Between War... and Literature

In the depths of the stillness that flowed forth once the stifling clamor had been rebuked, the voice of an enchanting flute rose up; the universe hushed to hear it, and the tranquil night gave ear.

The moon stole toward the shore to hold converse with the waves, and a star slipped out from the horizon, and then another followed it...

And the buds of the slumbering flowers opened, as though the drops of dew had touched them at the hour before dawn.

The flute's voice was so deep that it touched everything. It was sweet and tender — in its sweetness a strength, and in its tenderness a vigor — and it was tremulous and leaping, holding manifold meanings of life, and other meanings besides.

Nothing was stirring abroad in that darkness — the second watch of the night having run its course — but a specter, immense and hollow, whose form could not be clearly made out: was it nearer to man than to beast, or to some skeleton never yet seen... or was it all of these together?

It was journeying through the night without direction, when suddenly its voice rang out, trembling, with these words:

Who is this that stirs in the air the echo of this foolish tune — the flute? And when the flute answered him only with sweet, coquettish notes, he flared into a rage and screamed:

Know then, insolent one, that this night is a night of repose for me; in it I draw up my plans and conduct my affairs, and I prepare what belongs to tomorrow for tomorrow, and what belongs to the day after for the day after; and whoever muddies the clarity of my thinking — I shall soon give him a taste of death.

The flute went on with its song in its sweet tones, and answered: Will you not first be so kind, O specter, as to make your person known — and after that, command whom you please with what you please?

The specter asked it: How astonishing! Do you not know me yet?? Said the flute: No!

A thunderous guffaw was heard, filling the void; the universe shuddered at it, and the worlds awoke in terror. And he who had loosed it shouted:

I, fellow, am the son of the ancient ages. I was created a little after the first man, and I have walked along with his sons generation after generation until I reached this present age, whose days I make hot with clangor and rumbling.

Said the flute: Are you thunder, then?

Said the specter: No — thunder is but a piece of my chatter.

It said: Are you fire, then?

He said: Nor that either, for fire itself springs from my depths.

It said: Then you are the volcano...

He said: No, no — not that either. From volcanoes people keep their distance and so are safe from their lava; but I — I follow them wherever they walk and wherever they settle, and I cast terror and panic into their hearts; and how swiftly I mow them down like a harvest and erase their traces, as though only days before they had not filled the eye of life and been the focus of hope's gazes.

Said the flute: It seems to me, O specter, that you are the phantom of Azrael, come to muddy the serenity of this dreaming night. So I beg you, in mercy's name, to cease your terrorizing and to leave the world reposing in quiet, ease, and peace.

The specter guffawed once more, then cried: What absurdity! Azrael and Azrael's retinue take their orders from me, wherever I will and the moment I summon them. I, fellow, am a power beside which all powers fall short... I am...

And the flute cut him short: A power beside which all powers fall short?! Oh... if there were in your words any kind of tenderness or love, if there were in your tone any shade of mercy, or if you were not boastful to the point of drowning in it, it would be nearer to logic for me to say that you were God.

The specter answered him, his voice so broken it could scarcely be made out: I do not know this thing that you call God...

Said the flute: Are you Time, then?

He said: Nor am I that. I act, and Time inscribes my deeds in letters that blaze...

The flute fell silent a little; then it spoke, its tone so changed that it had become a blend of mockery, insistence, and deliberateness, the words following one upon another in its supple throat as tears follow one another in the eyes of a bereaved mother...

Who, then, are you, if not scorching selfishness and hateful force — the iron specter that created "Achilles," hero of Homer's Iliad; that formed "Julius Caesar" and his peer "Alexander"; that made of "Napoleon" and "Hitler" and their like among humanity's tyrants dutiful sons who water your selfishness with the blood of men, sate your gluttony with the torn limbs of humankind, and pluck their living hearts from their breasts for your sake, caring nothing for mercy — as though pride, pride in what they do, had seized them, or as though they had drowsed on the wine of your triumph and slept to the lullaby of your self-seeking, so that they are neither of mankind nor of anything other than mankind.

Said the specter: These whom you style my sons are surely in the right in their revolt and their onrush; otherwise men themselves would not have bestowed on them the names of heroes, nor wearied the ears of life with their mention and with the memory of their immortal deeds.

Said the flute: Poor wretches, these men! The deeper they go in the study of knowledge, the more the fingers of ignorance settle like rust upon their hearts and minds and eyes, driving them back to flounder without awareness or guidance — so that they neither attain that knowledge, nor find their way back to what they once were.

Said the specter: There is idle prattle in your words, fellow. Otherwise, how is injustice to be lifted? And how is man's progress to appear, and his bewildering greatness?

