29 September 1900

 

I must tell you this fantasy of mine.  A young man was wandering through the fields and forests of his native countryside; he was whispering the secrets of his heart to a young girl to whom he was betrothed and, since they were not very profound secrets, she laughed and her laughter rose into the trees.

      It was their custom each day to walk to the Grove of Hyacinths, called so because of the richness and the profusion of blossoms to be found here - there was a clear pool in the centre of this grove, and they would refresh themselves with its waters.  But on this morning, as they entered the place, the young man saw a silver casket, half covered by blossoms.

      It had not been there when they had sat and laughed on the previous day and, since this was a sacred place, they decided that the gods must have left it.  The young man brushed the fallen hyacinths off the casket, and saw that it was curiously engraved with symbols which he could not decipher.  There was no lock upon it and, when he opened the lid, he found within it a hoard of bright coins - more coins than he had seen in his entire life.  On the face of each coin there was the face of a strange king: a tired, old face with no name inscribed beneath it.  And the young girl was bewildered: 'There is something of evil about that face,' she said, 'let us leave the coins and return to our village.  For look, the sun is immediately above our heads and I must prepare the meal for those returning from the fields.'  But the young man paid no heed to her: 'Look how the sun makes these coins wink and glow,' he said.  'Surely these are precious coins, and we will live in riches for the rest of our lives.'  For the young man was poor, and often slept beneath the sky when he could not afford shelter.  And he would not be persuaded to leave the coins.

      So the young girl returned home, alone and sorrowful, while the young man journeyed with the casket to the great city which was the centre of his region.  He went into the market of the city and approached a merchant of cloth: 'I wish to buy a fine cloak, with the purple which comes from Tyre and the silk which comes from Chalcedon.'  The merchant laughed at him, and asked how he could afford such a cloak.  And the young man showed him some of the coins which he had found in the Grove of Hyacinths.  The merchant looked upon them and laughed at him again.  'These coins are counterfeit coins.  They are worthless here.  Get you gone before the guards with their burnished swords arrest you.'  And the young man grew afraid, and moved on.  He went to the merchant who sold sweetmeats, and said to him, 'I wish to buy those sweetmeats which are made on the banks of the Tigris, and of which one taste is sufficient to show strange visions.'  And the merchant looked at him with scorn, and demanded how he would pay for such things.  The young man showed him the coins and the merchant grew more scornful still.  'These are not real coins,' he said.  'There is no king in this land who resembles the king upon the coins.  Get you gone before I proclaim your villainy in the Place of Accusation.'  And the young man departed in great uncertainty of mind.

      But, as he left the market place, he passed the temple, and he went inside the temple and laid the casket of coins before the altar of the one-eyed god as an offering.  But a priest hurried towards him, and questioned him.  'I am leaving these coins here,' he said, 'to placate the god in whose eye we live.'  And the priest examined the coins, and then put his robe before his face.  'I have seen these coins before,' he whispered, 'and they bring evil with them.  Get you gone before I charge you with sacrilege in the temple.'

      And the young man fled from the city weeping but, as is often the case with young men, his sorrow soon turned to bitterness and anger.  He returned to his native village and went to the house of the girl to whom he was betrothed.  'These coins have brought contempt and ill fortune upon me,' he said, 'and I must needs find the king whose face is upon them, and him will I slay.'  The girl begged him to forget his foolish vengeance, but he would not listen to her and left her to her tears.  The birds in the trees heard their conversation, and they sang to each other: 'Why is he becoming so angry?  They are only pieces of metal.'  And the flowers had heard also, and whispered to each other, 'Why does he concern himself with such things?  We flourish, and have no need of money.'

      And so the young man began his journey.  He travelled to the kingdom of perpetual snow where there is no word for the sun; he travelled to the kingdom of the cave-dwellers whose bodies are as transparent as soft gauze; he travelled to the desert region where the sun is so bright that night never descends and the eyes of the old men are blind.  And in each place they threw the coins in his face, for they had no such king.

      He journeyed to the City of the Seven Sins, where young men touched him and whispered among themselves.  But the prophet who lived in that city begged him to turn back: his search was futile, he said, and would be terrible for him.  But he heeded him not.  He visited the wise woman who sings to the bones in the Valley of Desolation, and when she saw him she laughed a fearful laugh.  She prophesied that, if he found the object of his quest, then the king would surely slay him.  But he grew wroth, and turned her aside with bitter words.  He travelled to the Mountains of Desire where the wind speaks through the stones; he called out his question, 'Where will I find the king whom I seek?'  And the stones answered him: 'He is more distant than the most distant star, and he is closer than your eye.'  He wondered and understood not, and so he journeyed onward to the barren land where only the great statue of the Hippogriff stands.  And he asked the statue to unravel the meaning of the stones, and the Hippogriff gave answer that there were some secrets which might never be divulged.

      At the end of many years of barren journeying, the man returned, sorrowful and resentful, to his own land.  By chance he entered the Grove of Hyacinths on his back to the village and there, sitting by the clear pool in the centre of the Grove, was an old woman.  She looked at him in wonder, and her wonder was mixed with tears.  'Why are you so tired and worn?' she asked him.  'When you left this place, you were as handsome as the bright day.'  For in truth the old woman was that girl whom he had once promised to marry.  'I have spent my life in weary wandering,' he replied to her, 'for I have been seeking the king whose face marks the coins I found in this accursed place, so that I might kill him.'  And in his grief he threw the coins upon the ground.  The old woman picked up one of the coins, and gazed upon the face of the king.  When she saw that face, she ran away, weeping.  'Why do you run from me?' he called out to her and, as she ran, she cried, 'It is your own face I see upon the coins.'  And he looked at them and there, in the face of the king, a restless and tired face, with something of evil in it, was his own face.  It was his own face stamped upon the counterfeit coins.  And he took out his sword and fell upon it.