DIVINE CHILD

I am invited to a party. The people are dressed in fine new clothes walking about by the waterfront of a small fishing village of old stone houses. The gay, light dresses of the women contrast with the dark stones of the houses. I am invited to the party with them, and suddenly they are all gone, and the party is much farther away than I thought it would be. I must get there in a boat. I am all alone; the boat is at the quay.

A man of the town says that for five dollars I can get across on a yacht. I have five dollars, more than five dollars, hundreds of dollars and also francs. He takes me to the yacht, but it is not a yacht. It is a workaday fishing schooner, which I prefer. But it does not move; we try in many ways to make it move, and it seems to have moved a little. But then I know that I must strike out and swim.

And I am swimming ahead in the beautiful magic water of the bay. From the clear depths of the water comes a wonderful life to which I am not entitled, a life and a power which I both love and fear. I know that by diving down into the water I can find wonders and joy, but that it is not for me to dive down. Rather I must go to the other side, and I am indeed swimming to the other side. The other side is there. The end of the swim. The house is on the shore. The wide summer house which I am reaching with the strength that came to me from the water. The water is great and vast beneath me as I come toward the shore. And I have arrived. I am out of the water. I know now all that I must do in the summer house. I know that I must first play with this dog who comes running from one of the halls.

I know the Child will come, and He comes. The Child comes and smiles. It is the smile of a Great One, hidden. He gives me, in simplicity, two pieces of buttered white bread, the ritual and hieratic meal given to all who come to stay.