The flute answered: It is a fine thing, O specter, for a man to defend his rights and guard his own preserves; finer still that he not suffer patiently while the fangs of injustice tear at his body and his soul; and finer than both that he not accept that his dignity be trampled. But for this man to be so self-seeking that he would swallow the world whole, after smashing it, in order to rule over it — that, beyond all doubt, is a return of man to the era of his savagery, and a demolition that wipes out the civilization which for many years — or more truly, for century upon century — he has labored to build by every exhausting path and every manner of means.

The specter cut him off with a scream that shook the still air: And who might you be, fellow, to cast upon the ears of Time your crooked opinions — such defiance as this, and such lame wisdom?!

Said the flute, its tone grown so gentle that it became a measured breathing: You have a right not to know me, my lord, for things made of iron cannot feel the touch of the soft breeze upon them.

I, O specter, am a sigh from among the sighs of tumultuous life; all the powers of good together labored to bring me forth, and I became this melody of everlasting ring. I was created before you were created — but I was an idea, tended by ripe minds and sensitive hearts: the first flooded me with light, and the second breathed into me nobility and beauty. And no sooner had I ripened — or nearly so — than I emerged into this existence strong and vigorous, holy of breath, balanced of inclination, gazing upon the whole world with a tender eye and a heart brimming with longing for it. I have no homeland and no kin, for my creed is world citizenship; my creed is the human unity that admits of no partition whatsoever. Beneath my broad banner the Easterner meets the Westerner, the Jew the Buddhist, the villager the city-dweller; and within the bounds of my wide and tolerant law my sons come to understanding and love one another, without needing any organization of nations, and without treaties or negotiations bustling before them... Then they walk by a magical light of knowledge in which there is beauty and enchantment, grandeur and splendor.

I am not force, O specter; I am that which impels all the powers of the earth along the road of goodness and perfection toward the highest ideals...

I am the voice that shall in the end prevail over all voices, so that harmony may reign and peace spread over all, and life may trace for itself a new road through whose stages no snarl of ravening beasts shall break, and whose spaces no echo of their fearful roaring shall darken. For my sons tend it always with keeping and watering, with love and fidelity...

Said the specter: And who are these sons of yours?

It said: My sons are the bewitching laugh upon the mouth of Time and the noble tear in his two merciful eyes. They are few, but they are ever in motion, for in the depths of their hearts is an ember that will not die out and a flame whose sparks fly forth until they purify all that surrounds them and all that does not...

Have you heard of Wells? Have you taken in the tidings of Muhammad Abduh? Have the discourses of Tolstoy been carried to you? Have the writings of Anatole France reached you? Have you heard the name of al-Jahiz? Do you know Oscar Wilde and Victor Hugo? And Taha Hussein? And Gibran? And André Gide? Have the tales of Dostoevsky come your way? Have the humane breaths of May refreshed you — and others, and others besides?? These are some of my sons, and many others beyond them drink forever from my watering-place, and they trust that at my hands shall come the all-embracing good, the effective remedy, and the lasting peace for this life.

Said the specter: And then your powers will have annulled my powers?

Said the flute — and its sweet notes were like a radiant smile — You, my lord, forever speak in the language of "force." Will you not quiet your voice a little, and sit here upon these dewy grasses, and listen to my melodies — how they grow tender and clear until they become a dancing art beneath whose flood the universe is rocked as in a cradle, while life sways singing to its cadences, and Time, with all it has folded within its breast, looks out upon the secret of its majesty and the immortality of its beauty...

Then listen to them again — how they quicken and rise until they become a magical ether that hovers over wretched hearts and wipes away the streaming tears, and passes over heedless living — and behold, its slopes are green, its horizons radiant, and there gleam within it flashes that are resplendent hope, dewy fancy, and happiness with its shining pole-star — and behold...

And the specter cut it short, as though startled all at once out of a deep sleep:

O wondrous flute, filled with the secrets of tenderness and peace, I swear to you that were there not a defiant devil whose iron powers blunt my own... I would become your captive, drawing beauty from your melodies, spending the remainder of my days beneath the flood of this tranquility, with all its sweetness and ease, until death should film over my eyes... But it is he. Yes... he... he...

And the flute answered: Nay, it is rather the nature of the first man that speaks with your lips — nay, it is his savagery lying latent within him, the savagery which the long centuries have not refined, and which centuries like them may not have the strength to refine as long as life lasts: it is that which drives this devil of yours to seduce you, or to tempt you into following what you cannot help but follow.

But the specter made no answer; he was walking abjectly, and his thick eyelids had hidden away... a tear.

And upon the caress of the pre-dawn breeze the melodies of the tender flute drifted back and forth, and it seemed there was hope in their tones...

And when the first nightingale trilled its song to the bright morning dawn, everything in the universe was whispering of what had passed between War and Literature — of which of the two would have the victory, and whose struggle would be the longer...