All Men are Ghosts

by L. P. Jacks

He was conscious of the figure of a man in the foreground whose presence he had not previously noticed. The man was sitting motionless on a low rock less than a stone-cast distant, and close to the river's brim; and he seemed to be watching the still flow of the stream. A moment later he stood upright, turned round, and crossed the fifty paces of sand that lay between him and Abdulla.

As the man drew nearer, Abdulla observed that he bore a bewildering resemblance to himself. Not many minutes before he had been looking at his own reflection in a small pocket mirror which he had purchased that morning from a Jew as a present for Zobeida; and as he had looked at the image, still thinking of Zobeida, he wished that God had bestowed upon him a countenance of nobler cast. The face he now saw before him was the face he had just seen in the mirror, with the nobler cast introduced; and Abdulla, noticing the difference as well as the resemblance, was afraid.

"Depart from me, O my master," said he, "for I am a man of no account." And he bowed himself to the ground.

"Rise," said the other, "and make haste; for the sun is low, and scarce an hour remains for thy merchandise. Dip thy water-skin into the stream; and, as thou dippest, think on the hour of thy death, when the All-merciful will dip into the river of thy life, and thou shalt sleep for the twinkling of an eye, and know not when thou awakest, and there shall be no mark left on thee, even as no mark is left on the river when thou hast filled thy water-skin from its abundance."

"I know not what thou sayest," said Abdulla, "for I am a poor man and ignorant."

"Thou art young," said the other, "and there is time for thee to learn. Hear, then, and I will enlighten thee. Everything hath its double, and the double is redoubled again. To this world there is a next before and a next after, and to each next a nearest, through a counting that none can complete. Worlds without end lie enfolded one within another like the petals of a rose; and as the fragrance of one petal penetrates and intermingles with the fragrance of all the rest, so is the vision of the world thou seest now blended with the vision of that which was and of that which is to come. And I tell thee, O thou seller of water, that between this world and its next fellow the difference is so faint that none save the enlightened can discern it. A man may live a thousand lives, as thou hast already done, and dream but of one. Again thou shalt sleep and again thou shalt awake, and the world of thy sleeping shall differ from the world of thy waking no more than thy full water-skin differs from itself when two drops of water have fallen from its mouth."

"Thou speakest like a devotee," answered Abdulla. "The matter of thy discourse is utterly beyond me, save for that thou sayest concerning the dipping of the water-skin. There thy thought is as the echo of mine own. But know that I am ashamed in thy presence; and again I entreat thee to depart." And Abdulla bowed himself as before.

"Do, then, as I bid thee," said the man; "dip thy skin in the water of the flowing river, think on the hour of thy death, and forget not as thou dippest to pronounce the name of God."

Then Abdulla rose up and did what he was commanded to do. While he was dipping the skin he tried to think of the hour of his death; but he could think only of the words, and dying seemed to him a thing of naught; for he was young and Zobeida was fair. Nevertheless, when he had lifted the full skin from the river, and saw that his taking left no mark, an old thought came back to him, and for the thousandth time he began to wonder at the ways of flowing water. "Only God can understand them," he murmured. "May the Compassionate have mercy upon the ignorant!"

Then he adjusted the burden on his back and turned to the palm-belt. But the stranger was gone.