the country is the mountains and the rivers and the plains and the sky, it is also these human souls who people these mountains, make these plains fertile, and tend the cedars and the sky. Am I then to return to the point from which I began, and ask on behalf of mortals as perishable as I?

No matter. I shall ask for the people of my country, perishable though they be, and I shall ask for them qualities that will not perish even if they perish — qualities their descendants will inherit from their forebears, and by which my country may be enabled to rise from its stumble and be delivered...

And behold, the messenger of good, shaking me by the shoulder and saying: "Ten seconds, and I shall leave you without your having decided anything. Ask within them, or the chance will escape you forever." I woke from my heedlessness and cried out in haste: I ask for my country that her people be arrayed in steadfastness, sacrifice, and order. Scarcely had I finished my request when the houri was a trace where once she stood — she went as she had come. I came to myself and began to blame and scold myself: I had wasted a precious opportunity in which I could have made my country mistress of the world without rival, and I had not done it; I had cost my country her sovereignty, betrayed her and betrayed my feeling for her! And I began to sob in the depths of my soul with pain and grief at this dreadful notion of mine, and my agitation did not subside until I heard a voice calling to me, saying:

"Cease your weeping, woman, and know that by the request you made you have clothed your country in a garment that does not perish. You want her to be mistress of the world — and so she is; for mastery comes to no people among the peoples unless its individuals adorn themselves with those very qualities you asked for the people of your country. So let your eye be comforted and your mind be at ease: you have done your duty in the best of ways...

Rise, and lift your gaze to the mountains of your country: you will see greenery covering their summits, which but a moment ago were bare and barren, and the towering trees bending over the slopes and the turnings of the road, heralding a fertile, happy age. Cast your gaze over the wide plains, three quarters of which were a thing utterly forgotten: see how the peasant has bestirred himself and made them sprout after their dryness, and tended them after their neglect, and brought forth from them a blessed livelihood for the people.

Even the desert that separates the parts of the country you love — your countrymen have devised for it a means by which to curb the scorching sun, and they have brought down artificial rain into its air, so that behold, it brings forth bounties and blessings; civilization has spread through it, and gone from it are the days when the poet would fall asleep to the breathing of his beloved, only to stand on the morrow over her ruins, weeping and moving others to weep...

Enjoy, then, these bounties, and know that they are nothing but the fruit of your request for the people of your country: that they be graced with the blessing of steadfastness in work. Or do you still blame yourself for any shortcoming?...

Rise and come with me to the cities, where the movement of industry challenges perpetual motion. In every city there is a factory for some branch of industry, holding thousands of workers who sing for joy; they no longer remember the drowsy days when they loitered in the dirty streets, seeking work and finding none, and taking refuge in the humiliation of begging — that begging which I so often heard you call a brand of shame upon the brow of your beautiful country. Look: the country is one single leap toward the heights, toward work, toward earnestness!! And it will surely please you to know that this is nothing but the fruit of the request you made; for behold, her rich men, resident and emigrant alike, have brought their great capital down into the field of work, adding it to the fortunes frozen here and there, to form this blessed movement. And where today would you find a single rich man enjoying what others do not enjoy, when all of them have sacrificed their money, their comfort, and their luxury, to build from them this mighty industry which has made your country mistress of nations? Is there anyone left in the universe who dares to say that the Arab is clever as an individual, but does not possess the gift of working socially, in work that holds the general good?...

Come with me to any field of work whatever; enter with me the homes, the schools, and the offices of social activity in all their variety, and you will see all the workers laboring with earnestness, energy, and devotion, without any overseer or watcher, and without their patience giving out as they wait for the hour of departing to their rest. One desire, which knows no weariness, reigns over them all: the desire to perform their duty and to abide by the established order of work.

How far are we from those black days when chaos reigned in the ranks of the nation! How many times did I hear you sigh — the sigh of the wounded and the defeated — when you noticed the mockery of foreigners at the people of your country because of that chaos! Did not one of them confront you one day with these words: "You are a people whose life chaos is eating away; you shall never rise again because of it, and it is a racial inheritance in you — never shall it disappear!"

And I saw you then, secretly wiping away a tear that welled in your eye. What better, then, could you have asked of the messenger of good for your country than what you asked?...

Steadfastness in work!...
The sacrifice of private interest for the sake of the public interest!...
Order!...

These three pillars are what homelands need most, that they may build their foundations upon them. What better could you wish to ask, that your country might rule the world?...

These pillars are the road to happiness. You have done well, my daughter; so live at peace in a country for which you willed the free life by the best of roads — and she has attained it."

*

And here I breathed a sigh of relief, and heard myself repeating with that old man:

"Now, O Master, let your handmaid depart in peace, for my eyes have beheld the salvation of my country, which you have prepared before all peoples."